Daisy
By: Aiki Ifeoluwa
Tags: Short Story, Flash Fiction, Aikiworks, Short Fiction

Daisy

The day you died was like any other day.

No, the night. The night you died was as ordinary as any other hot night during the dry season.

It had to be a night as the sun has a pact with people like you. Never to gaze down at your soul nor witness the sight of the lifeless body or the cries of those that loved you.

So it had to be a night when your heart stopped beating and your breathe packed and left.

There was no EKG machine to give it's dreaded tune as you flat lined. In fact, there was no witness. Just your bed getting lighter as your soul parted ways with the body it knew as home. And the breeze trying to muster enough energy to cause the barest movement of the leaves on the tree in your backyard.

The thing is, death was no stranger to you. You and him were as familiar as a cashier and Naira notes.

You were always a weird one, you talked of death like you would of an exotic holiday location.

The first day you openly talked about dying, your mother had screamed 'Ahusubilahi!'

You were watching NTA news in the sitting room with her when the newscaster reported the death of the son of a prominent man in a road accident.

"I hope they report like this when I die" you had said.

She had looked at you with a morbid face, muttering scriptures separating you from the works of Shaitan.

The second time earned you a slap so hard you couldn't remember the circumstances that brought about it. Only your ringing ears served as souvenir of the incident.

Your talks about death and dying became frequent and you took it out of the house to social media.

Not that you wanted to die nor were you actively seeking it, but there was a darkness within that only the cold hands of death can dispel.

You've always known death on a bed in your old age wasn't for you. You will leave in your prime.

So when the grim reaper came knocking, you threw open the door and invited him in without hesitation. You made him a kingly dinner, supped with him and prepared a bath for him to clean up some of the grime he had accumulated on his travels.

As you toweled his long face, you noticed the wrinkles and lines, the heavy bags beneath his eyes. You nodded at him in understanding.

Even the grim reaper gets weary sometimes.

You laid in your bed and whispered 'thank you' as he snuffed out your life.

************

You opened your eyes as a soul, a being without form, part of the astral plane. A being stuck in another dimension that gently overlaps the physical one.

You found yourself floating, being pulled on by a force you couldn't explain.

But your soul was heavy. It was being weighted down with regrets. Of a life not fully lived, words not spoken, of love not loved.

You remembered Abdul, goofy Abdul that always had a way to get through your dark moods. You never told him you loved him too.

You remembered Daniel, that stranger from facebook you fondly call your dragon. You never told him how glad you were to be his friend.

You remembered Zainab, your pain in the delicate parts sister. You never told her how much brighter your world was with her in it.

You stared at the Reaper keeping pace with your drifting soul. He nodded at you in understanding.

You were not ready to die yet.

"Yes, you can go back." He whispered in a sad, croaky voice.

A far cry from the boom one would have expected from the purveyor of death.

Right then you understood the sadness in his eyes; even the grim reaper wants to live.

************

You opened your human eyes to the scream of your sister as she was shaking your body while calling your name. You smiled at her and stood from the bed.

Confusion and relief played a game of 'Now You See me, now you don't" on her face.

"I'm starving" you said to her as you stepped out of the room and went across the street to the suya man.

You sighed as you popped a piece of meat in your mouth and took a sip from the bottle of chilled fanta you were nursing in your right hand.

You appreciated the little pleasures of life like suya and the big ones like chilled fanta.

You knew you'll live. You were always meant to live.