Existence 01 - Existence

this little girl talking about her death.
    “Who told you?” I asked again.
    She shook her head. “Don’t look so sad. He said this body I have is sick and once I die I’ll get a new body and a new life. Souls aren’t forced to wander the Earth. Only those too scared to go on are left here to wander. If you chose to leave the Earth you’ll return in a new body and a new life. Your soul will, however, be the same. He told me the man who wrote my favorite books, The Chronicles of Narnia, said that ‘You are not a body. You have a body. You are a Soul’.” She smiled at the idea like it was brilliant.
    I took a deep breath to calm myself before asking one more time. “Who is ‘he’?”
    She frowned. “The author? C.S. Lewis.”
    I shook my head. “No, the ‘he’ that has told you all of this. The ‘he’ that the souls are scared of.” She frowned and turned around to leave. “No, wait, please…I need to know who he is,” I begged.
    She glanced back at me and shook her head. “Until it’s your appointed time you can’t know.” She left.
    I held the book, Where the Wild Things Are , in my hands, ready to read as the kids filed in, but she didn’t come with them. I forced a smile and cheerful tone as I read the words I remembered from my childhood. Several kids requested other books when I finished and numbly I got each book off the shelf and read them their request until the nurses insisted it was time to return to their rooms for dinner. After several hugs and ‘thank you’s I headed back down the halls. This time I didn’t bother to smile at the wandering souls. They couldn’t help me. I was pretty sure the only one who could was the little girl who’d spoken to ‘him’ and deep down I feared I knew exactly who ‘he’ was and what it was he did.
    * * * *
    “I have a surprise for you,” Leif announced as he sauntered into my living room at seven that night. I peered up from the textbook lying open on the table and smiled at him. Seeing Leif helped ease the hollowness inside me. He bent down, kissed me on the lips softly, and then laid a brochure down in front of me on the table.
    “Gatlinburg, Tennessee?” I asked, reading the brochure in front of me with the image of a snowy mountaintop with a ski lift and festively-lit streets.
    He beamed and sat down in the chair beside me. “A whole weekend of skiing and shopping. My grandparents have a cabin up there we go to this time every year. I spoke with Miranda and she has got the go-ahead from her dad. He’s covering the cost of travel and spending for her and Wyatt, and my parents want to treat you in return for all your hard work in helping me achieve an A in Speech.” He grinned wickedly. “And because they knew I wouldn’t go unless you did.”
    Going on a skiing holiday wasn’t something I wanted to think about right now. Emotionally, I was barely hanging on and I needed to find Dank. I just couldn’t figure out how I was going to find him exactly.
    “Wow.” I forced a smile. He took my fake smile as encouragement and opened the brochure. He began talking about all the things to do on top of the mountain. I was trying to wrap my mind around how I could tell him no when my mother walked in.
    “Hello, Leif, have you eaten yet? I brought home Chinese from the meeting with my literary agent. Are either of you hungry?” she asked.
    “I’m starved,” Leif said with enthusiasm.
    “No, thanks,” I replied. The thought of food turned my stomach. I realized Leif was telling my mother about the ski trip and I panicked, trying to think of some way to stop this.
    “Oh, that would be perfect, Pagan. Aunt Margie has asked us to come to the ranch for Thanksgiving but I hated to take you back there to witness her mourn her first Thanksgiving without Ted. She needs me and I could go if you were spending the holiday in the mountains with friends. I won’t feel like you’re suffering at all. That is just perfect. Leif, thank you. I need to call your parents tonight and get details. I want to send money with her, though, I don’t like the idea of your parents paying for her.”
    Leif shook his head. “Oh, no, ma’am, that’s not necessary. They want to pay for her. She has been an answer to their prayers with my Speech grade this year. They couldn’t have paid for a better tutor.” He flashed a wicked grin down at me and then smiled politely back at my mom.
    They were planning this as if it was a done deal. Mom wasn’t going