Anonymous
They lifted the lid, and my body was lying there.
Cold and lifeless, yet with a beauty I never possessed when alive—the mortician’s art was stunning. One by one, they came to touch me, to weep as a layer of flowers slowly covered my body. I recognized each face—some last seen years ago, others only last week—but it made me happy to know that so many were willing to come to this final gathering in my name.
My funeral was held in a small forest, where spring hung sweet in the air and vegetation pressed neatly along the pathways. Specks of light blue wildflowers dotted the vibrant grass, and the distant echo of the ocean drifted through the trees. The green faded into a sparkling beach not far away, leading to the brilliant glow of luminescent water against the horizon. A church bell rang, soft and low, and I glided back.
My family members took turns speaking at the podium. I didn’t listen. It was the usual stuff—how they loved me and so on—I’d heard enough of that while alive. Now that I’m seemingly invisible, I feel freed from the obligation to demonstrate respect.
Floating over the seated crowd, I noticed someone holding something different: an untidily stapled handwritten sheaf of paper. Interesting—it didn’t look like a prayer book. Intrigued, I passed through my great-uncle’s shoulder and stepped over a black robe on the ground—hoping, idly, I left no ghostly print on the tidy fabric.
A tear fell from the man’s spoken onto the page, and the ink began to blur. Stepping closer, I realized the cursive… seemed familiar. I drew closer, and the first line sounded in my mind as if spoken:
“I slowly strolled down by the crooked embankment, gazing as the sun refused to sink below the heavy clouds…”
My breath caught. Why did he have the handwritten draft of my novella? Dashing forward, I caught sight of his face just as he hid it behind his hands.
It was him. The one who lived only in the margins of my drafts, and in my dreams.
I tried to pry his hands away, but my fingers slipped through like light refracting through glass. A wave of applause rose around him—somehow, they all recognized him. They knew why he was here. Numbly, I followed his path to the front.
He spoke of my writing, of how I crafted world after world to save everyone—and everything—in my stories, fabricating a life that seemed to be in order. Then, he read my novella aloud.
As he did, the audience began to fade, one by one. Figures dissolved into the air until the world fell silent, leaving his voice to dance in the airy church. When he finished, only the two of us remained. I stood gazing at the onstage figure as he recited the final line of my novella to the empty wood: “You are the fate I can’t deny.”
Stepping down, he placed my manuscript on a moss-covered log at the edge of the forest. Then he turned, and for a moment, his eyes met mine. Not where my body lay, but where I stood, unseen to others. I felt something I never had when alive: fully read, and fully known. With another blink, I was left alone in the living green with merry chirps of birds and the quiet rustle of my own murmurs. Sunlight broke through the canopy, illuminating the scene just as a breeze turned the page of my story.
It was as if everything had returned to the very start.
（This is a short creative writing piece and the first work in the spectre series. This series was anonymously submitted by a member of UHHC.）