Through the Windshield Glass (3 page)

It felt
timeless, save for the fact that the light in the room would gradually change
until I was in near complete darkness for eight hours at a time.  The hall
was more terrifying than ever at that time; the reflection of the stars on the
bronze plaques gave the impression I was being watched by millions of tiny
eyes. It's not as if I could sleep either. I never got tired, or hungry, and
there was never a need for a bathroom break. Nor was I ever cold, or warm, I
didn't even have to scratch my nose. I was in limbo and desperately bored.

Each time the
room lit up again I counted another day since I had died. I didn’t know if time
was actually passing, but I liked to think it was, it gave me hope that after a
certain amount of time my sentence would end and I could leave to whatever was
beyond. It came as quite a shock to me when I realized I'd been dead for almost
a year and still hadn't gotten anywhere.

At first, I’d
tried to open each door periodically, but I always came away despairingly
frustrated with my captivity, my ineptitude at solving the riddle of the
hallway, and of course, my complete solitude.

To fill the
time I paced up and down, the hall. I desperately wanted company, to change out
of the clothes I'd been buried in and to have something to do again. I was too
certain of what the results would be if I tried any of the doors again, so I
grudgingly kept pacing. Waiting and waiting for something to happen.

It soon came to
the point where I was so anxious for conversation that I began talking out loud
to myself. I would have loud arguments about whether or not I should try to get
out again, the depressed, apathetic side usually won. But finally, and mostly
because of the shock of a year passing, I gave in to the hopeful side and chose
a door at random to try again. I vowed if it didn't open that time I was just
going to spend the rest of my death pretending I was happy to sit in my lonely
hallway.

The door I
picked was labeled 'Love' and looked slightly less menacing than the others
because of its more optimistic name. Out of long buried habit I tried to take a
deep breath before realizing it was completely unnecessary and futile. Instead,
I fluffed my still perfectly curled brown hair and tried to look calm and
composed just in case the door actually opened and I came face to face with
another person.

"Just do
it, Alice," I chided myself, "Just try one last time and then you
never have to do it again."

I closed my
eyes and turned the knob, nothing happened. It stuck just as it had every other
time I'd attempted to open it.

I fought hard
to hide the disappointment even though I knew no one could see me. I bit the
inside of my cheek and turned away from the door.

"Oh
well," I said aloud, "At least that's over."

I guess I
wasn’t content with that. Rage overwhelmed me. A behemoth roar ripped from my
throat, I ferociously kicked at the wall opposite from me before falling to a
pitiful heap on the floor. I felt like a toddler having a tantrum and I didn’t
care. I deserved a tantrum; everyone else had grieved for my death, now it was
my turn.

Eventually I
calmed and took to staring at the door I had tried to open for hours, the hall
was immersed in twilight before I considered moving. Just as the stars began
winking menacingly in the falling dark I heard a sound I hadn’t produced. It
was coming from behind the door I had been contemplating all day.

"Who's
there?" I asked. I pressed my ear against the dark wood. Suddenly, the
door was opening away from me and someone familiar was stepping through and
closing the door behind him.

I scrambled to
my feet and crashed into the wall behind me, I felt nothing but confusion.
Surely I wasn’t seeing this; I had simply created this person because I was so
desperate for company. It took the person in the doorway repeating my name
several times before I was finally able to accept what my eyes were telling it.

"Alice?"
James said, "What are you doing here?"

I was so glad
he was dead!

"How are
you here, James?" I asked. I hadn't seen my older brother before I died.

"I guess I
died,” James replied sadly.

I looked up
into my brother’s face and saw more emotion than I could fathom. He all at once
looked happy to see me, while at the same time appearing to be in the deepest
kind of anguish imaginable, when I looked closely at his eyes tears seemed to
be just beneath the surface of his eyelids.

"Where's
Rebecca?" I asked. That was a stupid question. The dam holding back the
flood waters broke and James suddenly seemed as fragile as a crystal glass with
water brimming over the lip of the cup and trickling down. It was a foreign
image to me; I hadn't known my brother was capable of shedding a tear, he
hadn't even cried when he was married. He had never showed visible weakness. I
hugged James tightly and apologized over and over again for my tactlessness. I
should've known not to mention Rebecca to him. He could barely stand it when
she went on two day trips for work and now she would be missing from him for an
indefinite amount of time.  Thankfully, I hadn't mentioned his child.
Rebecca had been nearly eight months pregnant when I died.

James just kept
shaking his head; his body shook as he stifled sobs that were attempting to
break past his lips. Emotions stormed on as both of us wept for our own losses
and the happiness we felt at finding each other. I hadn't let myself cry since
the first few days of my death, it was useless, hot briny water wasn't going to
change what had happened, and even though there was no one to see me cry, I was
embarrassed and hated the sensation.

Finally, James'
body relaxed, rain stopped falling, and he held me away from him, looking me
over.

"You
really need to get out of here,” James said with the hint of the smile that had
gotten me through so much.

My smile felt
forced and unemotional, but I kept it on anyway, "I had actually just
given up when you burst in."

"It's a
good thing I showed when I did then, isn't it?" James asked. James opened
the door behind him again and when I didn’t walk through voluntarily, he pushed
me unceremoniously into the blackness.

Chapter Five

My stomach
flipped somersaults, I'm sure if my organs had been functioning I would have
vomited. As it was, when my world stopped spinning and light slipped past my
eyelids again, I was more than slightly dizzy. I looked around, taking in my
new surroundings and doing my best to maintain equilibrium.

As I realized
where I was, I felt tears of happiness stinging my eyes. It looked as though my
brother had given me the gift of life. I was standing in Rosemary Park, a local
hangout just a few blocks away from my house. I twirled around in excitement,
laughing euphorically, before realizing the impossibility of what I was seeing.
There was something ethereal about this world I was standing in. The colors
were too sharp, I felt too perfect, too healthy. The air smelled better than
ever; like grass after warm rain, and the temperature was too perfect for
Nevada. But I couldn't stop looking at everything. My skin positively glowed;
without even looking in a mirror I could tell that my hair looked and felt
better than it ever had in my entire life. The sky was all sapphires resting on
beds of soft, enticing cotton.

Even though I
knew it wasn't real, I couldn't stop enjoying it. I felt so alive! A girlish
giggle flew like a bird from my throat and I spun around in more circles until
I was so dizzy that I couldn't stand up anymore. I fell back in the grass and
took my first deep breath in almost a year. The grass smelled wonderful, it
cushioned me like a mattress and wrapped me in blankets of comfort and warmth.
I turned over onto my side and saw a perfect little ladybug traverse daringly to
the edge of a blade of grass. I stuck my finger out and watched the ladybug
crawl onto the end of my fingernail. I had forgotten how it felt to have a
ladybug tickle my skin as it explored foreign terrain. After a moment, the
ladybug got bored with the nondescript landscape of my hand and took flight. A
memory from my childhood sparked within me.

"If a
ladybug flies off your finger it's good luck," my mother had told me after
my first experience with the ruby red insects.

I laid on my
back in the grass and closed my eyes to listen to a sound I hadn't realized I'd
missed: my heartbeat. It felt invigorating just to have that simple, quiet
beat, joining the other feelings of life that had returned to my body. It was
delicious to feel the sun reminding my death cold skin how to be warm. When I
closed my eyes the sun was high in the sky but when I opened them, a fantastic
sunset was painting itself across the horizon. It was breathtaking, not even
comparable to the painting on the ceiling of my hall; exactly as nature had
intended.

I sat up and
watched the sun lay down in its bed; Mother Moon tucked a starry blanket around
her bright son and night enveloped my little oasis of life. The moon was full
which lent me enough light to see that there was a person coming towards me
from the playground. Instantly, my heart started pounding, my hands began to
sweat and fear prickled in the back of my head. All of this
happened before I realized that I was already dead, and probably didn't
need to worry too much.

I turned away
from the playground to look at the empty desert before me, half hoping that the
approaching stranger wouldn't notice me. If I had been living, that would have
been the case, I was practically invisible. That was the benefit of having such
an attractive best friend, I didn’t have to be noticed if I didn’t want to be.
I tried not to let my sigh of agitation make enough noise for the stranger who
had just sat down next to me hear.

"Are you
dead too?" the stranger asked. It was such a simple question, but it sent
my heart racing again. The voice had obviously been male; I pictured an
attractive guy, slightly older than me with dark hair.

"Yeah,"
I said. I turned to look at the person next to me and realized that my voice to
appearance analysis had been completely correct; if not a little understated.
Everything about him seemed to breathe maturity, beauty, and perfection. Greek
god? Try Adonis times Narcissus, plus Hercules squared.

"What are
we doing here?" he asked. He sounded like a boy asking his mom why he was
being forced to stay somewhere boring.

"I don't
know," I replied, "I've been wondering the same thing."

I hoped he
would just leave me alone which surprised me. I had wanted company so badly I’d
been willing to do anything. I just hadn’t realized until that point that the
company I wanted was Maria, or my family, not a random stranger. I'd never been
one to talk to boys, especially attractive ones that were closer to being men.
Unfortunately, the guy wanted to keep talking.

"Daman
Carter," the boy said, extending his hand to me. The moonlight threw
Daman's features into sharp contrast, his face was all shadows and silver
moonlight, but I could see that his eyes were very light blue, almost like
water or a storm-grey sky. He was wearing a hooded jacket, and it was easy to
confirm that he was in excellent physical condition. I saw his arm flex when he
put his hand out. Daman's hair was dark, extremely curly and so thick it could
have hidden horns. That thought surprised me and I tried to shake it from my mind
as I slid my much smaller hand into Daman's outstretched one.

His hand was
warm, slightly calloused and much bigger than mine, but my hand seemed to fit
perfectly. My jaw dropped a little at the feeling, thank goodness my name
started with an ‘a’ so the jaw drop was easily disguised.

"A--Alice
Patterson," I replied. Daman and I settled in to silence. I cursed myself
internally for being so awful at speaking with boys, for some reason I felt as
though all my weaknesses should have evaporated with my death.

"How did
you die?" Daman finally asked. I jumped and hoped Daman wouldn’t noticed,
for some reason I desperately wanted to impress him with my deadly maturity.

The memory of
my death flashed so vividly in front of my eyes it stole my breath and used the
oxygen to feed the flaming remembrance. I choked and tears stabbed at my eyes
as I gasped for air that wouldn't come. I could feel the airbags compressing my
chest and the image of my hands on the steering wheel seemed burned into my
retinas.

I contemplated
how to answer Daman's question, but it was so complex, and I didn't want him to
hear me cry. I condensed the long, detailed, painful story into one extremely
vague and unsatisfying sound bite.

"Car
crash," I said simply.

Chapter Six

Daman could tell
there was much more to my tale. It was evident in the way he looked at me, the
way his mouth twitched up in a half smile at my explanation. I held my breath
and waited for him to press me for more information. Instead, he looked down at
the grass in front of him, pulled out a handful and let the severed blades drop
through his fingers back onto the ground.

“I’m sorry you
had to die, Alice,” Daman finally said. He was staring at me with those
piercing blue eyes, “I’m sure you didn’t deserve it.”

I shrugged,
"Not many people truly deserve to die, do they?"

Daman grunted,
"I did. I ruined my mother's life."

I was
immediately speechless. I hadn’t pegged Daman as the self-hating, mildly
suicidal type. Until that point he had just seemed slightly depressed about
being dead and being stuck sitting next to a random, and probably boring, girl.

"I'm sure
you didn't deserve to die," I protested weakly. It seemed an odd thing to
say to someone I had met less than ten minutes ago, and way too personal a
subject to be discussing with such a young relationship.