Fighting Death
I first saw Death when
I was fifteen. I wasn't afraid.
It helped that it
looked, at least as far as semitransparent phantasmal effigies could
look, like a boy about my own age. Similar clothes as well. People
always relate tales of seeing ghosts in period costume like a ham
actor stuck in last year's amateur playhouse performance of Scrooge
but Jimmy wasn't. Apart from the whole
I-could-see-the-telly-through-him thing he looked like any other kid
who went to my school. Jeans half-way down his bum and showing his
knickers, trainers with the tongues sticking out, a shirt with a
band's name on. Nirvana, actually, which dates him to the noughts, I
suppose. Dead twenty years.
He was helping my mam
make some Yorkshire Puddings. I know Manchester's in Lancashire and
technically we should have had tea cakes with our gravy, but there's
no such thing as Lancashire puddings and if they were they'd probably
be inedible anyway. More so than Mam's usual efforts, anyway. Jimmy
was reaching over from behind her and flicking at the batter as she
poured it. It was going everywhere and Mam was getting annoyed.
“What so bleedin'
funny, then?” she said, staring at me with her eyebrows furrowed so
hard she looked like she was a rapper with a baseball cap. She didn't
consider that swearing. She reckoned everybody bled so it wasn't bad
to say. 'Course, everybody poos as well but she don't like me saying
'shit.'
“Sorry.” I tried to
stifle the giggles but Jimmy had realised I could see him and just
made funny faces at me. “There must be a reason it's going
everywhere.”
“It's my hands,
love.” She put the batter jug down and checked the oven, pulling
the shelf with the chicken out half way to tease open the tinfoil.
“The tremors are getting worse, I reckon.”
Now I felt mortified.
Mam's been having tremors for years but the doctor told her it was
nothing to worry about. She just has to take these pills every day. I
wanted to tell her about Jimmy but he put his finger in front of his
lips and I kept shtum. I wish I hadn't, now, but as Aunty Veska says,
hindsight is the best vision you'll never have.
She bent forward to
check on the chicken but some of the batter had gone on the floor and
before I could say anything she stepped in it. Her foot slid from
under her and down she went. It was like watching a video on You Tube
where someone falls and they film it in slow motion. There was
nothing I could do but shout “Mam!” as her head hit the edge of
the cooker, then the shelf with the roasting pan on it, flipping the
chicken out in a perfect arc across the kitchen. It hit the wall next
to the clock and fell, scattering oil everywhere. Mum dropped like a
stone to the floor.
I screamed, and Dad
came running but it was already too late for mum. I could tell she
was dead because her eyes were open and she had like a glaze over
them. Plus, nobody alive can bend their neck all the way around like
that.
Jimmy just sat on the
counter licking batter from his fingers.
4 comments:
Wow. That story had an ending I didn't expect, but on a read-over, makes perfect sense.
Have you ever seen the TV series, Dead Like Me? This reminded me of that.
Thanks. I don't usually write first person, so it was quite an experiment.
I have seen Dead Like Me. What a great series that was. I don't think Jimmy was a Reaper, though, more's the pity.
That was very well written. You nailed the first person perspective, Rachel. Thoroughly enjoyed reading your story.
Thanks, Lyn. I was definitely out of my comfort zone.
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