Email: asamoya_
Disclaimer: It's mine. All mine. And if you steal it... well, damn you, plagiarizer!
Author's Notes: I did this for my Writing class and received 10/10 (although I'm not trying to brag... no, really!). Just thought I'd post it up. Well, here goes nothing, I guess.

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The Girl With The Black Velvet Hat
by Carolyn Ann Snow

He was dead. Just like that. There had been no warning; nobody had seen any signs. It was too like a movie script for the idea of his death to seem plausible. A handsome, bright young man with seemingly everything to live for had come into contact with a negative circumstance that he'd never experienced before. His depression had overwhelmed him and, not knowing how to deal with the newfound pain, he'd written a suicide note and proceeded to kill himself. How he'd done it would be irrelevant in the film world, but the reason would usually have had something to do with friends, family, or someone he loved. Oh, yes, his death had been a classic Hollywood tragedy in every way- with a twist. You see, he was not depressed over his mother, his best friend, nor even a girl. No, no, it was the person he'd loved with all his heart, the boyfriend who had dumped him just days before, that had caused him so much pain. Enough pain that he felt he had to die, had felt some dire, desperate need to steal his father's shotgun and pull the trigger.

So what could be any worse than that, you ask?

That boyfriend was me.

I raised my eyes for a moment, gazing quickly around the room I was sitting in. Though it was a sticky, 20-degree August afternoon, the people that surrounded me were dressed in long black skirts, dress pants, heavy woolen sweaters, thick jackets, velvet hats that completely covered their hair... anything dark and depressing. The faces in the room were somber; the voices sounded veiled, hushed, as if a laugh or a word spoken aloud would break every windowpane. Some of the eyes were glazed with tears, some black with ire, and still others dull and seemingly apathetic as they roamed the many grieving faces that blended together in the place. Some of the forms sat upright in the hard, uncomfortable chairs that lined the room, such as the one I had taken refuge in, but many others were crowded around the horrible-looking white box at the head of the room. The casket. His body was there for that group of damned fools to gawk over, to shed a tear over, and occasionally even to kiss or touch as a gesture of good wishes. I couldn't see what good kissing a cold corpse would do anybody, and certainly not what it would do for James Adams. James was dead; if he had a "spirit," it was gone to that so-called afterlife in an unplotted point among the stars. It was my fond belief that he was just dead. He couldn't see what was going on anymore… what good was it to give well wishes to a person after they were gone? These people were convinced that they could somehow atone for past transgressions through touching a mass of dead human cells. Idiots, all of them.

There was a part of me that did feel sorry, that felt horribly guilty and hurt because I had played a part in bringing about James' death. But above that was an emotion much more likely to make itself known to the world before the day was through... anger. It was a bitter, searing, raging anger that tore up my innards as I crouched on that hard, uncomfortable seat, struggling to keep my face expressionless. It took a superhuman effort not to leap to my feet, to run around the room in a mad screaming fit and rip the place apart. I was angry at what I had done to James, what James had done to himself... and I was especially angry at the imbeciles who pretended to grieve over his lifeless corpse. Grief? Their "grief" was a sham. Nobody really knew what grief was. Not even James' mother, who was sitting in a corner and bawling her eyes out. I would have loved to go over and slap some sense into her. But yet... yet that wasn't really what I wanted, either. Everything in my head was jumbled, blurred, confused. The thoughts groggily sloshed about in that pit I called my brain; they were drowning in there, and the lifeboats had disappeared in an empty void somewhere beyond the horizon. It appeared, then, that I was stuck with my own conscience, my own fears, my own emotions. I supposed there was no real way to escape it.

I allowed the tidal wave of rage to roar through my brain, allowed it to pound my skull from the inside out until at last it ebbed, then slowly began to recede… for now. I had no doubt that it would return to claim me again. But for the moment, at least, I could let my mind roam freely. Today it decided to take a path trodden nearly to dust of late- memories of days past, when James and I had still been together. I could see that beautiful, gleaming white smile once again, the smile that made the sunlight of the summer day reflect from his teeth; those glimmering sapphire eyes, so bright and vivid and full of unuttered laughter and mirth; the long, shaggy dark hair that I'd always teased him about, because it grew so quickly that it could never be kept in check. A gorgeous July sunset was behind him, casting rays of pink and gold on his tanned skin and highlighting his facial features as he gazed upon me, a look of trust, gentleness, loving tenderness. His chuckle rang through the still air, the sound echoing through my brain as if it had happened yesterday, and then, suddenly, his ghost in my memory turned towards me with an unreadable expression on his face. He moved his face towards mine, and I felt his lips softly brush my own...

I shook myself internally, and nearly shook my head in reality. I couldn't let myself get to thinking about things like that- it only conjured up more bittersweet remembrances, more old feelings that, due to my rather chaotic mental state at the moment, I just couldn't deal with. I had a hunch that very soon my emotions would literally begin to drive me crazy. Emotions, emotions… saviors and living hells, powers and weaknesses, life and death. The saying went that life and death was in the power of the tongue, but I begged to differ- I believed that life and death was in the power of emotions. That much was proven when James died. If it hadn't been for his love for me, he wouldn't be lying in that horribly uncomfortable-looking coffin, dressed in the white suit he had asked to be buried in. He'd been planning to wear it to his first prom the next year. My prom.

I buried my face in my hands.

"Are... are you okay?" I jumped, then looked into the face of the girl who had addressed me. She smelled faintly of perfume, and her blonde hair was curled and poked underneath another of those black velvet hats. The expression on my face must not have been a pleasant one, because she hesitated just a moment before speaking again.

"I'm... I'm sorry to intrude on your grief, but... you just looked so alone." The words hit a chord somewhere inside me, and I could feel the barriers of steel begin to crumble at the simple, pleasant voice of a girl I did not recognize, had never seen before. Amazing, still, how susceptible even a man like myself, who had no desire for women, could be to the words of the opposite sex. Perhaps it was just her nature. She was soft, unassuming, maybe even a little insipid... yet she had reached out to me. She had gone where nobody else dared to tread. I had to admire her courage.

"No, it's all right, I'll be okay," I heard myself say aloud. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me." She was a little surprised, and the way her pale pink lips curled did not quite conceal what she felt, but she simply gave me a brisk nod and drifted off to another section of the floor.

Suddenly my senses seemed to open up completely for the first time. Funny how I hadn't noticed that the smell of the room was so strong before this moment. It was the scent of a just-beginning-to-rot human body, a scent that permeated the air and pulsed against my nostrils, filling every crevice of space with that god-awful stench. I resisted the urge to gag.

I took another glance at the smooth, white metal plating that lined James' final resting place. Nobody was by his coffin. From the place where I was sitting, James' face was just out of my view. For some reason, this irritated me. In fact, it irritated me that nobody was touching the corpse, kissing the corpse, whispering fair passage to that exanimate body. I couldn't give any good reason why this should annoy me so, but it did. And, the way I saw it, the only method of correcting the problem was to go up there myself and take my first look at the body. Much as I loathed the thought, I would do it... for James. Perhaps, in some small way, it could help make things right between us. And I had to admit... if it had been me lying in that coffin, he would have done the same for me. And, well, give what you get or would have gotten- that's what I said. It was only fair, wasn't it?

I rose from my chair, the fabric of my clothing clinging stubbornly to the legs of the seat for a moment, and I walked slowly towards the coffin with my head lowered. I stepped onto the raised platform where the casket was and walked to the open end, still without raising my head. I swallowed, then raised my hands a little and saw that they were trembling. I shook myself inwardly once more, vehemently this time, and willed myself to have a little courage. James wouldn't have been scared. James would have stared at a corpse all day if there had been some need to do so. This thought in mind, I squared my shoulders and finally raised my head to look at the body.

I hadn't exactly expected something pleasant, but what I saw in the coffin below me nearly made me gasp aloud in horror. James' skin was such a pale white that it was almost translucent, and his body was absolutely still, more still than I'd ever seen it. More than anything, James had always been exuberant, full of energy... completely and gloriously alive. Well, he certainly wasn't that anymore. His eyes were closed in their eternal sleep, and his white hands were folded around his prized set of crystal rosary beads- he had been a Christian of much faith. I almost wished for a faith stronger than atheism as I looked down at his unmoving form, despair and sorrow beginning to well inside me. This body that lay before me... it wasn't James. James had never looked like that; even his hair was different. I peered more closely, and suddenly I put a hand to my mouth, suppressing vomit. I could see the place where they'd pulled the hair unnaturally close to his scalp, in an attempt to cover the place where they'd stitched him up... the place where he'd shot himself. I turned my head away, a mix of indescribable emotions cascading over me until I thought I'd burst if I couldn't let them out somehow.

"James..." I blurted in a whisper. "James... I'm so sorry for what I did to you... I'm so sorry..."

Suddenly, my eyes were burning like somebody had poured vinegar over them. I blinked furiously, but my vision was blurring, everything around me becoming strangely distorted. After another moment, I felt a splash of something drop onto the front of my shirt. I touched it with my finger. It was a tear. Another one fell, then another, and then a strange, weirdly high wail cut through the stillness of the room. It took a few seconds for me to realize that it had come from my own throat. I managed to hold it all in for another moment, but then I put my face in my hands and began to sob, not knowing or caring who heard anymore.

In that stormy burst of tears I let everything out, released all the emotions that had been taunting me since the day I had learned of James' death. In doing so I reminded myself of a little child who couldn't find his mother; the sounds escaping me were the most desperate, plaintive kinds of blubbering. But even as a tiny demon in the back of my brain chuckled at my own weakness, something better and deeper was overpowering it, coming closer to the surface with each drop of moisture that spilled down my cheek. It made me feel a little freer, more in control, like I was finally becoming the victor in a long and difficult battle against my own mind.

Just as the tears were starting to come a little more slowly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, and there, standing in front of me with tears in her own eyes, was the girl with the black velvet hat that had come to me not ten minutes before. She leaned over and gently hugged me, and fresh drops welled in my eyes. This kindness she had shown me... it was not unlike the unconditional love that James had had for me when we'd been together. I didn't even know the girl's name, and yet she was willing to reach out to me, comfort me in my time of need. Just as James would have done.

Just like James.

My thoughts began to race without warning, each person, each object becoming flashes of light, zooming around in some dark cavern, lighting the insides of my shadowed mind. The face of the girl appeared in my own head, that black hat tipped over her velvet curls, but this time she was grinning, laughing. I saw, too, that brilliant white smile of James', the day's sunlight reflecting from his teeth as it always did. James' smile, the grin of this strange girl… they were one and the same. White upon black, love upon a suicide, a dear friend upon the bed of a casket. And all of a sudden, I knew, without really knowing how I was so certain of the fact, that everything was going to be okay. I wouldn't feel guilty and sad forever, James really was gone to a better place, and that *certainly* wasn't really him lying limp and lifeless in that tight little box. No, James was somewhere in an unplotted points amidst the stars, dancing in blazing balls of fire, basking in sunshine in the depths of the deepest black holes, using an asteroid as a rocket ship to do battle in the middle of a temporal anomaly. Yes, he was out there somewhere... and I would join him when my time on Earth was finished.

But for now, in the comforting, warm arms of this girl with the blonde curls, I was crying. Happy tears, sad tears, tears of beauty and longing and despair... they were all mixed together. They were tears for myself, for James, for the strange girl, for the world, for the universe that lay far beyond my grasp. Or perhaps... perhaps the universe was in the palm of my hand, waiting for me to reap the wonders of its bountiful harvest. I smiled through a face streaked with tears.

And far above my head, somewhere in the heavens, James was lying in front of a gorgeous July sunset, waiting patiently for his love to return to him once more.

~*~