Living with the Dead

Hello everyone

This is a short story I'm trying out, do read if you feel it is worth your time.

Freya xx

***

We are broken.

We are lost.

In a world surrounded by death, it's all anyone can think about.

Their yellowing skin, deep set eyes, teeth that click against one another, cold fingers dragging against the railing. The thought of their sharpened nails that wrap around the chain links in the fence set me on edge. Their moans haunt me, constant, night and day.

And it's all I can think about.

What is significant about the living when the dead are always there?

We may as well be dead. 

***

They say we are the lucky ones.

They say that there are places in the world with no chain link fences, that the living must defend themselves with bare hands. They say that they don't have guns like we do, or long knives with menacing blades. 

I don't see the point in living. It looks easier to be on the other side, to moan for all my days, not a thought in my head. Not to think about the dead, or the living.

We are no different to them. Only we try to avoid death, but our lives are as meaningless as theirs, trapped behind bars.

No. They have less pain.

I turn down the alley as the snow continues to fall like ash. I zip my jacket up to my neck and shove my hands into my pockets, keeping my head down. Some of us living have resorted to violence, and will push you down and slit your throat before robbing you of everything you have. I only carry a knife in defence. Nothing like disappointing the living when you're dead. 

The alley is a dead end. Literally. It's called dead alley, because this is where people go when hope is lost, and realise death beyond the city is better than life within. 

Strangely, no dead roam here today. So I sit against the wall, close to the fence. I breathe into my chapped palms, my mind wandering to a past I long to forget, only to be reminded by the cries of the unconsecrated.

My brother used to come here and test his luck with his friends. Get a buzz out of it, you know? Sticking your fingers through the fence like fools, letting the dead get as close as you dare before freaking out. He was the bravest, or the stupidest, and one day, he didn't come home. Luck runs out.

A dead in a soldier's uniform shuffles towards the fence, a chunk of his left cheek missing. 

And for a second, I wonder what it feels like to dance in the face of death, to taunt it with my clean skin and flowing blood.

I lace a finger through the rails.

And I just-