Facing The Reaper

II

Leslie spent three days in hospital, the concussion more serious then we had been told. He fell into a coma after he had fell down the three flights of stone steps. Most of the damage had been done to his spine and skull. The school were told that the combined trauma of the seizure and fall had led to a delayed heart attack. We weren't informed about it straight away, the school wanted to give the family some space and time to cope with what had happened. He hadn't had any history of seizures or heart attacks leading up to that day. The whole week we waited for some news as to what had happened, the snippets we were given didn't answer any of our questions. Then when any news what-so-ever stopped arriving, both good and bad, we knew we wouldn't see him again.

The days always started the same, until they didn't. I sat in the kitchen; my mum stood at her usual spot but today there wasn't any humming. All I heard was the slow ticking of the clock on the wall and the usual grumbling of the twins. My uncle Floyd sat at the table opposite me looking through his daily obituaries, but my dad didn't come tumbling down the stairs. Instead when he appeared downstairs, my mum followed him into the next room. I could hear them talking by the tone of their voice, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. Uncle Floyd was the next to exit the kitchen, but the first one to leave the house. Carefully folding his paper onto the table, and tucking his chair in. Even the twins must have felt the change of atmosphere in the room because at that point they stopped talking altogether. There usual tower of cheerio's hadn't even reached half of its usual height and already it was being abandoned.

I reached over for my uncle's paper, going to the spot in the back where I would find the name of the deceased, not sure exactly what I was trying to find. Clarification maybe? Or answers to the question of whether or not Leslie Phillips was still amongst the living. I didn't find his name, just a stream of messages saying goodbye to loving parents, siblings, spouses and children.

That didn't fill me with any reassurance though, just more questions, and more growing doubt. My mum came into the kitchen as I was folding the paper back into its usual place. She ran her hand gently over the top of my head as she walked past me and went to the fridge to collect my lunch bag. As my dad left the house, he looked ever his shoulder at each of us, but didn't say a word as he kept walking out the door to work.

I heard his car engine start revving as my mum came around to clean up the mess from breakfast, dropping my lunch bag onto the table before she walked round to the twins, unbuckling them from their highchairs at the same time.

I collected my belongings and left the kitchen, reaching the front door as everyone else reached the foot of the staircase. I stopped to call out goodbye to everyone as I left, everything about today felt weird.

As I rounded the corner and reached the row of oak trees, I noted the same boy that I had seen yesterday. He was looking up at that cat again, and as I approached then, I stopped this time so that I could observe that cat closer. As I did so, the boy broke is eye contact with it, and turned his gaze to look up at me instead.

"You can see him, can't you?" The boy said, as if looking for some confirmation of the cat's existence. The doubt and unease painfully evident in the boy's eyes.

"Yeah, I can see him buddy, pretty hard not to notice those freaky eyes of his right?" The boy stood there slowly blinking as he looked up at me. He pondered my words and his response to me carefully before replying.

"He can't see you."

I looked back up at the cat, who just stared intently down at the boy as if I wasn't even there with them. "You mean he is blind?"

"No, he just cant see you. I don't think he can see anyone except for me." With that, the boy then returned his gaze to look up at the cat. Seemingly bringing our conversation to an end.