#OctoberFrights: After Death

Welcome to Day Three of the October Frights Blog Hop.

Today I have two flash fiction stories about death, and the consequences about lingering beyond your allotted time. Enjoy...

Leftover

I died yesterday.

A heart attack, I think. I remember a pain in my chest, down my arm, and not much else. I saw a flash of a hospital, maybe an operating room, and a voice saying, “time of death, 11:04 AM”.

That’s when I woke up here.

In my own bed.

Yet… it’s not the same place.

It is so silent here, a vast empty nothing of stillness. And I have no voice. I can’t talk, I can’t cry, I can’t even scream. The world around me is painted in shades of grey, a shrouded space of perpetual twilight. The air is cold and heavy, and it feels like it’s pressing on me.

I can see the other world, the world of the living I suppose, like watching through dirty glass. I can see my husband crying when he’s alone. I think I can reach out and touch him. I know I can, I can feel it. I want to reach out… I need to reach out…

He’s right there.

Waiting.

I need to feed.

I’m so, so hungry.

~*~

  

Eternal

Death hates me.

Why else would I still be here? Waiting.

When I’m finally ready.

Perhaps it’s my own fault, a taste of my own feckless behavior. So many times I smiled at him, made him wait for me, promised I would come to him. Then I slipped by him with a smile, another deal for more years, another life stolen to prolong mine.

How many millennia did I cheat him of what I owed?

I lost count. I’d wager he knows.

I thought forever would never get stale.

I had such hubris.

Youth and beauty for eternity, laughing at Death as he chased me.

Always winning.

Always laughing.

Until it stopped being amusing.

I thought the game would last.

I thought he loved me.

Until he refused to play anymore.

Now I am alone.

Waiting for Death.

Why won’t he come for me?

© A. F. Stewart 2017 All Rights Reserved 

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