The Illusion of Separation

Of course Christofer didn't listen. I should have known. He never listened.

He showed up at my window right when I was pulling a pair of ripped jeans on, all smiles and sunshine even with the cold. My jeans weren't exactly pulled up all the way, so when he arrived at the window I just about had a heart attack. "Chris, you pervert! Get the fuck away!" I threw a shoe at him, which in retrospect probably wasn't the smartest idea especially since my window was closed. Thank the Lord it was a flip-flop or I'd be in serious trouble with my dad right now.

He just stood there watching me dress with that stupid grin still on his face. I'm not even going to ask how he was standing when my room was on the second story. Maybe he'd learned how to fly like ghosts do in movies and TV shows and stuff. That would be neat. Wait, no it wouldn't. Knowing Chris he'd float above me all day and look down my shirt. How many low-cut shirts did I have? Was I planning on wearing one today? I did a quick mental scan of my closet and decided that, with the amount of low-cut shirts in it, I'd have to deal with Christofer floating above me and being a peeping Tom.

Once I was done with my morning routine I left him there and went outside, coming around the side of the house to where my bedroom window was. Christofer wasn't flying or hovering at all. He was standing on an old ladder I'd forgotten we had in the shed. It had to be years old and probably rusty as hell. I was concerned about Chris's safety for a minute until I remembered that, oh yeah, he was dead already, and dead people can't die again.

I think.

He had no idea I was there, so I yelled up to him, "Having fun?"

He whirled around on the step, making me nervous for a little bit that he was going to fall despite the whole dead-can't-die-again thing, and then came down the ladder like a monkey or something. I could almost see the tail waving back and forth when he walked over to me. "Well, look who decided to get up this morning."

"I was up since five-fucking-thirty-two when you decided it would be a great idea to wake me up and tell me useless things while intoxicated. So it's not really a surprise."

He was still high, but he must have had his little pot party earlier last night. His eyes weren't so bloodshot anymore, and he wasn't tripping over words or anything. "Awh, you be quiet now, Hannah. If you want we can skip school and go to Waffle House or somethin' to cheer you up."

"Chris, in case you'd forgotten, I'm not a highschool dropout like you were planning to be. I actually care about my education and furthering my career." I was vaguely aware of my hands on my hips like I was some kind of mother lecturing her son, or a wife and husband maybe. It was kind of disturbing, to be honest. I didn't want to be one of those annoying overbearing wives when I finally got married. "I don't blow off school to go eat waffles. And besides, you're invisible, remember? It would look kind of weird if the two of us went and only one of us showed up to other people. And how interesting would it look if I ordered two plates and two coffees and one of each vanished mysteriously in front of everyone?"

Christofer dropped to the ground suddenly, spreading his arms and legs out like he was making a grass angel. I would have done the same thing if I wasn't worried about getting grass stains all over my clothes. It had rained last night and for some reason grass stains are always easier to get after it rains, like the color of nature washes off.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do, Hannah," he told me, and his smile disappeared, replaced by a worried look. It was one of the first times I'd ever seen him worried about something. He was the kind of person that took hakuna matata literally. No worries for the rest of your days. "I mean, what am I supposed to do? Live like this for the rest of eternity? Invisible to everyone, not allowed to make my music or nothing?"

"We'll figure something out, Christofer. Don't worry about it."

He didn't say anything after that, but I knew he was more worried than his face let on. He was beginning to grasp the reality of the situation which was something I'd been wanting him to do for a while now. He needed to learn that life wasn't the big game he'd thought it was, and neither was death. He was screwed, and he had to realise that. I already had, and so had Carter. Both of us knew just what this meant, that there was no way he was going to be able to be normal ever again, unless of course we could find some way to resurrect him. I wouldn't do that anyway considering what state his body had been in. I doubted someone could live in it even if the soul moved back inside. He'd just die again right afterwards and we'd be back where we started.

Carter took the both of us to school that day. Predictably Christofer pulled out the harmonica he'd apparently had in his jeans pocket at the time of the crash and started playing that jailhouse song you see prisoners sometimes do in TV shows. I couldn't help but laugh a little, and when he saw me smiling a grin curved his mouth upwards from behind the harmonica. Before long he was playing harmonica versions of all the songs he'd ever written, and it made the rest of the day seem not so depressing.