There's a Reason I Go to the Library & It's Not Cause I Like Reading

Chapter 16

Frankly, Phil Lester never really minded when it snowed. Not until he had to sleep outside during a December storm. He shivered as he hid from the flurry outside the half-decent protection of the bus shelter. He couldn't feel his lips and a few snowflakes had gotten caught on his eyelashes and eyebrows, stealing away the small amount of heat Phil liked to think he still had inside. He brushed away the stray lock of hair that had found its way over his face, his hair had been growing over the past 11 months and had turned a deep black, which Phil passed off as just another side effect of being dead.

Phil enjoyed watching the sunrise, but through the clouds and thick snow he couldn't tell when it happened, only realising afterwards that the sky was now more of a grey colour than an off-black one. The streets were quiet and the shops closed up for the day, making Phil the only one not tucked up inside.
"Merry Christmas," he whispered sarcastically to himself as he picked up his bag again as he did every morning and began treading through the thick snow. Today, Phil Lester had a goal.

He wove through the empty roads on a familiar path he hadn't walked in a long time, up a hill and down a residential avenue, passing house upon house of flashing fairy lights and silhouettes of loving families passing presents and pulling crackers.

The house he arrived at had none of these features.

Every year previously, house number 19 on Phil's street was lit up with christmas lights in the window and tinsel strung through the plant growing on the wall by the balcony, a glorious wreath hung on the front door. Instead, there was only a single new decoration erected to the right of the driveway. A 'For Sale' sign with a large SOLD sticker brandishing it.

Phil collapsed onto the snow covered lawn outside his house. His family was gone, they'd moved out of his house and he had no idea where they'd've gone. He cried, balling his fists in the snow angrily, the sobs no one would be able to hear echoing through the empty streets. He'd spent too long being angry and guilty about what had happened to say goodbye, then he realised that the last thing he'd ever said to his family was something along the lines of see you after school hissed irritatedly at his mum followed by a harder-than-required close of the car door. He never looked back. And he really regrets it.

But did he regret killing himself? No.

Sure, he hated this weird purgatory he was stuck in, but that was never part of the deal, if the promise of everlasting sleep was what he received he'd've never looked back (besides, not like he could). Being stuck in limbo only made him hate life more than he had before because now, existence didn't have an escape key, nor a timer counting down til the end anymore.

When Phil was smaller he'd always jumped at the idea of living forever, whether that meant replacing his limbs with robotic replicants or injecting his consciousness into the brain of a dragon (that one was a little far fetched, Phil had to admit), but now he was really thinking that he should have been careful what he wished for, because he may be existing for an endless expanse of time, but it was far from enjoyable.

Phil lay in the cold snow for the whole day, listening to the faint christmas songs being played through the radio across the street, grumbling when that bloody Pogues song came on every hour or two.

He was grumpy for the rest of December and hoped that the family that were going to move into his house got gonorrhoea from a turkey.