“Are you serious? Look what Kim posted on MyBook.” Stacy shoved her smart phone in my face. Wind whipped through her long blond locks as she sped down the highway. She had the sunroof open and the driver’s-side window down.
“Stace, Stace, seriously! Focus on the road. MyBook can wait!” I said to her as we had two near misses with oncoming traffic, because she had slipped into the wrong lane while not looking.
“I can drive just fine, I have the license, not you, lil bro,” she said confidently. “I am very focused. My driver instructor said so.”
“Look, Stace, you know Mom would kick your ass if she found out you were on MyBook while driving this car!” I chastised.
“Mom’s not gonna find out,” She stated, “and you sound ridiculous.”
She set the phone down on her lap and flashed me a cheesy smile. “Don’t worry, lil bro, you’ll get home in one piece.”
“One in five distracted drivers end up in an auto accident,” I muttered.
“You’re such a bore,” said Stacy, dryly. “All you think of is facts, Matt. That’s so uncool.”
I sighed, put my hands on my head and peered out the window. I heard Stacy laughing and muttering as she read the text on her phone.
“I’m warning you!” my voice shook as I grasped the wheel she had let go of to reply to her messages and steered us back into our lane.
Stacy pushed my hands off of the wheel and continued driving.
“Such a bore,” she sighed.
“I need to get out,” I muttered. “I need to find my own way home. You’re crazy.” My thighs were trembling. I stared down at the floor in hopes that I could take my attention off of my big sister’s crazy driving.
“Please let me go home safely,” I whispered.
I heard Stacy giggle and then I heard the blare of a horn from a semi. I looked up and as I did I saw my short 15 years of life flash before my eyes. “Stace!!!” I screamed, my heart pounded in my chest. All I wanted, God, all I wanted was to go home. My heart throbbed harder and I felt sweat drip on my forehead. My eyes darted around. “We’re going to die!” I whimpered, my voice quivered and I choked.
I felt her try to pull the car back into our lane and my body leaned toward my window as she did. I tried to grasp my seat as the semi jack-knifed to try and avoid hitting us head on. It was too late, the trailer of the truck crashed into us. I could hear tires screeching and deafening screams in the air. Glass from the windshield busted and pierced my flesh in my throat, face, and bare arms. The front end of the car crushed into me and I felt the metal puncture my abdomen, just beneath my rib cage. My shirt began to pool with blood. Where the glass shards had entered my skin I felt blood trickle down.
I tried to open my mouth to tell Stacy goodbye but no sound came out when the blood poured from my open jaw and I blacked out.
When I awoke I heard someone pronounce me dead.
“Wait!” I screamed in my mind, “I can’t be dead!” I panicked.
“I have to be alive! I have to be alive! I am still encased in this body!” I pounded my spiritual fists against the dark enclosure that once was my living body. How can this be? I could see the silhouette of my soul and I had control over it, but not my body.
I looked around and I recognized my mother.
“Yes, that’s Matthew,” her voice cracked. She began sobbing uncontrollably and her body shook violently. Her tears flowed freely down her cheeks and she could barely contain herself.
“Mom! Mom! Tell them I’m alive. I still had so much to do,” I pleaded. I tried to make my voice work. I could not be dead. I refused to believe this nightmare was real. Could I cry? I could not cry, but I could feel. I could no longer feel the physical pain, but the emotions were tethered to my soul and I could not lose the gripping and inescapable pain of loss.
My body was lifted up and placed into a bag so the world around me became dark and frightening.
Before I knew it I was looking up at a man with crows’ feet lining his eyes, a small, pointed nose that was upturned, and eyes that had gone gray with his age. He had tiny red lips on his mouth which wrinkled at the corners. And he had a peculiar smile on his face as he stared down at my stiff body. I had accepted my mortality and my demise now. I just stared back up at him. I could not wince or cry out. I was spiritually starving. I missed my family so intensely, except Stacy.
The man, whom I figured out quickly was the mortician, began to work on my lifeless body and even spoke to me as if I were able to speak back or listen. Little did he know, I was able to listen. From within my lonesome cell, I listened as he spoke about being a widower. He showed my dead eyes a photograph of his deceased wife. He said “I tell all the bodies this,” with a chuckle and a nod, “But if you see my Grace upstairs, give her my best!” and he sprayed me all over.
After spraying my body and eyes with some sort of solution that apparently he uses to clean dead people, he closed my physical eyes which I already knew that if my real eyes are closed off from light my spiritual vision is closed off. I did not have control yet of my spiritual vision and the eyes are the only window I had.
Although I could no longer see, and because I could not feel from the moment of death, I did not know what he was doing any longer. He continued to chat with my corpse, which was strange, but it kept my darkness from feeling lonely.
After what must have been a long time, because I was sure Bob (as I had learned was his name) had gone over his entire 86 year-long life story with me, I heard the sound of my body and velvet meeting. I opened one eye in plain sight of Bob and a younger man who was standing next to him.
“That-that’s not supposed to happen!” said Bob, his voice had gotten a pitch higher.
“I’ll handle it, Bob.” said the younger man nonchalantly as he forced my eye closed.
“Damnable arthritis, Paul,” said Bob with a chuckle, “Or this guy’s a prankster.” and he nodded toward me.
They closed the lid on my coffin and I could no longer see or hear much of anything at all except muffled voices outside making light conversation.
Later I heard the roar of an engine and then I heard my coffin being moved around and the muffled sound of traffic. Wouldn’t it be great if I could bust open this coffin and walk right out of here in plain sight of everyone?
Soon my coffin was moved again and bumped about. Based on the sound of hymns and sobbing, I knew I was in church now. My parents were religious and took us every Sunday.
I heard the voice of my aunt Lucy ask aloud “Why is the casket closed? My poor Matthew! Can an old aunt not say goodbye to her nephew properly?” she sobbed.
I heard an unfamiliar woman’s voice say, “It’s a shame. He was nearly shredded to pieces in the accident. His face was so badly disfigured the mortician could not do much. So the funeral home gave Katherine a discount on the services, I hear.”
I’m so disfigured before I’ve had a chance to rot in the ground that my own mother cannot bare to look at me. What happened to Stacy, I wonder?
After hymns, a sermon and prayers I heard more rustling and bumps and thuds. Then I felt them lower me into the ground and the sound of dirt pouring on my coffin gave proof to my peril, as if I needed any after having all the blood drained from me and makeup applied to my affixed face.
“I warned her,” I moaned as the dirt continued to pour on my wooden jail. Nobody heard me. Of course they could not hear the echo of my ghastly voice. I could open an eye, so I knew I had more strength, and I tried again.
“I warned her!!” I screamed, still pained and distraught over the loss of my own life. Nobody heard me and my voice was still too weak to be heard outside of my coffin.
It’s dark in here and I can hear my neighbor rolling around in his grave, literally. I guess they actually do that.
“Stop that!” I whispered. I didn’t think he could hear me.
“I can do what I want,” a whisper came into my mind. It was a throaty echo and did not come from my inner thoughts.
“Who is that?!” my voice rose and it sounded thrilling that if I had the nerve, it might chill my spine.
“Your neighbor and I have been in this grave for forty years,” said the throaty whisper that was penetrating my mind, “You mind your own damned business!”
“Yeah, mind your own business,” came a second exterior voice that entered through my soul’s mind. “Stop telling Captain how to die, Newbie!” It was a feminine, shrill echo. Disturbing.
“What did you die for, Warner?” said the voice that came to be known as Captain.
“My sister was texting and how did you know my name?” my voice sounded more powerful now.
“What is texting?” asked Captain.
“What is texting, old fool!” replied the feminine shrill. “He’s a child of the new millennium.” Her voice became singsongy like a child’s, mocking him.
“My sister was looking at a phone and not the road,” I said.
“We know your given name because we heard you choose it.” said Captain, plainly.
“I’m Sue,” said the shrill voice, “Because I offed myself!” she giggled, morbidly.
“I’m Captain because I damn well want to be,” said Captain and went back to rolling in his grave.
And we all went quiet, not entering another’s mind. There was nothing new to be said so we did not say anything at all. And that was my first day dead.
Here lies Warner. That’s not what my headstone says. That’s my chosen name. Most of us give ourselves a chosen name down here in our lonely imprisonments, six feet below the surface of the earth. I think it suits me because the last thing I tried to do before my sister let me perish so she could see what was going on in the world of MyBook. Thanks sis, if you’re still alive when this corpse is given new life, I will be sure to tell you in person. You said I’d get home in one piece. I’m pretty sure the appearance of my remains says otherwise. Maybe I could even borrow some spare parts from those who like to text and drive. That thought makes me giddy and now I can rest more peacefully.