Golden Haze

I remember little about the day they buried her body. My recollections are fragmented, pieced together to form what, I think, is an accurate picture of those events that followed the funeral. The atmosphere was grim and a mist hung in the air giving the whole day a grey and surreal feel. The funeral was short, painful. I sat at the back, I was avoiding her family, and there was so much crying. I guess I was just uncomfortable. It was my first funeral. When we went outside with the coffin, I fell behind the rest, unwilling to see where they were going to put her. The sky was filled with angry clouds and the air was wet but still it refused to rain, like it was waiting till we had buried her, or something. A few words were said outside, Lauren, her sister, read a poem, but it all felt futile. I remember as they lowered the coffin into the ground, her mother fell to her knees but no one else seemed to move. Her father was the first to throw dirt. My stomach turned to ice when I saw that. I left then, it was too much.

I went straight home, took off my tie and lay down on my bed. The grey mist from outside seemed to have somehow seeped into my room. I stared at my ceiling and saw again and again the lowering of her coffin. I must have stayed there all day because it was close to midnight when I returned to the graveyard. I seemed to know my way around the tombstones and found myself standing in front of her fresh grave. When I had thought about this moment I had been nervous, just me and her alone at the graveyard, I was afraid I wouldn't know what to do. But now I was actually here it all just came to me naturally. I sat by the grave and pulled the package out of my jeans; I had been doing this for years so it didn't take me long to get it ready. Before I knew it I had found a vein and in went the smooth golden potion. It connected with my blood stream and started to pulsate under my skin; racing around my body it hit every nerve ending making me spark with life. Then it happened, everything slowed down and the grey mist shifted, it was replaced by a golden glow which connected everything. I let out a long breath and lay back, allowing the high to fall down on my body like drops of golden rain. I couldn't tell you how long I lay on that grave allowing the high to take me over, and take me away. But it seemed too short a time before I was snapped awake by a cold rush of wind enveloping my fragile body. I shot into an upright position, my heart was thundering in my ears.

Before me lay the golden haze of light but it was disjointed somehow, directly in front of me the grey mist had returned, like a silent silhouette. I recognised the form instantly and although I was lying on the owner's grave I felt no surprise. I felt a chill though, the grey mist was evicting the golden haze from my body, she was trying to take over.
'You'll never stop.' She told me. I let out a small laugh
'Shut up Jenny, just because you're dead doesn't mean you're some sort of expert on addiction.'
'Death is not the end.'
'Sure it is.' I lay back down, bored of her now, I was desperately trying to cling to my high but the cold reality was slowly returning.
'Death is not the end.' I began to feel nauseous now, and scrambled to my knees, I vomited silently on top of her grave. Wiping my mouth I looked again towards her shadow. I was growing now; the golden haze was shrinking under the force of her darkness.
'Death is not the end.' she repeated.
'I know.' I snapped back at her.
'No you don't.' This statement felt like a smack in the face, I looked towards her form, startled, her voice was loosing warmth and pitch. 'You don't understand anything Tom and you never have. What was it you said the first time you gave me heroin? You remember don't you?' I did.
'It'll make you fly.'
'You never told me I would fall.' Things were becoming painfully clear now; her grey malevolent form was destroying the golden haze that had accompanied me in my high. Suddenly I realised it was raining, heavily. My head and heart began to pound, my stomach turned and I suddenly realised what she was trying to say to me.
'I didn't know, okay? How could I? It was you that took too much, you that stuck the first needle in your arm.' Trembling then I pulled my knees to my chest; the added pressure on my stomach brought my nausea into sharp focus. 'It was never my job to save you.' But the words sounded hollow, even to me. A sob escaped my lips as I voiced the words I had used to reassure myself in the hours since she had fallen. 'It was never my job to save you.' She let out a laugh that shook the world.
'I never wanted you to save me.' The grey mist swallowed everything then and instantly I knew what was coming but I asked anyway.
'They why have you returned? What do you want?
'I flew with you and now I am flying alone.'
'So?'
'So, I want you back.' There was a silence then that I prayed would never end. She screamed. A loud earth-shattering scream that threw me onto my back, with a sudden gust of wind her silhouette rushed towards where I lay motionless. She was on me within a second and I felt her weight pass through me, every inch of my body screamed in agony, she was taking me with her as she returned to her grave.

When I woke the next morning, I was still lying on her grave. My body caked in mud and vomit, my clothes drenched and my soul destroyed. Wincing I lifted myself to my feet, pain shot through my body and I lifted my shirt to expose scratch marks tracing the length of my torso. I stared at her grave and swallowed hard, she had what she wanted. I will always be with her now, flying until I too fall.