AFTERMATH
Word Count: 353
I told them that I saw Russell’s face in all my dreams. That like a wax doll he shows up at a party right in the middle of a living room. He’s sitting on the couch. A death mask, white and hardened, eyes closed. No one talks to him. They told me if I didn’t think I was ready to take the finals I could take them the following week. Would that be better? Yes, it would. I hadn’t studied.
The first time I saw Russell was at the wake before the funeral. He was the older brother of my friend Janice who had been the driver. Four of us went together to the service to see her and according to the school counselors, to bring closure. He didn’t look like her at all, red hair flaming against the white satin pillow. Hers is blackish-brown. He didn’t look real. His hands looked like a mannequin’s, wound together in rosary beads. He’d been killed instantly. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t smiling.
I told them that I saw him screaming. That he wanted something from me and I didn’t know what. It wasn’t true. He only came back when I closed my eyes and tried hard to remember what he looked like.
Janice didn’t finish out the semester. We lost touch over the summer. I wondered if she had nightmares of the dark road being swallowed up by her car. I started having bad dreams of speeding down a road and hitting a tree head-on. I’ve been by the place where Russell died, still marked with the dried flowers and melted candles and goodbye notes that aren’t readable anymore.
I think of Russell a lot. I want to know him better. I reread the obituaries I’ve cut out. The prayer folder from the service. He had been home on leave for a few days. He’d been a basketball star in college. His picture shows him smiling and his eyes are bright and friendly. I think we would have dated, fallen in love, maybe even gotten married. Our kids would have had red hair.
you’re getting back in touch with your dark side. this time it’s tinted red. great piece. love the open, suggestive ending. great way to connect for the reader.
I think the last two stories are coming from a dark side in all of us and probably scare off most readers for that reason; our tendency to personalize death. To make it about ourselves and how it will affect us. We face our own mortality when someone dies. People are embarrassed to admit that, or their fear.
Wow, very nice. Exquisite details. The concept is great, it gives a new meaning to the term, ‘love at first sight.’
Lines like, “He didn’t look real. His hands looked like a mannequin’s, wound together in Rosary beads,” really sends home the imagery for me. Very nice.
Thank you, Jonathan. It’s all sort of metaphorical for our own egos and fears.