Fiction Friday: A Far-flung Blog Collection

Being dead is weird.

Originally posted by Tommy Yates, 1-29-16 on alexisdonkin.com blog

My name is Tommy Yates, and I'm dead.

Being dead is weird. There are some things we're not allowed to discuss. I can't tell you what it's like to die, except it's probably different than you think. We can't talk about what happens later, except it's fine. It's really fine.

Being here, on Earth, I guess was a choice. Well, it was and it wasn't. I couldn't leave my family. More than that, I couldn't leave my sister Gwen.

Gwen. Poor Gwen. That's really why I had to come back. There were things that needed to happen – resolution and justice. Closure. So many people needed these things in Oak Springs. There was no one else who could do this except Gwen...and she didn't realize. I mean, I didn't know until I died.

Death. The mechanics of being dead are strange. I think about a place and I'm there. I just manifest. Stranger still is there really is a veil between me and everyone living. I look around and can see and hear everything but that's it. I can't move things. No one can hear or see me, well, with the one exception.

And then there is all that extra knowledge I get. Once you're a card-carrying member of death, you get access to everything. I know everything about Trevor, for example. I thought I knew my friend in real life, but now I know everything. And he is such a good guy. I see how good he is and I see Gwen and I – well. There are limits to what a ghost can do.

I see what happened at the church with the pastor. I see what happened in high school. I see how even those closest to us keep secrets, and how deep those secrets run. There's so much in that little town of Oak Springs. And I want to make it right. I want Gwen to make it right. I know she's up to the task, she just has to own it.

That's the frustrating part. I get all this knowledge. I get to go wherever I want at the speed of thought, but the only person who knows I'm even here - who can interact with me is Gwen. It makes me wish I lived more - that I had embraced life. But we don't second chances like that. Things happen. We make our choices. People die. Sometimes they become ghosts. Sometimes they bug their little sister into fixing the messes they left behind.

Yeah. Being dead is really weird.