Death Follows

02

I think about her daily, and perhaps it is unhealthy, but I believe she deserves the thought. It has been a month since I attended her funeral, and I am only now receiving boxes of her precious goods from when she were alive, such as her books, artwork, old diary entries, and of course, her large rock collection. They aren't rocks, and she'd have killed me for referring to them as so. But, to me, they serve no purpose but looking pretty and ornamental. I believe the whole healing processes you can endure with them are nothing but lies, little white ones that have corrupted a world of fools over time, but I can appreciate that she had an interest in them.

They came in all shapes and sizes, some damaged, some in their best condition, some lilac, some carmine. An overwhelming amount too, filling at least two petite parcels that are easy to handle on your own. The kind of parcels you'd witness when the new blonde girl next door opens the trunk of her car and begins carrying her items inside. The kind of parcels that are plastered with 'FRAGILE', containing antique, vintage, worthless, yet overpriced, bullshit.

I sat on my knees with a new box and a knife cutter, smoothly gliding the blade over the stubborn tape that kept the box shut. With care, I opened each side to reveal its contents - books, and a lot of them. Now, this was something I had been waiting for; my sister's book collection was almost as beautiful as her, with each page being as delicate as her soul. There were some hardback, some paperback, some battered, some pristine. But, overall, each book had meaning to me, unlike the crystals I had unpackaged beforehand. These books not only told a story of their own, but told the story of Dahlia herself.

She was a wise young woman, always thinking outside of the box, always breaking out of mind shackles, for she believed there was more to life than what appeared on the surface. She aspired to look below the floorboards, always expecting bodies in the basement, rather than searching for skeletons in the closet.

I picked up a book, dusted its cover, which seemed to be well-loved with an abundance of creasing sprawled out across it, and I absent-mindlessly flicked through the pages. The air was sweetened with a hint of vanilla, one of the most enjoyable properties of an old book, even a new one; their smell is indescribably addicting, thanks to degrading materials such as ink, paper, and adhesive. However, like most things in life, the aroma was temporary and seemed to die out after a second or two. It reminded me of her - the way she was sweet, the way she died, the way her life was as temporary as all of our lives, yet she had to die young. I sighed. Her death still hadn't sunk in and I couldn't stop myself from turning anything and everything into a metaphor about her passing. But I suppose grieving is normal and being hung up on her memory is a good thing; at least I feel something rather than nothing at all.

Snapping out of my head, I felt woozy, as though I were slowly falling unconscious from one too many sleeping pills. I cannot describe the rush of confusion when returning to the real world that I so desperately try to escape. My head is a safe haven, as well as insufferable torment, yet I prefer to linger in my forest of thoughts as the real world is difficult. It is complex. Almost too complex to comprehend. I enjoy the simplicity of understanding myself; it is concentrated and condensed and it brings me more comfort than society ever has.

"You're never going to find a slot on your bookshelf for every book, Corvus," my mother began, "it's best if you just sort through all of that junk and find a few that you'll actually manage to pick up and read in this lifetime. Throw the rest away, donate them to charity, just don't hoard. There's no purpose for them."
No purpose? How typical of her to say, with her eyes green and narrow, her hand placed so bitchily upon her hip. What would she know about purpose.
"I'm keeping them all, mother. Believe me, there's no such thing as a book with no purpose. Even if its pages are blank, it still means something to me. They are Dahlia's." I snarked in return, disgusted by her presence.
"Were." she corrected me, her brow raising at my statement, as though I had said something unreasonable. "She's dead, she won't be needing them. Seriously, Corvus, you need to get over her already, this is unhealthy."