Ten Minutes After Cathy’s Death
I am in a downpour of people. Each of us captured in a rain drop. Bodies fuzzy through the water.
We are falling. A torrent. A deluge.
A wizened face next to me is mashed against the clear wall of his drop. Confusion wrinkling his features. Mirroring my own.
Beneath us is the ocean. Endless grey waves. I catapult towards the water, stomach flipping like a rollercoaster.
Where are you, Cherry?
A moment ago, I was holding your hand. Your new diamond cutting into my palm, but I was too happy to care. Me, the giving, thoughtful one. You care more about jewelry than I do, so you got the rock.
Grouse Mountain was the most romantic place I could imagine to propose. We could see the ocean from our vantage point. You squeaked like one of the many chipmunks scurrying by.
“Yes, Cathy!”
The breathless view of Vancouver below couldn’t match your beauty.
Another flash of lightning shocks me out of my reverie.
White-capped waves tickle my toes and with a splash I hit the sea. My confusion is washed away as I’m absorbed into the frothing water.
Two Days After
Falling again but instead of rocketing to the earth, I am floating. This precipitation is peaceful. I breathe deeply of earthiness and musk. A reminder of early morning hikes, dew with our coffee, and waking up with someone you love.
I suspect this is the afterworld.
Each raindrop cradles a soul. I wonder what memories haunt them?
The peaks of the North Shore Mountains are visible beneath my feet. The undulating hills familiar, soothing.
I wave at the people near me. “What’s happening to us?”
Lips move, but I can’t make out words. I search for your face, Cherry. Relief when I don’t find you. The familiar lilt of your nose, the thick dark waves of your hair. I remember once trying to count every strand, and we dissolved into giggles, knowing it would take eternity. An eternity we didn’t have.
There is a grey-haired woman rocking and knitting in that distant drop. I squint. She has a beatific smile on her wrinkled face. I’m certain she is my Grandma Betty.
She died years ago.
Am I dead?
The tip of Grouse Mountain, almost exactly where I proposed, is rushing up beneath me. The summit coated in a soft blanket of snow.
Wasn’t this the spot I thought of before splashing into the ocean? My drop quivers with excitement. Can I control where I fall?
Squeezing my eyes shut, I imagine the last place we were together. My hand was captured by yours, our love tethering us as we laughed. You wanted to try that new café. The best latte in Vancouver. With a shiver, I join the mass of white, melting into the frost.
Three Days After
This time when I fall, I take a close look at the faces around me. Our raindrops are closer. Fine. Fragile. Not a deluge, or fat drops. Drizzle.
A young girl in the next drop is crying, a doll clasped in her hands. Her pain wrenches at my heart. I push on my wall to move closer. It works a fraction, but then I see a woman, the same features years older. She manages to make her drop collide with her daughter’s and the water re-forms around them. They hug and smile with genuine joy.
My shoulders drop in relief. I want to hug you the same way, my Cherry. A frown creases my forehead. But not if it costs you your life.
Where will I land today? There is a green mass of trees next to blue water. Stanley Park? Our café was just across the road.
I’m in the final moments of my descent when I see you. Sitting alone at a bistro table on the patio. Your shoulders hunched with grief. Before I join the stream of precipitation running along the curb, I clench my jaw and picture your exact location. Crossing my fingers, I hope to make my way back to you.
With a gentle sigh instead of a violent splash, I join the current of gutter water.
Five Days After
We are a light summer rain this time. I can see our cafe! My manifesting worked. My heart is filled with joy as I fall. You are the only patron on the patio. Who drinks coffee in the rain? You always did, Cherry. Laughing while refusing to take cover.
“It will pass,” you’d say.
Clenching my fists, I can see the pain on your face now, the shaking of your back as you sob over your latte. You are wearing a black dress and have lost weight. My pulse quickens and the ache of missing you is almost more than I can bear.
But the sight of your sorrow -and the sight of our cafe-tickles my trauma.
I remember now. The truck ran the red light, and I shoved you out of its path. But I wasn’t so lucky. The sick thud. The intense blur of pain. Then blackness.
You take a sip of the latte, your lips trembling.
My drop is nearly to you but I am a few inches off! I will land on the pavement by your rubber boots. Panic curls my toes, and I shove at the edge of my drop. The winds conspire to help me, and I drift over your head. My feet touch the tendrils of your soft hair.
I smell your shampoo, your perspiration, your essence.
Bliss washes over me as I touch you. I am a part of you, the rain in your hair.
You straighten your spine and lift one trembling hand to your head.
“Cathy?”
The sound of your voice is music as I dry.
Disappear.
Until the next time my soul can shower you in love.
The End.
Angelique Fawns is a journalist and speculative fiction writer. She began her career writing articles about naked cave dwellers in Tenerife, Canary Islands. After selling her first story to EQMM, she fell in love with weird fiction, which is ACTUALLY stranger than non-fiction. You can find her lurking at @angeliquefawns on X, Blogging about upcoming calls at www.fawns.ca, or gazing into the abyss hoping it stares back at her. Over 60 stories published. Find some in Mystery Tribune, Amazing Stories, and Space & Time.
Soul Storm is the winner of the Apparition Literary Magazine May Flash Fiction Challenge.
Photo by Issara Willenskomer on Unsplash
