Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 3

            He was looking at the body-bags.

            Three black, sodden body-bags, and one is being zipped up.

            A familiar nose draws me like a magnet. Long and pointed, protruding above the zip. I stare at my own face. Hazel eyes closed, lips already turning blue in the cold. The most surreal moment of my life, closing behind the teeth of a zip.

            But the other two bodybags. One is several feet away. The other sits next to mine. Corpses close enough to hold hands.

            Penny.

            I want to open it to make sure. My hands grasp the stretcher in front of me. I kick off the brake, it shakes, and moves across the tarmac. I may be a ghost, but my experience with the paramedic taught me that I can still interact.

            ‘Grab it!’ comes a call and there are paramedics taking her away. 'Someone's left the brake off, look.' I see the curve of her body underneath the black polythene. I follow it and grab the rail, not thinking. It jerks to a halt. 

            ‘Oh, bloody hell it’s stuck,’ says one. ‘Chris was supposed to clear all rubble away wasn’t he?’

            ‘Oh you know what he’s like, if I…’

            But I’m yanking it back again. ‘You’re not taking her!’ I shout. I’m beside myself. This is all I have left of her. I don’t know what I’ll do with her, what do I do with myself full stop? I’m a spirit, a bubble stuck in the endless whirlpool, avoiding the dark of the plughole.

            ‘Bloody wind!’ says the first one again, and all of them pull together. I’m no match for them.

            ‘No!’ I call, but they are deaf to my pleas.

            I fall over as it’s dragged out of my hands. The tears come in waterfalls to join my saturated cheeks. Great, embarrassing sobs rise from my throat as I watch them push her body into the back of the ambulance. In all my years I have never felt so alone. Denied a touch, denied love, denied everything else.

            'Penny!' I cry, scrambling to my feet, casting about for the shape of her on the side of the road. A shock of short, raven-dark hair, beacon-like green eyes calling to me across the river of the road.

            But there is no one. There is the line of cars behind the police tape. Headlights blind me, casting no shadow at my feet.