Forgotten

After years of waiting, it was finally time. Aliah was turning 16 today. She combed her long black hair and washed her face. She put on her favorite pair of baggy black pants and a green hoodie and headed out the door. She walked down a small hallway to a staircase that led down to the first floor of her home.

In the small kitchen, her mom was making pancakes. She had short black hair and was wearing penguin PJ’s. “Morning, Aliah.” She said as Aliah sat down at the rickety old table. Her mom reached above the stove into a cabinet and pulled out a plate and handed it to Aliah, who sat it on the table and when to the fridge. The fridge was sat to the left of the stove and to the right of the front door. Aliah pulled out a jug of chocolate milk and a cup from the cabinet.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart.” Mom said.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“I can’t believe you’re already 16. What do you want for your birthday?”

“I dunno. I think maybe just some cookies with suffice.”

“Homemade or store-bought?”

“Homemade. I like baking.”

“Alrightie. I’ll pick up the ingredients this afternoon on my way home from work.”

“Ok.” Aliah looked at the clock hanging on the wall above the table. “Oh, snap. I gotta get to school. See ya this afternoon mom.” she grabbed her backpack from beside the door and raced out.

Just before the door shut, her mom called, “But you haven’t even had-” the door slammed and cut her off. “-breakfast.

Aliah speed-walked down the sidewalk. Brick houses lined the road. Fresh dew was misted across the lawns. The sun was slowly rising in the east, illuminating the tall trees behind the houses. Aliah got to the end of the road and began to cross. A car horn blared in her ear. Before she could even look, she saw a bright light. Everything got dark and cold, and Aliah couldn’t feel anything.

She woke up several hours later. She was in a waiting room. She stood up and looked around. But there wasn’t much to see. There were pearl colored walls all around her and burgundy carpet. The ceiling tiles had water stains that looked like they’d been there for ages. There were no doors, no windows, no vents, and no way out. There weren’t even chairs to sit in.

“Hello?” she called. “Is anyone there?” she raised her hand and something caught her eye. She could see through her skin. She could see the bone and the muscle and the veins. But they were transparent too. She could see through her hand and to the wall. She choked on her saliva and fell to the ground coughing. The walls began to close in on her—literally. The room got smaller and smaller until it squashed her.

She poofed into another room. It looked the same, except that there was a tall man in a blue suit with a purple tie standing in front of her. He had a wrinkled face and grey hair that was jelled back. He was probably and 8 feet tall and looked like an oddly dressed butler. The only difference between him and an average butler—besides his height—were his eyes. They were completely black.

Aliah backed up slowly. “Wh-Who are you?” she trembled with fear. “Where am I?”

The man’s thin lips stretched into a smile. “Why, the afterlife, of course.”

“The . . . what?”

He paced around her. “Well, I suppose that this isn’t the afterlife. Currently you are about to be judged to see what afterlife you deserve.”

“No, no, no, no, no. this can't be right. I'm not . . . dead.” The word left a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Oh? You’re just like everyone else.” He smiled exasperatedly, like he’d had this conversation a million times. “No one wants to believe that they’re dead.”

“Well, how did I die?” she said, trying to prove him wrong.

“You were on your way to school. You began to cross a road and got hit by a car. It was quite a bloody mess you made.”

She slowly remembered the incident, although there wasn’t much to remember since it happened so fast. A tear fell from her eye. Her knee’s buckled and she fell to the ground. The man in front of her didn’t even try to help her. He just watched as she fell. “But . . . what about my mom? It’s my birthday today. We were supposed to make cookies and celebrate. What is she gonna think? Will she be ok? It’s been just the two of us for as long as I can remember. I don’t know if she’ll be able to handle it-”

“Oh, stop flattering yourself.” The man said.

She gazed up at him in disbelief of his heartlessness.

“Your mother doesn’t need you. No one truly needs you. Your mother will be fine on her own. She’s already begun to think about all the thinks she could buy now that she doesn’t have to spend money on you. And she’s also thinking about getting remarried. There’s a man at the coffee shop that she’s been talking to for a while now. She thinks he’s really cute and nice and funny and smart and-” he stopped himself. “Well, you get the idea. She never wanted to try to ask him on a date because she wasn’t sure how you would react. But now that you’re not in her life, she’s opening up to the idea. You held her back for so long, dear. She’s hurting now, but soon, she’ll realize just how little you meant to her.”

Aliah covered her ears and put her head between her knee’s. “No!” she shouted. “Shut up! Just shut up! You’re wrong. My mom love’s me. It’s not true.”

“You poor darling. I'm afraid this is nothing new, though. Everyone thinks they love someone until they’re gone and they realize how much weight was lifted off their shoulders. You’ll get used to it, though. The afterlife isn’t so bad. You get to sleep, play games, have parties, and—best of all—no responsibilities.”

“I don’t want to!” Aliah cried. “I want to go home.” She rose and did what she could to face the man—although it was very hard, since he was so much taller than she was. “I will go home.” She demanded.

The man broke out into bellowing laughter. “Why, this is your new home. Forever.” The word forever made her feel nauseous.

Her breathing quickened and her heartbeat screamed in her ears. “No.” she said. With that one word, she vanished in a flash of darkness.

She woke again several hours later. She was laying in her bed. Her green blankets covered her. Her orange and black walls were lit by the sunlight peeking in from her window at the foot of her bed. With the realization that is was just a dream, she sighed. “Thank goodness.”

She got out of bed and dashed downstairs to tell her mother all about her dream. “Mom.” She called. “You’ve got to hear about this dream I just had. It was-” she halted in the doorway to the kitchen. Her mother was crying at the kitchen table, holding something in her hand and wearing a black dress. She raced to her mother’s side. “Mom, what’s wrong?” she asked, sitting down next to her and putting her hand on her mother’s arm.

She stared at the thing in her hand. “My baby girl.” She cried.

“Yes, Mom. I'm right here.” Aliah looked down at the thing in her mothers hands. It was a picture of Aliah when she was younger. Dressed in a brown shirt.

“Why didn’t you look?” she sobbed more.

“Why didn’t I look at what?” Aliah asked. “Talk to me Mom.”

Her mom got up and walked to the kitchen sink. She poured a glass of water and sipped at it. There was a knock on the door and she went to  answer it. It was Aliah’s grandmother. A short lady with grey hair pulled back in a bun and a black dress on. “It’s time, dear.” She said.

“I know. But I'm not ready.” Mom wept.

“Grandma?” Aliah asked. “What’s going on? Time for what? Why is Mom crying? I need answers.”

“Let’s go.” Grandma said.

They walked out the door. Aliah tried to get out the door before it shut, but it slammed in her face. Still, her momentum kept her going and she walked right through the door. At first, Aliah didn’t know what had happened. Then, she realized with grim certainty that it hadn’t been a dream. She was dead. She was a ghost.

She raced after her mom and grandmother. There had to be a way for them to see her. She couldn’t simply be stuck like this. They had to realize that she was there. She jumped through the back door of the car and into the seat. The dim light of the dome-lights in the car were the only lights around. The moon wasn’t even out. There was a picture of Aliah sitting in the seat next to her. She had an idea.

Maybe she could move the picture and get their attention. As they drove down the road, Aliah grabbed the picture and lifted it off the seat. Her mom looked back and realized it was floating. She screamed and wasn’t paying enough attention to the road. She drove off into the ditch. Aliah was thrown through the roof of the car and into the cold water in the ditch. The car pulled back and drove away.

Aliah raced after the car, but she couldn’t catch it. She was left behind. Aliah looked around. There were kids in costumes trick or treating. “It’s Halloween.” She sighed. “The irony.” She sat down and cried, slowly fading away until there was nothing but a puddle of water where she had been sitting.