Ashes to Ashes || Sinful & Jealous Angel D

[Jealous Angel D]

Allie hated being in public. Walking down the street, attending class, going to the grocery store, attending parties, she approached all with distaste. It wasn’t because she was anti-social and hated people – Okay maybe that contributed to her dislike of the public a little bit. Her problem was that she didn’t know who to talk to, who to look at, who to interact with. As soon as she talked to someone at a party it was always the wrong person. Not the wrong person in the sense that the person was boring or a potential stalker, it was because 9 times out of 10 the person was dead.

But talking to someone who no one else could see was not the worst part of conversing with the dead. Ghosts were unpredictable and came in many different shapes and colors. Some appeared and acted like they were still alive, going about their daily lives. Some were just a spirit, a faint shadow hovering over someone’s shoulder. Others walked and acted as if they were still alive. And others looked just as they had when they had died. Therefore, just walking down the street was occasionally unpleasant.

However, eating food was a necessary part of life. Which was why Allie was currently staring intently at the soup cans in front of her trying to ignore as many people around her as possible.

[Sinful]

In death, you felt nothing. Everything was numb, sometimes your vision was blurry, and the sounds around you were fuzzy. Now, not all that were dead experienced this—only those who hadn’t been able to cross to the Otherside. Those that crossed were really dead, and those that didn’t were stuck in a haze, lost and confused, wandering the earth in a state of abandonment as all who were alive around them ignored them, oblivious and blind and deaf to their presence. Sometimes not all who were lost knew they were dead, while others did, and suffered in their own agony and woe.

Travis did not know he was dead, but he did know something was terribly, terribly wrong with him.

Was he sick with a fever? He wondered. Was that why everything seemed to move in slow motion, why it was hard for him to discern between emotions and feelings and thinking? He’d gotten Malaria when he was nine; maybe it was coming back to him. The doctors had warned him the injections at the time may not be enough to cure it completely. The state of loss he was in reminded him of it. But how come when he tried to think about yesterday, and the day before that, and even before that, everything was dark? His memories suddenly stopped—were cut off it seemed—like he was trying to see what was at the bottom of a mud puddle. It was murky and indecipherable. He didn’t understand, and it . . . troubled him. What is happening? Am I really getting sick again? But if I’m sick, why am I in a grocery store?

He was meandering his way down an aisle, the one that held pastas and soups and the like. Had his parents sent him out to get something for dinner? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything at all up until finals, which had been three weeks ago. After that—nothing. Frowning to himself he paused and absently grabbed a can of soup, reading the label. Shaking his head he returned it to the shelf and took a step back, and stumbled into someone. “Sorry,” he blurted, turning around and holding his palms up apologetically at the older man. Strangely the man did not respond, instead continued looking up and scanning the rows of soup, a pinched expression on his face. “Um . . . sir?” Travis prodded gently. Still, no response. Blinking he took a few steps away, unsure whether to be offended or not. He’d just backed into the guy—had he not cared? He’d acted as if Travis hadn’t even been there, or spoken to him. Weird. . . .

[Jealous Angel D]

The whole “ignoring as many people around her as possible” thing was always easier said than done. After all, focus and concentration were never her thing. Perhaps its because she had never learned to concentrate as a child. If something was boring, she would just focus on something else – like a spirit. Of course, her lack of concentration meant that she usually found herself noticing her surroundings, even if by now she wished that she couldn’t. She also wished that she lacked sympathy for any who she saw.

“You shouldn’t apologize,” Allie said after observing the scene that had just taken place to her left. The old man, with that same pinched expression, turned to glare at her. Perhaps the man thought that she was just one of those crazy teenagers with their fancy technological devices. It was true that with Bluetooth devices and headset technology that people didn’t first jump to the conclusion that she should be institutionalized. So she turned her attention back to the Nutritional Facts of the Healthy Choice can as the old man slowly began to shuffle away having selected his food of choice. “And as he didn’t seem to care one bit about you, you shouldn’t let it bother you.”

Lifting her eyes, Allie turned to look at the boy whom she was directing her comments towards. By all accounts, the boy looked normal. However, it wasn’t often that cranky old men just outright ignored someone. Of course, maybe they were both ghosts or maybe she was just jumping to conclusions about who was alive and who wasn’t again. She offered him a smile before placing her soup into her small basket alongside a head of lettuce. “Anyways, have a nice day.” She sometimes wondered if she could actually be any more awkward in social settings than she already was.