Young Writers Society

Elijah saw the others looking when his eyes drifted to the headstone.

Jay Whitman 1933-2021

Jay. So that was his name. Of course. Elijah had been his middle name, he knew. Elijah had been his grandfather's name on his mother's side. The one who had kicked his pregnant fifteen year old daughter out of the house because had sex before marriage, and refused to help her or even acknowledge her existence when he most needed it.

He remembered his mother. Her name was Anna. She had beautiful blond hair, warm brown eyes, and always smelled like springtime. He'd been happy when it had just been the two of them. And then she'd met Richard. The handsome, charismatic doctor. It had been his fault. If he hadn't asked to go to the Wizard of Oz that afternoon when he'd seen it ten times already....

He'd wanted to see Judy Garland again. Not have his mother fall in love with a man who has no good.

Then there was Sarah. Beautiful, perfect Sarah. They'd had eleven wonderful years together before he went to prison the first time. For doing what he had to do to keep the family afloat after Susan got sick and died. And then she just abandoned him.

Five years he'd wasted away in that place. But it wasn't all bad. And then he met Alexandra. Not Bonnie. Sweet Alexandra. She'd had his child too. Another daughter. She'd stand by his side, no matter what. And that was worth something. They'd been in the mountains. Just him and his girls. Happy. Helen had been the most beautiful. Claire had loved him too.

Jay looked back at the headstone. That would mean he was 87 when he died. He knew it was 87 because he remembered that he was born on the Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year. Or, four days before Christmas, whatever way you wanted to look at it.

He was clearly in the body of a man much younger. So what else happened in his life that he didn't know about?

The boy tilted his head at the final grave. There was a stone, but that must be the theatrics of this place. No one would bother cutting a gravestone only to leave the face of it blank.

No name...

And then it all came back to him. His life. Song after glorious song stretching on for years and years. All the wonderful people, all the beautiful places. Mountains and hills and valleys, cliffs and forests and waterfalls, he saw it all.

A grin slowly spread across his face as tears welled up in his eyes. He was dead now, but his life had been so big, so colorful. It was wonderful in every way a thing could be wonderful.

He placed a hand on top of his imaginary gravestone. He had no one to bury him, none whom he could remember.

"Life is so beautiful," he murmured.

Kazimir's knuckles were turning white as he gripped the edges of his gravestone. Everything in him wanted to tear it out of the ground and bury it with what might've been his body, or could've been an empty grave. He didn't know. He didn't even know what was possible in whatever this world was, but it was clear to him now that this wasn't real life, and this wasn't just a dream. This was somewhere in between - a nightmare, but he didn't think it was one he would wake up from. Not if he was dead already.

He hadn't even remembered everything yet. There was more, and he knew it, but things were coming back like giant waves before receding back into the ocean, and he didn't know when the next one would come.

In front of everyone else? Why did it have to be in front of everyone else?

Shame and guilt didn't feel like they suited him, but to be broken down by memories of his own life in front of others? What happened to the shameless, reckless abandonment of his youth? What happened to acting first and thinking later? There had to be a gap between what he remembered his younger self to be and who he was now - presumably, who he was before his death.

But he was in his younger body. He knew that. He was somewhere around 30. That felt right.

What was going on?

He hadn't thought to ask. All he'd wanted to do was fight, but now all he wanted to know was why? Why have his memories robbed from him and then dumped back on him in bursts? Why did he have to stare death in the face?

He'd known it was inevitable, but looking at the year shook him.

2021. That made him, what - 60? Something like that? Which made Bo around 40. His grandkids would've still been little kids, and he would've only just met them... he knew he got released at 60.

What happened?

He growled in frustration and tried to shake the gravestone. All that ended up happening was him pulling himself closer and pushing further. It was sturdy and set in the ground. He stood up and kicked up dirt, watching as it flew up over his name and the years.

Not even a minute ago, he'd said he was done with the memories. Now he just wanted them all back.

"This is sick," he hissed. "If ever I have a chance I'm going to strangle that motherf***ing shadow that put us here."

Charlie leaned his back up against his grave, staring at the little figure of the man who should have been his uncle - Barry Allen, The Flash before Wally West - with tears still pricking at the corner of his eyes. He knew he should have been against strangling the shadow, but he didn't have the strength to argue anymore. It just seemed so pointless.

He couldn't hear the Speed Force. He was still painfully slow. Everything about his life was wrong, and terrible, and even death hadn't been an escape. He hadn't wanted to die, but at least death would mean seeing everyone he cared about again.

But he was trapped here instead.

"I just want this to be over," Charlie whispered. "I want it all to stop."

"Grow up," Jay spat in the young, unremarkable boy's direction. "I'm sorry mommy can't tuck you goodnight and read you a bedtime story, but that's the way life is sometimes."

He looked over at his headstone noticed 1997-2019. That meant he'd only been 21 or 22 when he died. Still, so what? It's not like life got any better the older you got. If anything, it got worse the more you learned about the world, the more it filled you with broken promises.

That was when he remembered.

Pure, sweet, perfect Margaret. Looking down on them from way on her high horse and her plastic smile. He'd done that woman a favor. Helen's ex-husband? He deserved every bit of what he'd gotten. Jay had enjoyed watching him die. And Tommy? Tommy was a waste of air. Nobody would mourn him. He'd done all of them favors.

That was when he remembered. His son, Adam, the only one that really mattered, coming to visit him in prison. He was the age Jay appeared to be now.

"Dad, Mom died. She had lung cancer. I thought you deserved to know."

Jay had said nothing. He was shocked.

"She was very happy."

Jay shook the memory and came back to the present moment. If Sarah was dead, was she here somewhere? "Listen," he said, a smile growing on his face. "If anything, we should be thanking the shadow. We're free."

The boy scowled at the man without the empathy to allow people to mourn their own lives.

"Be silent," he said, "your words weren't wanted, and they serve no one."

It was a line he had to keep firm. To be kind to those who did nothing but hurt was to hurt the victims of that cruelty.

Kazimir had been content setting his rage on the shadow that brought them here, but the moment the skinny man opened his mouth, his anger turned. He stood up straight, fists forming at his sides.

He looked at the goggle boy's grave. Charlie. The skinny man was Jay.

The fiddler had an unmarked grave, but he seemed the least torn up of them all.

Kazimir paused as the fiddler shushed Jay, but he began to slowly stalk towards him.

"If you feel so free maybe you won't mind me putting you in your grave a little early then," he growled. "Do you feel free? Free to die? Free to breathe your last breath?"

He stood right in front of Jay, looking down at him with eyes burning.

"Listen to fiddler boy. Let the kid mourn."

"Thank you," Charlie quietly said.

He stared down at the action figure for another minute before finally getting up. He didn't want to. He just wanted to sit there and forget about everything around him. But they still didn't know why they were here of all places, or what the shadowy person wanted with them.

He wiped his tears away with the palm of his hand.

"...We should try finding the shadow again," Charlie suggested. "Maybe we can get an explanation if we do."

“I’m sorry,” Jay said softly. “It’s just that there’s no one left I love. No reason to live anymore. But you’ve all lost others too. I know that.” He took a deep breath, and he too sat down next to his grave. 1933-2021. Some life that had been. Most of it locked up. He’d had Sarah. Jay wondered if she was here somewhere.

Kazimir grumbled under his breath and turned away. No reason left to live anymore. Well that was all of them, wasn't it? Weren't they dead or something? Why else would they be looking at their graves?

He looked back at Charlie.

"There's still a few more rooms in the motel we haven't looked in," he said. "But he's a shadow. Even if we find him, he could just vanish like he did before."

"I agree, searching the other rooms in the motel is a good idea," Jay said, standing up.

He turned to the taller man. "Don't you want to know if your love is here?" Jay laughed ruefully. "Mine died too. Lung cancer, so my son tells me." Even if Jay fundamentally distrusted him, he realized the two of them had more in common than either might want to admit.

The boy had moved away from his grave, heading to the boy with the goggle's side with a look of concern. "Are you alright, laddy?" he asked gently. Everyone had quite moved on, focusing on finding the shadow whom everyone suspected of bringing them to this place, but the fiddler didn't think that was right. Even if the shadow was responsible, and even if they should be trying to find them, many of these people had just received the shock of their afterlives. It wasn't right to make someone process trauma like that so quickly.

"I'm fine," Charlie replied, giving him the kind of smile someone would give when they were notably not-fine.

He glanced over at the grave the boy had been near; there wasn't any name on it. Briefly distracted from his own grave, he stared at the boy's grave for another moment before looking over at him.

"...Your grave is blank," he realized. "Do you...Do you not have a name?"

The boy chuckled, "You've guessed correctly, my boy. I hadn't a name, nor a possession in the world while I was alive, save for perhaps my fiddle, which in itself is eternally borrowed." He reminisced on this, his life, with a tone of fondness. He'd lived an invisible life, and it was a beautiful one.

The conversation that followed between the two boys behind them faded in the background as Kazimir turned his attentions to Jay, staring at him.

Jay thought their wives could be here?

His blood burned at the thought of Megan, and his heart ached. He frowned deeply as he made eye contact with him.

"I'm sorry your wife died," he said quietly, more like a grumble, but sincere. He didn't know why Jay was laughing, but it was probably the stress getting to him. "What makes you think they would be here?"