Awakening

She was drifting, in between. It was black with white lights, or maybe the other way round. Then suddenly consciousness shoved itself upon her and she jerked into the real world slowly but fast, just as coming to the surface of water had been. Opening her eyes she discovered she was in a hospital, lying on a bed. Deciding she’d sit up, Minuet Andrews did so, noticing that her parents were conferring with a doctor and her brother was sitting in a chair by her bed, holding her hand and talking to her about things she couldn’t hear.

Expecting a shock from her parents at her sudden recovery, she looked behind her. “Oh,” Minuet said, put off. Her body lay behind her. Rising, she thought she’d be going to heaven of somewhere with the likes of those characteristics, when she was suddenly thrown violently back down, unable to penetrate the roof, even. Blinking, minuet floated down to the table and sat in her body. Strange thoughts passed through her as she tried in vain to attract the Andrews’ attention. The ghost had expected the result: nothing, and resigned herself to an eternity of floating after her family and descendants.

Her parents straggled home in a trance, her brother trailing behind them. The car ride was boring and as they stumbled through the front door, submitted themselves to a week of planning for their daughter’s funeral. Useless questions such as, “Should we cremate her or bury her?” and “Will her friends want to come?” escaped them as her family drifter through week after week.

Then the day of the funeral dawned bleak and cloudy. The Andrews dressed and ate in silence; only the chink of metal on glass and the drizzle of rain on the roof could be heard. Gathering their things, the mother ushered them out the door, down the steps and into the car.

On arrival, Minuet couldn’t help but notice the shear beauty of the place, regardless of the rain. She stared in wonder at the big church and the gardens that lay around the side and up the back. Beauteous roses of white, yellow, pink and red bloomed forth from bushes lining the paths that wound in and around the trees and benches. Drifting around the garden for some time, she gazed around her, breathing in the floral scents and perfumes that glittered in the air.

Caught in mid-sniff, Minuet was hurled back to her mother’s side as the first of her friends began to arrive. Stationed at the church’s door, her mother on one side and her father on the other, her parents greeted their guests with a subdued air, nodding and shaking hands with the occasional kiss on the cheek and muttered exchanges that were always to low for Minuet to catch.

Leah got out of her red Mini Cooper, wearing a black mini-dress with black skinny jeans underneath and a black belt with a big silver clasp decorated with diamantes. White gold hoops dangled from her ears and a tiny diamond in her nose, winked in the sunlight. Her normally uncontrollable honey gold hair, curled elegantly to her shoulders with black ribbons braided into it. Despite outer appearances, Leah was the picture-perfect image of grief, her face told it all as Minuet stared into her soul through her stormy blue-grey eyes
and saw the sadness eat her within.

Letti was next, stretching one of her long legs out of the car, the beautifully lanky Lebanese emerged in a simple black dress, heels and her infamous silver bangles with her long, wavy locks cascading gracefully from her crown to her waist like ink the colour of burnt umber. Her physical appearance, unlike Leah’s, showed more distinct signs of grieving, tears marked her face as her round black eyes looked sadly up to Minuet’s mother. No words were spoken as she ushered Letti inside the church.

The squeal of brakes sounded and Kelly attracted the attention of every person inside and outside the church. There was a shuffling as people in the church turned to see her face the same flaming red as her hair, she leapt out the car, up the steps and into the ladies’ quicker than you can blink. Minuet only caught a flash of her long-sleeved, knee-length dress and shiny black slippers disappear through the door. No one saw her mother slip quietly out of the car and into the restroom after her because the next arrival was already here.

By this time, people the comfort of the church’s hard wooden pews to see what was unmistakably becoming a show of the arriving seventeen and eighteen-year-olds. Jess flowed silently and stealthily out the car with no embarrassing moments eating her open. Her large, drop-of-the-hips trousers dropped straight to the ground and left her exceptionally muscled legs from view while the grey lace crossover on top of the simple black singlet showed her well built frame subtlety. She walked comfortably up to Minuet’s father and he kissed her on the cheek, she moved onto Minuet’s mother and kissed her on the cheek before vanishing into the church and gravitating towards Leah, Letti and Kelly.

Brit was last, flinging herself from the car in a flurry of black lace and fabrics. The designer’s long blonde, dead straight hair was perfected by newly applied platinum blonde and honey blonde highlights and black bow set on the side. Her frock-like black dress fell to her mid-thigh and appeared to be light and layered. Silver glittered in her ears and on wrists and fingers.

What was left of the guests outside trailed slowly but steadily inside and placed themselves comfortably on the pews. Minuet’s friends were clustered near the front, some speaking, some staring silently ahead at the coffin resting on the table or the altar beside it.

The church was decorated with garlands and bouquets of white roses and black drapes hanging from doorways and walls. On the opposing side of the altar, a stand draped in black and bearing a recent photograph and nameplate of Minuet as well as white roses and white ribbon.

Reverend Thompson stepped up to the altar and raised his hands to the ceiling; a middle-aged man with white-grey hair, empty grey eyes and wrinkles running lines down his face. He called for quiet and began the first prayer. Not for the first time, Minuet found herself wishing she weren’t a Christian. As the reverend droned on, Minuet scanned the people gathered there, finding tears glistening on almost everyone’s cheeks. The salty droplets flowed gracefully down her mother’s face as her father caressed her in silence, massaging her shoulders with soothing hands.

The ceremony finished after a series of speeches from her parents, with her brother standing next to them, sniffing occasionally, and Letti and Leah. Guests seemed to float to the double doors like metal to magnets, snivelling and occasionally speaking. Minuet didn’t know what to do with herself, so she went home in the car and drifted through the front door, not really thinking about anything in particular. As she watch her family mourn more, crying and cringing, they pass through the days. She would stumble upon her mother, weeping softly in her room as she folded clothes.

It’s so depressing, being dead, she thought. I can’t keep watching my family and friends half kill themselves because I’m gone.

She spent years doing that very thing. She saw her friends graduate, heading in their different directions, her brother became a football star and her parents grew old with each other. Although none of them grieved forever, they always seemed to be holding something back, not trying to the fullest, not finishing the best, not letting go completely.

The time passed quickly and slowly in equal measures. One day would be gone the minute the sun rose and the next would crawl by, slower than a snail. Minuet learned to drift, letting go of everything around her, but not to the point of forgetting her self and her soul and the reason why she was still her, still waiting. That she didn’t know. She only knew that she closed her eyes to the world on January 19th, 1995, and did not remember opening them, until 2204, and found she was hovering above some teacher, with her legs submerged in his body, although he’d never know. No, the current predicament of her position regarding the teacher made no difference to her in the slightest. What surprised her, was the seventeen-year-old boy, staring back at her as though he could see her.

Impossible! Her sensible self scoffed. Completely and utterly impossible!