Being Dead Is So Boring

No one told me that being a corpse would be so boring.

To be fair, no one expects to be conscious inside of their own dead body. We mostly just assume that your spirit goes up or down or somewhere in the lingering middle. If having your soul trapped in your lifeless body is the lingering middle, then I’d rather be burning up down below. Seriously, what did I do to deserve this at the age of twenty-two?

Oh yeah, I pissed someone off. 

Thankfully, the funeral home manager was in on my little plan. If it weren’t for him, my eyes wouldn’t have been opened just a crack so I could see a little bit. Is it disturbing? Yep. Does it make things more enjoyable from my perspective? Yes. I guess everyone was too busy crying or avoiding the sight of my ugly dead face to notice my eyes. Even if they did notice, who’s going to touch a dead person’s eyelids?

I hated everything about my funeral. Everyone knows that I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing sky blue, but my mother thought it’d make me “look more lively”. Uh, I’m dead. Why would I need to look more lively? The mortifying makeup artist had the bright idea of applying salmon-colored lipstick to my chapped lips. Salmon. I had once said that I would like to have some MCR played at my funeral, but I wanted to scream when “Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley started playing. I get that most funeral programs list the deceased’s full name, but I was known as “Roxy” when I died, and I would’ve preferred to keep it that way. Stop wailing the name I hated so much. Oh, and someone had the audacity to use roses for the waste of a floral arrangement. How many times did I have to tell everyone that I loved daisies? The only thing about the funeral arrangements that I approved of was being buried with an emerald ring I had inherited from my grandmother.

The only person who truly understood me was my boyfriend, Conner. He was so sweet that he passed out buttons with daisies on them to the other funeral guests. The sight of him rolling his eyes as guests stated “how pretty she looked in that blue” made me want to smile. I also wish I could’ve smiled as he tapped his fingers on the side of my coffin. We had this thing where we’d tap our fingers three times on a surface, meaning “I love you”. When he was sure that no one was watching, he lightly rubbed the emerald ring with his thumb as he hummed a little tune. Gosh, I wanted to hold his hand and intertwine his fingers with mine so badly.

As more and more “friends” gathered to see my dead face, I could hear murmurs about how Conner “has yet to shed a tear for his beloved girlfriend”. Others noted that he “laughed too much” and he “shouldn’t be smiling at a place like this”. They questioned if he even loved me. Uh, he passed out daisy buttons. He loves me, even without a single tear in his shiny blue eyes.

Seriously, what is it about guys with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes? You wouldn’t think that a guy like him would be interested in a girl with brown hair a few dark shades away from looking like a goth, but here we are. I bet that he’s later going to joke about how I looked like a demonic princess at my funeral.

Personally, I think that funerals shouldn’t be available to the general public. Someone needs to make a guest list to avoid unwanted guests. Otherwise, someone like Olivia will show up in an outfit more disgraceful than a boyfriend who doesn’t cry for his dead girlfriend. Who wears a bright pink top to a funeral? Sure, she paired it with a black blazer and (based on what I’ve heard) skirt, but that shirt was practically a neon sign. It was saying, “LOOK AT ME”, and she had the audacity to do that before I was lowered into the ground. Oh, and it was low cut. Really low cut. So low cut that she had her brown hair up in a ponytail so you could see everything. And she was dangerously close to Conner, who refused to look down as he paid me another visit. Even as my corpse was laid to rest in that awful gown, he was faithful. 

The sight of Olivia attempting to touch Conner’s face made me want to fly out of my coffin and rip her face off. He initially flinched, but he gave in and let her do so. Wait, what? I literally just said that he was faithful. Seriously? He even smiled at something she said, leading him to whisper something in her ear. Her smile widened even more than his. And yes, I’m sure that plenty of people noticed.

I had to tell myself that it wasn’t what it looked like as I laid there. No matter how many times I told myself that, seeing them together made me wish I was permanently gone. Let’s speed things up. Bury me in the ground already. Actually, let’s forget the original plan and just release my soul already. I know fully well that I can break the curse right now and leave my body to do whatever I want. However, I have unfinished business. Still, is completing my task worth it to where I must endure the sight of my lover with my enemy? I’d rather be burning in Hell. 

The final nail in the coffin was when Olivia asked Conner to leave her so she could “pay her respects”. After making sure no one else was less than six feet away from her, she grinned before delivering her disgusting final wishes.

“I told you that he’d be mine,” she hissed. “This is what you get for stealing.”

If I wasn’t dead, I’d tell the delusional diva that he was never hers to begin with.

And just before the speeches and sob stories began, she pretended that something fell into my coffin before freaking shutting my eyes closed. Oh, how I wish I could rip her manicured nails right off and stab her with them. 

Even though I wouldn’t have been able to see anything even with my eyes open, I hated that my eyes were closed as I heard the eulogy. Still, I should be grateful that my coffin wasn’t positioned so I could see the slideshow because then I’d have to be subjected to the cursed images of my past. I bet they picked that one photo of me riding a bike while wearing a duck costume when I was ten. I mean, it’s cute, but be for real. Is it time to bury me yet? No? Fine.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, they transfer my coffin from the church to my designated hole in the ground. As the lid closes on me, the sunlight stops hitting my eyelids, making it pitch black. Honestly, the sound of dirt hitting the top of my coffin was just as soothing as listening to raindrops on my window as I fall asleep. Soon, there was a layer of dirt thick enough to drown out the rest of the world. 

And now, I must wait.

Oh my Lord, this is so boring.

I just had to subject myself to this. Just because a two-faced witch cursed my soul to stay trapped in my body doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to accept it. There is a pretty simple way to break the curse so that I don’t have to spend eternity in my own rotting corpse. Is a little revenge plan that important to me that I’m willing to stay lifeless in this coffin?

Yes, and that’s because I was seeking revenge against the witch who cursed and killed me. 

All I had to do was wait until later that night, and I will finally be freed. 

Despite not being able to move, something striking the top of my coffin startled me so much I nearly broke the curse by jumping out of my own skin.

Relief came in the sound of my coffin’s half lid opening up. Dirt showered down onto my skin as I heard someone jumping into the hole to assist the gravedigger. I could hear the person who jumped down pushing the gravedigger out of the way. Her nails tapped against her phone screen to turn on the flashlight, the beam of which hit my eyelids.

“There it is!” Olivia exclaimed. Even though I had anticipated this, hearing her voice made my dead heart drop.

“Hold on,” Connor’s rough and alluring voice replied. 

“No, that ring is mine.”

Olivia’s nails dug into my skin as she yanked at the emerald ring. Ignoring Conner’s insistence to wait, she kept tugging. Just when I thought that she was going to tear my finger off with her nails, Conner said something about applying water to “lube it up”.

If I wasn’t so dead, I’d laugh right now.

Olivia “lubed up my finger” (I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t resist) and slipped off the ring like it was nothing. I’m guessing that she put it on because she reacted so greatly that she slipped into my coffin. Eww, I didn’t like the feel of her body against mine.

“What is happening to me?” she gasped.

“I know what you did to Roxy,” Conner said in the coldest tone I had ever heard from him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Did you really think I’d let you sell the ring so we could run away together? You cursed and killed Roxy because you couldn’t accept the fact that I would never cheat on her with you. I probably should’ve told you that her grandmother collected enchanted items, one of which just so happens to be the ring on your finger.”

Before Olivia could let out a scream, I opened her eyes.

Conner shined the phone’s light down on me as I looked down at my own corpse. I was going to miss my old body, but I will admit that Olivia was always in better shape than me. I leaned into my old face and opened my eyes, speaking directly to the new resident.

“I told you that nothing would come between me and Conner,” I chuckled. “Also, maybe don’t lube up a finger with holy water. Goodnight.”

Instead of shutting the half lid, Conner and I climbed out of the grave to fill it up, ensuring that Olivia saw everything. However, we waited until her face was covered before kissing. After all, we didn’t want her to get a good view of the future she had dreamt of. Once all was said and done, we headed off to start our new life together.

“Tell me the truth babe,” I said once we were in the car.

“What is it?” Conner asked with a confused look on his face.

“Did the slideshow include an image of ten-year-old me riding a bike while dressed as a duck?”

“Yes, and you were such a cute little duckling,” he said with a giggle.

I rolled my eyes before giving him another kiss. As we drove out of the cemetery, the funeral home manager gave us a little nod and bid us farewell. I stuck my arm out of the car window to wave goodbye, letting my grandmother’s ring glisten in the moonlight.