On more than one occasion her friends had told her just how much she looked like the character of death out of the Sandman comics of the nineties. Always dressed in black, with a carefully messed up shock of jet black hair that hung down to her thin shoulders, the resemblance was certainly there.
Death, Kayleen thought, how appropriate.
Slumping down in her faux leather swivel chair, that squeaked reassuringly every time she swung from left to right, Kayleen fired up the computer. Recently of legal age, she flipped the lid of her Jack Daniels Zippo lighter and lit a long cigarette while Windows went slowly through the motions.
Kayleen logged on and brought up her list of favourites. There amidst the short list was the site that had been occupying much of her time over the last three months or so: quickandpainless.com.
Kayleen logged in as a member and the message, welcome Ankh 17, appeared in the top right corner of the screen. Her eyes skimmed over the latest messages in the general discussions thread. Many of the names she had come to know pretty well; angelofdeath30, whitelight000, and a string of other equally fanciful nicknames. Scrolling down the page she came upon a user name she had never seen before. Double clicking the name, the message she read sent a shiver down her spine.


To the forum,

I found this site on my son Martin’s computer this weekend. You would probably all know him better as thelonelyone14.
No doubt you will all be pleased to know that Martin ‘caught the bus’ as you like to call it on Friday evening.
His father found him in the garage in the back seat of the car, clutching a thread bare teddy that we had thought long abandoned to the attic. He had run a hosepipe from the exhaust pipe up through the window. He was dead before the ambulance arrived.
Although I find it hard to believe it seems that you will be happy for him for taking his destiny in his own hands. We, however, are shattered.
We have lost our only son, our baby boy, just 14yrs old. Our beautiful little boy who had everything to live for, gone now forever.
I hope you are all very happy now.

Devastatedmother


Kayleen stared at the screen, blinking only when her eyes began to water, blurring her vision.
Kayleen had never before seen a post that said someone had actually taken their own life. Kayleen felt more depressed than she had done all year, and that was saying something.
It had been only six months since the terrible night when the two police officers had turned up on the doorstep; a young male officer, and an even younger female one. Both Kayleen and her mum knew straight away, just by the looks on the two officers faces.
A car had lost control in the torrential rain that had been lashing the country seemingly forever. Mounting the curb, there was no way of avoiding a collision; Kayleen’s dad, never one to think only of himself, had at the last second let go of the lead of the families Alsatian Harry. Looking over the policeman’s shoulder to the car parked on the street, Kayleen could see Harry’s huge head pressed up against the window, his breath steaming up the glass as his long, course tongue lolled out of the corner of his mouth. The girl could see the sadness in the dog’s eyes.
Kayleen’s dad had been killed instantly.
For the next few months after his death, Kayleen lost all sense of direction. Codeine, Valium and copious amounts of potent grass sealed her away from the pain, sealed her away from everything.
And somewhere in that haze of blissful indifference Kayleen found herself pregnant, and on top of everything that her mother had to deal with just keeping on top of things for the two of them, Kayleen was sure that she didn’t need this extra burden as well. Especially as Kayleen had no idea who the father of the baby was.

Kayleen switched the computer off and spun the chair around. There was Harry, sleeping peacefully in his oversized dog basket in the corner of the bedroom. When it had happened Kayleen thought that she should hate Harry for surviving, that if her dad had thrown himself clear instead of worrying about a stupid mutt, then maybe he would still be alive.
But just as a bit of the spark of life had left both wife and daughter after the loss, so too did Harry become a shadow of his former self. Kayleen sensed that she didn’t need to blame the poor animal for something that so obviously wasn’t his fault; Harry it seemed blamed himself enough already.
A feeling of dank oppression filled Kayleen’s chest, she felt suddenly hemmed in, as if someone was building a box around her. Hot and light headed, she needed fresh air and she needed it fast. Propelled out of the chair and through the open door with a sense of unreasonable panic, Kayleen swept down the stairs two at a time. Throwing open the front door Kayleen stepped out into the first gloriously sunny day that she could ever remember.

Kayleen lifted her chin towards the cloudless sky. She felt the warm sun on her face, could see the orange glow through her closed eyelids. With birds calling to one another as they wheeled overhead, Kayleen felt an enormous sense of peace steal over her. She hadn’t felt like this for a long time.
Kayleen shivered.
‘Hello.’ A voice said from behind her.
Kayleen jumped almost out of her pale skin and twisted quickly around. Standing before her was a young boy.
He was about the same height as Kayleen, just over five feet eight, and was slightly built. He had sandy blond hair that was cut short into a curtain style which was the current fashion. He had a friendly sort of face; the face of the boy next door, Kayleen’s mother would have said.
He was also dead.
The boy came around the side of the bench and sat down. Kayleen edged away a little but gave the boy a nervous half smile. It looked as if the boy wasn’t going to say anything, and although she didn’t want to appear rude Kayleen had to ask.
‘You’re dead aren’t you?’
‘I am.’ The boy replied pleasantly. He didn’t seem in the least bit offended.
It was then that Kayleen noticed it. When the boy spoke, a thin wisp of greyish-green smoked followed the words from his mouth.
Nervously, Kayleen slid over towards the dead boy. She sniffed twice, two audible sniffs that made her sound like an animal. The smell from the boy’s denim clothes was unmistakable; it was the smell of car fumes.
Kayleen’s throat constricted and she gulped hard. ‘Is your name…um…Martin?’
‘Yes,’ the boy smiled.
Kayleen felt her body starting to tremble all over. ‘Not the…not the same one…I…’
‘The very same.’
It was as if the bench had bitten her on the backside as Kayleen jumped up, but she didn’t run.
‘Holy shit,’ she said. ‘Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.’
Martin sat as still as a statue looking up at her. His eyes twinkled in amusement.
It seemed as if a thousand options raced through her befuddled mind all at once and she seized hungrily on to the one explanation that seemed the most logical.
‘I’m dreaming,’ she looked at the boy for confirmation.
Martin shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I’m dead,’ he said. ‘And apparently the dead don’t know an awful lot about anything.’
Kayleen eyed the bench wearily. Whatever this Martin boy was, whether a ghost or a figment of her own imagination, he didn’t appear to be a threat to her in any way. Kayleen thought he might even be kind of nice, although truthfully she knew little enough about boy’s. Gingerly she sat back down on the edge of the bench.
‘So…um…why did you do it…you know, kill yourself I mean?’
Martin didn’t answer straight away and the smile that seemed so much a part of him fell away. Kayleen wondered if she hadn’t overstepped the mark.
Martin turned to face her. ‘I chose you you know. But I don’t even know your name.’
‘It’s Kayleen. What do you mean you chose me? Chose me for what?’
‘I chose you to come to,’ the boy was again looking straight ahead. ‘You seemed the obvious choice.’
Images flashed in Kayleen’s mind; a computer screen and a chat room. And a distraught mother’s message.
‘Why didn’t you go to your mum?’ she said. ‘I read what she wrote on that message board and she was heartbroken. I’m sure that seeing you would be a great comfort to her.’
Kayleen wasn’t sure if ghosts could cry, but if they couldn’t then Martin was no ghost.
‘Believe me. It would have brought Mother little comfort seeing me, quite the opposite in fact.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My mother is a very religious woman Kayleen. Church every Sunday, prayers before dinner, prayers before bed. You know?’
Kayleen wasn’t religious herself but she could well imagine the sort of woman Martin was describing, all hell fire and damnation. She nodded silently.
‘You see, me appearing in front of her would have been unnatural, the devil’s work. It would have haunted her forever. How could I do that to her?’
‘What do you think your killing yourself has done to her?’
Something that might have been anger flashed in Martin’s eyes. ‘It was the only thing I could think of to make it stop.’
Kayleen scooted along the bench. The smell of carbon monoxide filled her nostrils but she didn’t care.
‘It had been going on for months,’ Martin said softly. ‘I’d always known that I was different, you know, not like other boys. I don’t know how they knew, I mean it wasn’t as if I took out an ad in the school paper.’ The smile reappeared. ‘I’d even been told that a few of the girls in my year fancied me.’
Not hard to believe Kayleen thought.
‘But somehow they knew, and they made my life hell.’
‘Didn’t you tell anyone?’ your head teacher, someone like that?’
Martin made a snorting sound and a flume of smoke trailed out of his nostrils like he was exhaling cigarette smoke.
‘Right, he’d have loved that. Um, Mr Tweedy, Harlon and some of his friends pinned me down in the toilets today sir and burnt the hairs off my privates. Oh and last week they took turns putting their cigarettes out on the tops of my legs.’
Kayleen covered her mouth. ‘Oh my god.’
‘I was ashamed you see. I mean, not of being gay, but of the thought of having to tell someone what they did to me.’
‘Did your parents know?’
‘Not the full story, but they knew I was having problems at school,’ Martin said. ‘Mother prayed for my protection of course while father just told me to toughen up and stand up for myself.’
‘So it all got too much for you and…well, you know.’
Martin nodded.
A dark cloud drifted slowly overhead and the sun dappled grass turned grey in its shadow.
‘Kayleen?’
Kayleen turned to face Martin. There was an intense look in his sunken eyes.
‘You don’t really want to kill yourself do you?’
The cloud above them moved on and once again the grass was bathed in bright light.
Kayleen thought about her mum, how during the weeks that followed her dad’s death she would sit on the edge of Kayleen’s bed and hold her tightly in the dark. As her daughter’s tears soaked her shoulder she whispered into her ear how everything was going to be alright, that they still had each other.
Had Kayleen really been thinking about leaving her mum behind, all alone save a broken hearted dog; all alone with no one to cry on in the dark.
‘No,’ she said, ‘no, I really don’t. I guess I was just feeling sorry for myself that’s all. Thought that I was the only one in pain.’
Martin looked Kayleen straight in the eye. She wondered what he saw there.
‘I tried just a moment ago to remember what my life was like before,’ Martin said. ‘You know what? I can’t remember, it’s all slipping away from me like a dream that fades when you wake and open your eyes.’ Martin swept his arm out in a wide arc. ‘All this is fading away. Soon I know they’ll be nothing left. My past has gone, and I have no future. All I have is the present,’ Martin laughed. ‘And now that too is dimming, soon to be no more.’
Kayleen didn’t know why she did it but she reached out across the small gulf that separated the two of them, which at the same time was the gulf between the living and the dead, and took Martin’s hand in her own.
‘You know, for someone who isn’t supposed to know a lot about anything, you sure seem pretty thoughtful.’
Martin, comforted by the living girls touch, gave Kayleen’s hand a light squeeze. He looked at her, smiled, and then stood up.
‘Call it the last words of wisdom from a departing ghost.’ Martin took a few steps away from the bench. He stopped with his back to Kayleen.
‘So,’ she said. ‘It’s time for you to go?’
Martin looked all around him. Kayleen wished she could see what he saw with those eyes.
‘Yes it’s time. Bye Kayleen. Enjoy your life hey, and try to make sure it’s a long one yeah.’
Martin walked off across the grass. He stopped and turned around. ‘Do me a favour,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
‘When you get home, give your mum a big hug.’
Tears welled up in Kayleen’s black rimmed eyes. She tried to speak but couldn’t. Somehow though she knew there was nothing left to say.
Kayleen watched as Martin walked away into the distance. She expected him to start to fade away or maybe to walk into a colourful mist or something else ghostly. None of those things happened. Martin just grew smaller and smaller as he got further away and then was lost from view.
And everyday life returned to Honoura Park.

‘That you love?’ Kayleen’s mum called from the kitchen when she heard the key in the front door.
‘Yeah,’ Kayleen raced straight up the stairs and into her room. Two minutes later she was looking at the list of favourites on her computer. A message box had popped up on the screen. Are you sure you want to send quickandpainless.com to the recycle bin? Kayleen clicked yes and the shortcut disappeared from the list.
Kayleen shut the computer down and headed downstairs.
She stood for the longest time in the kitchen doorway, watching her mum do the washing up. The radio on the counter was playing ‘always look on the bright side of life’ and Kayleen’s mum was whistling along in all the right places. Kayleen smiled.
Kayleen’s mum turned her head and smiled at her daughter. ‘Hello love,’ Kayleen was regarding her intently. ‘Is something wrong?’
Kayleen suddenly stepped forward and flung her arms around her mum’s slim waist. She hugged her for all she was worth.
Kayleen’s mum hugged her back, rocking her gently from side to side. ‘What’s brought this on?’
‘Nothing. I just love you that’s all.’
‘Ahhh. I love you too sweetheart.’
A fading memory, that of a young boy walking into the distance, flickered in Kayleen’s mind. Soon he would be like something she had dreamt, like a recollection when a certain smell caught the breeze. She hugged her mum even tighter.
‘And because I can.’



The End

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