Angels and Death

Chapter 1.

CHAPTER 1. CHEMISTRY OF A CAR CRASH.

2010(C)Samantha Thomas

There I stood, at the large doorway to the room, full of people dressed in the colors of mourning. The people bustled about, to the few empty seats available in one huge unorchestrated blur. Standing there, shaking like a leaf in the wind, trying my damnedest to mentally prepare myself. All for the sight that lay in the heavy wooden box, at the far end of the room, surrounded by floral bouquets.

My breath was as quick, as my eyes were wide. Drowning I was, in all the hushed whispers, empty chuckles of remembrance, and the muffled sobs of far too many. It was so bizarre, I knew the room was packed beyond capacity, but yet, I saw nothing, just my clouded tunnel vision on the box.

The funeral noise began to dissipate into a deafening silence, I could hear nothing, see no one...

Until, that is, that heads began turning...

...All eyes on me.

Muffled, sounding like it came from a great distance, I heard my name being called, forcing me out of the state I was in.

"Samantha..."

"Sam?"

Accompanied by someone's arm looping through mine, out of instinct, my head turned inclining towards the arm, attached to the voice. It was Tiffany. She wore a look of worry on her always soft featured face. Not meaning to, that look made my breath escape prematurely, and without a second thought, I looked behind me, expecting to see the cause for her concern. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I looked back to her, she looked just as confused as I felt.

"Honey, you're ok. We are gunna do this together, you've got this!" She said, in the sweetest, most sincere tone that I think I've ever heard from her. She pulled her arm out from the loop with mine and placed it around my neck, her other hand resting gently on my left arm and coaxed me softly down the aisle, to where my brother laid in his casket.

She sat me down on the chair next to my mother, whom turned to me, laying her head on my shoulder bawling her eyes out. Unmoving I sat, roughly ten minutes later, my mother was urging me up out of my seat, towards where my brother Jamie Lee laid. Not wanting to look up, at him this way, my mother nudged my face up to face him, that was when I lost it.

Jamie was laying here, because he OD'd on heroin at twenty nine years old. Because somehow, somewhere along the way, something went wrong with him and he turned to this shit. We didn't have the best upbringing by any means, far from it, but here I was, un-addicted to this, to anything.

Here I was, forced to look upon my brother in this way. Cold, stiff, a lacquered up version of his previous self, his real self. Here I was now, all alone in this world it seemed, family wise. Fucking idiot! An idiot who before this, could've done no wrong in my eyes, who was the strongest, smartest, bestest big brother a girl could have...that is, until he up and left me here, like this, for his next hit. The very hit that ended his life.

"I love you!" It escaped my lips between gut wrenching sobs before I even knew it. I bent down and kissed my brother on the forehead goodbye. My eyes closed, remembering the cold caked steel, that etched onto my lips and in my mind, forevermore, from that kiss goodbye...

Never understanding if God or Gods existed, how could they let things like this happen? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things keep happening to me? All I want is a normal life, one without the pain, and realities of horrors like these. "I think I deserve that much!" Finishing my thought out loud on a pleading whisper. If anyone above is even listening... at the very least you owe me that...