You Are Not Alone

• Riley Sadlier, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2011

His song began, I don’t know why he loved it so much but he did. Michael Jackson nut he was, seems only right his favourite song ‘You Are Not Alone’ is the song he gets taken out of the church by. My body’s numb, and everything is spinning when I stand up to follow the coffin out of the church. Daniel, my best friend tortured by the cruelty of fate.

He didn’t deserve it! If there is a god why would he be taken, Daniel was a Christian, never stolen, never had a drink, never even swore! He was only fourteen. First the skin cancer then on the day he got out of hospital some idiot driver ran him down. If god has some unknown purpose for Daniel why did he have to make his death so painful? The driver wasn’t even found!

I am shaking when I get into the car to follow the hearse to the cemetery; the hot tears flooding down my face. I try to talk but all that comes out are incomprehensible sobs. Closed casket today, I couldn’t have handled to see his body again. They say you look peaceful when you die but the painful death showed on his face. I was with him the day he got hit, we were going bowling to celebrate his getting out of hospital when he J walked. I told him not to do it but he said nobody was coming, famous last words.

My black suit soaks up all the sunlight, making me sweat by the gravesite. Leaning into Mum, sobbing on her shirt, she has stayed strong for me. My body is numb, with the daisy in my hand I walk to the coffin. I can't even fully comprehend what it is I am doing. One-foot just steps in front of the other without my control. I place the flower on his oak coffin lid; the numbness quickly turns to spinning so I jump on the first available seat I can see.

The final prayer then they began lowering him into the earth, his family bawling into each others arms. My tears stay silent but continue streaming down my face just the same. My world is spinning but this time I am getting dizzy. My body gets taken over by sudden tiredness and in what feels like only a blink my world goes dark around me.

The hospital room spins into focus; Mum leans over my bed, shouting to an unseen doctor. “He’s awake!”

My world turns into darkness once more.