Story Starters Contest

Bugs crawling all over your skin, scuttling away when you move. Spirals and circles swirling round and round in your eyes as your brain tries to make sense of the darkness. The wood rumbling and vibrating as those above shake the earth, the rotted wood cracking, pinching your pale skin. The same thoughts, songs and memories playing over and over in your mind until they have no meaning. Sitting in a coffin all day is pretty boring--that's why I dug my way out.
Head poking out of the shoulder-width hole, tip-toes on my coffin floor, I look up at the sky. It’s just as I left it twenty years ago. The striking aqua of a spring morning, the marshmallow clouds, the sun’s warmth on my skin. Boy, that feels good, like I’ve stepped into a hot-spring. Or like I’m a piece of frozen meat being thawed. FIY, that’s exactly what I am.
“Hello.” I reach my bony hand out to the man in front of me. His face is almost as white as mine, his mouth is certainly wider. “Could you please stop gawking and help me out of here?”
He’s obviously never seen someone emerge from a grave before, because he turns and runs away. I can’t say I blame him, if I hadn’t done this twelve times before, I’d be pretty creeped out too.
I press my fingers into the gravel and launch off the wood, pulling myself out of the hole. The rocks scratch at my dry skin and as I land on them, but it’s an amazing feeling. Stronger than the numbness, stronger than the bugs. Electricity pumps through me as my nerves come back to life, and I smile for the first time in decades.
“So, planet earth,” I say to no one in particular, “what’s new?”
The sky looks the same, the sun feels the same. The air smells the same, like car exhausts and compost. Not to mention the familiar scent of rot and decay--mind you, that’s probably just me. But I know things are different, things are always different.
Last time I emerged, it had been night, yet people pointed shining sticks at me, bright as day. I learnt about the invention of torches, powered by portable electricity.
The time before that, I was greeted by a woman in pants. Pants! The idea had been so foreign to me at the time, though I wouldn’t think twice about it now.
I’ve watched countries rise and fall, witnessed medical miracles, trialled other-worldly inventions, met kings and magicians and celebrities. I keep thinking that nothing can surprise me, that I’ll emerge from my coffin and everything will be the same as it was. But nothing stays the same, things are always different.
A bird chirps behind me and I whirl around, noticing how many more gravestones are erected now. I hear a whirring, see the flash of a car speeding down the nearby lane. I lace my fingers through a patch of grass, absorb its moisture, familiarise myself with the feeling of life. I look at all the colours around me, the aqua and the green and grey and…
Something flashes and I hear the click of a camera shutter. Have the newspapers come? No--it’s the running man, the one who left me to pull myself out of the grave.
“Have you come to apologise?” I ask, swaying on the ground.
He remains silent. In fact, it’s like he doesn’t even recognise I’m an actual living, breathing woman. He touches a small rectangle in his hands and my vision flashes white, I hear that camera sound again. It came from the box, but that’s not what a camera looks like. Surely cameras haven’t changed?
“Are you going to talk?”
Flash. Click.
“Have humans gone dumb?”
Flash. Click. He’s so focussed on holding that little camera just right.
I push onto my knees, starting to stand. My legs are wobbly from their two decade sleep, but the movement comes naturally. It feels so good to stretch. The man moves too, he thrusts his free arm forwards and finally speaks.
“Don’t go yet!” He begs. “Can I get a selfie?”
I’ve been introduced to a lot of new things in my thirteen lives, but honestly… what on earth is a selfie?