I look at it beautiful as ever, but stone-faced, when it was alive it was never stone-faced. I’ve always had necrophobia fear of dying and dead things and now the only thing I can call this thing I once knew is it. The world is dizzy, soon this thing will have rotting skin and yellow teeth. I can’t believe it was once my child. It was once my little trooper, my little potato, and now it’s dead. I don’t remember how it died but it did that’s all that matters. I don’t cry, I don’t know the thing that lies in front of me. Why are its eyes open? Its hazel eyes staring at the sky, dead things eyes decay until there’s nothing left they don’t stay open. Ah, I remember how it died, a car accident, so many broken bones, so much blood. The white walls of the hospital, saying goodbye to my angel. The person standing next to me was there to… Kaelyn, my wife. She cried, she was normal, I wasn’t. Everyone looks at me, the speech.
I stand up, my eyes automatically attach to it, the thing. I had written a speech, as I pass the trash I threw it out. Won’t be needing that, that thing in the coffin is not like the little girl I had. I cock my head and say, “Friends, family it is dead that is all you need to know, it once lived and now it’s dead.” Everyone stares at me, my mom, my brother, my cousins, and my Kaelyn. “HOW COULD YOU?!” Kaelyn thunders “That is our child…” She breaks into sobs. I stare at her in shock, “How can you believe that thing is our child, sure was but not is” I mutter “That bag of flesh is no longer our child” My mother holds Kaelyn and leads her outside. I’m in a room full of people opposing me, they stare open-mouthed at me, it feels like the bag of flesh in the coffin is staring at me too. Yes, I miss my daughter but she’s dead now and why mourn, that’s such a waste of time. But something I don’t want is to be is stared at by my family. I quickly run out of the church, away from Kaelyn, away from my daughter, away from everything. To the car I run, I lock the doors. They all want to hurt me, they're the bad ones.
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A few hours later, probably after the ceremony a familiar face appears in the window. Kaelyn. She gently taps on the window, her beautiful green eyes flooded with tears. Her mascara is ruined and her lipstick smeared. My eyes widen, she’s going to hurt me, kill me. “Can I come in?” She says gently. NO, my mind screams but my mouth betrays me and says, “Ok…” My hands suddenly have a mind of themselves and unlock the door. She gets into the passenger side of the car. She’s silent. I’m silent. By now it’s almost ten at night. After about 15 of 30 minutes of driving back to the house, she speaks one simple word in a tiny voice, “why?” I swerve into a tree, that’s the question I’ve been asking myself all my life. Why are we still here? When will I die? What happens when I die? Are we all alive? It’s funny, I’ll end up dying just like my little girl and become a bag of flesh like her. My eyes will rot, my skin will decay, my hair will crumble, is this what my daughter thought before she became a soulless corpse. Kaelyn screams. Everything goes dark…
I wake up, it’s dark, my body feels nothing, it’s squeezed together. There are cracks of light and beetles are crawling on my bones. I try to move, failing. I try to feel my tongue, it’s not there, with the cracks of light I look at myself. All I see in white, bones. My nightmares become reality.
I’m dead.