“It’s a special drink he made for the, you know, this occasion.”
The funeral director spoke awkwardly. How do you describe a party for the recently deceased? Merle was someone almost no one knew in high school, but here we were some 20 years later at his funeral. Everyone who’d come were friends of his because he didn’t have any family. And those of us from high school weren’t his friends back then.
No, but he’d proven himself as a wonderful person afterwards. Lending a bit of money at the right time, being there with kind words when we needed them. Never asking anything of us, but always being helpful in the neighborhood.
Granted, he wasn’t the friendly sort to start with. Always said he was destined to be a witch, or a warlock. We knew he was weird back then, always dressing in crazy emo style and way too much eye shadow. Even the teachers considered him creepy.
Yet, here we were, saying thanks to the weird friend who’d grown on us over the years, and now looking at the shimmering liquid in our fancy glasses.
“Do we really want to drink this?”
“He drank it all the time,” the director said. And I’ve had some, it’s quite good.
We toasted and drank, all while some of the strangest music played around us. Apparently he was quite the composer. We clinked our empty glasses, and I passed out.
When I opened my eyes I found myself on a school bus. My heart began racing. I looked to my right and saw my big brother. I wanted to scream, because he died when I was 30. But I’m on a school bus, and I looked at my hands. I’m not 40, not even 30. I’m 17. I looked at him again and he looked at me. Called me a lazy idiot for sleeping the whole ride and he was gone off to his first class. I wanted to tell him how I missed him, and how I loved him, and how he shouldn’t join the Navy, how he was going to die in a carrier accident.
Everyone got off the bus, and I walked off in a daze. I ran into Zelda in the hallway near my locker. My old locker. My feet took me there without even thinking. I was still in a daze, but Zelda stopped me. She’d been right next to me at the funeral only moments ago, but now she stopped me and looked me in the eyes.
“I’m having the weirdest dream. I’m not sure if this is the dream, or if…”
She didn’t finish, but she didn’t have to. I finished it for her. I wasn’t sure either. But we knew we were both living like 17 year olds, with 40 year old minds.
“My hormone’s are raging, I’m having cramps like a champ, and I want to scream about what I know is going to happen, but I can’t.”
I agreed. We weren’t supposed to stay together, at least we didn’t back then. But we decided to stick together. Then her boyfriend showed up. He kissed her, and she tried slapping him, but she couldn’t. I saw the whole thing, her hand was frozen. He took off, and she gasped that he’d ended up abusing her while they dated in college. It had taken her 10 years to get over the trauma, and she couldn’t do anything to her 17 year-old self to stop from kissing him back. She looked at me with horror. I told her I had no idea what we were going to do.
We were freaking out, but I’m going to cut this short as I’m running out of time. You’ll see why in a minute.
All of us from the funeral found each other. The teachers tried to separate us, but we were solid. And we finally found Merle. He was buried in the chem lab doing things that back then we gave no thought to. Now, we approached him very carefully.
“Hi guys, I’ve been expecting you.” He drank some shimmering liquid. “This is great stuff, and I hope you enjoyed yours.”
One of our group, he was a natural leader spoke up, quietly.
“You’ve known all these years what was going to happen? But what’s going to happen to us?”
“Yeah,” Merle said equally quietly, eyes cast down. “I’ve had this sort of curse, since forever, and I know I’m not going to last long. But I knew that I’d grow fond of you guys over the next few decades, and wanted a chance to say thanks again.”
Are we stuck here forever? I wanted to know. He said that we would be able to play out the entire school day, and when we left the school, we’d reappear back in the funeral home.
Will we remember all this? Is there any way to change anything? Zelda wanted to know.
“No, nothing can change. And no, you won’t be able to remember anything, I’m sorry. It’s not the way the universe is supposed to work. When my body burns, you’ll forget any of this happens.”
Zelda began crying. I joined her. And he was right. I walked out the doors a few hours later, and saw my friends all staring into their empty glasses. The funeral director announced that cremation of the body was going to begin soon, and Merle’s request was that we could be there to see it. Everyone followed, except me.
I sat down at a table and started scribbling, fast. I’ve recorded almost everything but one thing happened with my brother that I don’t ever want to forget. We passed each other in the cafeteria.
The End
*PS – I’m writing these shorts just to show that these are wholly my ideas, and NOT inspired or copied off of others. If there’s any resemblance it’s wholly my fault and I take the responsibility. But it’s also entirely a coincidence and I admit no liability. So there.
Behavior, study of... 