4:00pm, I come in through the kitchen wall, it's three hours to my death as usual. A menacing wind blows past, scattering in dried leaves from the apple tree just outside the open window. It looks like a Yew tree to me now. It's dark inside and everything is the same as always. There are still droplets of blood splattered on the kitchen floor near the large mahogany table we used for dinner that day. Pieces of broken plates and glasses lie all over the tiled floor. A toppled chair lies just beside where I stand, several others lie around the kitchen. The smell of blood and stale food mixed together hangs in the air. There is a low rumbling outside, soon droplets of rain begin to pour down from the sky. It seems the sky has been mourning too because the sun has refused to shine since I died. Five nights now, I have been roaming the garden behind the house, thinking about what could have been and what could not have been. Again, I watch the scenerio replay. My mum and I come into the house with grocery bags. My uncle stands at the door with his wife, his arms wide open for each one of us and his wife continuously say "thank you so much Martha for the groceries" to my mum.
"Aunty Sam," I say when we get to the kitchen.
"Yes my love," my uncle's wife replies beaming with a lovely smile.
"Do you know?" I tease.
Her eyes twinkle, she knows I'm about to bring up one of my jokes. "What Becca?" She beams. "You caught a cockroach sleeping in the refrigerator the last time you looked in?"
Everyone bursts out laughing, I laugh hard too. "You're both hilarious", mum says.
Soon, their two kids, Ella and Mila join us in the kitchen. A cat passes by and growls at the wall. I think it sees me. The ghost me. I watch us sing a rhyme while we cook. We are making the family's traditional Easter dinner, comfort meatballs, cranberry glazed chicken wings, pasta e fagioli and coleslaw with lots of fruits. As always, my uncle who is a renowned chef makes the cranberry glazed chicken wings.
"Pass me the secret ingredient," he says with a well known smile, we, the kids all giggle and pretend to be handing him some secret ingredient known only to us. As I watch, I think of Easter, they say Christ died on Easter. I think of death.
5:45pm, aunt Resa and her thirteen-year-old twin girls arrive. Aunt Resa is mum and my uncle's first cousin. They come all the way from Alabama every year to celebrate Easter with us, it's family tradition. By 6:15pm, my uncle's next door neighbour, Mr. Rigger and his family arrive with bowls of hot chicken casserole, beef stew and rice with peppered shrimps and cupcakes. The whole house smells so good, all the kids start dancing around in the living room, forming a circle. There's so much happiness here. It hurts.
Then I think of yesterday, I was buried yesterday. My mum cried all through the funeral process. My uncle stood with his wife, his hand over my mum's shoulder. The priest kept talking about vanity and ashes and dust and just before my grave was covered, he asked my mum to say a word of goodbye. She couldn't speak because her tears kept choking her. I cried, I shouted, I yelled, but she couldn't hear me. Nobody heard me. Nobody saw me.
6:30pm, the last couple on the list arrives, Mr. and Mrs.Trevor, owners of the Trevor TV show, America with their eight-year-old son, Matthew. It's thirty minutes to my death time. I start jittering. A mug on the table knocks over and breaks. The strange thing is, nobody ever notices the uneven activities that occur whenever I begin to jitter, they go on just like the day it all happened. Yesterday it was broken ceramic plates. They simply walked all over the broken plates till they were done. The day before, the grill broke down, yet the chicken came out done. I guess it's because even though I go back in time, my present activities do not seem to affect nor alter the already set events of the past.
6:45pm, three little girls run past laughing with a huge doll, and sewing materials in their hands, they're off to sew new dresses for Emma's new doll. Five minutes later, my mum yells "time for Easter dinner!" We all head to the dinning table but the girls come in last while food is being served with their sewing tools. "Naw!" Aunt Sam says shaking her head, "no tools on the table girls!" And they all match off to drop their tools. We say prayers and start eating. 6:55pm. I start choking, I hear chairs violently dragged backwards and some topple over. My mum rushes over and grabs me. “What is it baby? Breathe! Breathe!”
“She's choking!” I hear uncle Eric yell.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Aunty Sam cries.
There's a needle in my throat but they don't know, they think it's the food. My mum holds my tummy with both hands, and continually jerks me to make me throw it out. But it's stuck in my flesh, just above my chest. I can't talk. I can't breathe. I cough out blood. I keep on choking. My mum yells, "Call the ambulance Eric!" I can hear the screams of the children and the adults. Some children begin to cry, I think it's Matthew and the twin girls.
“Take the children away honey,” uncle Sam says and I hear several feet trot away.
A tear rolls down one side of my face, my mum wipes it and says tearfully, "common baby, you're gonna be okay." But I'm not okay, what I see is bright light, it blinds me. Till I see nothing. Slowly I hear nothing.
Nothing.
MmeyeneJoseph