She was only crossing the street.
She remembered stopping to pick gum off of the bottom of her leather boot. She remembered sauntering slower by the bakery to take in of her favorite smells of freshly baked bread and rich chocolate. She remembered finding a penny; face up, on the bend of the newspaper stand. She remembered thinking, a lucky penny, well isn’t it my day.
Maybe if she hadn’t chosen to do even one of those, things might be different. Maybe if she had left that penny that didn’t even make a dent in her wallet, that car wouldn’t have hit her.
But she’ll never know, because now she was dead.
I was dead.
It was a strange thought; especially she didn’t think she could have thoughts anymore. How was she thinking? How was she doing this? Nevertheless, she was dead, and it was finally beginning to settle in what was left of her stomach.
Carnegie Hall watched as the doctor explained to her parents and her younger sister the tragedy that occurred the night before. She watched as her father held her mother close, little Glinda squeezed in between, as she didn’t even attempt to fight back tears. The doctor, a large build but small, beady eyes, leaned over his knees with a look of professionalism and despair. He explained that they did everything they could to keep her stable. However, the accident was worse than they imagined. The drunk driver hit her as he was turning the corner of the street that she was crossing. In his condition, he didn’t step on the brake to slow down while turning; he hit Carnegie at a speed of 46 miles per hour. Being hit and run over simultaneously, she had bad damages throughout her body, but most importantly her head.
Carnegie watched as her parents sobbed in front of the doctor, words fumbling out of their mouths but nothing entirely clear. Glinda tried her best to dry the tears with her tiny hands, but inevitably was hurting as well, and soon just collapsed into her father’s arms to cry into his sleeve. The doctor stood up and gave the family some alone time to soak in their feelings and let their thoughts whither. Glinda slid off her father’s lap to roam around the room a little bit more, while Carnegie’s mother and father held each other in a tight embrace, her mother sobbing into her husband’s shoulder.
I was in a car accident? Carnegie wondered. She started recalling a bit more now. She doesn’t remember much of it, though. She was going around the corner to pick up some snacks to then head to a friend’s house later. She could vaguely remember seeing the corner store she always went to right in front of her on the other side of the street before feeling the intense pain scorch through her body. After that, it felt like she was in a bubble. It was late at night but the corner store was only a couple blocks down. Her mother always told her to drive at night because she didn’t like her walking around so late at night. She wondered if the outcome would’ve been any different. If I had driven, I would’ve been at the store and back home before the drunk driver could’ve even found his way into the neighborhood.
Still, there was something in Carnegie’s gut that refused to believe that this was real. This couldn’t be real, right? Carnegie, with everything in her gut, tried to speak with her parents.
“Mom, Dad, it’s me,” she spoke softly.
Her parents, however, continued to console each other in the comfortable hospital room chairs. They called towards little Glinda before she wandered out of the room.
“Mom! Dad!” she nearly screamed. Carnegie felt tears press in her eyes. “Mom, Dad!”
Glinda crawled back onto her father’s lap, and he squeezed her tight. Tears swelled even more in Carnegie’s eyes as she saw her family in front of her.
“Glinda, please look at me,” Carnegie whispered softly. “It’s me, your sister. C’mon, I’m still here sweetie.”
Carnegie tried. For about five more minutes she continued screaming into a void she realized was this hospital room, shouting to her family that sat in front of her without any realization that her presence was still in the room somewhere. Carnegie stood up, approaching her parents slowly, and placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder. She watched it pass through her. That was when she knew that this wasn’t a dream; this wasn’t some sick reality. Reality was gone. Carnegie was dead.
She ran out of the room. She scanned the hallways for nurses, for doctors, for someone. She screamed out to anyone in front of her, tried running up to them as if they could see her, but no one glanced at her direction. If they did, she could see their eyes literally looking right through her; she was nothing more than a spirit in the halls.
Carnegie turned to see her family walking out of the room. They were wiping their eyes with the provided tissues, and the doctor approached them with a sullen look.
“Would you like to see her?” he asked somberly. He glanced down at Glinda before saying, “It’s a little graphic.”
Her parents glanced at each other. She noticed them hesitate.
“She’s in the other room if you want, but feel free to decline. There are many families that choose not to see deceased members if they’ve been in accidents. That way you remember her last otherwise.”
“I’d prefer that,” her mother spoke quickly. She looked to her husband. “If you want to see her, you can; I’m going to stay out here with Glinda.”
Carnegie’s father kissed his wife on the temple, before looking at the doctor and giving him a nod. The doctor directed her father a couple of rooms down. Carnegie, frantic and sick to her translucent stomach, decided to follow her father to the room.
And there she was. Through the door, Carnegie’s body lay on the hospital bed with tubs through her body. Parts of her skin were blackened and red, from dried blood and burned from friction of the tires on her skin. Her eyes were swollen shut, and she had bandages curled around her arms and legs. While still hooked up to the monitor, it was clear that there was no more life in her.
Carnegie stared at her lifeless self in the bed. She had never expected to see herself like this: 18 and broken. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream – but what was the point? It was done. She knew it was done. No matter what she did, no matter how much she questioned the way the world turned, here she was. Everything was exposed; from her skin, to her blood, to life taken away from her. It was too unnerving for Carnegie to stay in the room, so she quickly turned and went back into the hallway to catch her breath. It was real. All of this was real.
I no longer was.
About an hour later, Carnegie sat in her parent’s car as they drove home. She didn’t know what else to do; she was still roaming the Earth and her family didn’t realize her presence. But what else was she to do? She figured, at the least, she could spend some more time with her family while she was still here and she still could.
The worst part about it, however, was seeing them in mourning. Carnegie couldn’t handle seeing them every other minute start crying. They would saunter around the house picking up picture frames and staring at them for hours. All of a sudden it seemed like their lives were at a halt. They were getting in touch with funeral homes; they were constantly receiving phone calls and letters from family and friends. Over several days many people have stopped by to drop off desserts or food for the family. This was all leading up to the funeral. Carnegie just sat in the house and witnessed it all. She sat on the couch, curled up in a ball and watched her life go on without her. She watched as her friends stopped by, she watched as even people she didn’t even knew her parent’s knew come by the house. There was a day that Carnegie even attended her high school, and they held a large vigil for her. It was haunting, really.
She never expected to watch the span of her death before her. Why was I here witnessing this? She questioned. What did I do to deserve something like this?
Carnegie watched her friends sob throughout school, and especially through the vigil. Some didn’t even come to school. But she couldn’t do it anymore, so she went back home that way she could only watch her family cry.
The wake came around and so many people arrived. Carnegie watched as overflows of people that she didn’t recognize come to support her family. She appeared in front of her coffin, which the family decided to remain closed due to the injuries she faced from the accident. She saw flowers decorate the walls, pictures sprinkled throughout them like sunflowers in a batch of roses. There was everything from pictures from when she was born to when she had braces in middle school, to her most recent: her graduation photo. However, the largest picture wasn’t the graduation picture, it was actually just a simple picture of her holding up a chicken kebab at a family barbecue, smiling wide at the camera her father had pointed in her face. The family always joked about that picture since not much longer she stopped eating meat altogether, and that was probably one of the last photographed moments of her with it in her hand. The graduation picture, while the most frequent, Carnegie disdained as it highlighted her unflattering shadows and her lazy eye was only the more prominent. Naturally her mother loved it, as any parent would – but Carnegie did overhear her mother talking with a relative that she hated the picture. She put it up for the sake of the family, but knew not to make it the center of attention because it was something she wouldn’t have wanted. Carnegie smiled.
The funeral progressed the following morning. Nearly everyone that arrived the prior night was there to support the family, as the rustic brown coffin was lowered into the ground, surrounding her great grandparents and some of her grandparents. Carnegie stood at the foot of the boxed hole, watching her mother fall into her father, and her father with the other arm holding onto Glinda. The three of them couldn’t even bear to hold back tears. That was the first time Carnegie watched her father cry.
They spoke about her in a somber, adorning, yet haunting way. They talked about her love for life, her love of animals (as she had gone vegan), her inspiring appreciation of the arts and her passion for family and friends. Her sister went on to say how she inspired her, how she was the best big sister she could ask for and she’ll miss her every day. Even Carnegie began to hold back tears; she then realized that she couldn’t cry, even if she wanted to.
That evening the house was quiet. No one was speaking. Carnegie sat and watched it all, realizing everything was exactly how it was: she was dead. And there was nothing she could do about it.
Why couldn’t she leave this Earth though? Is this what happens to every dead person? Wouldn’t she then be able to see other ghosts? She rattled through the options as her family carried on with dinner. She watched as her mother pulled out four dishes and almost placed one right where she used to sit – she paused, choked down some tears, and decided to place the plate down anyways. Her father squeezed her hand when she sat beside him, and she gave him a reassuring – but broken – smile in return. Glinda howled, “Where’s the foooood?”
With that, a small laughter erupted between the two of them. Carnegie’s father assured her mother to sit down as he retrieved the pasta from the kitchen, prepared and steaming on the counter. Carnegie sighed from the living room, preparing herself to leave the house, watching from afar. She was grateful they still had a daughter. Especially one as adorable as Glinda.
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