I think that everyone, at one point or another in their lives, takes the time to put consideration into what it would feel like to be a ghost, even if only for a day. If nothing else, I think pretty much everyone has had the vision of attending their own funeral at least once just to let your mind wander to what it would be like. Everyone is scared of a world in which they don’t exist, we want to know what that’s like, how things could possibly move forward in our stead because to us, we are the sun, and the world revolves around us. I could be wrong, maybe it’s just me that thinks about this stuff, but I’m willing to bet I’m not. And guess what? It’s not a pretty fucking picture. You are not the sun. And honestly, the closest you will ever get to being the sun is when you are actually dead and it’s too late for it to matter to you anyways and that is only for a short time because once you are buried you might, if you’re lucky, remain a memory in someone’s dreams or tickle the tip of tongues in occasional somber conversation, but it isn’t some party. Being a ghost isn’t a fucking party.

        The idea is, I think, to see what people will say about you when they think you are gone or think that you can’t hear them anymore. The world was never meant to work that way. Tipping the scales in that manner causes an imbalance that can never end in anything good. What do you think will come from sitting in, invisibly at your own funeral. You want to watch the people who care about you fall apart as their hearts break for you? Will it make you feel like you meant something in the time when you were here? That’s the idea though, isn’t it, that we don’t mean fucking anything? And I think that with that in mind then it is okay to let our minds wander to that scenario, and proper even to allow ourselves to be dictated in part by it. The real reason we pull our thoughts to that setting is to remind ourselves what we need to do, relationships we need to mend, and how we can be better.

        Aunt Christa didn’t shed a tear? Probably because you haven’t called her in two years, and the last time you did she knew it was because you thought that she forgot your birthday card. Making up a reason to pick up the phone and pretending like you wanted to borrow her Seinfeld DVD collection so that she would say “and while you’re here I can give you the obligatory birthday card complete with a twenty dollar bill as its predecessor, and the one before it have always come to you in the mail, how wonderful it is that you called! Boy am I forgetful!” is just plain selfish. You didn’t want those DVDs. You don’t even like Seinfeld, and if you wanted to give it a shot, you have the internet. You wouldn’t need to drive half an hour to pick up the DVDs, in that allotted time you could have watched the pilot and refreshed yourself with why it isn’t the show for you and had time to fucking spare. No, you never thought of her except in times when it came to yourself. You’re not fucking fooling anyone. You never did.

        Where are all the kids from school? Oh, that’s right, most of those people don’t talk to you, and generally the ones who do are scheduled in classes with you. Has it taken you this long to consider that it’s possible that they don’t think of you as more than an acquaintance? Sure, you have a few friends, and they are here, but you definitely thought you’d see Ron from Biology since you let him borrow your notes that one time and why the Hell wouldn’t he come? He doesn’t have shit else to do and he doesn’t seem fucking heartless. What has his mind and body preoccupied that he can’t take two hours to show up at your funeral? Oh, that’s right. You actually don’t know the answer. Because you never took the time to get to know Ron. And you gave him your notes because he asked but you would have never reached out to him first. Now that you think of it, was that Ron that you gave those notes to, or was it Dan? Don’t waste your time looking, Dan didn’t come to your funeral either. You paid him even less attention, and maybe it was his notes that you borrowed. In fact, his name might be Don and you’ve been calling him Dan for months.

        You thought for sure that kid from school that you grew up with but ended up living in a different district when it came time to go to high school would have made an appearance. But now that you think of it, how would he even know? You haven’t talked to him since… Sophomore year? Maybe once or twice, but you definitely haven’t tried to stay in contact, and maybe he’ll read your name in the paper or maybe he’ll hear about it on the radio or he’ll run into your gravestone by accident or one day he’ll look you up and realize he was too late. That’s a big fucking maybe.

        The people who do show up, you overanalyze their every God damn move, that’s for sure. Why isn’t Lindsey crying more? Those sure seem like crocodile tears. You can’t believe that cousin Tim is actually texting, and worse than that, he’s smiling, probably over something corny the flavor of the week is eating up, or maybe he has just gotten a fresh Tinder match and a fire has been lit in his loins and nothing, your funeral included, can bring him down from cloud nine. The neighbor family made it, but they left early because the baby is crying, they’ll have forgotten you by dinner. You notice the fighting between your grandparents and you realize that you’ve been wasting all of your time and that maybe things aren’t good enough to leave. But you can do something about it.

That’s why thinking about attending your own funeral is fine, and it’s good, and it’s actually worth something as long as you think of it as applicable. Actually attending your own funeral is horrible, because even though you might be a ghost, you would be the one haunted by the things you see, the things you didn’t realize you could have done better until it was too late.

Life generally doesn’t work that way, second chances and all. We don’t usually get the option to make things different, live the way we want based on out of body experiences. It never happens for people like that.

Aren’t I fucking special?

I can’t tell you what it is exactly that brings me to the realization first. Maybe it’s that my father’s sorrow isn’t lessening at all, in fact he isn’t even noticing the change in my condition right away. Maybe it’s the fact that the rails stop clanging together. I don’t know, but it’s probably the fact that in my peripherals I realize that I’m not standing at the edge of my bed, but rather, inside of it.

I look down to see the footboard in front of me and my stomach jumps into my throat. Sort of, anyways, I mean I get the sensation, but I soon realize that neither my stomach nor my throat have retained corporeal form. I want to throw up when I see the feet, my feet, painted purple toenails and all, protruding through my midsection, but I have nothing to expel. I slowly turn around and glance at what lies on the bed, which is a much more docile version of myself than what had lied there moments ago. In fact, she is no longer moving at all, ant the realization dawns on me all too quickly.

I’m fucking dead. I ditched the fucking light and I still died. And now what? Purgatory? How do ghosts work? Am I going to be stuck following my body around until it’s burned? What if they fucking burn me? My mind is racing but I have no answers. My questions are only met with more questions, and my fear is only rising as I begin to have what I imagine is some sort of ghost like panic attack.

“No, no, no…” I say, and although I can hear myself it sounds weird to me, almost contained. It is as if I’m speaking underwater, but I think I sort of understand it, for as weird as it is. I’m not familiar with anything in this nature, but I think it’s pretty obvious. I had a seizure and now I’m fucking dead. And now I’m a fucking ghost. And no one can hear me and I’m stuck here to haunt this place because I was fucking stubborn and thought I could run away from heaven or whatever the hell that light had in store for me. And now I’m stuck. Here, but not. I’m haunted by it all, and yes, I realize the fucking irony in that, thank you very much.

Movies will lead you to believe that ghosts and specters and other such things of the nature that don’t really exist, or that they didn’t really exist maybe, until this moment, they will have you believe that those people are see through and they aren’t. I know you’re picturing the milky white of Casper and you can go ahead and think you can see through me, but you would be wrong. I look exactly as the other me does. I look like a solid being, although, obviously, since I’m standing inside of my bed, I’m not solid at all. I’m not naked either, thank God, because even though I’m all alone and can’t be seen or heard, it would just make this entire situation that much creepier. Plus I don’t want other ghosts to be able to see my goodies anytime they feel like it. I’m still a teenage girl. It doesn’t matter if you can’t touch my funny parts, I still get embarrassed.

Other ghosts. Is there such a thing? Can we interact? Is this just the beginning of a whole new world for me? There is so much I don’t understand and fear I never will and my mind is going a mile a minute but I hold no answers and now my father is moving towards the bed again.

“Lee” He sniffs, his voice low. He sounds scared of what he is going to find. “Leah, baby?” He never calls me Leah unless he is upset with me which isn’t very often so I can hear the fear and the worry in his voice and I think that maybe he’s never been this scared of anything in his life and I want to hold his hand and I want to make everything okay for him again and let him know that if I can, I will stay in this ghastly prison if it means I don’t have to leave his side, ever, if that is enough for him, because the last thing I want is for him to give up because of losing me, the only other girl he has ever loved after my “mother”. She’s a real fucking piece of work, that one, but we’ll get to that later. Currently we have a body to examine. This is suspenseful shit.

“Wake up, Leah,” he whispers through a soft sob as he is now kneeling beside me once more. He kisses my cheek. “Please be okay,” he says, almost begging, as his ear closes in on my chest. For a moment I wait, I wait for the drop. It seems forever because I know the inevitable is coming I just worry how bad his attack will be when he realizes that he lost his baby girl before her time. Before my time? Who am I to say? This was a natural cause, after all, so maybe it was always meant to happen this way. No time for destiny talk now, though. I’m about to watch him crumble. And it is going to kill me all over again.

“Frank, it’s okay. Please, please don’t get worked up. I’m okay. I’ll be okay. I need you to be okay. Just please, be okay, for me. Please, try.

We had a good run. I’m okay now. I’m still here. We can still watch those movies you love together, it will just be different now. We just can’t hug so tightly anymore.” I know I’m speaking to myself, but maybe I need to. Maybe I need to hear these things, maybe I need to believe that there is a possible scenario, a possible outcome where he comes out of this not completely broken and can move on with his life. I try to lie to myself but I still expect him to lose it, and I’m not prepared for it, but however unprepared I am for that, I’m really unprepared for what actually happens next.

“Thank God,” he says, and what seem to be tears of joy are now replacing those of sorrow. He is smiling through his whiskers and he is almost laughing. “Oh God, baby, it’s gonna be okay. Your heartbeat is still there. You’re still with me, now just stay with me, baby. Stay with me.” He holds what I had thought would be an ice cold hand but now I don’t know what to think. I have a heartbeat? Could he be wrong? Is this some kind of lasting effect? I don’t think so. I don’t know what to think. My mind is fucking blown.

Everything is a blur now, before long paramedics are coming into my room. Do they just enter your house? I don’t fucking know, but I’m whirling now, and I feel light. I wonder if I’m drifting away into nothingness or if this is just all too much for my underdeveloped teenage fucking lizard brain to process and maybe I’m just about to lose my shit and I would except it wouldn’t have any effect because no one can see or hear me.

“Please help her,” my father begs, for a lack of any other words. He manages to utter a “she’s all I have,” as well, though. He doesn’t leave my side. He continues to hold my hand. Although I can’t actually feel it, and he is holding of the hand of that imposter laying in front of me, clinging to life, if she really is, I still feel the sentiment, and it calms me as much as anything can right now.

“How long has she been unconscious?” a female paramedic asks as she comes closer, holding a notebook and a pen. She is blonde and she looks to be in her forties. She has the look of the type of woman that smokes too many cigarettes and has been through some things and her voice is lower than most women but not so low to cause alarm and a search for an Adam’s apple. This is not the type of woman I would set my father up with. My mother, for all of her issues, was at least easier on the eyes than this one. Not to say that she is hideous, just… she’s not the one for him. I don’t know her, I just know.

“I don’t know if she ever really woke up,” my father responds, refusing to leave my side. “She seemed to be having a seizure and her eyes were open but she was non-responsive. She only recently stopped convulsing, and her breathing is soft.”

“She probably was never aware of what was happening,” a second paramedic said as he approached the right side of my bed. This one was cute, looked to be in his early thirties, and he had a square jaw like you would see on television. He was, as one would say, a hunk. I would classify him as so, anyways, and thinking back on using the word hunk makes me want to gag, I was such a girl. He sets some things down on the chestnut colored wooden nightstand beside my bed and he kneels as well, grabbing my right hand softly and checking for a pulse. “Or she probably won’t have a recollection of it when she comes to, that would be my guess.”

My whirlwind of emotions is spinning out of control now, and I’m screaming, and I know they can’t hear me but I’m having a breakdown, because, fuck it, I’m a ghost and people don’t tell me what the fuck to do and I make my own fucking rules now and besides no one can fucking hear me anyways so fuck it. Fuck.

“Never aware?!” I was becoming infuriated. The words he was so cavalierly throwing around almost seemed to take away from everything I had gone through. I had felt every violent fucking moment, I saw through my eyes as best I could and I witnessed my father break down and I was a fucking prisoner in my own body. “I was awake the entire time! I was awake! Why are you all acting like everything is okay?! I’m dead! I’m a ghost! This is it for me, the end of the line for Leah Swanson, will you just pay this moment the attention it deserves?!”

They were talking so softly, it was pissing me off. It was probably how they were trained to deal with these situations, and besides, they don’t know me. But they probably need to remain calm all of the time so that they don’t worry the loved ones in situations like this even more than they obviously already would be but I didn’t care. I was upset. I felt like they were taking away from how painful and serious the attack was and making it seem like some every day thing. It had never happened to me before. And thinking about it, it had probably never happened to them before, so maybe they don’t understand. But Jesus H Christ, people. I pissed myself. I know you smell that shit, it’s hot piss. Does that not give you some kind of idea of how bad this situation must be for me?

And all of this is not even mentioning the fact that I’m a ghost, this is just me caring about the attack. “I’m a ghost. Get off the ground and help my Dad because he’s about to keel over because he’s too loving and his heart can’t handle the news that he’s really not looking forward to. Help him! I’m already dead!”

“This has never happened before,” my dad says. His tears have subsided for the most part, and he is doing his best to remain strong in front of the strangers in the room, but mostly probably for me and maybe because if starts crying again he might not be able to stop. At least the paramedics are here in case he needs them. “At least, to the best of my knowledge, this has never happened before. I guess, if it’s like you say, and maybe she won’t remember when she wakes up that it’s possible that it could have happened before, but…” he glanced at my wet pajamas and was probably thinking of how intense the attack was because he seemed to cringe for a moment before he continued, “my guess is that she would probably have known when she woke up. So I’m thinking this is her first attack.”

“Embarrassment causes people, especially her age to hide important things Mr. Swanson,” the woman said, with a raised eyebrow as she scribbled some things onto her notebook.

“She and I are really close,” my dad argued, breathing heavily. “Maybe you’re right, but I have a feeling she would have told me.”

“Fucking tell her, Frank,” I muttered, knowing full well that he couldn’t hear me. Yeah, she’s not for him.

“Well, her pulse is slow,” the male paramedic with the dreamy eyes said calmly, “but she’s still with us.”

Pulse? I’m breathing? My dad must have really heard my heartbeat, but it isn’t making any sense to me. I need to understand. How can I be there if I’m here? How can that make sense? I think all of this while I am still standing inside of my bed screaming at a room full of people who can’t see or hear me and realize how ridiculous this all is. For a second, I wonder if I’m dreaming, but I don’t think so. If a pinch can supposedly wake you from a dream, then I should have woken up a long time ago because what I’ve endure tonight equates for more pinches than I could ever dole out.

I don’t know what to think, but one thing is for sure, the three people in this room who are actually definitely alive all think I am going to be okay, or at least continue living. The male stands back up while the female jots some more things into her notebook, she hasn’t stopped writing since she arrived, she is recording everything. I wonder how many people she has made uncomfortable with her demeanor and constant professionalism. I understand the reason she is recording it all, but it makes me mother fucking uncomfortable. I’m not a zoo animal. If you’re going to help me, help me. Or her. Help the Leah that is laying on the bed who I’m not entirely sure if is still me or not. It’s all really confusing at this point, and a bitch to wrap my non-corporeal head around.

My dad looks like he has hope now. He still hasn’t let me go, but I can see him and I see the look in his hopeful brown eyes and I can almost hear the thoughts in his mind as he prays for me. A man not normally known to be religious can find God on a night when his daughter’s bed could double as her deathbed. And a girl who doesn’t bother with religion either can both be introduced to and stripped of heaven and then shoved into purgatory in one night. That is, if any of this stuff means anything I think it does. And I don’t know anything. Not yet.

I have to know for myself. They say that girl, the one that looks like me, the one that is feeling the loving touch of my father’s embrace, the one that lays where I do and smells like piss and gets to sleep through the scene around her, they say that that girl is alive. And if that is true, then what the fuck does it mean for me? What does that make me? Because it certainly doesn’t make me a God damn ghost.

        I lean in slowly, afraid of what I’m going to find. I want to hear the breath for myself. I need to know that she is alive, and by some crazy miracle extension, I need to know that there is a chance that I might be too. I’m closing in on my double now, although I’m technically the double since she existed first. I existed first. This must be what it feels like to be a clone which is what it is starting to look like I am, but I’m going to hold off on making any more assumptions until I get some actual data for myself.

My non-corporeal heart beating like a battering ram against my chest resounds inside my ear canals. This, too, sounds muffled, as though I am contained inside my own world within the world I once inhabited. I take a deep breath in, and I press my ear against the face of the unconscious “me” to feel the breathing. And then I am slipping through my face and into my own body. And then I’m inside my skin once again. And then it’s as though I am going through a realignment and I am adjusting to a suit that I haven’t worn in a while, and I am letting it remember how to fit me as I remember how to control it. Seconds and minutes have felt like decades and centuries outside of my body. And suddenly, as I never expected would happen, I am me again.

        And then I wake up.