Five Minutes

*~Chapter 14~*

“GAH!” I wake from the deep sleep I had encountered, grasping the bench with my palms, feeling the fire from my hands melting the icicles below me.  I didn’t want to ponder about the dream I had just had….

Was my mother really that blind? Talking about my apparent brother like that, her very own descendant. The one related to her with blood, but she cares more about the man she married?  How did that work?

You tell me.

“Carlana?  Where are you?”

This guy’s insisting on bringing me to lunch, and I cannot resist.  He has a nice nose, you know!

“Nose?” I say, dead-pan.  “Really?”

I’m dead, Naomi, I don’t get this choices a lot….

I roll my eyes, a smile persuading my lips to allow on my face.  “Fine.”

Thanks, Naomi!

“No problem.” I settle into the wood planks of the bench, letting it dig into my skin.  I see beings of patients wandering around the campus.  There’s one woman with darkish-blonde hair.  What could be her issue?  Is a loved one in cancer, a tumor?  Or maybe her longest enemy is now in cardiac arrest and she’s come to celebrate.  Which would be cruel.

I’ve never been in a hospital….then again, I cannot prove that.  I have no idea what’s happened in my past life, so I cannot determine where I’ve been, the things I accomplished.

So many choices.

Was I a singer?  Maybe I participated in every school play and blew parents and teachers out of their minds. Hey, I could’ve been a master at mathematics, memorizing equations and proofs, winning first place in all of the contests state-wide.  Maybe I was a writer. Could I have had the ability to string words together and make them flow like a baby’s laugh? Maybe sports, maybe creativity, maybe….

Maybe nothing.  Maybe I couldn’t do anything.  I could’ve been useless….and I’ll never know.

“Hey!”

What? I turn my head up, parallel with the sidewalk below me, a nurse with a mask on in my periphery.  

“Get back here!”

Who is she talking to?  I look wildly around me, the nurse running across the path of the front door and to the back of the building.  I follow her, barging through others of a crowd and closer to the nurse, the mystery patient, and the building.  What is happening?

Naomi…. I hear Carlana warn, but I block her from entering my mind.  I need to focus on what I’m doing, I can’t have her as a distraction.  I round the corner, following the footprints in the mud the nurse’s sneakers formed, hearing her panting form with mine.  Who could she be chasing?

I will my legs to work their muscles faster, quicker, until I squeeze into the nurse’s mind and I become preoccupied by her thoughts.

He’s about to round the bridge. There’s no way I’ll catch him!

The bridge. I veer around, running the other way.  I know a quicker way, as I cut through the park across the street and stopping at the river’s edge.  If only Aviva was here with me….

I have to get across the bridge to my family.

I gasp, looking to the right, seeing a calm, warm day.  People sitting at their checkered blankets for picnics, sitting on the benches identical to my previous one….and a teenage boy, wearing a loose hospital gown, blending with the bright blue sky, running towards the bridge.

“HEY!  STOP RIGHT THERE!” I declare, running towards the figure.  But I can barely speak.  

We both stop walking, and I collapse on my knees as I see his face.  He looks up at mine.

With muddy, quagmire-like, brown eyes boring into mine.  

“You heard me,” I whisper, as he opens his mouth to speak.

Family is forever,  Carlana whiffs in my ear, a faint kiss of remorse paining my heart with her words.

He dashes across the bridge.  I don’t try to stop him.  

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Why didn’t you tell me my brother was ALIVE?!” I scream, sensing Carlana’s presence.

I didn’t know.

“HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW?!”

Don’t test me, Naomi.Her words are venom.  I let out a shuddering sigh, crawling over to a bench and collapsing on it’s nailed-together, wood planks.  It couldn’t be, please.  I don’t want it to be like this.  

“Where are you?”

I’m still with this man.  

“Seriously?!” I say, outraged.  “You’re with that dummy still?!  He barely knew where the gas station was, and not to mention all the OTHER things going on!”

I feel an emptiness, inside.  Carlana left.

“DAMN YOU!” I crawl into a ball, covering my head with my arms to block out the harsh light.

My brother. Woody, apparently. He’s here. He’s alive, and breathing, and ran right past me.  He looked at me. He almost spoke to me. His muddy eyes spoke speeches.

But….I’m dead!  No one alive can see me.  He wasn’t dead, no, that nurse wouldn’t have seen him.  He would’ve been completely grey, but no, no, no….sky blue clothes and peachy skin.  

I cannot explain the occurrence, Naomi.  You’re on your own.

Damn you, Carlana, damn you.