Anonymous
Guest
Part I
“Like I said, Miles … soon, we’ve gotta go, and we can’t look back.”
Death is like an out-of-tune instrument, you can spend your whole life thinking you’re going to play a certain song on that day, that you’re going to have certain memories and expectations met; but that isn’t the case, it comes fast, rough and wrong. It was upon realizing this that Don understood why his mind wasn’t focusing on all his failings and misgivings, but the simple things, something as simple as waking up in the morning and laying eyes on someone he loved across from him, sharing a meal with someone who he had come to consider family, and talking short walks out in the woods with nobody but himself to think of. That was death, not what you see in the movies.
He slowed in his breathing, a feeling of peace - of actual peace - sent him off into the black with one final glimpse at the sunrise over the horizon. Don Jones was dead, a memory of another time, or so he and every person who had come to know him by that name believed. He woke up from his sleep, not dead, alive, or undead, but instead a revenant robbed of his purpose, a ghost left searching for his chance to move on from a life that was meant to come to a close.
“He lives,” one of the three men said with a smile, pulling a blood-pressure cuff from his arm. “Might not be the time, but you’ve been the talk of the town. One of the first we pulled out of that mess at the docks, didn’t peg you to survive … oh, but that doesn’t matter. You got a name?”
“Don,” It was an unenergetic response from someone who not five minutes ago was letting go and freefalling into whatever awaited him in the after, but he was here now, living and breathing on a cot in some backwater town in the middle of Kentucky.
“Well, Don. I reckon you’ve got some debts to pay for all of this time and attention. We’ll talk about that later though, I wouldn’t let you outta that bed for anything right now. Think about it though, you’re gonna be here for a while, I’m Jon, by the by.”
Sometimes, what you have pegged as an ending ends up being the beginning of another story that is yours, and yours alone to see to an end.
The world doesn't give a fuck what you want.