Bury A Friend

Darkness consumed me. For the longest time, that has been all I could remember. But as I open my eyes and command my body to sway about, I realize that there might be an exit away from this cave of memories. Side to side, my body moves more sluggish instead of the serpentine motion I intended. But wait…what if I thrust my head against this surface pressing upon me? 

Bang, bang! 

This entrapment feels like wood. Mahogany? Sandalwood? No time for nonsense, the technicalities hardly matter.

What if my arms awake at this very moment? 

Awake! I demand my arms, though no sound comes out of my sealed-shut mouth. There they go, crunching like scrumptious sugar canes with only a few bones left to make a sound. My ear, or what was left of it, heard it more like a tap than a crunch. Yet a crunch is too loud and recognizable for one to forget what it sounds like. I push and I push vehemently. One punch after the other until a hole was created near my eye level. 

Magnificent! I thought to myself…until a flood of dirt began to inundate the confinement. This violent shower made my head convulse frantically until I could extend my right arm. I grasp at the worm-filled soil as I dig, dig, dig my way out. Hardly the arms of a swimmer, I navigate around for the potential light that waits on the other side. 

A wisp…no, a breeze! I retract and release my fingers as I crawl out of the earth. The sweet release out into fresh air felt like a proper rebirth. My nostrils are flared with excitement as oxygen enters and fills my punctured lungs. I grab at my head with a frenetic swing…wondering: why do I only have half a head of hair? 

Now I embark on a brand new journey…searching for any signs of life now that I cannot commune with the dead. Speaking of the devil, the repugnant scent of death is horrendously overwhelming. Smells of rotten flesh, accumulated moisture, rat piss…for 20 seconds as I am dragging my parentheses shaped feet across the grass, I regret regaining this cursed olfactory gift. 

In the distance, my blurry vision manages to detect an establishment of various vibrant colors. The closer I approach…the more my confusion grows. I glance at the roof of said establishment, and the sun shines on a large ball of bread, meat and vegetables, I think. 

The words read “Bonnie’s Burgers”. I blink repeatedly wondering…what is a burger and when…can I have it? 

Hardly plodding, I arrive at the entrance and push with my left side, holding on to my arm for dear life. Once inside, strangers with zero blemishes or bug-eaten flesh on their otherwise perfect complexions stare at me. Some with smiles and others with grimaces. I comprehend these poor mortals. I, too, would grimace with no remorse if ever faced with an undead creature during my lifetime. 

I tried to utter my name to a bearded fella but what was intended as “Jocelyn” came out as a muffled moan of “Jooo-ehhh-iiin”. 

“Jooooo-ehhhhhhhhh-iiiiiiiin,” I repeated, enunciating my name within the muffled sound. This bearded butler washing a glass cocked his head while gazing at me curiously. I was torn between feeling afraid and feeling disgusted. 

“Hello, ma'am, what can I do for you?” the man asked cheerfully, smiling from ear to ear. I attempted to share a series of charades to explain what I was precisely looking for…but luck was not on my side. Far from it. Luck was running from me ever since that witch sent me to hell. 

“Oh, miss, I wish I could understand you. If this helps, a lot of the dressed kids are at the Comic-Con down two blocks. I’d be happy to call you a taxi or an Uber to get you there!” he suggested, groping his apron for a rectangular device and brandishing it at me. 

Uber…what is this Uber? Another fanatic? Perhaps an…agent sent here from that…frozen inferno? While I ventured these important questions and remarks, the bearded man spoke to the device in a giddy tone. Either he was enabling a deep act of kindness or committing an atrocity, ill will toward the dead (undead). My head bob forward softly, waiting, waiting for the man’s response. 

“Okay, my buddy has a taxi company, he’s sending a car here right now. Should get here in about…10 minutes. I can get you a burger in the meantime. On the house,” he explained, his thumbs up with excitement. I nodded my head as much as I could. 

The wait was over, left as quickly as it came. I grabbed the bag with the meal package the butler and his team had prepared, thanking him in the form of a bow. Before I turn to the exit, my peripheral vision caught a fascinating detail. Shimmering in the light like a gem, a knife called out to me, pristine in all its glory. With my free hand and wobbly legs, I edge toward that table to grasp that perfect little knife. Grabbing it on the soft handle, I bring it unsteadily to my lips, with eyes of lust towering over it. I rip through each wretched stitch, one by one. By the end, I hand the butler the knife and heave my breath. 

“Oh, dear, are you alright?” he asked.

“Saaaan uuuuuuu” I bellowed, without the intention of sounding frightening or expecting that he would understand me.

“Anytime,” he replied in a shaky tone. 

Dragging myself toward the exit and the “taxi”, I grunt at the butler’s friend. He opened the door of this…contraption and another question gnawed my mind as I adjusted my seating. 

Since when are men kind? Since when is anyone kind, really? 

My vision clears by only a little, and I witness the blossoming of this town that it lacked when I first left it. Couples holding hands out on the street, children playing, young adults on those rectangular devices, buildings almost scraping the sky…endless movement and a strange peace at the center of it all. 

Finally, the vehicle abruptly halted. The taxi man turned around, grinning and said: “Comic-Con, huh?”

I grunted once again. I’ve been dead for decades! Or has it been more than that? I don’t know if my vocal chords perished. As he opened the door for me and I struggled to exit, he added: “Don’t forget your doggie bag!” 

Doggie? I don’t carry an animal with me. Is this man delusional? He then gestured to the meal package that the butler had gifted me and I nodded. I parted my lips to form a smile…but based on his befuddled expression, I must still have beetles crawling around the roof of my mouth. I gingerly gripped the bag handed to me and waved the kind taxi man goodbye. My left foot must have fallen asleep on that ride, because I was pulling my leg like pulling a child not wanting to go to school. 

This “Comic-Con” has bustling crowds left and right, so alive and so colorful that it nearly sickens me. I observe at the gates that these overdressed fools are handing the guards pieces of papers or their little devices for their entrance to be admitted. I have no paper, nor do I have a little rectangle. What shall I do? I thought to myself.

Suddenly, a large group of faux-corpses approach the gates, all fluttering the papers  and waving their silly devices on their hands. A lightbulb springs to mind. I hasten my steps like a predator targeting its prey. From plodding to pacing, I reach these impostors. They seem to pay no mind to me and I crouch my posture and act like I have for the last hour. I moan and groan, moan and groan better than these jesters could ever imitate. Imitation is not flattery if it is done wrong.

Breaking free of this group, I sense that I may find that pesky witch in these parts. Pushing and shoving some of the animal-dressed people and others who look like extremely familiar mutants, the search is itching to be a lost cause. 

But wait…

*Sniff, sniff*

I smell treachery. 

Fifty feet beyond me, a foul stench leads to one dreadful creature that has concocted some sort of disguise herself, a white, blue and black dress, black shoes and unnatural blonde hair. Not today, I said with my glowering eyes. She gazed into my eyes and sprinted in a millisecond. A furious fire in me lit to increase the velocity in my steps to begin this awaited chase. As I dodged one strange fellow, I bumped into another and lost balance in my already unstable pace. 

“Splat! Thud!” my body sounded as I coped with the ridicule that this fall has garnered against my behest. I wriggle like a caterpillar and struggle to stand as no one bothered to lend a hand.

Kindness, my ass, I thought to myself. Out of nowhere, a sweet voice rang in my ear as if reading my thoughts. 

“Are you alright?” the voice asked. I turn to my right to find a young woman dressed in a green and purple dress, with laces in the middle and faded runes in the rims. Her hair seemed even more unnatural than the wretched witch’s, red as a flame in the form of a mushroom. The young woman waved her hand with long red fingernails at me, nearly poking an eye out. 

“Mmm, yerrr,” I grumbled as she lifted me up from my underarms. 

“Yeah, you’d think people would be nicer around here, you know?” she retorted and dusted off my shoulders. 

“Do you…do you understand me?” I enunciated with growls and mumbles in between.

“Uh, yeah, why wouldn’t I?” she replied plainly. 

“Right, right…who are you?” I asked as I gripped her arm to balance myself. 

“I’m Winifred Sanderson!” she exclaimed, gesturing to her dress. “I’m kidding, I’m not her. I wish! She's an iconic witch though,” she sighed. Oh, no. This cannot be!

“Witch? You? A witch?!” I snarled at her. 

“No, no. I’m not a real witch,” she chuckled dryly and continued, “I only study witchcraft and the undead for fun. This is just my costume. My real name is Vivian,” she smiled awkwardly yet it still had a charm to it. 

“That makes sense, yes. I am Jocelyn and I am dead, well, undead. It’s why…” I elaborated before she interrupted.

“Why I understand you! Wow! That’s…great? You look good and you…have hair, at least,” she replied, trying to save herself with terrible compliments. I simply stared at her with no filter. Vivian sucked in her tongue and winced. “Oof, tough crowd,” she whispered her comment. 

“Listen, I am looking for a real witch. Could you help me search for her? She was just here,” I pleaded.

“Sure, what does she look like? Got any defining details to lead us with?”

“Well, her name is Martha Bishop. That’s Maa-rthaa. She is about as tall as you and she is wearing a blue, white and black dress.”

“Huh. That sounds an awful lot like Alice in Wonderland.”

“I just told you her name is Martha.”

“No, her costume! It’s either that or Bubbles from the PowerPuff Girls.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, it’s a character…never mind, you don’t own cable.”

The ease with which I communicated with Vivian felt very homely. None of it felt counterfeit, as opposed to how most of this otherworldly experience has felt. We began the search, scouring for either of those so-called “characters”. None of them bore an appearance similar to Martha, and if Vivian’s silence indicated much, she hadn’t found much either. I grew tired and halted young Vivian with my crippling hands. 

“Vivian…there’s too many people. What if we never find her?”

“We will. But…”

“But what?”

“I’m the only person who understands you, right?”

“Correct.”

“What if…there was a way to spread your message to everyone at once?”

“Now, pray tell, how would you do that?” 

“I could take a microphone, that’s a stick where you can speak into it to everyone, and then whatever you want to say to Martha, I’ll translate it.”

“Like an announcement?” I asked, attempting to stroke my chin. This offer sounded more than enticing. It sounded…fantastic. 

“Exactly, just follow my lead,” Vivian confirmed, dragging me to the center of this messy crowd. She found a platform that towered over most of the crowd and hopped on, helping me to settle on the sublevel. She asked for the microphone and like magic, it was granted to her. She tapped it twice, causing a shrieking whine to erupt the crowd into groans. 

“Hi! Can I have everybody’s attention, please?” she greeted the crowd with a slight warble. She continued: “My name is Vivian and you know that here in Comic-Con, we’re all about community. Care to give yourselves some applause?” Applause erupted as soon as she said this. 

“Yeah! That’s right! All these costumes are spectacular! Whoo! Okay, on to the real stuff. My friend here has a hard time expressing herself verbally and she asked me to translate and deliver a special message she has for someone else here. Alright, whenever you’re ready, buddy!” she paused her speech, with the crowd at the palm of her hand. She queued me in to begin my message. I cleared my throat and uttered the deadly moans that Vivian smoothly translated:

“My name is Jocelyn Wardwell. This name may not be familiar to this town anymore because it was erased in history. For the longest time. I am absolutely sure most of you present were not born when this occurred. Someone in here is responsible for that. Her name is Martha Bishop. She got me executed for a crime that I did not commit! The blood was on her hands, not mine! She is in this room and must come forward to pay for her crimes against me. No more of this cowardice and face me like a real woman! Reveal yourself!” Vivian yelled my message perfectly and riled up the people.

 The dressed folks began to shout out Martha’s name and I grinned at the results. 

“ENOUGH!” roared a voice from the back. The crowd dispersed away from the source, the one and only Martha Bishop. She levitated herself, drawing a collective terrified yet amused gasp from the crowd. 

“Congelo hysterantum, congelo androactum!” Martha uttered her spell fluently. Every single mortal, even Vivian, was frozen in time. The silence was eerie, deafening. Martha and I were the only two in motion. She lifted her arm belligerently and the world went black.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This darkness is not the same one as before. It’s colder, heavier. I open my eyes, look down at my hands. Flesh! At last! Every inch of blood, tissue and bone is covered like a blanket. I glance at the rest of my body, a black dress covering up to my knees. My legs are straight and without wounds. My face, zero blemishes! My hair, auburn and luscious, I missed you. 

What is this sorcery? 

“Martha!” I scream on the top of my lungs in this new abyss. 

“You rang?” she scoffed, appearing out of thin in front of me. Her ebony hair and emerald eyes titillate me just as much as they irritate me. 

“Where am I? What have you done to me now?” I interrogated her, lunged at her but she muttered a spell that undid my actions. My feet were stuck to the ground like tree sap to the hand. Martha circled around me, taunting me just as she had all those years ago.

“Those are not the questions you should be asking,” she retorted with an evil smirk plastered across her refined face, no pores. Her hands retracted as violet sparks emitted from them. 

“Fine! Why did you frame me?! TELL ME!” I question with a guttural tone.

Martha was taken aback by the intensity from me. “Oh, Jocelyn-” she waved her hands around to dismiss me.

“You! You do NOT GET TO CALL ME THAT!” 

“Hey! I had to protect myself!” she defended her justification lightly. As a response, I raised the sleeves of my dress up to my elbows and stood in a fighting stance. I swung a punch at her and she gasped. A series of rapid kicks and punches along with various unintelligible spells ensued. Back and forth, the fight roared on. But who’s to say the fight ever ended?