Bury Me Alone I think loneliness and independence are one in the same. You can’t measure either, can’t determine the reason behind them, can’t stop them once they’ve taken control of you. It is an eternal motive, finding something, somebody to relate to the emptiness, to fill it. But you cannot cure it. Being alone is an infinite choice, especially for someone like me. Someone who’s dead. That’s right. I’m dead. It was a long time ago, when I died. I’m not even sure of the date anymore. But I remember the months before and afterwards, and I wish I could change half of what I had done to cater to who I am now. That loneliness that I thought would go away…it never did. I was so sure that I would be free from the horrible sinking emotion that made my eyes sink farther into my skull and deep, elliptical shadows surround my once bright, child-like eyes. My parents were convinced that I was ill and had locked me into my room for fear that I was contagious. What I had wasn’t contagious. It was only dangerous to one person, and that person was me. Locked in my room I was left to brood in my own misery, the misery created by years of family turmoil, needless bickering, desiring unachievable ends, and then failing in times when I needed myself the most. I would lie in that bed, frozen, for hours, and dwell upon my morbid thoughts. Thus began my downfall. It took several weeks of me being locked in my room when the realization hit me. I could…die. The thought seemed so simple at the time, so easy. It would go away then, the nagging pain that pulled at my heart and clouded darkly amidst my thoughts. The loneliness that came with my stubborn independence, my refusal to go with the grain. Wouldn’t death just be the next step to take? I convinced myself that it was the only way to rid my chained soul of the horrid burden that I unknowingly had placed upon it. And so I died. I remember the morning I did; I woke up determined to do so. My mother came upstairs to my room and gave me a new doll that she had gotten for me from England. It was beautiful, the porcelain face of perfection gleaming in the candle light. Candles were the only light I was permitted other than the windows. And the dancing flames that tortured me at all hours of the night and morning only emphasized what I saw in the grotesque picture of beauty that I was holding in my hands. She was everything I was not. Sculpted to be fine, emotionless, pale with ignorance. Her stunning features only reminded me of what I didn’t have, what I would never have. Only made me more resolute. I put her on my bed next to me without the slightest flourish, glaring at her through my cold eyes, eyes that were no longer alive. I knew it inside my heart-I was already ‘dead‘. This was the next step to easing my spirit. I no longer wanted to be alive anyway. No one wanted me. They locked me inside this room all day, not speaking to me, afraid to touch me. I had no desire to do anything with myself but die. For the first time in months, I slipped from my bed and walked silently across the room, not even pondering how I was going to do what I knew I needed to do. I wasn’t even nervous, I remember a sort of euphoria drifting over my lifeless, pale, skeleton of a countenance as I opened the window and looked outside. Everything was beginning to come to life. There were a few people on the sidewalks below and the gardener was trimming our hedges. I glanced sideways at the grim decorative reminders of my trapped lifestyle. The sickening statues of gothic shape stared at me from their perches upon my family’s rich home, only making me more eager to end it. I hated my home. I hated my family. I hated being alive. “Alive.” I felt the word come softly from my lips as I turned back into the room to stare at the doll upon my bed. It was sour upon my tongue, undesirable in the sound and feel of it being spoken from my mouth, even a mouth so unspoken as my own. It disgusted me to even hear it. The doll upon my bed, that evil parody of everything that I was not, stared blankly back at me, and I wanted it to die to. Hatred stirred inside of me like hot fire, burning my stomach and drenching my soul in need to end not only myself, but the things that had contributed to my demise. I raced across the room and grabbed the doll from my bed, shaking it, my hands finding its neck and clenching tightly around it. I screamed in blind rage as the head of it rolled off, the strings holding it breaking, then watched it in glorious victory as it shattered, the lips so perfectly rose, those blue eyes so jovial, those hideously pink cheeks- all of it shattered at my bare feet. I couldn’t even feel the cuts upon my ankles as I grabbed nearest candle, dropping the remains of the doll next to the shards of china upon the wooden floor. I held that candle in my hands and stared complacently at it, calm, as if uncaring, my grip still and unmoving. The flame danced as if laughing at me and I scowled. Even the fire knew I was hurting. But it only made fun as everyone else did. No more. I was not going to get better. I was going to die. And so were they. I picked up the oil lamp on my bedside table with my other hand and this time noticed the visible trembling as voices on my landing jolted me from my whimsical revenge. They were coming for me, they were to stop me. I couldn’t allow it. I threw the lamp at my headboard and it smashed, the glass flying and cutting my face, my arms. I once again felt nothing more than rage as my father’s face appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked at me, then at the oil soaking my pillows, then to the candle in my hand. I smiled sinisterly and held the candle over the bed covers, dropping the flame to the linen as his voice formed the words that echo in my mind, over, and over, and over again. “No….” I didn’t hear them. I only heard my laughter as the flames grew suddenly in great delight, licking and lapping at my pillows. I stood there and laughed, laughed as it engulfed my bed, my belongings, and the stairwell, where there rest of my family- no, my killers, my disgusting burden, stared helplessly, not able to do anything but sob my name. Their saddened, hysterical screams did not reach my heart, and I could barely hear them as my father turned and dragged my mother and my sisters down the stairs. I walked through the fire around me, ignoring the pain that wasn’t there, to stand once again at the window of the world that had shunned me because I was hurt, lonely- independent. My laughter echoed across the stunned town as the smoke billowed around me. People gathered on the street in front of me, calling for me, waving their hands frantically. “Turn around, go back, it isn’t too late!” I only glanced back once, some grip of reality telling me that death wasn’t what I wanted, and almost backed away from my release…but my father was staring at me from the stairs. He held out a hand. “Becca, come to me! Becca!!” I stared at him, my eyes dry from the smoke, a slight cough echoing from my ashen lips. The soot that had once clouded my mind returned when I saw that face, the face that had locked me in with the monster that had eaten my sanity until I realized that this was the only way. In a voice of deadly calm I spoke to him, the world falling away and the sounds of the fire diminishing as I focused on my end. “Good bye, Father.” And I turned, walking quietly to the window, and plummeted from my misery like a stone plummets from the sky. I don’t recall much after I hit the ground. There are faint reminisces of a sharp, sudden pain followed by a feeling of floating and peace. That didn’t last long. There are traces, washed out memories of the anger I felt when I realized that I was still hurting, nothing had changed except for the fact that I was dead now. Spectral tears slid icily down my neck and my heart hardened. This was what they would die for. For trapping me alone, for putting me in this unspeakable cage, locking me away from society and the things that could have helped me. I was consumed in hatred; how dare they abandon me, their daughter, to be eaten at with disease. Death couldn’t even allow me the escape I so desperately desired. The thought never crossed my mind that I hadn’t known half this much about my condition before I had died, but I didn’t care. I was focused on one thing. It was as though the objects around me could read my thoughts, every small thing responding to what I demanded, the smoke that swirled angrily, the fire that grew almost too rapidly. As the flames dances from the roof of the mansion I had once called my home, I watched my Father, Mother, my sisters Anna and Beth, and my Gramma huddle together in the living room. My father began to shout about a method of escape and my blood ran like ice. Escape? Not a chance. I only had to look at the door for it to lock. All the windows, in turn, locked as well. This new power that came with my death intrigued me, and a chance to use it gave me a sense of power that I had never before felt. I think my Father heard the gentle, yet echoing click of the locks, staring in horror at the now useless escape routes as a cloud of looming silence fell over the scene between my realm and his. I froze when he looked in my direction, the breath that I forgot no longer existed catching in that brief moment in which I was positive he knew that it was I behind these last minutes of his life, watching in sick pleasure as they all died. He was the last to go- still clinging to breath as the flames finally overtook him. The rest of my family had been taken by the thick black smoke that now obscured everything around what once was my home. For they next few days I remained at the very spot that I had died. I wondered why my family had not joined me. Don’t misinterpret my meaning; I did not want to see them ever again, and that included in this new form of life that I possessed. Their spirits, as I know now, were peaceful- and while troubled in their own right, did not posses the ardor that I did. It was my very desire to see them die, and to end my own misery that had trapped me in between the earth and what I longed for- peace. I was what you would call an ‘unhappy’ spirit. Forced to haunt wherever I pleased until I found what I was looking for. In the days that I sat at the ruins of my prison I wondered what it was that would gain me access into true death, but this was all to no affect. I was trapped, as I always had been, within my own, pitiful walls, the walls that I had created for myself. Once the firemen doused the flames that licked at the house for hours, they left and were replaced by the police, who searched it over. I watched, sitting on the garden wall, as they took the remnants of the house out for what they claimed to be a collection of evidence- my Gramma’s wicker chair, my Mother’s hope chest. Many things that I did not recognize past their charred exterior. It was all quite boring to me, really. I was sitting there in lethargic stupor when I glanced up to see one carrying pieces of something in his hands. It startled me, and I wasn’t sure why, but I immediately flew to hover a few feet behind and above him to scrutinize what he was holding so carefully. There, in his hands, were two bright eyes, rosy cheeks, and pink lips. This infuriated me. The mocking gaze of the doll, the last thing that my Mother had given me, and it wasn’t gone. It hadn’t burned like the rest of them. In blind fury I floated slowly down to the policeman that was carrying the objects and blew as hard as I could. Of course, it was then that I realized just how extraordinary my powers as a ghost were (locking the doors, I had been so engaged in my family‘s demise that I didn‘t understand that I was controlling objects of the world I abandoned)- as that simple breath of air made the fragile porcelain, already cracked by the fire, fly from the man’s hands and into one of the few remaining walls of my home- just a bit of chimney brick left standing in what had been the living room. He stood stunned and I hovered in a bizarre, gleeful feeling as he shook my breath off as a breeze and walked back into the rubble to retrieve something else. That was the first day. On the second, they began the search for the bodies. Well…the ashes. I wanted to be closer to them, so I settled myself atop the small brick outcrop that I had broken the ridiculing remnants of the porcelain doll on and watched as they found the bits and pieces of my family. There was nothing left- the only things that they found other than the ashes of the bodies were my oldest sister, Anna’s porcelain hair pin and my Mother’s wedding ring. Nothing else was recovered. The ashes were brushed tediously, yet gently into tiny velvet bags and then dumped into one large box. Then everyone left. I never noticed what the did with my own body, being too concerned with the rest of the events as well as too contemptuous of my mortal life to see myself again. I hadn’t looked upon my face since I saw my reflection in the lifted window glass before I jumped. No one came the third day, and it hurt me to realize that what I had intended as suffering had ended in bore. It only served to make me more contemptuous at the happy people that walked around the town, talked in hushed tones while walking by the plot of land where the burned wood of my house still polluted the air with that sickening smell. I found myself chucking small rocks at them after so long, as it was annoying me. I was hurting. It was a deep, heartfelt, throbbing pain deep inside me. I cried all the time, the ghostly, shimmering tears and deep, wispy sobs- all this and much, much more. I was so unhappy, dissatisfied with what my death had created and angry because I felt like no one cared. Mad because part of me wondered why I had done such terrible things. Sad because I wanted to be free of the haunting sorrow that seemed to create deep, empty, black holes in every part of my torn soul. I wanted out, but I had used up my only option. I really was trapped now. And I had failed myself yet again. During those few days I had become a legend without realizing it. The policeman had told his friends about the strange, small gust of wind that had blown the burned porcelain from his hands, and the old women I had thrown the rocks at also began to talk. By the end of the week, I heard of the rumor as two small boys stopped at the front walkway to the square of black ash and began talking to each other. As usual, I stopped pouting long enough to listen and what I heard surprised me. “Did you hear what ole’ Ms. Summers said about yesterday?” “About the ghost, is that what you mean?” At this, the blonde-headed boy who I recognized as John Allen nodded his head. I had attended school with his brother before they locked me away. John Allen was two years younger than his brother, and I remembered him because he always arrived at school with my classmate. “Yea. They say that this place is already haunted. I wonder which one it is!” “I wonder if we can get the ghostie to do something!” The smaller, more mousy boy that I didn’t recognize said in a high-pitched voice, looking right through me at the remains nervously, as if expecting something. This made me quite angry. They were treating me as though I was a circus attraction! I picked up a rock, and, not thinking, threw it to hit the smaller boy square between the eyes. John Allen gasped and froze as the younger boy sat dumbfounded on the sidewalk, fighting tears and rubbing his head. I waited to see what they would do, expecting them to run. But they didn’t. The younger boy stayed on the sidewalk and the older boy looked up at me. “You know, I bet the ghost it Rebecca. You know, Becca, the one that Thomas went to school with before they locked her up because of her sickness.” The other boy nodded, not looking back toward me. I floated, wondering what to do next. Neither of them had left. “I know who you mean, Rebecca Morgan?” The boy on the ground finally said after a moment of silence. John Allen nodded. “She’s just sad, you know.” He said thoughtfully, before pulling his friend off the ground. “I would be too if I was stuck inside all day and not aloud to see anyone.” The other boy shrugged and straightened his overalls before both boys put their hands in their pockets and continued down the sidewalk. I stared at them until they rounded the corner in horrid shock. ‘Just sad….’ I thought to myself. I was more than sad. Much, much more than just sad. He knew nothing, just like everyone else. I remained alone. It took them a week to make funeral arrangements. Curiosity called me to leave my hallowed ground and go to the cemetery. I had been in slightly better spirits, now getting used to the idea that not only was I alone but dead to everything that I had despised. I was still hurting deeply but it had become a tolerable, heavy, constant ache that part of me knew I would have to grow accustomed to. This only lasted until I reached the cemetery. To my horror, they would be burying me with my family- the last thing I wanted to occur. One large gravestone proclaimed: Tomb of the Morgan Family Virginia Jefferson Morgan: 1825-1900 Abraham Morgan: 1850-1900 Abbigayle Smith Morgan: 1860-1900 Anna Grace Morgan: 1880-1900 Elizabeth Faith Morgan: 1884-1900 Rebecca Hope Morgan: 1888-1900 May God allow them all to R.I.P. This infuriated me more than anything had managed for the past week. As they lowered my coffin, with the box of ashes atop it, into the grave, I grabbed a nearby rock and threw it. It hit the gravestone with a small crack and the mourning crowd froze- the crowd I noticed as the hushed voices became more prominent. I stared at them as they looked around in fear and wonderment, then grabbed another rock and flew forward. In uncontrolled rage I scratched and scraped until deep gouges ran through the smooth marble, my breathing shallow and deep. It was only then that I realized what I had scratched across the gravestone in crude lettering. BURY ME ALONE I flew backwards and stared, my jaw set as the rest of them stared in horror at the words across the once perfect stone. Shaking, the minister ordered them to lift the coffin and whispered a few words to the stone mason, who began to disassemble the gravestone. I stayed and made sure that I wasn’t buried with my family, sitting on a different stone until they had all left, taking my body and the ashes with them. It took them two more days to prepare once again, and to my satisfaction, I now had my own grave- on the other side of the cemetery, with a small stone that contained my name and the dates of my birth and death. The rest of my family were buried together, under one stone, on the opposite side of the cemetery. And that was exactly how I wanted it to be. I became positively known as a ghost within my first month of haunting. I could go where I pleased, but the only places that I went were the remains of my home, which eventually were rained and weathered into nothing but that one wall of brick, and my gravesite, where I would sit upon my grave and try to think of what it was that I desired so much that I had to stay behind, kept away from happiness. This is the lasting thought that has never ceased to trouble me. And it never occurred to my thoughts that I wasn’t forced to be alone. I could contact the humans through my writings, my actions. But I was too stubborn and too naďve to understand that what I needed all along was right in front of me. I just stood by and watched as stories about the spectral, troubled little girl, or Sad Becca, as they began to call me, spread the town. I was somewhat of a tourist attraction, with people watching my house to see if I would ‘haunt’. Every now and then, a specialist would come and do a survey, but I was too secluded within myself to give any of them satisfaction. When my moods would swing, I would react to their taunting, but this was few and far between. Now, when I peer back at my past, I realize that it took me far too long to understand what I had been searching for in my death. My loneliness had driven me to an early end, something that I believed to be the solution, but something that only drove me further into solitude. I have dedicated the rest of my life to preventing others, confused and torn by those around them, from my fate. It is the least I could do. Despite my new resolve, I know I will never be happy. And I will never find peace. Eventually, even these troubling thoughts will be wisps of memory. Everything is so simple to me now, what I am doing, where I am in this half-life. I sit quietly now within my realm, still undaunted by the fact that I am alone, remembering that all of it had been my wish. Even in life- I was destined to be buried alone.
Copyright © 2005 Kayla Meadows |