Jack the Raven: A Dead Girl's Love Story (Part I)

I know. A serial? Who am I, Charles Dickens?

But I found this on my thumbdrive in the "On Hold" folder. Truth be told, I don't even remember starting this short story. I read it as though someone else had written it (honestly, no memory whatsoever of writing this) and I actually liked it. I was curious about how this girl died and who the hell is Jack the Raven?

It's definitely worth pursing just to see where this dead girl and I take each other...at least I think so. Ha!

If you take the time to do so, thanks a million for reading. Comment away, I have thick skin.

Jack the Raven: The dead girl’s love story (Part I)

I remembered that I’ve always been pretty, just not pretty enough to be worth remembering. I’m not even sure that sentence makes perfect sense, but sitting at my funeral this morning, it seemed to.

I was happy to realize the dead don’t have much capacity for regret. It seems that memories don’t stay nearly as organized or intact as they do when you’re alive, and honestly, that was one hell of a relief. I was never very good at keeping memories prioritized or in perspective.

Moments that would never register in the scheme of life would haunt me for years and minutes that changed the course of faith would be forgotten the next morning. Like I said, it was a relief to lose the majority of what I clung to so desperately while I was alive.

I can’t say exactly that I’m a ghost. I feel a little more real than some transparent specter. But, then, what am I? I pondered that thought during most of the minister’s dry as a cracker eulogy while I sat next to my cousin Nola. I hated Nola. I hated the fact that she came to my funeral in a Chanel suit and Laura Mercier makeup. I hated the fact that she had the nerve to cry. Mostly, I hated the fact that I was dead and still wanted to look like her. I said most things were transcended once you died…not all things. A rivalry as intense as ours could follow a person into hell and come out the other side with a deeper sense of faith in itself.

As the nameless minister in a nameless Methodist church prattled on about the indelible mark I left on the lives of those who knew me (how would he know?) I eventually grew tired of searching Nola’s face for premature crow’s feet and laugh lines and concentrated on the congregation who had gathered to pay their final respects. I knew less than half, I believe.

As much as they’re loathe to admit it, most people wonder, and at times fantasize, about who will attend their funeral. My mother was in the front row, next to my younger sister, Jamie. I talked to Mom the day before I died. Jamie, about three months prior. We were 16 months apart chronologically and worlds apart emotionally.

I was unmarried, no children. Searching the congregation for a boyfriend or lover or anything of the sort, I came up short. I must not have had one, or I would have remembered. Wouldn’t I? I should have had some sort of pang or sadness or longing for a paramour and there wasn’t one. I would have settled for heartburn…but nothing. Was I a loveless creature in my life? What hope was there for this afterlife?

The amount of time afforded me in said “afterlife” was another question I had. While I wasn’t certain what the “great beyond” would be like, sitting at my own funeral, watching shallow acquaintances and persnickety familiars wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

I soon grew bored at my funeral and left. A great aunt of my mother mentioned a get-together at Ward’s, an Irish pub around the corner. Ward’s rang a bell. I think I might have frequented it from time to time, actually, and it made me wonder who in this crowd had paid enough attention to me to know something like that. Obviously not anybody in the first eight pews.

It was a rainy day outside, but I couldn’t feel it. I could only see it and the way the living reacted to being pelted with the small drops of water. Slivers of sun cracked through the clouds at odd intervals and the thought crossed my mind that I wasn’t turning to dust…at least I wasn’t a vampire. What a relief. Zombie? No. There was no hankering for brain or stomach lining. Double relief.

Dead. From what? I didn’t remember. Had anybody seen me die? Was there a newspaper article cut out somewhere describing my last few moments. I’ve always been prone to vanity from time to time, but this was something more and even the dead deserved to know their vehicle.

It seemed I had a purpose on my hands. What ended my life and had there been love, or the promise if it, mixed in there somewhere?

It seemed odd that I’d lived 30 years without so much as a hint of a quest and I’d been dead only four days before having one thrust into my open arms. Was I being vain again? In the scheme of the world did it matter if I was getting laid on a regular basis and whether it had been a fool running a red light or a drunken fall down a flight of stairs that had done me in? Truth be told, I didn’t care. If it gave me a purpose outside of wishing Nola’s false eyelash glue would melt into drip into her cornea, I was all for it.