Part 2:
Chapter Twenty
What do I have to
show for a year being dead?
My story is a long
one, built on the bed of the friends I’ve made.
Elle, a girl who
lives as a breath on the wind. To see the world in all its glory, in an
infinity of time to live in.
Yates, the abused.
Now, the loved. We live in his house most of the time.
Graham, the human ghost. I wonder has anyone else ever died without dying?
I remember the
arguments. For hour after hour we’d try and convince Graham to go back. That we
could find away. I think we all knew that he was stuck with us though. Our own
fault for messing around with things we hadn’t a hope of understanding.
I sit out the back
of Yates’s cottage, the expanse of English countryside spread out before me. I
don’t think I could ever leave this country. We’re a nation of complainers. You
can’t move for someone sniping about the weather, claiming depression on
insubstantial grounds and whinging that they don’t travel enough.
If you just stop,
for a second and take stock of your surroundings, take a trip and get lost in
some lesser explored corner of our country, you find slices of heaven. Rolling
hills, darkest woods, wilderness, heath, moor and miles and miles of the most
beautiful coast.
Me and Elle saw a
lot of it in those first few months searching for Penny. Do I think I’ll ever
find her? I hope. She always wanted to travel, and I assume that’s what she’s
doing now. Wandering the earth or the stars.
I look up at the
sky and wonder something that often crosses my mind. Can we go up there? Does
our existence as ghostly beings exist beyond this earth to others. Maybe she
went up there. Maybe the universe is hers now.
The click of the
back door behind me is unmistakeable.
I turn in my
thick, wooden lawn chair and see Elle strolling out towards me.
‘Hey,’ I say.
‘Whatcha doing,
science boy?’ she says. ‘I’m so bored, Mr and Mr Public Display of Affection
are hogging the living room.’
I roll my eyes. I
remember the day they got together. On a beach in Fiji because Penny said she
wanted to visit there once. Me and Elle went to explore and we return to find
them in an embrace, lips locked in a passionate dance.
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