A Gift or A Curse

Blake snapped open her eyes. Once she realized that the whole world around her was real, she scrambled in panic, searching for a face. A presence that left her alone under a tree with fallen leaves, having nostalgic conversation with her long lost brother. She needed to see that face now. But strangely she woke up to familiar surroundings. Very familiar. She recognized those pile of books that stacked up against her wall until it reached the top of her dresser. She came to recall those old framed pictures of her family that only collecting grey dust instead of hanging on the wall.

She slowly looked down to her body. She was dressed in a pajama, feeling lost and oblivious. Her head winding up blank blotches, empty screen with no trace of memory at all.

What just happened? Why am I here, back in my own bookshop? Who brought me here?

Jimmy Sullivan.

“Jimmy? Jimmy! Jimmy!” she called anonymously, scraping away from her blanket and ran downstairs to meet her haunted bookshop interior. No one was there to greet her. No popping teleported ghost, no annoying voice singing Seize The Day for her, no nothing.

“Jimmy…?” she wailed again. It was shattering to see how dark and lonely her life really was before the ghost came in. She broke down in rumbling tears, groaned and screamed loudly while her posture drooped down on the stairs, not able to balance her weight anymore.

She wondered whether Jimmy Sullivan and his amazing friends really were just a dream. Those short moments they had together seemed real, and did she really had the ability to talk to ghosts? Blake got up to her feet, wiped off her tears and ran upstairs. She needed to find out the truth.

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Ontario and Alberta was quite far, so Blake had to take a train there. Along the way she cried so much thinking about how could Jimmy had left her without saying goodbye and at the same time, confused between dream and reality.

Two children passed by her coach, running back and forth screaming and giggling – sometimes making her feel annoyed. She glanced at them once and decided to tell their parents to watch over their kids. She saw a boy and a girl running – wearing clothes from the 1930’s – brown in color and the boy was wearing a worn hat with shorts and socks high to his knee. The girl wore a white knee-length gown with ribbons on top of her head.

Blake wondered, was there a costume party nearby? She jerked her head out of the coach to look but the children were no longer there. The rest of the coaches looked quiet, no signs of children appeared whatsoever. Blake frowned. Just two seconds ago those children were running across and now they were gone like the wind?

Her heart pumped faster. She started to think that the dream, wasn’t a dream at all. She can really see ghosts and entities. She remembered something, and quickly looked down to her wrist. The Forever tattoo was still there, inked and unharmed. That means, Jimmy was real!

“Boo!”

Blake jumped and screamed, glancing to her side revealing those two kids laughing their asses off at her. Their faces pale, and their clothes looked really old. Blake couldn’t say anything. She was frozen to the state that only her eyeballs were moving. Those children ran away with laughter still hadn’t come off and disappeared into thin air in mere seconds.

“Shit.” Blake closed her eyes and rubbed her chest to calm herself down. She should have gotten used to this, since Jimmy always teleported here and there.

The train finally stopped, indicating that she had arrived in Ontario, the home of her parents. She hadn’t seen them in 3 years, after her brother went missing and now that she knew he died on duty, she had to let him go.

The house looked different from what she remembered. It was no longer painted in happy pastel purple and pink, it was now as white as snow, even the fences were white in color. Blake got out of the cab and let herself into the garden, not noticing that the front door was already open.

“Mom? Dad?” she called softly, after three years of not having that chance.

A woman, burgundy haired with a pair of hazel eyes suddenly appeared from behind the door and burst out in tears watching her.

“Blake! Oh my god, my daughter!” The woman sprung towards her and hugged her tight.

Blake was taken aback by her mother’s reaction. “You’re..not mad at me?”

“It’s been three years, honey. How can I stay mad?”

Blake can’t help but leaking into tears too. Soon a tall man with silver hair came with a set of bluest eyes rushing to meet her gaze.

“Dad!!” She parted from her mom and threw herself into her dad’s arm.

“Dad! Judy, Judy..he’s…gone..my brother’s gone!”

Her dad rubbed her back softly to calm her down. “That’s alright. We know, honey. We know.”

Blake pulled away almost instantly.”How did you know?”

He exchanged glances with his wife and sighed heavily. “Come in first.”

Blake was confused, lost a little track of time but when she stepped foot inside the house she saw a face that she didn’t expect to see the most.

Leana and her daughter Zoey.

“What..how..?”

Leana got up from her seat and widened her eyes at Blake. She knew this girl. Brian’s cousin if she wasn’t mistaken. But what was she doing here?

“Leana..” Blake whispered to herself even before her dad could introduce them.

“Blake, I want you to meet Leana..your-”

“Sister in law.” Blake continued from her father’s sentence. All of them stood in silent while Blake ran towards Leana and gave her a warm hug.

“And this must be my niece. Hello there, Zoey.”

“Hello,” Zoey waved and hide behind her mother’s leg.

“How did you know??”

Blake looked up to her mother. “A little birdie told me about them.”

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Leana can’t seem to close her mouth after hearing everything from Blake. They were now in the garden of her parent’s house, spilling everything out since everyone was so curious about everything.

“Ji..Ji..Jimmy came to you..??”

Blake nodded and smiled watching Zoey with her parents walking around the flowerbeds.

“What did he say? How was he? Is he here now?”

Her face turned sour. Her heart broke in millions of pieces and one of the reasons was because she didn’t even know the whereabouts of Jimmy.

“He said he’d let you go. He’s not here now. I don’t know where he is.” Her tears fell, and Leana didn’t know what to say. She once loved that man but she learned how to let go of him and found a new life instead. She glanced at her ring finger. The tattoo of JAMES was no longer there, she had it removed just recently.

“Do you…love him?”

Blake stared into Leana’s eyes. They were both in love with the same man. In life and in the afterlife. This complicated relationship can never be explained well.

“I do.”

“I did.”

Blake sighed. “I know.”

“But it was instant for me. I was looking for a dad to Zoey and Jimmy loved kids. I never really understand his suffering. I didn’t know he was dying.”

It was Leana’s turn to cry. She swore she had let him go but meeting Blake and hearing this kind of story again made the waves of her memory came back. Blake rubbed her shoulder and wiped her own tears.

“He loved both of us. He still do, I want to believe in that.”

Leana smiled to her wearily. “That’s what makes him special. He had both of our hearts.”

“Strangely, I don’t feel jealous over you.”

“Me too. I had him in life, you got him in the afterlife. It’s pretty fair.”

“I wonder which heart he will steal after he had crossed over.”

Leana laughed and sniffed, wiping her cheeks off. “Probably some angel with a hot piece of ass up there.”

Both of them laughed as they reminisced their own story of Jimmy Sullivan.

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Jimmy watched once again the peaceful sleeping face that he loved so much. After saying goodbye to seven of his best friends including the new kid, they sent him to the airport in Blake’s body and he landed here in Alberta, in her own bookshop, dressing her in pajama and laying her down on the bed.

He kissed her lips once again, remembering the taste for the last time as he knew his time was finally up. He didn’t dare to say goodbye in front of her, he was afraid he wasn’t going to make it. Slowly his last tattoo – FICTION – vaporized, leaving a burning sensation throughout his body and he faded slowly into the air.

“Goodbye, Blake. Take care of yourself. Give yourself chance to love someone else.”

He looked down to his feet, and saw that his body started to lift like all the time he was slipping away, but this time was quite different. He faded like something was erasing him gently.

“I love you, Blake.”

With that, he vanished away.



The room was as always, hectic and roaming with sound of babies wailing. Kids crying, heart monitors beeping and people rustling. Jimmy appeared in front of the babies’ watch room again. As he stood, he stared at all the babies there, wondering which would be the death of him.

“You’re ready, James?”

He looked to his left. Jude was standing next to him, wearing his crisp suit forever.

“What if I’m not?”

Jude smiled bitterly. “You can’t do anything. But the good news is, you’re gonna have a new job up there.”

Jimmy raised his eyebrow. “Really…?”

“Yes. Hint, you’re gonna be wearing white, with arrows as your weapon.”

He blinked. “Don’t tell me – cupid?”

Jude laughed. “I’m just kidding about the arrows. Who uses arrows nowadays? But yeah, a cupid.”

Jimmy too laughed in surprise. “Why am I a fucking cupid? Why not a reaper, like you?”

“Because believe it or not, you were the one that put people together, James. You don’t want to be a reaper. Trust me.”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Fine. As long as I get to shoot people’s butt!”

Jude laughed again and flung his arm over to Jimmy’s tall shoulder. “Thank you again, for helping my sister.”

“No, I should be thanking you dude. She’s amazing.”

“I know she is. She’s the only one who doesn’t know that.”

Jimmy smiled and watched ahead. A nurse came into the room, carrying a bundle of a newborn boy. He didn’t cry like the others. He lifted his little fist up, like a winner and a fighter, and just let out a small cackle, making Jimmy and Jude smiled watching him. Jimmy’s eyes moved down to the incubator that has the baby’s name written across it. He at least wanted to know the name of his soul replacement. He read;

22 Feb 2011
Sex: Male
Name: River

River. So that was the name of his new soul. He hoped Matthew would name his soon to be born son the same name, so that he would live on in their lives even when he had to go now.

He had to go.

“Goodbye, River. Take good care of my brothers and sisters. And my love.”

Exactly like when he was born in this world - unscathed, clean and pale – he disappeared into the light and the last image he saw was Jude’s blue eyes, reminding him of the bluest eyes he’d ever seen – Blake.

Notes

A/N: this is not the last chapter guys. :)