Afterlife

Changes

            The last thing I remember seeing is the blue sky overhead; multicolored leaves were falling, falling to the ground. The cool autumn air was just warm enough to make it the perfect day for swimming, most likely for the last time this year. Lying on a mattress in my pool, studying the intense blueness of the sky, a loud bang abruptly disrupts the placid silence of the morning. Suddenly I’m falling, falling, gone. I drift through the blackness, soft like a cloud, with the cerulean sky ingrained in my mind and the bang echoing in my ears. At some point amid my drifting, a light appears, brighter than the sun. I can’t close my eyes and sink back into the comfortable blackness. The unyielding light gets worse, blinding me; where did the darkness go… My whole body aches and suddenly I can’t breathe. Gasping for air, my body isn’t cooperating. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I’m going to die. The blackness overtakes me once again and I embrace it, drifting back into the nothingness.

When I wake up I push myself off the hard concrete below me, my joints ache, protesting every movement. I am disoriented from the lack of darkness that has been surrounding me for so long… How long was I drifting through the nothingness?

I slowly crawl out of what I assume was once my pool. Now it is little more than a gaping hole in the ground filled with dirty slabs of broken concrete. I let out a soft sigh. When I crawl over the edge of the pool I sigh again, more heavily. Thick weeds choke the yard. They intertwine with the tall grass that scratches at my legs and swallows my feet whole. Tree branches are littered everywhere and many years’ worth of leaves are piled around, stuffed in every space unoccupied by the other debris. Haunting memories flash through my mind, little lightning bolts striking my brain. I close my eyes and quickly dispel them, before they can settle down. I am not longer that person. I shake my head and gradually lift my head towards my house. I crack my eyes open slowly, one by one, looking at what once was a pristine mansion, what everyone wanted. Now it barely stood; marble floors, torn tapestries, and crumbling wooden walls pile upon each other like a child’s toys that have long since been forgotten, abandoned and left to rot. Gazing upon the ruins I see wisps of my life, what I had once been. I see the immaculate mansion towering over everyone. I see the dirty garbage cans that litter the broken streets, cowering in fear. I see people. Many, many people partying, laughing, and dancing; I stood there searching the crowds, just as I do now, searching for my deepest desires too scared to go out and look for them. Suddenly a shadow crosses my vision, moving slowly through the house.

A woman was walking through the mansion as if she could see what it once had been. She danced around the tumbling walls and over the jutting floors, moving gracefully yet at the same time she appeared mournful. Not Daisy, my mind tells me automatically, she’s gone; she wouldn’t stick around this type of place.

I approach the woman slowly, cautiously, as if approaching a wild animal.

“Hello?” I say to the mystery woman, my voice barely above a whisper, carried by the gentle breeze. I put on my most comforting smile as she turns around towards me.

“You can see me‽” she gasped. I stare at her wide eyes for a second, startled by their childish youth.

“Why of course,” I tell her, smiling wider now, trying to make her feel more comfortable, “why wouldn’t I?”

“You can hear me too‽” she gasps again, louder this time.

I can feel my confusion taking over my face and she suddenly bursts out laughing.

“Why, you don’t know, do you?” she says between laughs, “You’re dead! And so am I! I’m Mary, Mary Dalton. Nice to meet you, what’s your name?”

“Ja-” I pause. I am no longer Jay Gatsby. That part of me died when I woke up in a demolished pool. Yet I am not James Gatz either. I haven’t been him for many, many years. “Jamie,” I tell her, “Jamie Gates.”

With this new name I smile. I'm going to do everything right this time I promise myself. This life, or death rather, will be lived the way it was meant to be. I will be happy I say; this time I will be happy.

“I have to go now,” she says, smiling up at me, “I heard that my chauffer was here in our world somewhere and I just have to go see him! He’s black you know! We’re friends though so it’s okay. I have to go find him! I’ll see you later Jamie!”

Just like that she was gone. She was gone just like everything else. Daisy left me. My life was taken from me. My wealth shriveled up and disappeared. Even my friends aren’t here anymore. Jordan, Nick….Nick! He was a good friend, is a good friend! He must still be at his house. My feet fly over the ground, skimming the tall grass that now occupies my once perfect yard. As I run around the cluster of trees Nick’s house comes into view. Immediately I know that he’s not there. When I was alive, my mansion was incomparable to Nick’s little house. Now they look the same; devastated, destroyed, and desolate. I turn away, disappointed, not knowing what to do anymore. As I am about to round the trees again, the wind carries a soft sigh to my ears. Turning back towards the house I see a woman sitting, in what I think used to be Nick’s living room, hugging her knees, slowly rocking back and forth. I approach her, the same way I approached Mary in the beginning.

“Are you okay?” I ask gently, trying not to startle her.

She jumps at my words.

Turning around, she stares up at me with huge eyes, looking but not seeing.

“I-I'm fine,” she whispers, her voice barely catching in the breeze, “It’s just that I miss my family, my friends…I don’t even know where I am! I haven’t spoken to my family in so long, they must miss me, they’ll be wondering where I am.” She cries out, “Everywhere I go I see books and people reading, it’s horrible!”

At this she turns back around and stares blankly at the wall. Slowly I back away from her, slightly startled by this outlandish woman and her peculiar words.

There is nothing of importance at Nick’s house, my house, or even this city.

 I walk and walk and walk and walk far away, ready to face my second chance, my afterlife.