The Imperfect People

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Nathan

Despite the religious views of my mother, despite being forced to go to church, despite what I was led to believe - I never had Faith.  I didn't beleive in the existence of God.  And I surely didn't think that I'd go to Heaven after dying.

I imagined that there must've been something though.  You can't just be here, then not here.  Have thoughts, a voice, words... and then not have any of those things ever again.  I imagined the After Life would be peaceful and magical.  Filled with better versions of ourselves.  Filled with better everything.  An endless ammount of better everything in a better place.  

My first memory though was not of this better place with better people and better everything.  The first thing I remember...

The colour of fire.  I see it.  An orange glow.  Oval shaped.  Dark burnt orange around the sides and pale... almost white in the middle.  It keeps moving.  A blurry hazy ball of flames that dazzles me.

Slowly though, the colour of fire - the last thing I saw when I was falling, it becomes clear.  I am looking through my owns eyes, blurred eyes, but still eyes, which slowly return to normal clear vision to reveal not a fire - but a girl.  

A girl with green eyes, a pale complexion and ginger hair.  I look around.  I am in a bed.  The smell of sterile cleanliness and chemicals fill my nostrils.  It's the type of smell I am familiar with because of my father's job - there's no doubt about it, I am in a hospital.  

That means one thing and one thing only.  I am alive.  My suicide has failed.

Fuck.

Before I can start weeping in misery my attention is brought back to the girl and she has now realised I am  finally awake.  She stares at me and smiles.  The type of smile you'd see on popular magazine covers.  It isn't cute and crooked or big and bright it is just... nice.  

"Hey," the girl says.  And I've lost my voice.  I search the dictionary of words in my stupid brain to try and string a stupid sentence together, to say something to this stranger beside me, but I come up with nothing.  I just look at her, not knowing what to do or what to say, trying to think of who she is and how I got here and what in the world I'm going to tell my parents when they find out what happened.

"Are you okay?" she asks next.  The girl stands there awkwardly looking cute in her Guns N' Roses band t-shirt.  I want to to ask her how I ended up in this bed and who she is or what's her name but it's like God damn Jason Voorhees has used his machete to cut out my tongue.

I go to adjust myself but end up hitting my side off the bed-frame, which in turn makes my arm burn in pain.  I hold in the urge to scream my head off and cry.  Looking down, I see my arm in a cast.  

"You broke it when you fell," the girl says in a polite voice.  There's an uncomfortable looking chair next to the hospital bed and she takes a seat in it and then looks down and inspects her shabby Chuck Taylors and then back up to me.

Say something say something say something you total ass is all I can hear in my head, so I clear my throat a little and look at her and I say, "What... how... er, how did I get here?"

The girl smiles and she says, "Well, I'm walking past what I assume is your house and I see this boy - who was you - dangling from a third storey window and before I can even say anything your falling through the air and I close my eyes and I hear you hit your driveway," she pauses for a breath, the resumes, "it was pretty insane.  So I call an ambulance and and we ride here and now you're awake and you have a broken arm and your not dead, basically."