Paris, France. The romantic city, the place of love. That’s where I went after I left Yohan’s apartment. I walked around with the same solitude I had spent the past years with; me, myself and I. I stood in restaurants and watched couples having romantic candle-lit diners. I would follow people in search of entertainment and spy on the mafia meetings. Months of loneliness passed until finally something interesting happened.
I was crossing a street with a crowd but I decided to stand in the middle of the street and see how people reacted. No one saw me or felt me like I had experienced before but I did cause an accident I think. While standing there, many cars went right through me but that one old and rusty car didn’t. The driver honked, slammed the breaks and turned the wheel to avoid me– I looked around to see if maybe they were avoiding someone or something else, nope, I was alone there. The car crashed in the wall of the building. I was stunned but also curious so I followed the driver into the ambulance and to the hospital. The driver survived but had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks of observation. I stayed by her side for the first two days where she was under so much medicine that she slept most of the time and when she started being awake I stayed out of her vision until she was healthy again.
“I’m sorry for the accident I caused,” I whispered inching closer to her bed.
“Are you crazy? Standing in the middle of the road like that! That’s insane! If you had a death wish you could have fixed yourself without bringing someone else down with you!” she growled, staring right into my eyes.
My only reaction was to frown at the fact that again, I was seen as ‘alive’.
“You do realize that I am already dead, right?” I asked and frowned as she burst out laughing.
“Of course you are!”
“I’ll prove it to you. I’ll stand right in front of the next person that walks in.”
Moments later, a nurse came in and I started following her around, occasionally walking right through her when I didn’t move from her path quickly enough. My new ghost-seeing audience was smart enough to keep whatever reaction she had to herself until the nurse left.
“YOU’RE FRIGGEN DEAD! Wait—Are you like a reaper? Are you here to kill me and collect my soul? Or maybe you turned me into a reaper… Oh gosh, I didn’t even have time to tell my parents.” She started chewing on her nails, staring out the window. Apparently, my ghostly presence didn’t bother her anymore.
“No. I’m not a reaper, not here to kill you or collect your soul and the nurse did just talk to you so you’re not a ghost; do reapers even truly exist?”
“Sure they do! Well, okay, I’ve never seen any but we have taxis, buses and cars to get from one point to another in a town. I’m pretty sure we need a tour guide or something to cross over. Hey, come to think of it, I thought once you died you crossed over to whatever lies beyond?” She stared at me quizzically.
“Mmm, I thought so too except for whatever reason I didn’t get to cross. I saw my parents cross over though and while they were still in-between they never heard or saw me. It was almost as if the living, dead, ghost and ‘stuck’ each have their own worlds.” I started pacing the room thinking. The girl’s eyes followed my every step. “I haven’t even crossed any other ‘ghosts’ yet. Looks like I’m a one-and-only specimen.” I gave a short, half-hearted laugh and went to stand by the window.
“Have you tried hanging around cemeteries? I hear that they’re pretty wacky- which is why I avoid them since as you probably understood, I see dead people.” She smirked as if contemplating an inside joke with herself.
“You already knew I was dead?”
“Of course!” She burst out laughing, folding herself in half on the bed. “It’s just always so funny to see ghosts who aren’t used to be seen.”
YOU ARE READING
Trapped in the Afterlife
FantasyTammy Rose died at the young age of seventeen in a brutal way. Follow her in her trek to understand why she, unlike her family that has passed away, was not allowed into the peaceful light.
