JM SCOTT - JUST ANOTHER DEAD GIRL

JM Scott lives in central Pennsylvania and has been writing stories and poems for more than twenty years. She recently earned her Master's of English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. In addition to freelance writing, JM is an independent author with books in fiction and poetry available on Kindle. 

Just Another Dead Girl 
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​They say when you die, you go to heaven or hell. Well that’s if you believe in that sort of thing.  Sometimes, you become a ghost and haunt a house or in my case a park. I don’t remember how I died. It’s like all that time before has vanished. Of course, I don’t remember a stupid light. Maybe I’m still here to earn some wings. And for whatever reason, I’m here at the park. My park. Other than being a little boring sometimes, being dead isn’t so bad. I have this freedom that I never had before. I can do what I want and no one can say differently. It is lonely. Sometimes, you just need someone else to talk to. And I don’t want to talk to druggies.  They used to use my park at night to shoot up and sell dope. No one comes here anymore. No one came here when I was alive either. It sits in the old section of town that was closed down because of unsafe ground or something like that.
     The park has a crater in the center. Long grassy slopes fall into the crater where there are some large boulders. I remember coming here and climbing all up and down the slopes and poking around the boulders. I guess the park was dangerous. I didn’t care. This was my special place, my refuge from the shitty world.
     I do a lot of nothing and see no one, but then she came. She’s about my age, or you know the age I was when I kicked the bucket. She’s tall with broad shoulders and a bit cushion for the pushin as my friends used to say. Her dirty blonde hair is more brown with vanilla streaks.  She sits on the rusty bench and lights a Camel light. I keep my distance, but watch her closely. Her eyes are red and puffy.  I drift to another tree and she reminds me of someone I used to know. But I couldn’t tell you who. These memories, the ones that I do have, they are bits. I remember coming here, but I can’t tell you about the people in my life. I can’t tell you how I died, but I can tell you the park in full detail. It’s not like you get an instruction manual for the afterlife- it’s not Beetlejuice.
     Then something hit me...
     Sitting on the bench, the only thing that isn’t broken. The paint is peeling and the arms rusty. I light a Marlboro light that I stole from my mother. I let the smoke enter my lungs and tickle every part until the rest of my body screams for fresh air. I exhale into the humid air.
      Lightning flashes in the distance. I am safe from the storm.  But I wish it would strike me. Maybe kill me. Maybe not kill me but  give me witchy powers. Then I can always have happiness. Darkness swells around me as crickets stopped chirping. What is that silence that disturbs you and suffocates you? The silence of death.
     I return to the world and the girl has left, leaving her smoke still smouldering on the cracked blacktop. I go over and inhale the burning tobacco, wishing I could feel that nicotine like I used to, but smelling it is the next best thing.
     Time when you are dead doesn’t exist. Not like it does for the living. I know when the sun rises and falls, I can see that. But sometimes, I get lost trying to remember something, a clue, to my death.  I have a tree that I spend all day picking off the bark in particular spots to notch time and seasons. But sometimes I forget to notch sunrises. Winters are easy because I notch at the first snow. I have been dead for seventeen winters, give or take. 
     When she comes back, I recognize her right away even though she has lost a lot of weight. She has added more vanilla highlights and it looks like she has twist ice cream hair.  There’s this faded memory of me trying to be anorexic. I made it three or four days before I went to Burger King and feasted. 
     From past experience, I know some people could see me. I scared all the druggies away by doing traditional ghost things like saying boo and moving objects.  No one was gonna be getting high and dealing at my park.
      There’s something so familiar about her. Burning cigarettes fill the air.
     I move from the trees and walk (float?) over to her. She’s looking at the ground, and in the faint moonlight, I see cuts on her arms. The air is silent around us.
      She inhales.  Then looks up. Her eyes are what people call doe-eyed wide and round like cookies.  I couldn’t figure out if she sees me or not.  I don’t want to frighten her.
     “Hi, nice evening isn’t it?” I ask. And that was a pretty dumb thing to say. But I didn’t have any other options other than, “You’re in my park” which sounded kind of bitchy. I didn’t want to be bitchy. I remember being called that a lot by my mother, whom I don’t really remember.
     “Are you real?” she asks with this renewed interest. She stands up and tries to touch me. Her warmness- her aliveness passes through my air space.
     “Well, as real as I can be” I said.
     Her eyes change to cloudy confusion, and then she takes off.
     “Wait!” I yell as I float after her. But she dashes up the hill. And as soon as I get to the edge of the path, I am pulled back like I was yanked off stage. That’s another thing, I always thought ghosts could go where they want. But no, here I am tethered to my park.
      I try keeping time again, and maybe three or five sunrises later. She comes back. I wait  until she sits on the bench and lights a smoke. Then I approach her. Should I  talk first? This girl, she is lonely. It emanates from her. It’s the same as how I  feel right now. Lonely and empty.
     “I won’t run,” she says and exhales, letting the smoke curl around her.
     I move closer.
     “Did it hurt?” she asks.
     “What?”
     “Death, Did it hurt when you died?”
     “I don’t remember.”
     “Why not?”
     “What do I look like? Am I thin and beautiful with wings?”
     She frowns. “I don’t know nothing really. A blob of light like liquid moonlight.”
     That was rather poetic and familiar.
     “What’s your name?” she asks.
     “I don’t remember.”
     “Lamest ghost ever.”
     “Blow the smoke my way, it’s been a long time since I had a smoke.”
     She complies.
     “What’s your name?” I ask.
     “Stacy. Why, you going to haunt my house.”
     “No, but maybe you could help me.”
     “What do you need wings or something? Look find someone else. I’m a lost cause.”
     “I don’t believe that.”
     Actually, I sort of did. I know that feeling. It haunts me. A lost cause. These fragments that swirl inside my thoughts are always of the same thing. And maybe that’s why I’m still here. I, too, am a lost cause. Maybe we could be lost causes together.
     “I could use a friend,” I say. 
     Her face scrunches up and says, “A friend? What for? When you need them they’re never around. They’re always too busy.”
     Then another fragment of memory hit me.
     Lunch with my friends at school. Except I am sitting by myself and had been for the last few weeks. Everyone has paired up with someone else except me. They try to include me, but I don’t get along with the guys and the one girl.
     I write furiously in my large sketchbook. I hate myself. I’m no good. Someone calls for me on the phone, and it’s not a friend because where are they when I need them. No, it’s Jona, my sister and she’s staying out tonight.  Beside the phone is a stack of applications- Burger King, Taco Bell, and the Dollar General.  No doubt, Mom has left  them for me. She’s been on me for months now to get a job to help pay the bills. I crumple them up and throw them away. Why can’t anyone understand that I’m too good for minimum wage jobs? Sure it works for Jona, but she's on track to be a manager at Auto Zone when she graduates. She isn’t going to college, I am though. I have to get out of here. I’m better than this. I want to be better than this.
     My mother comes home and complains because dinner is dry. It’s her fault that she was two hours late. The fridge makes things dry. I wish this all would end. I wish I could be free. Once she is settled online with her internet boyfriends, I creep out of the house and head to my park. There is distant thunder and crickets fall silent.
     When I return back to the real world, again she’s gone. Now she probably thinks I’m a flake. Flake- that’s what my friends called me. It was a term of endearment or at least it was supposed to be. Cassidy (the name is familiar but I can’t conjure her face) gave me that name. What is my real name? I felt like if I knew that I would know a lot more.
     Stacy returns (two nights? a week?) nights later. Her eyes are watery and bloodshot. There are fresh cuts on her arm. She lights a smoke.
     “Why do you that?” I ask coming from behind her.
     “Why have I never seen you before?”
     “Maybe I’m supposed to help you or whatever.”
     “Sure, lost cause remember?” She says and it sounds like she’s in a good mood. I don’t think cutting could make anyone happy.
     “Why do you that?”
     “What cut?”
     She tosses her burning cigarette in my direction. The warmth and the smoke mix with my being and goes out.
     “It’s my body, isn’t it? I can do whatever I want. Anyway it’s not like anyone cares.”
     “I care.”
     “You don’t count.  You’re dead.”
     “You can think of me like a shrink you don’t have to pay for.”
     “You think I’m crazy?”
     “No, just need someone to talk to.”
     “You’ve probably been dead for what a hundred years.  You would have no idea.”
     “I’m pretty sure it’s been 17 years.”
     “So you’re useless. My Aunt Shallot died in this park 16 years ago, before I was born. So why didn’t you help her?”
     “Who?” Shallot. That name- it’s familiar. I know it. But how?  Stacy ignores my question. Then I say, “I don’t know.”
     “I wish she was here. My mom kept her stuff all these years. I read her journals and all, she would’ve understood me,” Stacy says.   
     “I don’t know how to be helpful, so what if I sit next to you and you can talk if you want but keep smoking. I need to smell it.”
     “Whatever floats your boat down the River Styx.”
     Stacy appears days later.  The sky flashes orange and yellow and thunder slides across the clouds. I always loved thunderstorms, but since I’ m a ghost (or a liquid moonlight blob) lightning makes me stronger, like I downed four Red Bulls in five minutes. It starts to rain.
     “Where were you for the last three weeks?” she screams at me.
     “I’m always here.”
     “No. No, you’re not. I came here to talk and you were nowhere.” Lightning strobes. Rain begins to fall harder.
     “I’m here now, talk to me,” I say.
     “Leave me alone.”
     “Talk to me. I can be your friend.”
     “Leave me alone!” Stacy says and throws a rock at me.
     “Stacy,” I say, but thunder overpowers my voice. Lightning strikes me. Electricity ripples through my being.
     The park is my refuge. I smoke the cigarettes I stole from Mom, while lazy rain starts to fall. Someone walks down the gravel path. He is  probably in his twenties, tweaking out. Hey can I bum a smoke he says as he sits next to me. I have three left but I figure I can share. I give him a smoke and he lights up.
      You sure are pretty. I don’t say anything. Then his hand reaches my hair. Didn’t you hear me, I said you sure are pretty. Yeah. I heard you, just got nothing to say. I should run home. I should go away. But he is harmless, deep down inside I know better. Then we are fighting he is on top of me, lightning flashes beside the park thunder crashes one right after another. It’s raining hard and the wind is blowing debris. Pain in the face, over and over. Hands around my neck.  I don’t want to die. Yeah, I’ve thought about, but I didn’t really want to die. It was a lie.  What is that silence that disturbs you and suffocates you? The silence of death.
      I peel from my body. In the lightning, I see my face bloodied. The tweaker gets up and screams oh shit, oh shit. And runs into the woods.  I stay there watching my body, trying to get back in. Nothing works. Days went by before the  police come. By now, I’m already decaying. Why did it take that long? And in the distance, two police are holding back Jona. She is crying and screaming. Shallot.
     I return to this world expecting Stacy to be gone. But no, she is  still here bleeding from her wrists, sprawled on the bench. She must have done it while I was remembering. Why did she do this? I want to help her.  Lightning and thunder crash around us.
     “Stacy, wake up.”
     She had cut her wrists horizontally. There’s still hope. Her phone peeks from her flannel shirt pocket. I have to save her life.  This has to be my way out- up or down. 
     Gathering up all the energy I have, I ram into the black phone case.  It’s small in here and electricity flows around me. Data bombards and disorients me like too many times on the Dizzy Dragons. I have no idea what to do and start screaming 9-1-1 and pushing the backward  buttons. Finally, something happens. The phone lights up.
     “ 9-1-1. Is this an emergency?” the operator says.
     I scream help over and over. But nothing works.
     “Are you okay? Is this the current location? Is anyone there?”
     I scream help. I hear it, but it’s distant and staticy.
     “Police are coming. Please stay on the line.”
     I can’t keep it up anymore. All that extra juice the lightning gave me is fading fast. I force myself back into the world. Sirens break over the distant thunder. I retreat to the trees. Two cops rush over to her. One calls for an ambulance and the other starts first aid on the wounds. The last time I see Stacy, the ambulance workers had  her on a stretcher, wrapped in a blanket.   
     Days later, I was doing my ghost thing, you know trying to remember more stuff and figure out how to leave here, when a woman in her thirties or forties walks down the gravel path. She has a skirt and nice shirt on, like an office girl.  It’s Jona. Stacy looks just like her.
     “I think it’s you Shallot, out here somewhere. It has to be,” Jona says and lays small bouquet of flowers on the bench.
     The sun is much too bright, and I hope it is that light I’ve been waiting for.
     I stand in front Jona, but she sees through me. I try to speak, but my voice is distant. The sun must be overpowering my puny ghost energy.
     “Thanks for saving Stacy. I don’t how or why, but she’s going to be okay. I love you Shallot.  I should’ve come home that night I stayed out.”
     “It’s okay,” I scream.
     Jona wipes her tears and starts back up the path.
     “Why am I still here? Why can’t I just be dead for good?” I scream into the park.
     Nothing answers. I don’t want to be a ghost anymore. I want my angel wings. I want something more than this park. I want to be alive again.