The Life, and Afterlife, of Hallie Kennon

Chapter 5, Hallie

Chapter Five, Hallie

“Hello there, Miss, uh,” A lady with long braids scrambling to find something in a pile of papers ushered me into her office.

“Kennon. Hallie Kennon.” I rubbed my head a little more, for some reason it’d been killing me the past few hours. I shook it off once again. I didn’t know that headaches existed in heaven. Weird.

“Please, sit.” She looked up for the first time since I entered the room, “I’m Mary Lawrence.” She motioned for me to sit down on the only chair in her office. It’s red cushions felt nice on my sore butt. I may be new to this dead business, but it sure is hard to get comfortable in a house where everything is impossible to find. It’s like being in your room after a sleepover every single day.

“Hello Mary, I heard I needed to come to you for something about how I died.”

“Oh. That.” She gave me a look of pity, she clutched a file. “You can’t remember how you died because of that killer blow to the head.”

“What?”

“Oh dearie, that hit sure did give you amnesia.” I gave her a blank look. She continued. “There’s many things we can do to let you remember again. I have to do one of the three options, let you witness it with no sound, me tell you it, and then you witness is fully.

“Each of these options help the deceased, you, cope with death. Back when I died we just were left to fend for ourselves. It’s not like we can kill ourselves to deal with the news. Anyways, I found that doing the order as I said earlier really helps because you can see it when you don’t know what going on, let me tell it to you, then you remember it detail by detail.” She paused, looking on, “Don’t worry, we can go at a steady pace for you.”

This all confused me, head injury? Someone knowing how I died before I did? Watching me die? I shook my head and rubbed my head again. It was becoming a habit; I read somewhere that it only takes three months, good or bad, to form a habit. Maybe it’d been three months on Earth, maybe it’d been an entire lifetime. Who knows? I certainly don’t.

She said she could go slowly Hallie. Don’t dive into something you couldn’t finish.

After a few minutes of awkward silence I said, “I’d like to watch my death.”

Mary Lawrence gave me a small smile. She pulled out something, a remote(?), and punched in three different sets of numbers.

“This is the exact time, date, and place where we are going to.” Her brown eyes gleamed, “Pretty cool huh? When I was alive a computer wasn’t even invented yet.”

I stared at her some. It was weird for me to have people talking about death like it was just another subject. Got a headache? Advil wasn’t around when I was alive. It was strange and compelling at the same time. She seemed to be fascinated with me, though I thought that there was nothing to be interested in. I was just a girl who did not know anything about why she was here or who killed her. Her brown hair swished as she moved, she had incredible posture.

“Are you ready to go?” Her expression confused me some. It was a mixture of pity and concern. Something like a mother would do.

“Yes ma’am.”

She clicked a button, and there we were. It was Dogwood Park at about ten o’clock at night. Ten thirty perhaps? I saw Hannah, Emily, and I walking towards a tree. It was really strange seeing me when I was outside my body. I wasn’t close to the action, I was about ten or twelve feet from it, but I could see it clearly.

I saw them talking to me. The air smelt like a mixture of bug spray and pine needles. The air was crisp, like any September night in Virginia. There were a few stars visible, but not many. I felt a lingering of summer in the air. I basked in the tranquility for a few seconds, until I felt the atmosphere change. I suddenly found it hard to breathe. I gulped for air, I saw myself collapse to the ground, my hands reaching up over my head. Please. Stop. was all that was going through my mind. I couldn’t think clearly, my brain was all over the place. I closed my eyes again, but I opened them just to see myself not breathe again. I saw Hannah panic to hide something, a flashlight by the looks of it. Emily started crying, and I saw the trees ruffle, though I felt no wind.