Screams. All I could remember was the bright light and screams. It was so hard to remember anything before that, anything of importance. I remember brown curls, strewn about the crisp white pillow. I remember a steely face, that never seemed to smile. I remember soft blond fluff, and the nuns’ arrival. I remember a pale face, closed eyes, and a stillness laced with cold. I remember pressed suits, heavy briefcases, and harsh glares. I remember the last time I saw the big blue eyes, carried off in a cathedral carriage. The word “Family” bounced around in my head without meaning. They were people that I knew, people that were not there when it happened. None of them heard the screams, they had other places to be.
I had been called to the headmaster’s office in the middle of my last class. I knew the reason, but I prayed that it would not be true. My mother had been sick for a long time, I could not remember a time when she was not. She was always in pain, with a swollen stomach and next to no breathing ability. She always got worse, and my father and I both knew it. That is why my dad got rid of my sister, giving her to the nuns’ to be raised. He needed a son to run the business, but there was no way for a girl to be raised without a mother. My mother was dying, and we were simply waiting for it to occur. As my brown loafers tapped against the floor in the great empty hallway, I knew it had finally come to happen. I felt bad for not being more emotional about it.
The headmaster was reluctant to tell me what my father had said was happening in his letter. He has known about her state, and could not find the words to express her death in any way except the straight way. “Your mother has passed. Your father wishes for you to return home for the funeral, so you can begin your training in his business.” he said, looking for even the smallest sign of distress. I could muster no tears, no pain, no upset at the news. “How shall I be travelling, sir?” I asked instead, caring more about my trip home than the reason for it. He handed me my train ticket, and sent me to pack. I would be departing in the evening, and riding through the night. It took me no longer than half of an hour to collect my possessions, and I found myself in the carriage ahead of schedule.
The train station was bursting with noise, and I found myself right in the middle of a huge crowd. Bustling people on every side made me feel trapped, closed inside a sea of people. I was relieved to finally be in my first class train car, much less crowded. I settled in, alone in my seat, ready to return to my dull home life. The problem was, it did not happen that way. There used to be a fork in the tracks, leading to two different towns. The left turn leads to my hometown, the other is old and rotten. A year or two back, it was declared unsafe to use, and a different track was built on another route to replace it. I still do not know why we turned right, why we took the wrong track. But that wrong turn was the thing that ended my short life.
The first sign had been the bumping, jostling me awake. Many passengers continued on their sleeping, undisturbed by the bouncing train. I looked out the window, and noticed nothing different about the expanse of trees except for one thing. We were no longer smoothly passing them by, they seemed to shake with the movement of the train. But the shaking got worse, as the tracks got more rotten the farther we went. Soon, all passengers were awake, blinking at their surroundings in confusion. Then the shrieks started, as the metal of the tracks no longer met with the metal of the train’s wheels. The women began to scream, as the train rocked back and forth with a new unsteadiness. Then, we fell off the track with a jolt.
The tracks were at the top of a hill, and the train could not remain on top without the tracks. We slipped down the hill, cars jerking as we hit the treeline and entered the forest. I never reached the point where we stopped, as I was launched from my seat with a particularly large bump. My body hit the metal ceiling headfirst, and my life ended with a bright flash that seared behind my eyelids. The pain seared through my broken body, until I disconnected with it. I left the pain, the screams, and the horrid bright light behind. When I opened my eyes again, I was home. But the sight that met me there was one I will never forget.
There was a coffin, in dark mahogany, with soft velvet lining. The pillow cover was scarlet, to avoid stains from the sad body inside. When I first saw it, I expected the frail body of my mother to be lying inside. But the pale face was not one of a woman, but of a boy. Almost 15 years old, in his prime, with tousled brown hair and a well-lined face. I saw my own face in the coffin, cold and dead. My broken head wrapped in bandages, my body covered by a dark red sheet. I was dressed in a good suit, to cover the scars and the bruises from my fatal collision. My shock brought me to my knees, which were not really there. My real knees were in the coffin, bent and broken.
I was dead, truly dead, there was no escaping it now. I sat there and wondered, watching my own funeral happen. My father was there, stone-faced and silent, looking on with a face that showed how broken he was inside. The nuns stood in a line, looking on from under their caps. I could not help but notice the blue-eyed face of the shortest in the procession, looking on at a brother she had never truly known. I could not help but wonder if she had attended the funeral of the mother she had never met. She did not even look at her father, her last living family member standing across the room. Her family was the nuns around her, and her home was back at the cathedral.
Thinking of her brought me to a realization, where was my afterlife I had spent my life preparing for? The heaven beyond the bright light, with the angels in glory. Why was I still here, on the cold earth so boring? Sitting here watching my own coffin lid closing, not a single tear shed at the dark scene before me. I followed them to the graveyard, to the large section with my ancestors resting and waiting. I knew this is where I would be buried, among the ancients that had passed their lineage down to me. I sat before my own tombstone, read my own name inlaid. I saw my familiar birthday, and the date of my passing. It was there in stone, and it would never be changed. I was only two months from 15, and it will always be that way.
The burial was quick, the speech was short, two hymns were sung and everyone left. I sat there and stared, absorbing the silence and rereading the words. “R.I.P to a loved son and brother” rang through my head. “Loved?” I could not help but stop and repeat that word. Never once, not in my entire life, had I ever heard the word love in reference to me. My sister never said it to me, my mother never even spoke to me, and my father had never even said anything to me unless it was to give orders. Where had this mysterious love ever been expressed? At 15, most boys had a girl they were courting to exchange loving words with. I had never had one. I had never thought of the word love as something that applied to me or anyone I knew.
That all changed when I first saw Iris. Well, not exactly the first time. The first time I really saw her, she was a new arrival at my house in a little pink blanket. This was decades later, long after the passing of my father and my sister. Many families had moved in and out of the big house, and many changes had been made to it. It took me a long time to get used to the modern changes, but the house no longer mattered to me when she arrived. She brightened my old gray room with the girlish redesign her parents put it, and her smiling face perfected it. Her room was my favorite place to be, as she was a wide-eyed child who could never take enough in. She could see me. Her parents took it as childish randomness, but she always tried to get to me.
When she started walking, my life got interesting. This girl was the clumsiest thing I had ever seen. I always alerted her parents to when something happened, making a loud noise to bring her mother running. I was there for her, watching over her always. At night, the world became quiet. There was peace in the room, with the moon streaming in and providing light through the soft pink curtains. She always slept sprawled out, taking up as much room in her crib as she could. I loved the quiet, aside from the soft snores. Even those did not ruin the stillness, but this was not the dark still of all those years ago. This was a stillness I could almost melt into, a stillness I would never get tired of. But, as usual, time went on.
The toddler years continued to be a nice but hard time, keeping an eye on a now very active ball of energy soon travelling beyond the realm of her much safer room. The house had three flights of stairs, and by the age of five, she had roughly encountered all of them at least twice. I enjoyed running around the house with her, listening to her excited squeals and her beautiful laughter. I lived a childhood with her that I was never able to live, a carefree life of fun and enjoyment. She learned things really fast, and learned from her numerous small mistakes. But, as all fun things go, they always have to come to an end.
As a five-year old child, she was starting school.  With a little pony backpack and a new school uniform, she left with her mother to make lots of little school friends. The night before had been an eventful one, as the girl and her mother had checked over her school supplies at least five times to be sure everything was perfect. “Iris” had been printed on everything in the mother’s neat hand, and she had the little girl practice her name for introductions. This event was a good one, but it truly made me feel sad. Our days of play had come to an end, as every day she would be off to learn new things. It was obvious to me, that soon she would outgrow me.
I overheard her parents’ conversations about her “Imaginary friend”, obviously referencing to me. It hurt to be referenced in such a way, I still found it hard to remember that I was no longer a person. I was merely a fragment of myself, no longer in flesh and bones. I was only a spirit, alone in a world leaving me far behind. A world advancing in more ways than I could ever count. I reached for something to support myself on, and my hand went right through the stable-looking dresser. I looked at it, watching it move each finger at my mind’s command. It looked so real, so solid, so alive. But I knew it was none of those things, it was just as dead as I was.
I sat there, sinking into my own depression. But I was not human, I had no emotion, I could not shed a single tear. I did not know how to feel in this form. Pain was not real, as I had no physical body to feel it. I felt the lowest I had ever felt since the day of my funeral. But I did not know if it was really feeling, or just my own imagination creating a sense of feeling. How was I thinking, without a brain? How am I feeling, without a heart. I am not truly human, so what am I? These questions swirled around, causing me to curl up for protection from their sharp asking.
Then she was home. My little angel, running through the door squealing in excitement, words spilling out about her first day of school and the exciting occurrences. She said many names, extremely mispronounced, and described the faces behind them. I jumped up, filled with the brightness she always brought into my life. I ran down the stairs, and was greeted by her full force excitement. Her mouth moved quickly, telling stories that were clearly stretched and not completely true in any way. It made the stories all the more endearing to have her touch improving them. I sat there on the stairs, and contently listened to her speaking.
She stopped to take a breath, and her huge green eyes landed on me. She completely dropped the conversation with her parents and ran to greet me. She then proceeded to repeat all of the stories she had told her parents, except completely different lies tacked on. I smiled and nodded, inserting the proper expressions at the exciting parts. Her parents just shook their heads and smiled, knowing that one day she would outgrow me. But at that moment, I did not care.
I suffered through every day of school she went to, sitting and moping until she returned. I soon learned of the existence of Summer Break, and enjoyed every minute of the summers. She grew fast, and she learned fast, seeming to age years in a second before my eyes. As expected, by middle school she no longer acknowledged me. She had grown beyond childhood, her once blond fluff now grown out into light brown waves. Her green eyes had only gotten more intense, growing darker with each passing year. She started to tan from all the time spent out in the sun, and her once light skin was now much darker. She had outgrown the days of elementary school uniforms, and now tried to keep up with recent fashions. I stayed with her through it all.
I was fine with being ignored now, she had just turned 11, far too old for imaginary friends. I was fine with just being there. I watched her room change, moving from pink fluff and stuffed animals to art supplies, instruments, and expensive clothing. Every year seemed to involve a different hobby, a different activity, a different fashion. She was always on the move, and always involved. And then, she started getting sick. It started out with some stomach troubles.
She would sometimes stop what she was doing, to stop and clutch the throbbing pain in her stomach. It looked like she had gained weight, but her mother identified it as swelling. She stopped eating as much, often spending dinner picking at her food. When she was not curled up on her bed in agony, she was making frequent dashes down the hall to the bathroom, to lie on the floor and suffer. I tried to do everything to alert her parents to what was happening, but she never told them. She kept her pain and illness to herself, crying softly at night as she rode through the pain.
I knew these symptoms. I knew what was happening, I knew what was wrong. All of these had happened to my mother in the beginning, and everyone had thought she was pregnant. They had celebrated, hoping for another boy to join. But as symptoms continued, it became quite obvious that it was not a pregnancy. She had started to drop weight, and her health deteriorated at a hopelessly fast speed. I watched it all happen again in my little angel, watched her suffer through the same things.
It took too long, but her parents finally noticed. She was rushed to the doctor, and the disease was quickly identified. Ovarian Cancer rang through the air at night, as her parents discussed in quiet whispers long after bedtime. Treatments and costs were discussed with lumps in throats and misty tears in eyes. I wanted to cry. I wanted to share their sad feelings about the cancer, the very thing that killed my mother. But I again found myself unable to shed a tear. As the family drove to the hospital for her treatments, I sat at home to wait for her return.
They did not come home until late that evening, and the girl could barely make it through the doorway. Her beautiful hair was chopped off to an incredibly short length, and her skin had a dreadfully pale undertone. Her father had to carry her up the stairs she used to be able to run down in seconds. He barely struggled with what little weight she had left, but he walked with his head down as if he was carrying thousands of pounds. He set the girl down on her bed, and shuffled away to join his wife for another tearful conversation in the family kitchen.
I sat there on the bed beside her, looking down at her sleeping face. She was barely breathing, her soft breaths wheezing deep within. I reached out to touch her face, but my hand slipped right through the skin. I yanked my hand back, face falling as I remembered. I cannot touch her, and I cannot comfort her. She would die like my mother, leave me behind. She would not be there to assist me, to complete me, to love me. There is a difference between being ignored and being left. Being ignored, I could handle. Being left, I could not stand it again. I could not stand someone I love leaving again.
I really did, I had to admit it to myself now. I loved this girl with all of what was left of my heart. She was the one who kept me smiling, kept me laughing, kept me believing. I may be nonexistent and unimportant to an entire world of people, but seeing her face made that fact no longer important to me. Her feelings were my own, I could not even feel without her there for me. The emotions washed over me, and I started to cry. Tears slipped down my face, but when they landed, no spot was left. I sobbed and sobbed, finally expressing my pain over her sleeping form.
The next morning came quickly, lighting up the room through the open curtains. Her skin had regained some color with sleep, put the pale pallor remained. I remembered my tears with surprised, trying to figure out how I had accomplished them. I had felt deep sadness at many points, but my tears were shed only for her. I could only cry when I felt I loved her. I could only show how I felt when the feeling was for the girl I loved. If my heart was still beating, it would beat for her. If I was still thinking, my thoughts would be about her. I wanted her to live.
She sat up, with some struggle, and I focused completely on her to make sure she was okay. She leaned back against her pillows, gasping for breath as she recovered from the strain. She swung her legs out like she wanted to get off the bed, but reconsidered it and realized that it was a bad idea and got fully back in her bed. A few minutes later, her mom came in with breakfast in bed. I moved back from the scene as her mother fussed over her, trying to make her as comfortable as possible. She checked for any signs of pain, and made sure her daughter ate every bite of food on the tray. You could see the worry in the woman’s eyes, the pain behind the calm expression. I could relate.
We continued this pattern for months, trips to the hospital every few weeks for treatments, and all of us waiting for signs of recovery. After chemotherapy started, her hair started to fall out. She would wake up to soft brown curls all over her pillow, and sometimes she would cry. Despite these small signs of upset, she did not stop fighting. She tried to walk, tried to run, tried to continue her life normally. The disease had started during the summer, so she soon had to go back to school. She was allowed to wear hats to cover her balding head, and after putting one on in the morning she would go to school with her head up high. She got better, to the relief of us all.
The happiest day was the day when they came back with an official notice that she was in remission. She was better, she was going to live. I was filled with happiness I had never known I could feel. I wanted to hug her, to let her know how much I loved her and how glad I was that she was better. But I could do none of those things. Her parents did it for her, hugging her until she finally told them she had had enough. That night was a party, with ice-cream and pizza, both things that I missed never having in life. I had one thing I could enjoy, and it was her smile.
For the first time in almost a year now, she was smiling. At 12 years old, she had the right to smile. It was just as beautiful now as it had been as a child, lighting up the room and lighting up my world. And she would continue to smile, she was better now. She would live, and I would be there with her. I would be there for every birthday, every celebration, every at home after graduation party. I would be kinda like a guardian angel. I smiled at the thought, watching the happy scene of family bonding. A girl and her parents, celebrating her now to be long life.
I had to suffer. Even after death, life found ways to spite me. Two years, two years of growing, living, and happiness. It was back, the cancer. This time, the parents rushed her to the hospital at the first signs. Our fears were coming to life, as she deteriorated quickly. Treatments were not working, and her condition went downhill faster than the doctors could control it. The cancer spread into her stomach, and traveled fast. We were told she would not live to her fifteenth birthday. My heart was struck cold.
I wanted her to live at least to 15. I wanted her to reach an age I never would, but she had to. I was there when she cried herself to sleep each night. I wanted to reach out and hold her, I wanted to wipe away her tears. I wanted to show her how much I loved her. But when I reached out, my hand went right through whatever I touched. I was just her imaginary friend, and I could not save her. Just like I could not save myself.
She passed quietly in her sleep, with me there beside her. I greeted her when she was released from her body, and soothed her immediate shock. She started to cry, her emotions still fresh within her. I reached out, and for the first time since my death, I put my hand on her shoulder. I pulled her into a hug, holding her while she sobbed. I was her shoulder to cry on, her strong arms to hold her, the one who was there for her. I whispered in her ear, finally told her what I had been dying to let her hear. I told her I loved her, and she hugged me in response. She accepted my words, sniffling and hanging on to me with all of her strength.
After what felt like mere minutes, a light blared from behind her. She looked scared, and grabbed my hand for protection. I turned her face to me, and reassured her with soft words. I led her forward, and I was able to go on into the afterlife. After years of being alone on earth, alone and unloved, I could go on. She loved me, she trusted me, and she cared for the one who was always there for her. Michael and Iris, truly together forever.