Her body was carried by six strong men to a hole in the ground behind the church. My sister was so full of life. At least that’s what you’re supposed to say, but all I could think about is how she always had to use the same cup for her tea. It didn’t matter if it was the only one that wasn’t clean. She had to have the shiny black one with the gold spiral. Then she’d sit quietly sipping her tea by the cuckoo clock in the living room as if she had all the time in the world.
I thought of that cup throughout the whole service and how the coffin was the exact same colour, only without the gold. It’s strange the things that cross our minds. After the service I talked with the other people there but all I could focus on were memories of her. Like that pale pink duvet she used to snuggle up in when we were little and how she used to press her nose to the glass on cold winter mornings and draw hearts in her breath on the window. She would tell me that one day she was going to fall in love and get married, and live happily ever after, just like the people in the stories.
After the service I went for a walk among the trees in park. I remember thinking how it all seemed so strange that nothing had changed. The grass still swayed in the wind. The world still rotated. It’s funny how one day can be just the same as the day before, and yet completely different.
When we were teenagers we used to sneak out of the house to go to the park and play on the swings. We’d kick our feet back and forth, higher and higher, until we felt we could almost touch the sky, if only we were brave enough to just let go. She dropped her scarf one night. She was flying so high I suppose it couldn’t keep up. It danced the whole way down, beautiful, red, and alive. Perhaps that’s what made her think of love. As she leapt off the swing and picked that fallen scarf from the ground she told me that one day when she fell in love and got married there would be red balloons at the wedding. Red balloons filled with helium that would float all the way up to the heavens.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
After my walk I stopped by the playground, the one near the edge of the park. I placed my hands on the cold railing and studied their lines. Even my hands still have lines, soft little lines formed by every movement we make since the day we are born. Her hands used to look like this too once.
I watched the children playing. You know sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I’d made a different choice. My sister always knew what she wanted. It didn’t matter what anyone else told her. I don’t remember when her hands started to age, but I can’t forget, the day she walked up with him, their hands entwined. Perhaps it was that day. The day she told me she’d fallen in love and she was going to get married, and she was going to have children. She wasn’t going to take the immortality pill. She said it wasn’t worth the cost. Perhaps she was right.
Her great grandchildren were there, on the swings, the day she died. I watched them kicking their feet, aiming for the sky, their hands holding on tightly. Young hands, not much different from mine except for the size. They never really tell you what you’re giving up when you take the pill. I mean it’s written there clear as day but they never really tell you. I guess I have all the time in the world to think about it now.