Nothing ever happens in a small town, it’s practically a law. Hollywood uses that to make movies, leaving girls living in small towns getting their hopes up that something exciting might happen, yet nothing ever does.
It’s truth, and it’s reality. I’m not perfect, head of the class, or captain of the girl’s soccer team. My parents aren’t famous or rich, and my older brother is a brilliant senior in high school, someone I will never beat. My name is Katie Lessen and I have lived in Lebanon, Indiana all my life, fifteen years. Lebanon is just like anywhere else, we have cars, homes, and technology. Here is where my home, life and heart belong. My mama and papa grew up in this town, just as my brother, Allen, and I will.
"Katie, I thought I told y’all to wash the dishes," my mother yelled.
"You did ma, but I’ve been busy," I screamed. "Papa asked me to go to the market an I just got back."
"Well, you better get them washed because they aren’t going get up and wash themselves!"
"Yes ma!"
This is what my life consists of, chores, homework, friends, and usually some more chores and homework. I never expected anything to happen.
"Elise, please slow down the car," my friend Jess begged, "the cops are going to arrest us!"
"Who cares about cops, who cares about life?" Elise screamed, pressing down harder on the gas pedal. "Life isn’t worth anything, and neither is Justin!"
Justin is, or was, her boyfriend. He just broke up with her tonight at his party, and she didn’t take it well. She had a little too much to drink, and now the car is the only thing between her and death. Her attempt at suicide will most likely kill us all.
"Elise," I try to calmly persuade, "if you just pull over we can talk about this, you can cry, and it will all be better in the morning."
"What morning?" my friend Megan cried, "as far as I’m concerned, we’ll be dead is she doesn’t stop!"
"Elise, watch out for the car up ahead, if you hit it we’ll all die!" I screamed.
"Who let her drive?" Clary asked surprisingly calm.
From an onlookers perspective it would seem as though just a bunch of high school kids were having too much fun in the car, not like a girl was about to commit suicide. How I wish it were the first option. Elise didn’t listen, she kept driving. The determined look on her face was frightening, the fact that she didn’t care about us.
"Elise, please stop and think," I begged, "how you will feel if we die with you, or how you will feel if we die and you don’t. How will you live with that regret?"
Her response was not hers, it wasn’t something she could ever come up with, "I’ll blame Justin."
Our car kept driving, reaching 80 miles an hour. The car in front of us was stopped, waiting for the red light to turn green, as we all hoped there would be no red. The impact to me seemed like something you would see in a science video, talking about momentum or some other science related topic I had learned. The driver of the other car probably heard us screaming at Elise, who they were though I couldn’t see. They turned around, not expecting to see a car speeding right at them, without the slightest attempt at slowing down.
They quickly turned around to drive away, but our car was already too close. I saw the crash before the crunch of the crushing car came to me. Our headlights reflected off the back window of the Sedan in front of us, blinding my eyes to my coming pain. My head cracked forward, my neck breaking in one smooth motion, the pain flaring into a fire, undying, growing stronger with each jerk of the car. Glass sprinkled my hair, gliding past my arms, cutting harshly. Then, all of my pain was a distant memory, the death cries of my friends far away. The broken car, floating away from me, even as I tried to reach it. My body is separate from me now, I watch it float into a white abyss as my eyes are blinded by light.
"Mom?" I think to myself, "Why did she have to do this, kill me because of her own anger? Did she mean to kill me?"
I am above the crash; the damage looks worse on the outside than it did being inside the car. The soft whine of an ambulance is heard in the distant, the background music of this misery. Elise is trapped in the car, barely alive, yet still alive. I am slumped against the drivers seat, dead. Clary’s body is flung over mine, dead. Megan is lying at the bottom of the car, dead. Jess is in the front seat, her face smothered by the airbag, dead. Elise is the only one who lived; though she wanted to die, and the ones who had wanted to live, died.
Heaven is nothing like stories depicts it to be, there are no shiny gates, and it is not resting on clouds. It is not always daytime there, always sunny and bright, cheerful with people who have died. It is a mirror of the world we have left, but without the people we have left behind. It is not depressing, without any joy in the world, yet there is something missing.
"Katie, are we alive?" Clary cries. "Did we die?"
"We are dead Clary," I reply solemnly. "Everyone but Elise is dead."
"What is this place then? Where’s my mom? Will I ever see my family again?"
Her words keep going on, endless questions that keep popping into my head, yet I have no answer. I have no way to comfort this little girl, frightened and missing her mom.
"B-b-but where are Megan and J-j-jess?" she stutters, unable to speak.
"Where the heck is Elise?" rages Jess just recently having come to heaven. She is definitely the more outspoken one. "I want to give her a piece of my mind! Oh, she is not going to live this one down."
"Unless she is going to die in few days, I doubt you’ll be talking to her anytime soon." I sneer. Trust me, dieing really takes its toll on you patience.
"What do you mean die?" she asks, a mixture of calm, confused, and frightened. Maybe she is calming down a bit. "If she dies, we won’t see her until we die…or are we already dead? Guys, are we alive?"
"No," all of us seem to mumble at the same time.
Somehow we are ashamed of being dead, though it isn’t a surprise after watching all those ghost movies.
"So, if we didn’t survive the crash, then Elise did?" Jess puts together.
"I guess so, I mean, she would be here with us if she died," I say. "Right?"
"So, if we died, and Elise lived, then who was in the other car, and did they survive?" Megan asks all at once.
Of course, none of knew the answers to the questions. As we were talking, none of us noticed a familiar figure listening from right behind us.
"I was in the other car, and no, I didn’t survive." Justin says.
All four of jump right when he speaks, the familiar deep voice seems to blanket us with warm memories of friends and living. You don’t know how nice it is to meet someone you know in heaven; the familiarity is almost as wonderful as life itself.
"Justin, you're dead?" Megan asked suspiciously, "I thought we left the party before you. How did you get ahead of us?"
"I took a shortcut," he muttered. "I felt really bad about breaking up with Elise that I thought I would try and get home before her to surprise her and apologize. Obviously that didn't work."
All five of us walk to a nearby café; the silence isn’t as bad as it normally would be. We stay there a few hours, talking, remembering. None of us are sure what to do now that we are dead, we haven't really ever thought about that before.
Finally Clary spoke up. "So.... now that we're dead," she slowly said, probably thinking about how to word it, "what do we do?"
"Well, does anyone know if we can watch people on Earth, or communicate with them like ghosts?" I ponder curiously.
A man with a halo above his head and an important glow to him starts walking up to us. Up close I soon see he has white hair that is almost gone, his signs of aging are obvious.
"It is possible. Follow me," he says in a controlling monotone.
We follow him to a five story brick building, although it looks like it could be hundreds of years old, which it very well could be, it still seems to be in good condition. All the way up the stairs we shoot question after question at this older man who seems to know a lot about being dead in Heaven. Eventually he turns around to look at us.
"I am someone you have known about your entire live, though I will not tell you who," he states as Justin opens his mouth. "And no, I am not Santa Clause."
Justin immediately sulks to the back of us, completely embarrassed.
"This," he says "is the AOOE, or the Angels Overlooking On Earth. We look over people on Earth and answer as many prayers as possible. We also allow people to look at their friends and relatives."
"Whoa, that is so cool," Justin finally says after his embarrassing comment earlier. "Are there any video games here?"
"No," the old man simply states. "If you will follow me, I will show you Elise."
"How did you know we wanted to see Elise, for all you know we could have wanted to see our families," Clary counters, finally speaking.
"I figured you would want to see her partially because of who I am, and also because she is the only thing you have been talking about since you died."
"Who are you?"
"I already told you that I wouldn't say, but if you really must know, I am God. Follow me now."
We walked behind him like we were his chicks and he was the mother duck, which in a way, he was. He led us down many corridors, passing endless amounts of doors, and so many rooms that my head began to hurt counting.
"What are these these rooms for?" Megan asked.
"Each room is assigned to a specific person, so room 14567 is also the same as person 14567, also known as Elise," he replied knowingly.
I started counting the numbers of the rooms, 14565, 14566, and 14567.
"At last, we're here!" Megan cried, almost jumping with joy.
We walked into the room, staring the multiple stages of her life, many including pictures of us. Staring at her laugh, her smile, seeing everything that was so common made me miss being a human since the first time I realized I was dead.
Walking along the rows and rows of computerized screens that went all the way up to the ceiling, about ten yards, I finally came to the end. That is, my end. Seeing the video of my death was like watching a movie with all the special effects, except, that the person really does die.
I walk some more, seeing her life since we died, mainly consisting of crying, sleeping, and more crying. I heard her once wish that she had died with us, and then burst out sobbing.
"This is all my fault," said Justin's voice, finally breaking the silence between us.
None of us had any words to deny what he said that wouldn't be a lie, because in the end, it was his fault. His fault that we died. His fault that she lived. His fault for her denial and pain. Yet somehow, we weren't mad at him.
Each day we came to this building to watch Elise grow old. We saw her get married to the man she truly loved. We saw her have three beautiful children. We saw her through all of her pains, and each day, we saw her saw how much she wished we were there. One day, we decided to take a break from watching her. She was 99 at this point and in three days she would be 100. That night, we held each other crying as she lived the first day of her 100th year, and then died.
We walked to the gate of Heaven and waited for three days straight, until we finally heard the voice we had been waiting for, at the same age as we had last saw her when we were alive, a tall figure walked out of the mist and into our arms with a few breathless words.
"It's been a while."
