The Process of Grieving is Neither Short nor Simple
All I could do was stare. Stare at myself as if floating a few feet above and behind my body, slumped over as it was on the table that served as the desk for my class. It was entirely a feeling of stunned disbelief, I knew that one could suffer heavily from a broken heart but I had not yet believed one could actually die from one. Flecks of scarlet coated my lips and the notebook beneath my heavy, cooling cheek. A deathly pallor of white already warred with the blush of exertion and sweat upon my brow. It had been swift...but I didn't know what had actually happened.
So I floated there, an ethereal and invisible wisp of a thing, a phantom sense of a body yet I could look down and see nothing. As if the world, even in spirit, had already forgotten me. The industrious, concerned ants that were my classmates and professor swarming about in desperate effort to get help and keep me alive. Body being lifted onto the table, my roommate performing his duties as a lifesaver and resident assistant in administering CPR to the corpse of myself. I wanted to crack a smile, but I couldn't.
Why was the aether such a cold and unknowing parallel, I wondered. Perhaps aloud, I could not tell nor did I insomuch know any differences for comparison. Even in death, the stirrings of potential afterlife, I was shocked to inaction.
And then I felt a warm, comforting touch from a soul I never thought I'd see, much less feel.
I twirled about, or felt like I did, and laid eyes upon a beautiful soul. The echoes of her physical self were there, but that did not matter insomuch as the fact that I knew without needing to see who it was. Ariel. Taken from me in the most uncaring and inconsiderate act of nature...not even a week past this own tragedy in the drama of life. And she smiled. And I warmed.
"Others still need you, Joe. You know that."
"I...can't go back. I needed you...Bella needed you...the Litter needed you...and you were taken away from us. Its all fallen apart."
"Only if you let it." Another smile. I felt ashamed to be arguing with her, no matter how often we matched wits and countered each other with snide remarks. Were I to have cheeks, I'd've blushed crimson in shame.
"It's too much for me, Ari. It is far too hard a loss to bear, and I can't take on enough of a load to spare the others. I'm not as strong as I need to be."
"You are as strong as you think yourself to be, you brat. Now stop being so selfish."
"Ari...I..."
"I know. Goddess do I know..."
I raised an eyebrow, or tried to, at her choosing to use 'Goddess', but she shook her curly auburn tresses and giggled. "Oh never you mind, Joe. You won't remember a lick of this." Which, in and of itself, was almost too much to bear on top of everything else. I moved close and wrapped my ethereal arms around her...and they were there again for that moment. A moment which stretched for nearly an hour, until I found us both floating over a moving stretcher as my not so lifeless body was rushed through operations I couldn't comprehend even if of the mind to try.
"Ari...if I don't remember this, I'll be as unanchored as before. I still won't see the colors, won't taste the flavors, of life. I'll drift again, and that's too painful...the Litter will fall apart, because my heart isn't nearly in it anymore. Stretched too thin. Too much to try and do and too many counting upon me." I looked at her, tears welling in my eyes as I refused to let go. "I...just can't."
She looked into my eyes, pity and apology and sympathy all flickering like a dancing flame within, but most importantly the sense of love still there. "Please, Joe? For me?" And that's when I felt the tether. Yanked from her embrace back to a coughing, pain-wracked body that fought again to live despite the wailing of its soul. The wailing, and the bleeding. Hidden away again as even dreams snapped into darkness and I awoke cold and alone, but whole.
I cried and wept into the blankets and pillows that offered no comfort, yet again, "Ariel..."
So I floated there, an ethereal and invisible wisp of a thing, a phantom sense of a body yet I could look down and see nothing. As if the world, even in spirit, had already forgotten me. The industrious, concerned ants that were my classmates and professor swarming about in desperate effort to get help and keep me alive. Body being lifted onto the table, my roommate performing his duties as a lifesaver and resident assistant in administering CPR to the corpse of myself. I wanted to crack a smile, but I couldn't.
Why was the aether such a cold and unknowing parallel, I wondered. Perhaps aloud, I could not tell nor did I insomuch know any differences for comparison. Even in death, the stirrings of potential afterlife, I was shocked to inaction.
And then I felt a warm, comforting touch from a soul I never thought I'd see, much less feel.
I twirled about, or felt like I did, and laid eyes upon a beautiful soul. The echoes of her physical self were there, but that did not matter insomuch as the fact that I knew without needing to see who it was. Ariel. Taken from me in the most uncaring and inconsiderate act of nature...not even a week past this own tragedy in the drama of life. And she smiled. And I warmed.
"Others still need you, Joe. You know that."
"I...can't go back. I needed you...Bella needed you...the Litter needed you...and you were taken away from us. Its all fallen apart."
"Only if you let it." Another smile. I felt ashamed to be arguing with her, no matter how often we matched wits and countered each other with snide remarks. Were I to have cheeks, I'd've blushed crimson in shame.
"It's too much for me, Ari. It is far too hard a loss to bear, and I can't take on enough of a load to spare the others. I'm not as strong as I need to be."
"You are as strong as you think yourself to be, you brat. Now stop being so selfish."
"Ari...I..."
"I know. Goddess do I know..."
I raised an eyebrow, or tried to, at her choosing to use 'Goddess', but she shook her curly auburn tresses and giggled. "Oh never you mind, Joe. You won't remember a lick of this." Which, in and of itself, was almost too much to bear on top of everything else. I moved close and wrapped my ethereal arms around her...and they were there again for that moment. A moment which stretched for nearly an hour, until I found us both floating over a moving stretcher as my not so lifeless body was rushed through operations I couldn't comprehend even if of the mind to try.
"Ari...if I don't remember this, I'll be as unanchored as before. I still won't see the colors, won't taste the flavors, of life. I'll drift again, and that's too painful...the Litter will fall apart, because my heart isn't nearly in it anymore. Stretched too thin. Too much to try and do and too many counting upon me." I looked at her, tears welling in my eyes as I refused to let go. "I...just can't."
She looked into my eyes, pity and apology and sympathy all flickering like a dancing flame within, but most importantly the sense of love still there. "Please, Joe? For me?" And that's when I felt the tether. Yanked from her embrace back to a coughing, pain-wracked body that fought again to live despite the wailing of its soul. The wailing, and the bleeding. Hidden away again as even dreams snapped into darkness and I awoke cold and alone, but whole.
I cried and wept into the blankets and pillows that offered no comfort, yet again, "Ariel..."