Young Writers Society

He looked at his dead body for a long time. It wasn’t true what they said, about how you wouldn’t recognise yourself if you saw your face from another perspective. It was definitely him. That was sort of the problem.

Him. Himself. His body. His cheek against the pavement, his blood lining the chapped grooves of his lips. His head smashed like a duck egg against the concrete. He thought it should’ve been shocking. Sickening, probably. But it was only like looking at a duck egg.

The driver hadn’t stopped. Pedestrians were clustering, though, their shouts and squabbling as formless in his ears as smoke whorls. Tears gleamed on a few cheeks, which he was vaguely pleased about. It was good to get attention. Look at the crowds you’ve drawn, he thought.

“Jude Thornton.”

He turned, for the sound chimed clear amid the muted shouts and footfalls. It was a nondescript voice, neither male nor female, old nor young. The colour of water. It belonged to a…person. His eyes grappled for further details – hair colour, clothes, gender – but they slipped from his mind like lost soap in a bath. The person inclined their head at him.

“Time to leave. Come with me, please.”

“Who are you?” Jude said.

“You wouldn’t remember it,” they said. “Walk with me.”

Jude fell into step with them. The ground always seemed an inch or so lower than he expected, every step resistant and cushioned. One of the pedestrians bumped into him, her elbow knocking into his stomach, but the pain was dull. She shoved past without looking at him.

“I’m dead?” Jude said.

“You’re dead,” the person said.

“Like a ghost?”

“You can call it that.”

Jude shook his head a little, like he was throwing a cobweb off. “Are you Death?”

“You can call me that, too.”

They walked in silence down the high street. Where light fanned from the lampposts, the paving slabs glistened with recent rain. The smell of wet air lingered like mist, lanced occasionally by a dash of exhaust fumes or new tarmac. He’d been going to the shops. He’d stepped into the road, his eyes on the glare of the Spar sign, and metal had crushed into him.

“My cat,” Jude said. “I was going to…I was getting food for her. I didn’t…there’s no food. No one comes round. You’ll feed her for me, won’t you?”

The person looked at him. “Would you talk to me about your life, Jude?”

He looked bemused, like someone had clapped their hands in front of his eyes. “My cat. You have to feed her. If you don’t, she’ll…”

“Please, Jude, I want to hear about your life. Where did you grow up?”

He blinked, rubbing his forehead. “Worcester. It was…the house was small.”

“How many people in your family?”

“Why you even asking?”

“It passes the time. How many?”

“Three. No, there was four, when the baby came…”

They drifted on and on down the boulevard, brushing shoulders with occasional pedestrians. At first, Jude turned with each skim of contact, his eyes searching their faces for any sign of recognition; a frown, flickering pupils, anything. By the time the shopping centre was in sight, his eyes lingered on the middle distance.

“Do you see your family now?” the person was asking.

“Not for years. Two years. There was this…my dad kept money in the wall, in the safe in the wall, and I…there was a Christmas card I sent last time, but nothing back, and I sent two ‘cause…I couldn’t…there’s just me at home, and…”

His face firmed up a little, his jaw jutting. “There’s my cat. You’ll…you’re going to feed her, aren’t you?”

“I don’t interfere with the living,” the person said lightly. “Carry on with your story, Jude.”

But it was a struggle for him now, his mouth moving shapelessly around words, his face sliding out of focus. He screwed his eyes shut and planted his shaky legs, stopping dead.

“How long are we walking for?” he said.

“Just as long as it takes,” the person said. “You’re nearly there. Can you tell me any more about the Christmas cards?”

Jude shook his head, knuckling his eyes, and little motes of colour drifted like disturbed dust from his face. The person nodded to themselves, tugging him to the side of the pavement, to a spot where the moonlight turned everything silver, lighting every charcoal dash of his faded hair.

“I’ve quite forgotten your name, you know,” the person said. “Can you tell me what it is?”

Jude bit his lip. A tear slipped from one eye, fading to nothing before it crossed his cheek. There was an art to it, reaping the soul at just the right moment – waiting for the memories to shed like dead skin, leaving the soul light and unanchored, ready to be passed along to the next life. The person took Jude’s face in both hands, his skin as fragile as paper under their fingers, and smiled at him.

“Time to go,” they said, and stroked his thumb between Jude’s brows.

But light flickered into Jude’s eyes as they took their hand away.

“The green food,” he whispered. “She likes that.”

The person’s chest wrenched. They reached out, tried to grab hold of him-

All that was left of Jude Thornton slipped like flour between their fingertips, leaving the faintest stirring of air in its wake. They stood, fingers moulded around the ghost of an arm, a shoulder. Their hands dropped.

“Didn’t catch him?” a colourless voice said.

The person turned. The speaker stood a few meters behind them, picking at a damp poster stuck to one of the lampposts.

“No,” the person said.

“Can’t get them all,” the speaker said. “Push him too soon?”

The person nodded.

“All been there. What was anchoring him?”

The person rubbed his mouth. “His pet, I think.”

The speaker made a noise at the back of his throat. “Can’t say I’ve heard that one before,” they said, dusting their gummy fingers on their coat. “You coming back, then?”

It was raining again, grey needles sifting in and out of the lamppost beams, twisting this way and that with every gust of night air. The person looked back down the high street.

“No,” they said finally. “Something to do.”

The speaker shrugged. They vanished like snuffed candlelight, rain lashing the ground where they’d stood.

It took ten minutes to walk back the way the person had come. Rain sank into their clothes, making every step heavier, more hesitant. Their shadow stretched and shrank as car headlights swung past them. Further along, blue light span and revolved, zipping over the bricks, glazing the apartment windows, pooling azure in the folds of the body bag. The person crossed the street, weaving through the dwindling crowds.

After the darkness, the store was stinging light and bright colours. The cashier’s gaze lifted at the hiss of the door, then dripped back to their magazine.

The person’s footsteps clicked on the lino. Row after row, shelf after shelf. Biscuits. Bread. Pet food.

They lingered, shifting their weight from foot to foot. Rule number one: don’t interfere with the living.

Their hand closed around the green box anyway.