Gravity

So this is how it all ends...

I used to think of the perfect way to die. Would it be something out of a horror flick? A stab in the chest or a lethal injection? Maybe it would be done out of courage? Saving someone's life as they're about to get hit by a car. Or maybe, by some perverse will of the mind, suicide...
Yet, none of my wildest thoughts could compare to this day. The day of my death.
I lay there in the pavement, covered with my own blood. I hear the sound of an ambulance drawing near. I see some flickering lights and movement next to me. The deafening sound of someone's screams were just around the corner.

Is this how it feels before you die? This overwhelming sense of trying to get things into place and hoping to God that you'd remember every great memory you ever had--- even the ones that hurt you.
I hear someone's voice just above me. A soft, unfailing tone of life. Can you hear me?
I smile as I listen to his voice. It was oddly familiar in some way. Like I've heard it before.
"Miss, can you hear me?" he says again.
Yes, I want to say, but I feel a block in my throat. I try again, "Yes. Yes. Yes! " I shout.
No one could hear me.
"She's gone." He finally professes. I stare at myself surrounded by strangers. My cold, lifeless form still lying on the pavement.

I see them place my body in a stretcher, carrying me to the ambulance. I float by, looking at the people surrounding me. Strangers, these are the people who see me at my last breath.
I walk towards the ambulance and sit next to the man who tried to save my life. I stare into his face as he looks bleakly into my own lifeless form.
He carefully removes all the apparatus covering my face. Then gently brushed away some of the hair in my eyes. For a brief moment, I thought I could feel his touch on my skin.
He quickly got back to what he was doing.
"She's really young, huh?" I hear the man in front of us say. "Couldn't be more than twenty-five or so..."
"Yes, it's just too bad that she died so young." I hear him say next to me.

"Quite a looker too if you ask me," the man in front of says with a low chuckle.
I smile at his remark. I watch as they arrive near the hospital. More lights, more people trying to get me somewhere. Do my parents even know I'm dead?
They lead me to the ER, a nurse in white gradually leading me to a long steel table. I watched as he worriedly looked back to my body, as if making sure that I was alright. I'm dead, you don't have to worry, I try to tell him. As if he could really hear me.
"Take care of her will you?" He asks the nurse next to me.
She laughs and says, "Of course dear! You know her or something?"
"No... No, I don't..." he says with his head cast down.

"Well, don't worry I'm gonna take good care of her... Until her family comes for her at least..."
"Yes, I'm sure they'll be here soon. " He says before walking away.
I walk by his side as he moves past the hallway.
He greets the people he meets on the way.
Then he reaches this small, gray room where I watch him take a seat in a metal chair, exhausted.
I look at the worried expression on his face.
I knew in some strange way that in the brief encounter we had, he seemed to care about me. A care that I hadn't seen anyone else give to me.
So I walk towards his slouched form, drawn by a power even I couldn't understand.

Then suddenly, having more courage than any strength I ever had when I was alive, I gently cupped his face and kissed him.
And I knew, even without touch, or body or anything between us, he felt me. He felt my presence.
"Oh no!" I hear from behind me.
An old man in white looked at me with a weird expression on his face.
"You really shouldn't have done that." He announces as he walked toward me.
"What? You can see me?" I ask with a surprised tone.
"Of course I can see you. I was sent here to fetch you. Until I saw what you were doing here with him." He says.
"Well, I don't see what's so wrong with that. I'm already dead so he can't possibly file an abuse charge on me." I say matter-of-factly.

"Yes, well, you my dear, have just done the one thing that any spirit wouldn't want to do." He says.
"And what's that?" I ask my supposed angel guide.
"By that simple act, you have just tied yourself to a living human being." He says.
"And what does that do?"
"You are bound to him for all eternity. Or at least until you're reincarnated into someone else." He says with a chuckle.
"You mean I have to stay with him? Even if I'm dead?" I ask.

"Yes, you are bound to his soul. His physical being may not fully understand it, but his soul knows that it is bound to another human being. And that is the saddest curse you could give to anyone." He says.
"Why is it a curse?" I ask, exasperated.
"Because, you are not allowing him to love anyone else. He will feel for other people, but you are the only one who could fill his heart. And seeing as you're dead. Well, he will never be able to have you. And that my dear, is the curse." He says.
I stare at him dumb-founded. And then I look back at the man that I would be bound to for all eternity. Upon seeing his face, I knew, the curse wasn't just for him. The curse was also in me.