Just An Angel

I felt my face go red, red hot, I felt my eyes sting with angry tears, and I felt as if I was almost turning into a monster, my voice tearing the house down, my talons scratching the eyes of all of them out. I never wanted to get this angry, but I have such an uncontrollable temper, I hate it, but I can't help myself, and I go straight off at the deep end: when someone rouses my anger, it is not a good thing. I was so angry this morning, I slapped my mother on the face, and ran out of the door, outside, and onto the street. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents… most of the time. But right now, I was absolutely livid, and nothing would console me.

I ran onto the road, and immediately, the right hand side of my body exploded with pain, as my body flew up into the air, and over the car, cracking the windscreen, and landed with a thud in the road. I remembered no more.

I felt my body being lifted, by strong, yet gentle hands. I was being lifted as though I weighed nothing. My pain had vanished, and my body was so relaxed, more relaxed than it had ever been. My eyes were closed, yet I could tell the atmosphere around me was peaceful, and the light shone through my eyelids. I opened my eyes, and it was so white, it was like there was no such thing as dark. I was surprised to find that I wasn't squinting, but the whiteness, even though it was so bright, did not hurt my eyes.

I continued floating upwards, carried by people dressed in white clothes. Angels, but not the typical white gown stuff. Sure, they were white, but they were white trousers, white sweaters, white skirts, white trainers, white plimsolls, white sandals, and white socks!

Even though all this was too good to be true, it wasn't until we reached a set of gates that stood taller than the highest mountain on Earth, and that glistened gold as the sun that I realised that these were the gates of Heaven, and that I had actually died in the accident. My initial thought was 'Why have I come to the gates of Heaven? I was a cruel, wicked person with a wicked temper. I slapped my mother, and didn't even have time to feel remorse at what I had done, I hardly ever gave anyone a proper chance, and I was never kind to my siblings. Why am I here?'

I then thought, 'How are my family? And my friends? Are they all right? Do they know I'm dead yet? What were their reactions? Were they upset, or were they pleased that their wicked child/sibling/friend had died?'

When I was taken inside, there was no questioning by St. Peter like everyone on Earth thinks, it was as if God knew who he wanted in Heaven, and I was one of them. Why? I wasn't even a very practising Christian. Yes, I had been baptised, but as a child, and I gave up going to church when I was 13. It seemed strange. I'm sure I did have my good points, but I didn't think that they out-weighed my bad.

I decided then that I would look after my family, watch them from my giant bubble, and make sure that they were OK, although I would never really be with them. But then, if they needed me, I would go and visit them... as a ghost.

The first thing I saw was my body, twisted and contorted in a strange position on the road. A man I didn't recognise was leaning over it, cursing, and screaming hysterically. He was frantically feeling my wrists, and my neck. Shaking my body, screaming at it, and finally, crying over it. He realised he had killed me.

My family was unaware of the terrible accident. They were glaring at each other across the table as they ate their dinner, eating in silence. It was obvious to me that they were still angry about the argument earlier. A plate of food stood on the worktop, steaming. Presumably for me. They still cared. They would be upset.

Back in the dining room, my mother sat stonily at the head of the table.

"Could you please pass the salt, Thomas," she said, addressing my little brother, sitting at her left. "Thank you", when he gave it to her. When I say Thomas was my little brother, I meant he was one of my little brothers. We are a very large family. I had three brothers, and two sisters. In order, from oldest to youngest, it went, Me,(I was 17) Jake,(16) Susan,(14) Katherine,(11) Thomas,(10) and Glen.(Only six!)

I suppose he was my favourite of all my siblings. Glen would always come up to me as a tot, and say, "Lucy, Lucy, come and help me! Colour this doggy with me!", or "Lucy? Come and play with my telephone with me!", and later, at about five years of age, it was "Lucy? Come and play action man with me." and he'd smile that gorgeous smile of his, and of course I'd go.

I felt a sudden pang for Glen. And I wondered when that phone call from the hospital would come.

At the table, everyone was busy eating, not bothering to be hostile anymore. Mum and Dad were at either end, and clockwise from Mum sat Thomas, Susan, Jake, Dad, Glen, then was my space, empty, and Katherine.

Glen threw a bewildered look at Dad.

"Daddy, where's Lucy?" I'd been gone about 45 minutes, and Glen, bless him was already worried.

My father looked at Mum, and replied, "I don't know, Glen, but she'd better be back soon. She's going to be in a lot of trouble if she doesn't get back soon."

Glen started to cry. "No! Don't tell Lucy off! Lucy's my friend!" Big crocodile tears fell onto his plate, and I could see my brothers and sisters giving scornful glances.

Just then, the telephone rang, and my mother stood up.

"Why is it every time we're in the middle of dinner, the phone rings?" she asked, a frown on her face, yet I could tell she was dying to get away from the table at the same time.

I followed her through to the living room, where the telephone was.

"Hello?" she answered, and I saw the colour draining from her cheeks. "Pardon? D-did I hear you correctly?"

"Who is it, darling?" My father called from the dining room.

My mother continued nodding into the phone, and suddenly sat down. My father came through when she didn't answer, and with a shaking hand, my mother replaced the receiver.

"Who was it?" He asked again, his face wore a worried look now, and my mother started to cry.

"That was Middlesborough hospital. They want us to go and identify a body. They found a donor card on the body. They say it's Lucy. But it can't be! It can't be Lucy! It must be a mistake! How can Lucy be dead?" My mother's voice was rising, and my father was hugging her. My brothers and sisters were crowded around the door.

"What's wrong, Dad?" Susan asked quietly.

"What's happened to Lucy?" Jake asked.

For once, Glen was quiet. His eyes explored my mother's face, which was red, and blotchy.

My father answered quietly. "Get your coats on. Be quick."

He fetched his coat, and my mother's, and pulled her into an embrace.

"It could be the wrong person. Someone could have stolen her wallet, and it could be them. We have to be brave."

I didn't really want to see Glen's face when he found out I was dead. It would break my heart.

At the hospital, I looked down at the bed on which my body was lying. It was covered completely in a white cloth, no part of it could be seen.

I heard a clatter of noise. My mother and father were led into the cubicle by a nurse with sympathetic eyes.

She spoke a few words to them, explaining what she would do. Then she lifted the cloth from my face, and down, showing the clothes I had been wearing that day.

My mother gasped, and started crying hysterically, turned, and sobbed into my father's shirt. My father was staring at my body, staring, as if he didn't believe it was me, staring as if he wanted to go up, and shake the life back into me, but knowing he couldn't, and restraining himself.

It broke my heart to see my father with such a look of restraint on his face, and hearing my mother's heartrending sobs.

The nurse interrupted my mother's sobs. "Do you want to go and speak to your children?" she enquired, a gentle voice a great comparison to the hysterical one of my mother. My father nodded at the nurse, took one last look at my body, and led my mother out into the hall, where my brothers and sisters were standing, wearing worried expressions on their faces, and who could blame them?

I didn't want to see the looks on their faces, so I left, but as I heard my father's low voice talking to my darling siblings, I couldn't close out the sound of Glen's wail.

I would have cried, but I couldn't. I desperately wanted my family to stop mourning after me, although it showed that they cared, and that they loved me. I just wished that they could stop making themselves so unhappy, because I was at peace, and I was happy, and I wanted to watch over them. Seeing them cry made me want to cry, but it was impossible. I loved them all from the bottom of my heart, more so now that I knew they loved me.

I wished that they would stop feeling guilty that they hadn't said goodbye, because each tear they cried, they were saying goodbye.

Poor Glen cried most. He cried and he cried, even in his sleep. I would watch him while he was sleeping, and he would one minute be sleeping peacefully, the next, he would cry out in his sleep, usually things like, "Lucy!", or "Where are you, Lucy?", or even, "I love you Lucy!", and then he would wake up, and cry, and Mum or Dad would come rushing through to comfort him, and usually Thomas as well, who had woken up when Glen cried out in his sleep. It broke my heart to see Glen like this. I wished more than anything I could go up to him, and give him a great big bear hug, and make him gasp or laugh, and make him feel better.

I wished that I'd looked where I was going when I rushed out onto the road, and stopped, just to save Glen's tears. Also to save Tom's, and Jake's, and Susan's and Katherine's and Mum and Dad's. I didn't want them crying for me. I wanted them getting on with their lives. Remembering me, and loving me, and remembering the times they spent with me, just not crying for me.

That was one of my good points, I suddenly thought. I wasn't selfish. I couldn't, with five brothers and sisters.

I'd grown up in a place where I would find that people would steal my toothbrush, use my dental floss, or spill paint on my clothes, borrow my clothes, and forget to return them. I lived in a place where I had to share a house with seven other people, and where I would often be the last in the bathroom in the morning, and the last out of the door because I couldn't find any clothes, or my geography book, which was invariably under a pile of Susan's clothes in the bathroom.

I was patient too, when my younger siblings annoyed me, or would keep asking me a question, I would explain the answer until they understood. If I had to see the doctor, there would invariably be a long wait, and he would apologise about this. "No worries" I would say cheerfully. The doctor would always comment on what a patient patient I was.

Glen always laughed to hear about what the doctor had to say, although most of the time, it happened before he was born, and when he was about 3, I started telling him the stories of the doctor, and he loved them. Ever since then, every time I had a doctor's appointment, he'd ask what he said.

One evening, I was watching him, and he said to my mother: "She was a very patient patient, wasn't she Mummy?"

My mother cried.

It was then that I wanted to get out of my bubble, and to comfort them, like they comforted me when I was upset. I wanted it so much, so very much, that I floated forward, and I was. I floated down, and although I was invisible, I was in the room with them.

I walked up to my mother and Glen, and held out my hand, and tried to wipe the tears from their faces, only all I ended up doing was passing my hand over their skin, a slight breeze in the air.

But they felt it. They felt the change in the air. Glen's six-year-old hand touched his face.

"She touched me, Mummy. Lucy touched me. She's here now, Mummy. She's here, looking at us. Can you see her? She's over there, Mummy, look!" He pointed over to a different corner of the room, and I cried invisible tears.

Glen's eyes searched the room, once, twice. "Look, Mummy, look, it's really Lucy!" he said, pointing in my direction. Could he really see me?

Mother looked in the direction Glen's tiny finger was pointing, and fainted. I was a ghost, and my mother had seen me.

The funeral arrangements were well under way, but my mother would still cry whenever Susan went into my room to sit on my bed, to think about me. Susan and I could have been twins, we had the same eyes, nose and lips, the same figure, the same hair, the only difference was the height, and I was more developed, and Susan had more freckles.

When mother looked in my room, and saw Susan sitting there, she would think it was me, and then remember.

I often wondered what it would be like if you could attend your own funeral, no one ever thought that it could be possible. I know better, now I am dead, yet it is really weird that once you have died, although you're still there, you can't communicate with the people you're seeing in the world in which you once lived.

It's like you're an outsider. But then, death does set you aside from the living.

In my bubble once again, I sighed. I hadn't wanted to die. I had so much unfinished business. I was even planning how to get Paul Kenton to like me.

Paul was (sorry, is) this absolutely gorgeous guy, and he was in all of my classes. We were friends, and we would sit together, but I wanted more. A lot more than friendship. And he was single. He still is.

I decided to visit him, in my school. Did they know?

I went, floating over trees, and fields, to my school. I didn't have a great deal of friends, but when I got there, it seemed as though everyone in the sixth form were crying.

Samantha Higgins was crying. She didn't even like me! What was wrong with her? I didn't know, but it was strange, seeing people who did and didn't like me crying. Where was Paul? Was he crying, or upset? Suddenly, I had to know. Sometimes, I would spy on him, in his special corner by the fence over looking some fields. He would just sit there, thinking.

There he was, in his special corner, facing outwards, looking over the fields and pastures, and he sighed. A tear rolled down his cheek, and I fought to get out of my bubble.

I walked up to him, and rested my hand just above his shoulder. "Don't cry" my voice whispered as the trees. Paul just ran, away from the corner, and out of the school gates.

I wanted to cry again. I wanted everyone to stop crying. I was impatient, not patient.

Why had I been accepted into heaven? I cared about people, maybe that was it. I didn't want people unhappy.

Life seemed so empty now I was dead. Ha, life? I couldn't do anything, go anywhere without my bubble. I couldn't speak to anyone, communicate in any way, I was just present. Is this what it was like to be dead? Or a ghost? Was I a ghost, or an angel? Did I have unfinished business? Is that why I appeared as a ghost to my mother and Glen? What was it? Was it Glen, or Paul? Or what? How long would I remain a ghost? Forever? A few years? A few months? A few days? How long would I be wandering around aimlessly? I didn't know, and there was nothing I could do.

I couldn't bear to attend my funeral. I could hear every word of it, but I didn't want to see everyone crying. I could tell, however that there were a lot of people there. I don't know how, I just could, that all.

The next event was Susan's birthday. It was several months after my death, and my mother thought it would be good for her to have a few friends over for a sleepover. It was her 15th birthday, and I followed her around to check she was having a good time. She seemed to be, but i could see a glimmer of sadness still in her eyes.

Everyone left Susan and her friends alone in the living room that evening, so that she could forget about me. I was wandering around, when I felt myself being called. Lucy... Lucy... I went to the living room. The lights were down low, and candles were burning around the room. Susan and four of her friends were kneeling around the coffee table. In the centre was an Ouija board, and an upturned glass with each girl's finger on the top.

Susan's face was agonised. "Lucy, are you there?" I willed the glass over to the word 'yes'.

A gasp went around the group, and Susan's face went white.

"You're not kidding, are you?"

'No'.

"How are you Lucy?"

'I A M F I N E'

"Are you lonely?"

'A B I T'

"Lucy, do you love us?"

'I L O V E Y O U A L L M O R E T H A N A N Y T H I N G'

"Are you a ghost, Lucy?"

'I D O N O T K N O W.. M A Y B E… I D O N OT W A N T T O B E O N E'

"How can you stop being a ghost?"

'B Y C O M P L E T I N G A N Y U N F I N I S H E D B U S I N E S S'

"Clichés"

'I T I S T R U E'

"Hmm." Susan obviously wasn't convinced.

'T E L L G L E N I L O V E H I M T E L L M U M A N D D A D N O T T O W O R R Y A N D T O S T O P M O U R N I N G I A M H A P P Y A N D I K N O W T H A T T H E Y W I L L N E V E R F O R G E T M E I L O V E Y O U A L L T E L L E V E R Y O N E I A M N O T A N G R Y A N D I L O V E T H E M G O O D B Y E'

And with that, I left the room. I was surprised, because it was as though I was lifted by a strong and caring hand. I didn't leave voluntarily, yet, I didn't mind. I had said what I wanted to say, and I was at peace finally. Something made me want to hold on, yet I knew it was time to go. My family, who I had left behind with such anger in my mind, seemed like distant memories, yet ones I would always remember with love and compassion. And if they ever needed me… I would be around.

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