Fragments of Life: Loss and the Supernatural

February the 8th is the date carved on the tombstone before me - the date when my best friend died, the date when it all turned to shit and my life tilted into the bizarre. It started as a slow transition, a direct response to my friend’s death. I’m sure of it.

Heavy with grief, I slump onto the nearest bench, rain plops on my skin. For a few moments, it’s just me and those drops - a thread hooking me back to life. But the thread is brittle, ready to snap and leave me disintegrating into nothingness.

I grip my hollow stomach, feeling how loose my trousers are against my skin. I trace the figure eight on my arm, hoping to reassure myself that I can still feel something, that I still exist. My touch feels icy.

As a cloud passes, casting darkness on the cemetery, I zip up my jumper. Slowly, warmth murmurs through me, soothing the small tremblings in my chest, reminding me I still have a beating heart. But for what purpose?

Ghosts - I’d always hated the idea, rejected the notion that one day we could all become them. And up until now, I’d lived as if ghosts were nothing more than a tale, a distant threat like the idea of getting old when you’re just a kid. And now, faced with Tabetha’s death, my best friend, my only real friend, I find myself questioning. My body started to shift from a physical mass to an ephemeral essence. I shiver in the cold, misty air. I’d rather trade places with Tabetha. Being dead trumps being a ghost.

A spider scurries across the rugged surface of the bench. In an instant, she’s gone, swallowed by the foggy grass. Just like Tabetha - here one moment as we skipped up the steps of our new highschool, gone the next as I held her limp body, blood fleeing her. From an inhale, to an exhale, the world tilted from joy to misery, from safety to disaster, from life to death, from life to nothingness.

I still sob every night, reliving that day. I remember thinking that the tighter I held her, the more she’d know how much she meant to me, how much I’d loved her. As if the warmth of my body could soften the coldness taking over hers. That day changed me. Even now, with her buried beneath my feet, the memory of her blood’s scent still lingers, refusing to be forgotten. It had been untenable, like the smell of rusted iron from a cage you’d never want to be locked in - the cage of miserable helplessness where you’re stuck watching your friend whimper as life drains out of her. Help me, help me, she’d begged me, while I just closed my eyes and waited for her to die, my feet scarlet wet. What god forsaken mess.

The shot had been fatal - I knew it instantly. How could a kid orchestrating a school shooting become such a lethal sniper? How messed up was this world to turn him into a killer? To turn my best friend into a lifeless mass? She had just turned fourteen… 

We still hadn’t gotten our matching piercings, still hadn’t had time to go on first dates. I smile as I remember the day we’d made cutouts of Rihanna’s piercings whilst singing along her song ‘Stay’. God, how I wish she had. We would've gotten our piercings once we’d graduated by that place her brother had worked at. A tear rolls down my cheek.    

Yes, on February 8th, while Tabethah’s life slipped away, mine remained but soured like a rotting fruit. Pulsing with anger, I punch the bench. Again, I feel no resistance, nothing to contain my existence. Just like the other twenty six times, my fist just passed right through the bench. 

Damn it! Why is this happening to me? I can’t taste anything, I can’t smell anything - and now I can’t even touch things. I might be alive, but I’m losing myself. I am turning into a ghost.

I’ve run out of excuses for why I don’t finish my plate, why I don’t bother showering anymore. The small pleasures of life, like the smell of fresh flowers or my mother’s night cream are gone.

I close my eyes and my thoughts transport me back to a classroom conversation. From eight years ago. I can almost taste the chalk dust in the air. 

Madeleine, my classmate with shiny blond hair, once asked Mrs. Thompson, 'Can ghosts be saved?'

Mrs. Thompson had replied, 'Of course they can.' I remember the dissonance between her reassuring smile and the fear in her eyes.

“How?” Madeleine had asked. And in the outline of our teacher’s fear I’d guessed the answer. 

Whispering with a quiver in her voice, she responded, 'No one knows. There have been many studies, but all inconclusive. But remember, my dear, ghosts can be saved.'

Kevin, seated at the back of the class, chimed in, 'What are ghosts, anyway?'

“Psychologists label them as a dissociative phenomenon, where one starts to detach from life - usually following a trauma. They are still alive, but they their connection to the physical world fizzles out, transforming them into metaphysical, hollow beings”

Sitting on the bench, my mind races with these memories. The conversation replays like a key in a lock, hoping it will give way and let me in on its mystery. But instead, it locks me out. God, I hate this feeling. I curse the world as the distant threat of thunder rumbles loudly. 

In the aftermath of Tabathat’s death and the school shooting, I’d been so willing to throw in the towel. The idea of walking through those school gates made me sick just thinking of it. So I checked out of life and waited for death to come find me.

But, somehow, I ended up in the wrong pile -  there’s the death pile on the left, and the ghost pile on the right. I should’ve ended up on the left, but something happened, and instead, my stomach was the first thing to go. It went from being tied in a knot, to being loose. Soon after, my palate followed. I still forced myself to eat, mostly for my mother’s sake who still hoped her cooking would bring me to life. I can see the sadness in her eyes. Little does she know, she is losing me just the same. I am losing myself, stepping into a slow-motion black-and-white movie with no remote control to turn the goddamn thing off.

A voice, resembling Tabetha's, pierces through my thoughts, “Stop blaming life for what is happening to you.” The voice grumbles from under the soil, carrying a mix of concern and frustration.

“What?” I ask quietly, looking around to make sure no one could see me talking to myself, to the ground.

“You heard me. If you’re in this situation, it is because you chose it, you wanted it.” I can recognise Tabatha’s voice. 

It was always vibrant, like a light you couldn’t help but be drawn to, but this time it sounds muffled, distant. I know in my heart that I might be hearing her, but she is gone. I’m about to protest, but she shuts me down. 

“Don't compare your situation to mine. I didn't choose to have a bullet end my life. You still have choices, and honestly, the ones you're making are pretty terrible. I mean, come on - you’re choosing being a ghost over being alive." 

A wave of angry lava has built up in me. 

“How is any of this a choice? You have no idea what it's like to have to pick up the crumbs of life after what happened. It’s like my life shattered into a million pieces, and I need to pick up the shards one by one, but none of them fit together anymore - and for what?”

Tabatha questions, “So you agree, you're choosing to not pick up the pieces, you're choosing to disappear?”

“I didn’t say that.” I rise to my feet, restraining the urge to stomp on the grass, on her grave. “You make it sound so easy, but none of this makes any sense. I didn’t want to lose you, I didn’t want to feel so much pain. I didn’t choose those things, they happened to me. And yeah, maybe I don’t feel like leaning into the pain, maybe for a while not feeling anything was easier.”

“I’m not telling you life isn’t hard, I’m telling you to rebel against its gloominess, look at it straight in the eye and defy it. I’m telling you to grab this life before it disappears from you, savour it whilst you still can.”

A gust of icy wind slaps me in the face, I guess that’s how the dead bang the doors when they’re done with a conversation.

I’m not sure if I want to scream or cry. For all the hours I’d hoped I could’ve had one last conversation with my friend, this was not what I had in mind. 

I sniffle, shivering in the biting wind. I feel like tearing into a million pieces this world, but instead, I’m stuck on this crappy bench, not even able to punch it. 

I’m about to tighten the cords of my jumper, when I stop myself. Instead, I force myself to welcome the cold, for how much longer will I feel it? I noticed how it whispers at the base of my neck, almost tickling me. It invites gentler sensations, softer touches, like a quiet melody keeping me company whilst I try to figure out what it means to be alive now, to digest Tabetha’s parting words. The old oak tree rustles its leaves, and I hear them brushing against each other.

And that’s when I wonder - maybe that’s the movement of life? It ebbs and flows with no real compass or inherent meaning, no matter how much we study its patterns, its beats, its tempo. It silences my questions - the ‘why me’s’ and ‘what’s now’ - and  opens up the possibility of a new beginning. A tiny sprout budding its way through a crack in the concrete. 

Defy the gloominess of life. I repeat the words over and over again. Outside, a ray of sunshine pierces through the glad. I breathe in the fresh air and take out my phone. I type a text to my mum. “Mum, can you teach me how to cook grandma’s lasagna tonight? I’m coming home.” I put the phone back in my pocket and feel myself breathing more easily. I lift myself up from the bench, a crow chirps from behind me. I look at my hand, the one that had been holding my weight against the bench. It is no longer weightless - I can actually feel the wood pressing into my skin. I can feel it. Could it be? I look around as new light illuminates this world. I neil down to Tabatha’s grave and my eyes tear up, not from sadness but from the vibrant smell of the flowers on her grave - I smell them. I am becoming whole again. In that moment, amidst the rustling leaves and fading echoes, I choose life with all its chaos and wonders. I step forward and let go of the shadow of the ghost I once was.