It's strange the sensation you feel as you are lowered into the ground. Despite the best efforts by the pallbearers to lower the coffin as slowly as possible into the pit that is now my bed I 'am rocked clumsily side to side, a muffled thud every time I 'am knocked against the side of the coffin, the silky lining cushioning me against each thump, my own little shield against the outside world, against the worms and soil, flies and god know what else that will try to eat and burrow their way into the coffin and me.

Will I be asleep by the time they reach me?

Or will I have to suffer the fate of my skin rotting, my innards liquidizing and my stomach bloating?

God, I hope not. Allow me to be asleep by the time all that nasty stuff begins to happen. At least now I'm blind to all sights as pitch blackness fills my small little world. The only thing that comforts me now is the smell of damp earth. the rich, telluric smell I used to only associate with long, rainy days out in the garden or wondering along a forest path after a light shower with the leaves on the trees all slippery with dew, the dampness saturating the green almost. In a strange way, being buried calmed me about everything I had been dreading about this day.

Having to say goodbye to family and friends no longer seemed so painful, but not only to them but to other things as well. Little joys in just being alive. Unwrapping a hard boiled sweet from its crinkly wrapper, sitting on a bench in a park watching people go by living their individual, secretive lives, watching the crackling fire at home wrapped in the crotchet blanket my mother made for me. Swinging my feet over the edge of a bridge, watching the swirling foam and debris caught by the currents go by. Sounds, tastes and smells I never realized I had adored so much were gone from my life. Tasting the roast pork on a Sunday, the way how chocolate melts and oozes in my mouth, sipping on lemonade on a hot day and the way the sourness attacked your taste buds but you drank it anyway for the sweet aftertaste. I’ll never hear a jazz band again or the rustle of leaves in the wind, rain against the window or dance to the latest songs on the radio. And the sensations you feel on your skin! The way the snipping of scissors whenever you get a haircut stimulates the thin skin of your scalp, the oiliness of a new skin lotion and the way it glides over your skin, perfuming you in the process as well. Oh gosh how much a hug can allay you from all your troubles, filling your spirits with a warm glow inside.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I never got to experience anything more from a man than simple peck on the forehead and that was from Ruben. I wanted to do so much more. I would have given anything to know what it was like to be kissed on the lips by him. To feel his hands, wonder......

I could have had a future with Ruben but it will never happen. It just wasn’t meant to be. But as I lie here, the sound of dirt raining in scatters on the top of the coffin lulling me to sleep, the disappointment of missing out of a unexplored future no longer troubled me, it was the memories in the end I found myself drifting into,

(Ashes to Ashes)

I feel myself floating into that kaleidoscopic reverie

(Dust to Dust)

I think I 'am consumed, lost in a hazy prism. Dreaming, peacefully.

At last...