Bit of the first chapter I wrote for my NaNoWriMo novel. Which I stopped writing, for now, but have every intention to continue again.
It wasn’t every day that you get to see your own grave. Then again, he didn’t think that it was an experience that most would relish to have. It was raining, of all inane things to happen, and the sky was dark to make the atmosphere have a suitably horror movie-esque feel to it. The thought made his lips twist in a wry smile because God, wasn’t that ever appropriate. He stood vulnerable under the unease of Mother Nature with nary an umbrella in sight to give him protection. Then again, Sheldon supposed that it would be moot, what with him being dead and all.
Fingers trailed over cold stone, numb and wrinkled from the chill of wet clothes clinging onto skin even while the letters carved into the gravestone burnt itself onto his retina:
Sheldon Michael Darcy
1982 – 2007
Beloved son and brother
You will be missed.
Sheldon felt the familiar tickle of hysterical laughter at the back of his throat, his eyes stinging so that he was unsure whether the wetness on his cheeks was merely caused by the rain, or also by tears. Beloved son? Whose? A philandering father who was too busy enjoying his separation from his frigid, Catholic wife by sleeping with as many nubile young women as possible? Or the said frigid Catholic mother who was so embittered by her husband that she turned all that rage, all that misplaced religion and
buried him in it? The same mother that had declared that he was not her son after she had found out his interest in other men? Lies, all lies. Even his brothers had abandoned him after their parents separated, moving away and neither hide nor hair was seen of either of them for years.
He had no one, no one that he would call his kith or kin, no one who had given a rat’s arse about him, not since he left home at sixteen. He’d given up on such simple-minded hope and built his kingdom with his own two hands. Granted, it wasn’t much of a kingdom yet, but all that mattered was that it was his, and he owed it to no one. He’d taken pride from that thought, pride that he supposed was cold comfort now that it didn’t matter anymore. There were no flowers on his grave, no woman or man weeping for the loss of him. Only cold emptiness, awful loneliness. And the ghost of himself, thinking back on his life and regret bitter and vile on his tongue.
He sank to his knees, uncaring for once in a long time about mud stains on his black jeans. His fingers delved slowly, almost with a morbid sense of reverence, into wet soil. He halted when it had gone in halfway to his knuckles, imagining the body under all that earth and wood reaching up to the touch of a soul somehow given body and corporeal form. Then his hand fisted, catching a handful of earth before his body shook. Sheldon’s forehead fell almost as slowly as a drifting feather onto the freshly turned earth of his grave, felt the rain sliding water on him, around him,
through him and thought that the body buried six feet under would at least be buried with a touch of him. It was only right, after all. It was him under there, wasn’t it?
He didn’t hear the approach of the figure, wouldn’t have anyway through the sound of whistling wind and lashing rain, and the warning grumble of thunder in the sky. No, it was more of an awareness, a prickle in his scalp, goosebumps on the hologram of his life-filled flesh that made him aware of the person who stopped just short of his grave, not saying a word. Sheldon knew who it was, though. Who else would do such a thing as to stand under the fury of a building storm without the protection of an umbrella? There was no telltale sound of rain beating against canvas, so he was sure. That, and the acrid scent of smoke mixing with rain and mud answered him. The figure didn’t speak, though, just waited as Sheldon’s body shuddered, breath deep in an attempt to even itself out. Even in death, Sheldon had his pride. It was one of his lesser vices.
“I thought I said I wanted to be alone,” he managed to croak out, voice hoarse from disuse. He felt the toe of a boot kick lightly at his foot, then again as he ignored it.
“I gave you an hour,” a man’s voice answered him, a voice that was deep and gruff, husky like he’d smoked two packs a day for the past ten years, warm bite like whiskey. “Get up, your face is probably muddy.” Sheldon laughed humourlessly at that, despair tingeing the sound. But his voice when he spoke was tired, low. So much so that he wondered if it was unheard over the thunder.
“Oh leave me alone. Haven’t you bothered me enough?”
“Difficult to do that, seeing as how I’m supposed to be your guide.” Irritation clouded the voice, made him know that he wasn’t exactly priority one in the man’s life. Man… hah. He looked enough like a man, that was fact. He wasn’t, though. The entire situation was ludicrous enough that Sheldon would have laughed and thought that he was part of some big cosmic prank, if it wasn’t for the fact that he
remembered dying. He remembered how time seemed to slow down as he noticed the approaching car, too fast too stop, too quick for him to move away. He remembered the pain upon impact, how it had shattered his bones, thrown his body several feet, the dull thud of his head against concrete and the warm ooze of blood quickly pooling to soak at his clothes. He remembered the difficulty of breathing, on of his bones puncturing his lungs so that each breath was a difficult, wet gasp. Mostly, he remembered how clear and yet far away he had felt, agonizingly aware of slipping consciousness behind a red haze of pain. The kick at his foot pulled him rudely from his memories and he turned his head, glaring at the man. At Death. Azrael.
He was tall, very tall. In Sheldon’s limited experience with taller-than-average human beings, he would have placed Azrael at almost 7’0”, if Azrael hadn’t corrected him and said that in human terms, he was 6’6”. Sheldon himself wasn’t short, he was at least past the 6’0” boundary by about an inch or so, but he felt dwarfed in the face of Azrael’s height and rangy strength. Sheldon was slender, toned only from jogging and tennis that he played at least twice a week. Azrael looked like some kind of ancient warrior who built his strength in battles and wars. It always disgruntled him to look up at Azrael, since that was rarely so. Many assumed that he would be slighter than his real height, due to his slenderness, the pretty features his childhood had seen matured into a beautiful face that stopped both men and women alike. It was a gift and a curse, his face, and he had learnt to wield it like the finest weapon.
“Please,” he whispered, knowing how pathetic he looked,
using how pathetic he looked. He didn’t know if Angels felt as humans did, but it didn’t hurt to try. Azrael, however, seemed unmoved. “Please, just a little longer. I just want to…”
“It’s your own grave,” the angel said, bluntly. “If it were family or a lover’s, I’d understand. I won’t be tolerant to a bit of Narcissistic self-pity, so just get your arse up and move. We’ve already wasted enough time.” He almost didn’t see it, Sheldon was so fast. But superior reflexes saw him dodging the bit of dirt before it hit him square between the eyes. He felt a bit of admiration at the man’s aim, before it was squashed down by temper. “Now, that wasn’t very nice. And look what you’ve done, you’ve desecrated your own grave.”
“I just
died!” Sheldon shouted. He had pushed himself to his knees, and now got to his feet unsteadily, propping himself up on his gravestone. “I just got fucking hit by a stupid drunk driver who didn’t even have any decency to stop and call a goddamn ambulance. No, I had to lie in that goddamn road and feel myself
bleed to death. It was utter shite and now you want me to move on, whoo hoo hello my afterlife? When my body’s lying six feet underground with a headstone that’s spewing utter tripe about loving family and being missed and having been blessed by a man from a religion I don’t even goddamn believe in? Fuck you!” He whirled around, stomping away with his blood boiling in his veins. Stupid angels, stupid afterlife, stupid…
everything. He was only 25 years old, his life had barely started, his career was just beginning and now… Oh god.
He felt his legs give way and he fell to his knees, sobbing. A man who had not shed a real tear in years felt despair crushing down on him. His body shuddered with the force of his sobs and he could dimly hear Azrael’s footsteps, could practically taste his awkwardness as he shifted on his feet, discomfort like bile in the air, so that he choked with it as he gasped in now-unneeded breath. Lightning flashed, illuminating gravestones, trees, the grass in stark relief. He closed his eyes, tried to breathe in, grasped desperately at control. When he opened them again, the next flash of lightning illuminated finely cut features, a surprisingly full and generous mouth, a figure strangely dry and untouched by rain. Azrael, his mind provided him with the name.
Death. Closer than ever before and beautiful, eerily so.
