the problem with mortality

hardcore pain meds

I stare at the broken boy who is hunched over before me yet still seems to be looking in my eyes. 

There's no way.

He just got out of the hospital, he's probably still loopy from pain meds. Maybe he just decided to quote a single word from Romeo and Juliet while staring at a very fixed point in the distance. 

I walk around him. 

He turns and runs after me. Well, run is a generous term. He hobbles after me.

Can he actually see me? It sure looks like he can. 

Can he hear me?

"Hello." I whisper. 

He raises his eyebrows. "Hi." 

Can he feel me? 

I reach out and attempt to poke him, but my hand goes straight through his shoulder. 

Okay that one was a bit of a stretch but fuck if any of this is realistic. 

"Okay, so are you actually alive? Did I dream about you dying while I was in the hospital? Sorry if that's weird but I had some insane dreams on those pain meds." 

So he did have crazy pain meds. I quickly weigh my options in my head. A) I could let him believe that he dreamt about me dying but that would be hard to keep up given the fact that no one shuts up about me these days. 2) I could let him think that he is having some weird reaction to his pain meds right now, and disappear while he stares at the couple making out next to us. Or on the other hand I could just tell him the truth and hope he helps me instead of thinking I am a freak. 

I decide on the last option. 

When I get done telling him about the last few months he looks at me like he's seen a ghost. 

I'm not proud of that one but it was too easy. 

I study his face as the second bell rings and the hallway clears out. He doesn't move. 

"So you're-?"

"Dead." I say. 

"And I can-?"

"You can see me, yes." I reply, losing my patience. 

"But how?"

"I don't know." I reply. "But you can and we should probably figure out why." 

He nods. "is there anyone else that's ya know-"

I raise my eyebrows. 

"Like am I gonna run into Michael Jackson moonwalking his way around here?"

I laugh. "No, I haven't found anyone else." I start to walk down the hallway.

"Damn." He says. "No Stan Lee? Not even Einstein?" He asks, hobbling to catch up to me. 

I laugh quietly. I'd never talked to James before, I'd seen him around but he was always so quiet and reserved. His sense of humor about this fucked up situation is catching me off guard. 

Just then one of the nurses walks up behind us, or James seeing as I'm not really here, with a plastered smile. 

"James, honey?" She says sweetly. "How are you feeling?" 

"Fine." He replies, oblivious to the fact that he has been talking to himself for the last five minutes. 

"Okay." She says, eyeing him. "It's just a few kids saw you talking to yourself and they got worried."

James looks from the nurse, to me, then back to the nurse, finally putting two and two together. 

"Oh, yeah sorry. I probably was, I just can't remember. they've got me on some hardcore pain meds. I'll be fine." 

She still looks worried, because she knows what medicines James is on and I'm guessing that at this point its basically just baby aspirin and antibiotics. Nevertheless, she nods her head and walks back to the clinic as the reality of our situation sets in. 

"Shit." He says once she is out of earshot. 

"Shit."