Wandering The Elysian Fields

• Sebastian Douglass, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2014

I remember that day with such insulting clarity. I was sipping coffee. Politely arguing with my ex-wife about who gets the cat. The cat’s name was Archimedes. I hated him, but I hated her more. And as I sipped my coffee, repentant, bitter, my ex-wife dropped dead. My initial feelings were ones of derision. But out of my peripherals, the motionless, lifeless bodies of my fellow coffee sippers lay, stagnant, tranquil. I stood up, turned around, and lowered my jaw in such a relentless fashion. My eyes widened as I questioned what I saw, as I questioned my sanity. I took a few steps towards my wife. I knelt, as the memories I had of the last time I had lowered to my knee before this woman came reeling back. My hand slipped to her neck, as I checked for a pulse. It was as static as a lake in the winter. I have tried many times to comprehend the inexplicable feelings that rushed through me at that very moment. The adrenaline melded with my blood as I stood, terrified of what every sensor in my body was telling me. I burst through the doors into the street; the neon sign of the café still alit. As I rotated to my left to look down the road, I saw a car, without a driver, coming slowly to a stop in front of me. I spun around and around hoping to see a person who wasn’t strewn across the sidewalk. My mind stopped. Almost as if it knew right then and there that this wasn’t merely happenstance. My legs stepped forward into the car. I, unwillingly, started driving. I didn’t know why or where I was going, but I didn’t try and stop. Whatever was happening; it felt right. After what seemed like a minute or two, the car stopped. I turned my head with curiosity and caution. For the second time that day, my eyes widened. It was my house; the house where I grew up. I frantically tried to fathom how I could be here. This is on the other side of the country, yet it only took me a minute. The door of the car and the door of the house opened with such synchronisation. Like I was being invited in. I sat in the car for a while, pontificating out loud. Then, like jumping into a cold pool, or pulling out a hair; I exited the car. I had never walked in such a dogmatic and proud manner. I entered my old, rackety house. Hanging on the door was a sign that read “Heart is where the home is”. I knew, in that second, what had happened; why I had come full circle, like a homing pigeon. I was the one who was dead, not everyone else. This is it. This is the last chance I will ever have to see my home again. I tucked myself into bed, and closed my eyes. I was gone.