The Grasses Waving Above

Summer Days

Summary: Death. What happens? The afterlife? Reincarnation? A black wave of nothingness? Well, I would love to know, but I seem to be unable to die properly. And now I'm wandering around as a ghost. Yeah. So not cool. Especially when there happens to be a rather cute boy who can apparently see me. Would have been nice to know before I made a fool of myself. I love my life. Err, death?

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“Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.” – Thomas Gray, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”

Chapter Two: Summer Days

I left the hospital eventually. It really was too depressing to stay next to a dead body listlessly, despite the fact that had been my dead body. It wasn’t me anymore. It was simply an organization of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus molecules. My consciousness wasn’t there. Instead, it seemed that…it had separated and resulted in my current self. Somehow. It was all rather confusing and still seemed slightly unreal to me. But I wanted – no needed – to find out how so that I could at least pass on to…whatever came after death. Spending the rest of my ‘life’ forever as a ghost trapped on the Earth unheard and unseen didn’t exactly sound appealing.

“That’s good and all,” I thought out loud to myself, “but how do I do that if no one can even hear me?” No one could hear me, so it wasn’t like there were people directing strange side glances at me if I talked to myself in public. All of a sudden I saw a basketball heading towards me rapidly. Reflexively, I raised my hands to catch the ball. As predicted, it went straight through me and I shivered. Knowing what would happen was different than actually experiencing a solid object going through your corporeal body.

“RYAN!” A high-pitched voice shrieked indignantly in a whiny tone, and I winced. I don’t know how this whole ghost thing worked but it seemed like I had drawn the short end of the stick. Who wouldn’t prefer anything else to this? And I mean anything else.

“What is it Melissa?” Came the annoyed response. Looking around, I immediately spotted the couple, a guy wearing a grimace with an obviously dyed blonde girl clutching at his arm, her brunette roots showing.

“That ball almost hit me,” she said disgustedly, glaring at the innocent basketball as if it wasn’t fit to be dirt on her shoes. “I don’t see why we had to go to the park when we were supposed to be on a date.”

“Like I told you,” he repeated for clearly not the first time, “my mom said that I had to take my little sister to the park because the babysitter couldn’t come at the last minute. And I seem to remember telling you that we could reschedule, but you said it was fine with you.” From the angle I was at, I thought I could see him quietly mouth the word “unfortunately” to himself. I had to agree.

“Don’t talk to me that way!” The girl shoved his arm away with her absurdly sharp nails. “You know what?!” She glared. “We’re done. I don’t know why I even agreed to this date in the first place.” The guy rolled his eyes at her.

“You were the one who asked me out, not the other way around,” he pointed out. And then the girl slapped him, the loud smack resounding loudly through the park.

My eyes widened in shock. Okay, maybe I wasn’t that surprised considering what I knew of the girl in the past few minutes, but still. Overkill, much? The bright red handprint was already visibly forming on the side of the guy’s face, and the girl sneered victoriously at the sight before flouncing off.

“This is the last time I listen to Aiden,” the guy grumbled, rubbing his forcibly reddened face bitterly. “She’s a nice girl, I promise,” he mimicked in an unrealistic falsetto. “Yeah right.”