4 Years & Eleven Months

I was four years and eleven months old when I died.

It was a chilly November morning and I was out walking the dogs with mum. I liked the dogs – Patty and Steve, they were called. Patty was a spaniel and I’m not sure what Steve was. He had a speckled coat with short fur, much like a Jack Russel, except he was larger and fatter and he had smaller eyes. Mum called him a mongrel, which was an accurate enough description.

We were in that lovely long park that stretches out beyond the end of our road and ends up somewhere near the town centre. I only know this because I remember there being lots of shops at the other end, when you came out of the park. Sometimes mum and I would go and have a hot chocolate. Or rather she would have a hot chocolate and I would something else. I’m not sure what I had: maybe a cake or a cup of juice.

Of course, all this could be wrong. I haven’t been back for a while. Not for years actually. It might not even be there anymore, you never know. It was quite a small town. These small towns, the ones tucked behind woods and hills, the ones smudged into the crevices of the country, they sometimes disappear. About a year ago I went back to Longcope, which was a little town I remember being in the cliffs by the sea, because mum took me there one summer, or at least I thought she did. It must have existed once, at least a tiny bit, because I had a postcard, which had a picture of it on the front. Greetings from Longcope it said in capital letters at the bottom.

Anyway, I went back and it wasn’t there. I looked everywhere and it had simply vanished. I don’t know where it went, or what happened to all the people who lived there.

It was strange, seeing that empty expanse of land and wondering about the families and their houses and their shops and their lives.

Mum always said she would like to move to a big city one day. Somewhere where no one knew who you were, wherever you went. She said it would be more private. It doesn’t make sense, I know. I didn’t think cities could be private places either. But apparently they can.

I liked living in a little town. I liked how the neighbours always said hello to me when we went out. It made me feel safe, like there was always someone looking out for me.

I wonder whether mum did move to a big town. She’s the one person I haven’t really looked out for since I died. I knew there was a court case, but I don’t know the outcome. That must have been years ago now. How many years? Two, three, four, ten, fifty? I lose track.

The last time I saw her was in that park, on that November morning. We were walking along, hand in hand. It must have been early, because I don’t remember anyone saying hello.

In that park, there was a pond. This I know for sure, because it’s how I died.

It’s funny how you forget everything else. I must have made lots of things up to fill the time, because considering I was only alive for nearly five years, that’s a lot of things to fit in. You see; I have this really odd memory of being in a playground, in a foreign country. I’m on the swing and there’s all these girls running around, squealing and giggling. They have their hair tied up on their head, blonde, in plaits. One of them has only one plait, because the other has come loose, and she’s smiling at me, really smiling even though I don’t know her at all. And I’m swinging, suddenly really high, and then I fall, smack onto the tarmac. And all these people are around me, talking in a different language and touching me all over, saying things. And then I’m in a hospital bed and there are cards everywhere, actually everywhere, like on the ceiling and the floor and people keep tripping over them.

And then it finishes. And I know that’s definitely not true, because I don’t think I ever went on holiday, and I’ve certainly never been in a hospital. Apart from my death, which wasn’t like that at all. There were no cards, not even one, just lots of people shouting and rushing back and forth, and it only lasted a few hours, before my body was bagged up and stored away somewhere.