by Otis Hanby
Time has no meaning for the dead. I wait for what seems an eternity before the sheriff’s department arrives, but then again, it seems as if no time has passed at all. It doesn’t make much sense, does it? I guess you would just have to be on this side of the fence to know what I mean. But believe me, you don’t want to be on this side.
The sheriff and two of his deputies make their way into the house. The deputies are in uniform; the sheriff is not. He’s wearing blue jeans, boots, and an untucked button-up shirt. His identity is given away by the badge on his belt. I see the sheriff shake his head in disbelief. The two deputies look to him for support. They don’t seem to know how to react to the situation. They’re young, and they look a little inexperienced. The sheriff removes his cowboy hat, and the deputies do the same.
“What the hell’s wrong with these kids? Is life that much worse for them these days? This is the second suicide this year that I’ve had to respond to. That’s two suicides too many. I sure am going to hate having to tell his parents,” the sheriff says, gripping his cowboy hat a bit tighter than I’m guessing he would if he’d been somewhere else doing something else.
“Well,” he says, “you two boys go get the coroner. There’s nothing here to investigate. It’s clearly suicide unless you two see something that I can’t.”
“No sir,” the deputies say, almost in unison.
The deputies exit the house. As the spring door slams shut, the sheriff leans his forearm on one knee and stares intently at my body. There’s pain in his eyes.
“Why’d you do it, kid? What the hell was so bad that made you want to take your own life? I have a son about your age. He’s so distant from his ma and me. Seeing youngsters like yourself do yourselves in makes me scared as hell. I’m scared as hell for my boy.”
“Sheriff. Are we clear to come in and claim the body?” The coroner’s in the doorway.
“Yes, sir. There’s nothing more that I need to see. Now if I could just find a way to get the courage to call his folks. Damn, this is always the hardest part.”
The sheriff gets up from the ground with a little trouble. As he walks to the door, he puts his hat on and looks back one more time. A tear appears in his left eye. It’s kind of funny how my actions spread so much pain so fast. Even to a stranger, he has more of a heart than most I’ve seen in this world. He has the look of a rough man without a doubt, but he does have a heart.
I wasn’t present when the sheriff made the phone call to my parents, but I do get to oversee my funeral. It’s a closed casket service. All of my family is here, including family I haven’t seen in a very long time. My birth mom is here with her husband. I had reached out to her about living with her a year ago, but she was adamant that I stay with my dad. Her husband is in the Army and moves around a lot. My birth mom is more openly distraught than anyone. I can feel her grief rush through me like waves from an ocean storm. Her sister is also here. I haven’t seen her since I was about ten or eleven.
My dad has a vacant, hurt look that’s just as strong as my mother’s grief, though he doesn’t display his emotions quite so dramatically. My stepmom holds onto my dad tightly. I can tell she’s sad, but I sense more anger flowing out of her. Most of my friends are there too. Rodney is there. His emotions are too hard to read.
Erica didn’t make it. I wonder if she even knows. I’m willing to bet that she does.
My cousin is sitting with his family. He looks just as detached as most of my friends. I can sense a lot of anger in him as well.
The service goes as well as can be expected. Verses from the Bible are read in the traditional way, and I can sense people wondering if I’ve been sentenced to hell for committing suicide. I feel I am in a kind of hell for my actions, but I’m more in limbo. I have no sense of going anywhere, and I still have the feeling of emptiness and sadness that preceded my suicide. But now the emptiness is more profound than before, maybe because I can’t communicate with anyone. I’m as much a spectator at my funeral as everyone else who’s there, but they at least can comfort each other.
A picture of me, one that I never cared for too much, is displayed by my casket. People are invited to say a few words in my remembrance. The first person to approach the podium is my father. He climbs the few steps to the stage with difficulty. The grief he’s carrying seems to have aged him considerably. He grips the sides of the podium with his strong hands and looks down for several seconds before speaking. When he looks up, his voice is shaky. He tries to steady it.
“I really don’t know what to say to all of you today. What’s happened to my son is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. I know he had trouble with school, and other things, I’m sure. He was a quiet boy in a lot of respects. I didn’t agree with many of his choices, but that didn’t make me love him any less. If there is someone who could enlighten me a little about his decision to take his own life, I certainly wish you would.” My dad grows more unsteady in his voice and grief flows from his next words. “I pray that he has found peace. God is a merciful God, and I hope Corey sought His help in the end. Corey was… He was…”
My dad tries to gather himself but he can’t.
“I’m sorry. I can’t go on,” my dad finishes quietly and walks back to the steps. My stepmom rushes to his side to help him to his chair.
There’s silence for a minute until the pastor leading the service takes the pulpit. “Is there anyone else that would like to say anything?” he asks, looking around.
Rodney shoots out of his chair, knocking it to the ground. A hushed gasp sounds as he rushes down the aisle, going the wrong way. He slams the doors of the church open and disappears. In a moment, the familiar squealing of his car tires can be heard. Then silence fills the church again. After another minute passes, the pastor closes the service.
Soon everyone is gone. The next thing I remember is being back at my cousin’s house.
I don’t know how much time has passed. My cousin’s house remains abandoned. All of their belongings are left behind except for pictures and other heirlooms. Beds, dishes, clothes, the vacuum, the coffee maker, the television—practically everything was left behind. My uncle does come back for his tools in the garage, but he never enters the house. I watch him from the window in the door of the kitchen.
I wish I could tell you that I’m bored, frustrated, even scared, but I’m none of these things. All I feel is loneliness.
I stay in the house like this for a long time—no concept of time, the same existence day after day. The house begins falling apart, and nature seems to be reclaiming the structure that was once home to a happy family. The absence of people in the house appears to speed the decomposition. I think I can safely say that the energy people bring into a house either keep it alive and vibrant or dark and foreboding. The tragedy inflicted upon this once vibrant home casts an unworldly claim to its decay.
Occasionally, kids break in on dares, saying that a ghost haunts the house. I guess they’re right, because here I am, though I can’t interact with anyone. When the kids come, I can see their nervousness. They usually come at night, with flashlights, telling tales of things that have been sighted in the abandoned house. I overheard one of the kids say that at certain times you can see me looking out of the windows. I don’t know if there’s any truth in that, but I have gazed out of the windows many times. Maybe there’s a faint trace of me left behind that some people can sense. All I can do is observe.
Then one day the house is on fire. I don’t know how it started because I wasn’t there. I’m in and out of the house all the time, not knowing where I’m coming from, or where I’m going, or how long I’ll be there. I’m here now, and I see the flames climbing the walls angrily. As usual, no fear comes to me. My time does seem to expire by way of this event. For as the flames consume the house, I feel myself slowly fading. I don’t see any lights or tunnels. I just feel that whatever I am is fading until I’m gone.
Conclusion
In the darkness, I can see, or sense, what�
�s become of some of my friends and family, although the visions come in random spurts and never in any chronological order. This is a very hard thing to explain. Although I have no place or time, this is what I know.
Friendships shift in the core group. Chad and Tyler quit hanging out together. Chad and Braydon become best friends. Byron eventually ends up going to Garland High and becomes friends with most of my old friends. He plays punk music with his band in the school’s talent show and ends up getting jumped afterward by some black kids. Chad joins the fight to save Byron, but Tyler isn’t around to help, while Chad and Byron get their asses kicked. And so, alliances shift.
Tyler has become a well-known artist in Dallas. His work is epic and still holds that 90s skater-world vibe. He has murals all over Deep Ellum, Texas.
Erica and Chad get married. They have three kids. The youngest is a boy they had together and the other two, a daughter from Erica and a son from Chad, were from their previous relationships. Erica turns out to be an excellent mom, and her kids are her center. Chad runs his own company. Something to do with heavy equipment.
Braydon and Marcy get married and have a son together. But Braydon loses his life when he rides his motorcycle off an interstate overpass. No particulars are shown to me regarding this, but I do sense that Braydon is happy and whole wherever he is. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know how I know it, but I know that he has peace.
Leann is married and has a son as well. I can’t see too much about her other than she still has a vibrant, glowing energy about her and seems very happy.
Byron has a beautiful daughter with a girl I never met. They’re no longer married, but Byron seems to have met someone else that makes him happy. I sense sadness from him, too, and wish all of his troubles would bloom into something beautiful. His sadness runs deep, though, and it seems like it will never leave. I hope I’m wrong about that. He currently works in metal fabrication and is damn good at what he does. He still looks like the same punk rocker I knew in high school, but now with multiple tattoos stretched across big muscles.
Brigette and Darren parted ways some time in high school. Darren became lazy and started using drugs, which ultimately destroyed their relationship. But now he’s successful and happy with a wife and two boys of his own. He’s also a very attentive father, always looking out for the safety of his adventurous boys. Brigette is also married and seems happy, but I have seen no kids with her. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband and is still as tough as ever. I sometimes get a glimpse of her mountain climbing.
Greg never really takes off in life. He seems to have a lack of ambition but finds happiness doing menial jobs to get by. However, he’s still the quiet, considerate person I remember.
Jack meets his wife a year after I left. They get married and have three boys together. Jack has his own business in Fire Safety and works himself to the bone, like his dad in that sense, but only in that sense. He enjoys visiting with people, much like his mom does, and is quick to help his fellow man.
I don’t know where Lisa is. I did get a glimpse of her once, in her college days, smiling her beautiful, sparkling smile. What she was smiling at, I don’t know, and I haven’t seen anything about her since.
I’ve seen bits and pieces of my dad, mom, sister, brothers, and other friends but it’s usually a faint picture moving too quickly. Nothing good, bad, or indifferent, just fleeting.
Rodney, I haven’t seen in a long time. I saw him once in his twenties working as a drafter. I think he has a daughter, but I can’t be sure. He seemed happy when I saw him. But now I have no inkling as to where he is, what he’s doing, or if he’s even still alive. It seems strange that I have some kind of bearing on everyone from my past but Rodney. It’s as if he’s vanished, and it disturbs me.
As the bits of images, or information, come to me, they begin to fade further and further into perpetual sadness. I am often teased with a vision of myself with a wife and a son, having adventures and living life as a reward for all my hard work and accomplishments. It is a cruel tease because it is things that only could have been. Things that will never be. There are no do-overs. There is no second chance. There is suffering and never-ending sadness. The memories of the physical world I once knew fade into the consuming darkness, which has finally overtaken me. I could complain that life was not fair to me. I could complain that no one understood me. But what I cannot do is blame anyone else for the loss of a life that could have been. There are no take backs.
About the Author
Otis is originally from Garland, Texas and he currently lives in Arizona. He is married, has a son, and can be found avoiding crowds and losing himself in obscure bookstores.
