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“Unbelievable.”
Holly Evans shook her head as she peered down through the glass window to
the scene below.
That
was the problem with an open casket. It meant everyone’s last memories
of her would be with a white puffy face, the wrong
color
lipstick and a dreadful polyester dress. They always said the camera added
five pounds to you, but no one ever talked about how fattening embalming
fluid was, did they?
“Sssshhh.”
“What?”
Holly kept her eyes focused on the service. “Oh, sorry. It’s hard to
be quiet when I have to look at myself getting buried in that outfit. I’m
only twenty-two. So much to live for, yet there I am. Dead. You know I don’t
like to kick up a stink, but I most certainly didn’t die of natural
causes.”
There
was another angry hiss from behind her, which Holly ignored. She’d been
ignoring a lot of things since she’d died two weeks ago. And it had to
be said that heaven wasn’t nearly as much fun as she had been led to
believe. All the rules for a start.
And
where were the fluffy clouds and peeled grapes? To be honest the place
looked more like Terminal Two at LAX than a celestial paradise. She
pressed her nose up to the glass again. Here came the speeches.
Holly
sniffed as she listened to Gemma’s glowing tribute. Of course she knew
her best friend would come through for her. “And look at how everyone is
crying,” she said to no one in particular. “I’m really touched.
Perhaps the dress wasn’t such a bad choice after all?”
Now it
was Todd’s turn to speak and if she didn’t know better, she would say
his eyes looked a bit moist as well.
They
had been dating almost a year and he hadn’t
even shed a tear when he broke
his leg in three places while playing football. Yet there he was crying
over her.
It
just made Holly feel even worse about their stupid fight. Todd had wanted
to propose to her in front of everyone at the annual Baker Colwell ball,
while Holly had wanted it to be a more private affair. He had refused to
budge on the issue and after three days of not speaking, Holly had finally
come to realize what a fool she was. If he wanted to show his love for her
in front of the entire company, well it was hardly something she should be
arguing over. Especially since she had ‘accidentally’ found the ring
at the bottom of his closet a week earlier.
It
was beautiful. And so big. And if only she hadn’t died, then she would’ve
been able to apologize to him before the ball and by the end of the night
it would’ve been hers. It wasn’t fair. Especially when she thought of
how much she’d spent on the pink bra and panties to complete her
apology. Not that she had resented the cost, since it wasn’t everyday a
girl got engaged. Besides, Todd had once said how gorgeous pink looked
against her dusty brown curls and huge sloe-shaped eyes. Well, okay so he
hadn’t used those words exactly, since he was more of a salesman than a
poet. But Holly just knew he had been thinking it on the inside.
Still,
there was no use crying over spilt milk, or diamonds as big as her
knuckle. She was in heaven now and she just had to forget about how much
better the death notice would’ve looked if only it said, loving fiancé,
Todd Harman.
“But,”
she said with one final sniff. “There’s no denying it would’ve been
a beautiful wedding.”
“I
told you. No talking during a funeral.”
“And I told you that since I’m only going to die once, I might as well
make the most of it,” Holly retorted to the person behind her. “Besides,
how often do you get all of Baker Colwell’s head office to turn up to
your funeral? And that includes the notoriously stuck up Corporate Affairs
guys from fifth floor. Look, they’ve even spelt my name out in bright
red roses and white carnations. What a nice gesture.”
“Miss
Evans,” someone else said and Holly reluctantly spun around. This was
one voice she couldn’t ignore. When she first arrived in heaven, she’d
been under the mistaken impression that Tyrone, her first level tutor, was
actually God.
The
fact that he had laughed hysterically at her mistake hadn’t made Holly
warm to him much. From what she gathered, no one really got a good look at
the big man, so who was to say he didn’t look like Tyrone? It was
possible.
“Yes?”
“There
have been complaints.”
“Complaints?”
“Yes,
Miss Evans. Complaints. About the talking. It’s got to stop.”
“I’ve
hardly said anything,” she protested. “Honestly I haven’t. It’s
just that some people around here jump down your throat for even
breathing...well not that we actually breathe anymore. But still, they
really should try and relax a bit. Anyway, it’s easy for them to sit
there looking smug since most of them got to see the right side of
seventy.”
Tyrone gave her a patient smile. “Remember I explained these feelings
are just temporary and as soon as they’re purged you’ll be left with
an overwhelming sense of joy.”
Holly grunted as by way of an answer, since the longer she was dead, the
less joyful she was becoming. It wasn’t that she wanted to cause a fuss,
but she was still grappling with what had happened.
She
had her whole life in front of her: a great new promotion with the
eleventh most benefit friendly employer in the country, a whole heap of
friends and a potential fiancé who was drop dead gorgeous. Oh yes, she
had it all to live for, all right. But around here that didn’t seem to
matter.
“Look,
Miss Evans. This will get easier as you go along. You just need to stick
to the rules and do as you’re told.”
Holly
was becoming more and more frustrated. She wasn’t usually quite so
petulant, but then she wasn’t usually stuck in heaven either. “What
are they going to do, kill me? Oh, wait, that’s right. I’m already
dead.”
“Actually...”
Tyrone cleared his throat. “I think you’ll find there are quite a few
fates worse than death.”
“I
find that hard to believe,” Holly was stung into replying. “I’ve got
to say it’s a pretty disorganized up here. All I keep hearing is. ‘Of
course you can’t see your parents yet, Miss Evans; you need to wait
until you’re at Level Three for that...no, Miss Evans you can’t go and
haunt someone just because they took credit for one of your ideas
last month...’”
All around her she could see people catching their imaginary breath in an
inward gasp.
That was another thing about this place. Everyone just seemed to sit
around doing nothing. Tyrone said it was because on Level One people were
still waiting for their security clearances before moving up to their
higher destinies. But whatever the reason, it was pretty annoying to
always have a peanut gallery of dead people listening in on what she was
saying.
“I
know it seems frustrating to you right now, Miss Evans, but you just need
to try and be patient a bit longer,” Tyrone said in a mild voice, which
reminded Holly of just how pointless it was to try and argue with him. “So
please, no more talking.”
“Fine.” Holly felt the fight drain out of her as she let out a sigh
and turned back to her own funeral. She would try very hard to watch the
rest of it without opening her mouth, and- “Oh, great. This day just
keeps better and better doesn’t it. First the horrible dress and now
look. Why are Vince Murphy and all the other computer technicians down
there? Don’t they have anything better to do?”
Behind
her Tyrone coughed and Holly lifted her hand in an apology. “Okay,
sorry. I was just a bit thrown to see them. Especially since it’s not
like I was friends with...oh, and why does Vince have all those purple
flashing lights dancing around his head? I know he’s weird, but that’s
just something else.”
“If
you’d read your manual properly you’d know purple lights mean the body
in question is about to die,” the same annoying person called out from
the peanut gallery. Obviously she wasn’t the only one who missed out on
their purging. This guy didn’t seem to be feeling the love either.
“Oh,
and I suppose that’s right next to the bit about no talking during a
funeral,” Holly retorted.
“Actually
it is. But since you were obviously too busy doing your nails instead of
learning how to read before you committed suicide-”
Holly
spun around and glared at the man for the first time. “I. Did. Not.
Commit. Suicide.”
“Of
course not and I guess those pills magically entered your system,” said
the horrible man (who Holly was very glad to note was incredibly fat). “Oh
yeah,” he continued with a snigger. “You’re not the only one who
looks down at what’s going on. I saw the hospital report and what they
said. Apparently it’s not the first time you’ve tried it either.
Sounds to me like you’re not only a big mouth, you’re a-”
“Thank
you, Mr. Michaels, that’s enough,” Tyrone interrupted before joining
her at the window.
“I
didn’t commit suicide.” Holly managed to keep her voice low. She could
feel her body shaking, which was not in keeping with what Tyrone had
explained to her. Once a person got to heaven, while their spirit still
had the appearance of a body, it didn’t actually work like one. As in no
feeding, no watering, no washing.
Or
shaking.
Holly
put it down to this purging business.
“It’s
no one’s job to judge here, Miss Evans.”
“Tell
that to the fat guy behind me,” she muttered in a sullen voice as her
fingers unconsciously made their way to the faded scars on her wrist.
Tyrone
coughed. “Again on the not being here to judge.”
Holly
bit her lip. “Okay. Sorry. He probably has a wonky metabolism or
something. But.” She gulped as she stared out the window again. “Is
Vince Murphy really about to die? What’s wrong with him?”
“Probably
missing your smart wit.”
“Mr.
Michaels,” Tyrone said in a quiet voice, which somehow sounded more like
a roar than a whisper as it echoed around the large glass fronted room.
“One more word and it’s another month on Level One for you.”
Serves
you right, Holly wanted to say, but she
wisely kept her mouth shut. Besides, Tyrone was sort of scary. She watched
him turn back to her.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with your friend, but it’s true he’s
about to die,” he said in a kinder voice. “However, Miss Evans, I have
to insist there’s no more talking, because otherwise the matter will be
out of my hands. Do you understand?”
Holly
nodded her head and lifted her fingers to her lips and pretended to zip
them together before returning her attention back to Vince. How odd that
he would die as well.
She
watched as her stepmother walked to the front of the church and smoothed
out a piece of paper. She could just guess what was on it. Holly Evans
has been the bane of my existence for as long as I’ve had the
displeasure of knowing her and despite how much she denies breaking my
favorite Clarice Cliff jug, I know she did it...
Of course her stepmother was too clever to say these things aloud, but
Holly bet her beloved Miss Sixty jeans, her stepmother was thinking them
on the inside. Well, Mrs. Evans number two, you won’t be burdened
with being related to someone like me any longer, Holly thought
sullenly.
Her eye was drawn back to Vince Murphy again. If she didn’t know better
she would say he was about to collapse. Holly could scarcely believe it as
she spun around to face Tyrone, shooting him an accusing glare.
“You
didn’t say he was going to die now. As in, right in the middle of
my funeral. I’m sorry but this is too much. I don’t get to make up
with Todd, I don’t get my wedding and now I don’t even get my own
perfect once-in-a-lifetime funeral?”
All
of a sudden things started to get a little bit shaky and she stretched out
her hands to grab hold of the rail that was attached to the large glass
window she’d been staring out of all morning.
Holly
had been through a lot of strange experiences in the last two weeks:
dying, finding out that heaven wasn’t full of M&Ms and Friends
repeats, being told off every time she opened her mouth, but there was
something different about this. For a start it felt like she was falling.
Down. Through a long white tunnel.
Then
she opened her eyes as she realized she was hovering just millimeters from
her own dead body, complete with puffy face, bad lipstick and a polyester
dress.
Oh
dear.
Tyrone
hadn’t been joking.
She
really was getting kicked out of heaven.
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