Willow and the Great Beyond--Chapter One

“Death is a funny thing. You live, you live for so long you can’t remember what it’s like to not be alive, and then you die. Life is over just like that. You can’t ever wait too long to seize life by the horns because before you know it you’re in a box six feet under. Colin Catlin was one of the smart ones. He didn’t wait for the music to dance in the rain, he made his own. He never made excuses for why he…” and the speaker droned on and on in his unattached voice, punctuated by the occasional sniffle or sob. I knew I should’ve been up there at the podium by Colin but I couldn’t do it. I was too selfish, too unwilling to let him go so soon, so a stranger had taken my place, spouting whatever garbage he’d scribbled on an index card.

Colin hadn’t expected to die, I don’t think. It was one of those freak accidents where the circumstances were so extraordinary it was hard to believe. A tragic car crash, a traumatic brain injury, and a bout of pneumonia were all it took to land Colin in the box and let me tell you, I was having a pretty hard time believing it hurt him any more than it was hurting me. I wouldn’t be surprised if my heart fell out of my chest at any moment.

I reigned in the urge to sigh, to stand up and tell the man at the front how full of shit he was and how this was a huge, huge injustice to Colin’s memory but I didn’t. This wasn’t about me; it was about my best friend who was lying in the casket in the front of the cathedral, deader than my uncle’s canary. I was extremely uncomfortable. All that kept running through my head was something that Colin had said to me one day when the probability of either of us dying was so slim it was laughable. ‘When I die, throw me a party. I want people to dance and drink and remember the good times.’

Suddenly I became hyperaware of the old lady that smelled like baby powder sniveling beside me, the flickering fluorescent light above my head, the fly zipping around that Colin’s dad was too exhausted to swat away when it landed on his ear, the beads of spit that flew from the speaker’s mouth every time he said a ‘p’ word.

I looked around. The room was packed with familiar faces with the vast majority of them belonging to schoolmates, and a few strangers here and there that were probably Colin’s family. It was too hot and too small in here to fit everyone who loved Colin inside. All the love I had for him in my heart could have filled up this tiny church easily. Tears began to prick my eyes and my stomach began to roll.

I stood up abruptly and awkwardly making the pastor stop in his tracks, watching me with a disapproving gaze. God must frown upon interrupting funerals. Colin’s mom turned around to look at me and I met her watery blue eyes rimmed red from crying, black shadows beneath. She looked beautiful as she always did, but so sad and so old. Mrs. Catlin gave me a small nod.

We were going through the same thing, I’d bet. She’d lost her son, I’d lost my best friend. We both loved Colin more than anyone could imagine. I breathed a silent ‘thank you’, stepping carefully over the frail baby powdered woman’s legs. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as I hurried out of the church but I kept my head down to avoid all of their sympathetic glares. ‘Poor Willow,’ all of their faces said. I didn’t have to look to know. The wooden double doors and the buzzing exit sign weren’t close enough.

I broke out into the bright sunlight, the world thrown into sharp detail around me compared to the dingy chapel I’d just been in for what seemed like an eternity. Bare trees clawed at the cloudless blue sky above with their bony branches for something I couldn’t see and I breathed in the chilly fall air, holding it in until I thought my lungs would burst. There were birds fluttering around chirping, completely oblivious to the trainwreck that was my life. I envied them. They hadn’t lost the one person in the world that completely understood them. I already had that role.

For a moment I’d really thought I could do it. I really thought I’d make it through The Funeral without an issue but I couldn’t. My closest friend was gone and he’d taken some of me with him to the great beyond. Apparently it was the piece of me that stopped me from crying like a baby at the drop of a hat.

A heaving sob tore its way from my chest, ripping me apart and making me feel the full weight of what had happened all over again. I thought I’d gotten all of that awful ache out when my mom had told me the other night in my room, holding my hand and speaking gently like I was a small child. She was right. I’d felt smaller than ever right then and I felt even smaller now. Great sobs wracked me, doubling me over against a dead oak tree that looked sadder than the rest of them surrounding the church. I forced myself to calm down and breathe.

The stinging, bitter cold helped to clear my head. ‘When I die, throw me a party. I want people to dance and drink and remember the good times.’ It’s what Colin would’ve wanted. It’s what I needed to do. The more I thought it, the more absolutely plausible it seemed. Kids threw parties all the time, right? I was grieving. I could always use that in my defense in the event that I got caught. Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. It would be for Colin, not for me. It would be his Real Funeral.

I looked up at the sky that at this moment was the exact color of Colin’s eyes. There was something beautiful about the unblemished blue, but I suspected it was only because they reminded me of him. The color had to be an omen, a reminder that Colin was up there somewhere waiting patiently for me to throw him a Real Funeral, one that would mean something to me and to him.