You're Only Dead

by Jack Parker

  Here he was again, sitting on this same cobbled stone fence across from his home in Brighton, just like he had every day after school while waiting for his father to come home. He never truly realized how much he'd missed it. The house was a few yards before him and hadn't changed a bit. It was still narrow, still tall. The lights were off inside, but of course that would be the case. No one had lived here in years. He turned to look down the street only to note that it was completely empty. There were no cars, no people, no barking dogs or singing birds. Just a gentle breeze and the promise of rain hanging humidly in the summer air around him.

  Emery put his hands in his lap and sighed, staring back out at the house. He felt so strangely defeated. He didn't know why. Perhaps he just thought there would be more to it than this. More than just an abandoned memory, more than a vague recollection too old to even be populated by ghosts anymore. But he supposed it could be worse, considering all that he'd done… He ran his fingers along the uneven stone between his legs and looked back up at the sky.

  "You waiting for someone?"

  Emery quickly turned his head to the right where the voice had startled him from. He was so sure he'd been alone that he nearly toppled off the fence in surprise, but caught himself, blinking at the man standing a few feet from him. Emery didn't recognize him. He was tall, young, perhaps in his early twenties with a mop of blonde curls and a roguish face. He was dressed in mostly black, hands stuffed in his pockets and an expectant look on his attractive features.

  "No," Emery said, looking him up and down. "Why?"

  The man raised an eyebrow. "'Cause you look like you're waiting for someone, mate."

  Emery took a moment to gather his thoughts before shrugging. "Just…a force of habit, I suppose. I spent a lot of my days waiting here once upon a time."

  "Mm," the man replied, casually scratching his throat. Emery watched as he leaned against the stone wall, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and tapping one out. He stuck it between his lips and held the pack out to Emery. "Fag?"

  Emery tentatively reached out and pulled one away. "…Thanks."

  The man looked out at the house, squinting as he held a lighter to his cigarette and cupped his hand around the flame. He then shut it and handed it to Emery, taking a drag and looking back out at the house. "Amazing how much time we spend waitin', yeah?"

  Emery studied him for a long moment before slowly lighting up. "What d'you mean?"

  The blonde gestured aimlessly towards the house. "Think about it. Standing in queues, sitting on hold, banging on about future this's and that's in the pub with your stupid mates every Friday night. How much of your life have you spent waiting to do something compared to how much you spent doing that something?"

  Emery frowned, pushing the cigarette between his lips. That was true enough. He'd spent an awfully long bit of his life simply waiting for things to get better. "I suppose it's a depressing ratio."

  "For most folks it is," the man agreed. "Take this one bloke I used to know. When I met him, he was the bloody king of waiting. Didn't know why, really, but he had the sort of patience that you usually only find in statues and the like. Erosion personified, you know? Seemed to me he was content on waiting until the world ended so long as he didn't have to actually bloody do anything."

  Emery went along uncertainly. "What happened to him?"

  "For a long time, nothing. Not a bloody thing." The man took another long drag and sighed out a cloud of smoke. "Then he met you."

  Emery stared at his visitor for a long while, trying to make sense of it. "Do you…are you talking about Kurt?"

  "Kurt sodding Gabler," was the reply, one part annoyed and one part fond. "Who else?"

  Emery gazed upon the man's tousled blonde locks and his lips parted slightly in awe. "…You're Graham."

  The man smiled. "In the metaphysical flesh."

  It took a long moment to properly register this. How warped was his ego that he was imagining himself having a conversation with his lover's dead boyfriend? So many questions battled in his mind that it became backed up and left him with nothing to say.

  Graham's eyes pored over him. "And you're Emery." He stepped a bit closer, leaning an elbow near Emery's knee and looking up at him with scrutiny. "Nicely put-together little thing, aren't you? Suppose I can't blame the man. If I were still around I'd've taken a crack at you myself."

  Most assuredly his ego was out of control if he was also capable of imagining said lover's said dead boyfriend chatting him up. Emery shook his head in wonder. "But why?"

  "Because you're fit, love."

  "Not that," Emery cleared his throat. "What…I mean, what are you doing here?"

  "It's a long story," Graham sighed. "You want to hear it?"

  Unsure what else to do, Emery nodded.

  Graham stuck his cigarette back between his lips and hopped up onto the wall, seating himself next to Emery and looking out at the house in front of them. "What do you suppose happens to folks after they die, Emery Fletcher?"

  Emery stared at him blankly. "I really don't know."

  "You never even speculated?"

  "I never wanted to."

  Graham nodded slowly. "I reckon not. Well, I'm not here to tell you all of that. Truth be told, I don't either, and I'm bloody dead." He laid a hand over his chest. "All I can tell you is what's happened to me."

  "I know what happened to you," Emery said. "You were shot when you were very young. Stealing a wallet."

  Graham snorted. "That isn't where it began. That was somewhere in the middle. Now this…well, I'm dearly hoping that this is finally the end."

  Emery frowned. "Is it the end? …Am I dead then?"

  "Afraid so, mate."

  Emery felt completely crushed. He'd well and truly let Kurt down this time. What a horrible thing to have done. The only two people he'd ever loved—dead. He'd never cope. He'd never recover, not this time. Oh, Kurt…

  "The way I see it," Graham continued. "Death is only the end for the really good ones, you know? Folks who had all their ducks in a row, who didn't leave behind a massive shit of a life for everyone else to wade around in once they'd popped their clogs. Near as I can tell, that's why death wasn't the end for me. And why it ain't the end for you."

  "I don't understand," Emery replied dejectedly.

  "I know you don't. But give us a listen and you might." Graham's eyes roamed the sky for a calm moment before he picked up again. "I was sort of a wanker in life. There: I've admitted it. That's the only time you'll hear me say it, because you've got to give someone as young and bright as I was a bit of credit, don't you? …Anyway, it doesn't exactly seem fair to blame a youth for being selfish and spirited. I don't think it makes up for much; I'm just saying one should be objective.

  "I met Kurt when I was nineteen. Boy…I never met anyone like him. Wound so tight it was a wonder he could even walk and twice as sour. You know, the only reason I hung around him so much at first was because I was dead certain he bloody hated me and I was just looking to rile the bastard up…but after a while I started to notice things. Like how I seemed to be the only person who did hang around him. How he was one of the meanest, most solitary things I'd ever met, but at the same time he'd do anything I said. He'd take dares. He'd go with me on these little adventures I had…lift a billfold here and there, hustle some blokes at billiards or darts. Nothing spectacular. But I started to realize early on that the man couldn't tell me 'no'.

  "So I exploited it, naturally. I mean he was big and tough and fucking gorgeous—couldn't think of a better companion to have at my beck and call. I knew he liked me, even if he was too daft to know it himself. Having that man's undivided attention was a high that really got me off for a time there."

  Emery could relate. It was still horribly odd hearing this from someone else's perspective, though. He couldn't help being a little jealous, but that thought was so petty he dismissed it instantly.

  "Anyway, I got tired of the pitifully longing looks and the unspoken
bloody lust, so I shagged him. And for a virgin he wasn't half bad. Obedient to a fault. A blank canvas, ready to be taught whatever trick I knew…you're welcome for that, by the way."

  Emery looked away slowly, feeling his face blush.

  "Only he never stopped with that devoted puppy-dog malarkey. In fact fucking him only made it worse. That was alright for a while—I'd never strictly 'dated' anyone before, and he was good to me like I didn't know people could be good to one another…I like to think that's why I pushed him away a lot of the time. Not because I was a cold, self-serving ass, but because I was overwhelmed by all this sodding affection I felt I never earned. But I loved him. In my own way, I did."

  "He loved you back," Emery said.

  Graham nodded. "Yeah. He did. Proved that every day I think, but the fact is, all I ever thought about was moments. Kurt thought about life in the long term. He always had. For him, I was it, and he was going to do whatever it took to secure that future. That annoyed me at the time, I think…my world revolved around me, I didn't want to share that slot with someone. I didn't like the thought of someone making plans for me, scolding me for the errant things I did, suggesting I live some sort of proper life. It felt like he was trying to control me. …It's damn sad to look back now. Because now I see how lost he was. If he didn't have control, he didn't have anything. He'd spent his whole life with things spiraling out of control—he couldn't handle it. Me on the other hand, I thrived in chaos. I wanted unpredictability, the chance to adapt, the constant thrill of something new. Because I'd already grown up with boring, simple control. And he grew up in helpless chaos."

  Graham sighed and leaned back, taking another puff. "I didn't have much sympathy back then. Like I said, I was young. I supposed I shouldn't have had to be looking out for a grown man just because he looked out for my stupid self. …I put that man through a lot of grief. I couldn't make things easy on him. Not once." He paused for a long moment and looked over at Emery. "Mind you, I didn't feel this way when I died. Or even for a long time afterwards. Mostly I was just so indignant that the world had dared to shirk Graham Robinson I spent most of my days in the afterlife throwing a celestial tantrum. I was going to be big. What right did anyone have to take me out of this world while boring, blue collar saps and their perpetually pregnant wives went on about their business, contributing nothing? I thought, well, that's what you get for trying to buck the system.

  "But the worst part about death isn't the indignity of it…no. The worst part of death is watching everyone you ever knew move on. They stop mourning you. A lot of them forget you. And then you think about the whole scope of people who never knew you and never will… I think that's how I ended up stuck on Kurt. He didn't stop mourning. Not by half. I watched him day in and day out barely living. Totally indifferent to himself. He became ten times the villain I ever was. And I hated him for it. Not because of morality or anything like that, but…because of guilt, I think. It was easier to hate him than it was to hate myself. It was easier to accuse him of being psychotic or dramatic than it was to admit that it was my fault he ended up that way. I hated thinking of the fact that he was so distraught just because he didn't have the piss poor version of love that I was giving him anymore. And the first time he fucked someone else? Haw…I was busy hating him already, but let me tell you, that bruised my ego.

  "After that, I started hating him for different reasons. Mostly that he just wouldn't get the bloody hell over it already. Sure, when he was young it was one thing, but years and years passed and he was still this great, mental twat. I hated him for making me feel like I was stuck observing him, for making me feel like I ruined his life. I was accusatory and it was ridiculous. I actually convinced myself that he was being a total cock up out of spite just to make me feel bad. I wanted nothing to do with him, I was sorry we ever met, I didn't know what I ever saw in him. He was pathetic. What right did he have to be so hung up on me?

  "…I realize now, of course, that it wasn't me he was hung up on. That was just a reflection of my selfishness. I was just one factor in everything that broke that poor idiot…And so after some time, instead of hating him, I just felt…well, sort of sad. Like all I wanted to do was apologize. For things that weren't even my fault, and especially for the things that were. I watched the man I used to tease just to get him to make that angry face of his become someone who inspired genuine terror. I watched him fade. I watched him fall deeper and deeper, until he was nothing at all. And I thought that was maybe my punishment for how I'd been to him in life. I was going to watch him die, minute by minute, for miserable decades on end."

  Graham smirked slightly, turning his head to lock eyes with Emery. "Until you."

  Emery took in the story with amazement, staring back silently.

  "See, you changed everything. I couldn't believe it when that crusty exterior fell away and there he was—the old Kurt. More or less. He'd spent his whole life up unto that point waiting. Patient as always, never a complaint, sitting stone still across from a world he watched pass him by without so much as tapping his foot. It wasn't living; it was just waiting to die. But before that could happen, he found you. Now he don't want to wait around no more. Now, he realizes that the thing he was waiting for wasn't for it all to be over. It was for it all to begin." Graham looked down, smiling wistfully. "Much as it pains my pride to admit it, he loved you more than he ever loved me. And you loved him better than I ever could."

  Emery swallowed and took a drag of his nearly burnt-away cigarette. A fat lot of good that did him. He was gone now. And what was Graham saying? Was this going to be his fate now? To watch Kurt wither completely for the rest of his life? Oh god, he absolutely couldn't take that. He couldn't.

  "But that's not what I came here to tell you," Graham said.

  "What a bloody waste…" Emery muttered.

  Graham arched a brow and looked over. "What is?"

  Emery snorted. "My mother…it was so important for her that I find peace. But I think I was right. Peace isn't what men like us deserve."

  Graham thought on this for a moment before looking away nonchalantly. "What a rubbish thought."

  "Why?"

  "Because you did find peace," Graham insisted. "In glimpses, anyway."

  "I don't think that qualifies."

  "Bollocks, Fletcher. Why has peace got to be fixed? Nothing else is."

  Emery looked up at him curiously.

  "That's the thing about peace. It isn't a permanent state. Do you know how bloody boring our lives would be if it were? Peace is just the downtime between the important bits, yeah? It's transitory. You had heaps of peace in your life, and you'll go on to have heaps more."

  Emery considered this for a long while. Perhaps that was true. It didn't seem right to write off the peace he found in his life as irrelevant…

  "But that's not what I came here to tell you."

  Emery looked up, brow furrowed. "Hang on. What do you mean I'll 'go on'? I thought I was dead."

  Graham rolled his eyes, then smiled warmly at Emery. "I just told you that I spent eleven years watching Kurt Gabler mope. Do you really think I haven't had enough of that?"

  Emery stared back at him in shock. "Do you mean…does that mean that I'm not dead?"

  "Oh, you're dead alright," Graham confirmed. "For round about the next minute, that is."

  Emery tried to process this, searching the ground below. "I don't know what to say…other than I don't think you're selfish at all."

  "You're damned right I'm not," Graham laughed. "If I were I'd keep you to myself. Anyway…maybe it's the least I can do for old Kurt. Besides, you've still got more to say to that man that needs said. He isn't finished yet. He's still broken and he still needs your sodding help. And I owe you my gratitude as well."

  "For what?"

  "Because with you there, he doesn't need me here. If I know that he's got you I can finally let him go. Move on to bigger and better things. Maybe even let you fuck each other in private, because let me tell
you, have I been getting an eyeful."

  Emery couldn't help it. A laugh broke through. "For fuck's sake, well…I mean, how is it?"

  Graham laughed in turn. "Better than any show what requires money, I reckon. I've never wished so bad I wasn't dead. Bloody hell…"

  "Happy to entertain," Emery said, even though he wasn't. It was both terribly hilarious and severely disturbing to think his sexual performance was being judged by ghosts.

  Graham smiled. "You'll take proper care of the man, won't you?"

  Emery nodded. "For eternity."

  "Aw, I do believe you mean that, precious," Graham nudged him lightly. "You're a good sort, Emery Fletcher. And from my little roost here I've seen every bit of you, so don't ever let your doubts tell you otherwise. …You're a good man. Truly." He sighed, leaning back again and taking another long drag. "But that's not what I came here to tell you."

  Emery looked over, scanning him hesitantly. "What did you come here to tell me, Graham?"

  "Mm," Graham said as though just then remembering. Then he flicked his cigarette away and hopped off the wall. Emery straightened up as Graham was suddenly in front of him, gently taking his face in his hands and stroking his cheek with a thumb. The smile on his face was radiant and Emery found himself captivated. "Mum and Dad say hi."

  Emery's eyes widened, then Graham's lips pressed against his.

  Burning. That's all he could feel—his chest was burning. He was choking, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't—

  "That's it, that's it!" someone was shouting at him. Hands clamped down on his shoulders and pinned him to cement as he fought agonizingly for breath that barely came. Then it finally did and he was gasping, coughing, wheezing. Oh fuck, everything hurt. His hands were fisted above him in someone's shirt and suddenly he realized he was staring into the face of Victor Scott. "Breathe, Em, come on, you got this."

  His chest felt like it had been pierced with a knife. His eyes traveled above him dizzily to see others above him that fell shakily into focus. Georgie, her face deeply relieved. Kurt, looking stunned. His eyes went back to Victor and he wheezed again, grasping for him. Victor's hand wrapped around his wrist and squeezed. "Bloody fucking hell," Emery hacked. He panted for a moment, then sank back. His stomach clenched terribly. His mouth tasted horrendous. His skull was pounding. He groaned, head lolling back and forth for a moment. "…People do this…fffucking drug recreationally?"