Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 4

            What if I’m the only one?

            What if everyone else moved on to somewhere better and I’m stuck here? Given the curse of being able to touch but only cause discomfort.

I look at my hands and think of all the times I’d just been sitting, and without warning shuddered. Had some ghostly presence been trying to communicate? Nana maybe? She was gone but maybe she was trying to make contact.

            Even now it sounds farfetched. And why stay?

            The answer glares at me like a neon sign.

            To stay with the people you love.

            I realise this is a gift as well as a curse. If this is what happens when we die then they’re all out there somewhere. Everyone who ever lived and loved.

            ‘Where are you then?’ I feel the unexpected anger rising in my voice. An eternity of the dead and not a single person is here to help me. Console me in my moment of passing.

            ‘Is it just me out here? Because I’m not having that! All the bad people in the world and I’m the one who gets this?’

            I’m still crying. The crippling loneliness had got to me. It felt heavy, like a crushing weight. The total absence of anyone else I can talk to.           

‘Gets what?’

            I flinch and let out an embarrassing yelp. I'm really not ready for surprises yet.       

It’s a smartly dressed old man, short and bald, with a ring of silvery white hair. He looks like Friar Tuck, or my granddad. Except, I’m safe in the knowledge that it isn’t my granddad because my granddad wasn't black. I always like how older gentlemen tend to walk around in a shirt, tie and a jumper as casual attire.

            'Are you ok, son?' asks the man.

            I don’t know what it is about his voice, soft and soothing, lightly American with a little bit of something else. His eyes are big and brown and I recognize the spread of warmth in my chest, the relief of the first eyes on me since my death.

            I smile.