Coin-Flip

Part V: The Beginning

She opened her eyes. She was standing barefoot in a sea of soft, unblemished snow. Its coldness didn't hurt; her feet only tingled. She looked up at the night sky, an endless expanse of navy blue dotted with tiny winking lights. They almost looked like snowflakes, but they were not falling.

Footsteps, gentle and quiet on the fluffy snow, approached from behind. She turned and found herself facing -- Noah?

He stopped when he was a couple meters away from her and waited. She could not see the color of his eyes.

She spoke first. "Are you an angel? Am I dead?"

He cocked his head in that characteristic manner she knew so well. "I'm not an angel. You know who I am."

"But you're not Noah. I saw him in his room -- in the living world. How could you... how could he be here?"

He said nothing.

"Am I dead?" she asked again.

He paused, considering, then said, "Perhaps. It is time for you to choose."

"Choose what?" she asked.

"What you want to do. Where you want to go. Which side you want to wake up on."

"I can't. I don't know what I want."

"Then flip a coin. They say that when the coin is in the air, you will realize which side you are hoping for."

She felt something small and solid drop into her pocket. She drew it out and held it up against the light. It was a Wisconsin state quarter, the one her brother was still searching far and wide for.

"Go on," said the boy who was both Noah and not-Noah.

She weighed the coin in her palm, hesitating. What was she waiting for? A sign, a word, something that would tell her what to choose? No. She knew it would not come. This was her decision, her crossroads. Her life.

If you'd searched the whole wide world, would you dare to let it go?

The coin arced through the air between her and Noah, turning over and over and over, suspended in the space between life and death. Noah stepped closer to watch it flip, his gaze following its silvery shape. She looked into his eyes and saw that they were grey-green flecked with gold, just as she remembered.

Don't you want to be alive before you die?

Noah was right. When the coin was in the air, she knew what she wanted.

Outside the window of the hospital room, the first snowflakes -- or were they stars? -- began to fall.

THE END