Finding Closure
#4 of Writing Prompt
This is short. It's a 1000 (ish) word story based on the prompt. This week's prompt was "Waiting for the bus."
I originally wanted to write this like an editorial, but opted for something like this instead. Excuse my own emo-ness.
I started up a telegram channel for writing! It's just for writing, brainstorming, or talking and shooting the shit, really. https://t.me/joinchat/CPoeZhclggenrOEh0yYwvg
We try to do weekly prompts just to keep things fresh.
I know it's a short read, but hey, let me know what you think! Or show your love in another way https://ko-fi.com/tayubw
Please go check out my gallery for full-length stories! Better stuff over there.
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There's no way to talk softly about what happened. No way to ease into it, or sugarcoat things so that there's a better outcome than what actually happened. No point in beating around the bush, or delaying the inevitable. I died.
It was ten years ago, I think. It's hard to keep track of time when you're a spirit. Sometimes the world goes by so slowly that you're certain time has stopped, and other times you blink and the seasons have changed. That was pretty true when I was alive, so I'm not shocked to find it's true after death.
How did I die? A car accident. Well, bus, technically. I didn't own a car, and always took the bus to and from school. I don't quite know all the specifics of how it happened, but I was certainly in the wrong place at the wrong time. A car sped through a stop sign and hit the side of the bus where I was sitting. I don't even remember it; I died instantly. To make matters more tragic, my fiancé worked nearby and would always meet me at the bus stop after work to walk home with me.
I didn't immediately turn into a ghost, or spirit, or whatever you want to call me. My memory is rather fuzzy about that time. The first thing I can remember is standing next to him at my gravesite about three weeks later. I guess whatever made me this way also read me the terms and conditions, because I didn't have any existential crisis about being dead. It was just a fact that I knew.
That being said, it's rather chilling to find yourself standing at your own tombstone next to your now-ex fiancé.
I read the words engraved there; James Masters. Strive, Seek, Find. Never yield. Three simple lines, paraphrasing a poem that I'd always enjoyed.
Terry was standing there, sunken-eyed, hollow-faced, and more unkept than I'd ever seen him. He looked like someone who had just gotten rescued from a death camp, except with more meat on his bones. I knew he'd loved me, and I'd loved him as well, but I would have never thought I'd see him like this. He was always the strong one when we were together.
I followed him around for a while after the accident, talking to him, as if he could hear me. When that became too voyeuristic for me, I ended up wandering the city, and the rest of the state. It's pretty easy to get around as a ghost, at least.
Call it fate, or coincidence, but I found myself back in town a few months down the road, waiting at the bus stop that Terry and I would always rendezvous at. I hadn't been there more than a minute when I saw him approaching from down the sidewalk.
He looked healthier, at least, and I watched as he took a seat on the bench and leaned forward on his knees, head hanging down tiredly. I floated on over next to him and sat down, closing my eyes and wishing that I could lay my head on his shoulder. When he spoke, it started me.
"I've been waiting for you for almost seven months, you know."
I stared and felt a welling of guilt and anguish in my insides. "I know," I said, though he couldn't hear me.
"I don't blame you, but... I'm still angry. At you, at me, at the drivers, at everyone that I know of."
"I know," I repeated, and this time my voice came out a bear whisper.
That was it. That was all he had to say, apparently. After another minute passed, he got up and walked away. I stuck around, sitting on my edge of the bus stop and staring off at the random people that walked by, unaware of my existence. Terry would show up every few days at first. Then every few weeks. Then months.
He talked to me each time, telling me about his day, or about what was new in his life. Nothing really was, it seemed, and that made me feel a little better at things. He wasn't trying to take on too much too quickly, or change everything because of my absence.
A year after, he got promoted at work. Another seven months after, his mom lost her battle with cancer. Four months later, his sister got engaged, and married six months later. He got another promotion at work and bought a new, practical car. Had amazing sex. Went on a cruise with friends. Broke his ankle ice skating. Became an uncle. Got a new boyfriend. I think we both found it rather therapeutic for him to come and talk to me.
Fast forward to now, the anniversary of my demise, and I was still sitting there on my bench, content to relax and zone out. Then the strangest thing happened. Someone else talked to me.
"Uh, hello, James. I don't know if you're there. I'm Terry's boyfriend, Dustin." I could tell he was nervous, or perhaps anxious at talking to the empty bench, but he had a determined look on his face. "Terry has told me that he comes here and talks to you. He said he thinks that you might be here, or at least, that he feels like he can talk to you here."
I remembered him saying a time or two that it felt like I was there, so that didn't surprise me to hear.
"Well, we've been together for a while now. I'm going to ask him to marry me. I can't ask for your blessing with you being gone, but I know it's going to be tough shoes to fill." He swallowed and fumbled in his pocket for a ring box, toying with it between his hands.
"That's why I came here. To tell you that he'll be in good hands. I will take care of him and love him with everything I have. That's... that's all."
He stood up, gave the bench one more cursory glance, and then strode off, leaving me sitting on the bench feeling the strangest sensation.
I suppose you could call it closure. As I watched Dustin walk away, a bus came to a stop right in front of me. My bus. The same one I had been on all those years ago. The doors opened and I pushed myself up off the bench to board the bus and finally leave this existence behind.
What comes after death? I think I'm about to find that one out.