I see the death of everyone I meet.
(Written by JJX2525, from Reddit)
SHARED JUN 05
I see the death of everyone I meet.
Once, when I was in kindergarten, I got booted out of class for telling the new girl Abigail that she smelt badฬณ. I remember it vividly โ a bloody-burny-boozy smell that hit me the moment she came in. Abigail burst into tears and I got a stern lecture on telling lฤฑes. But it wasnโt a lie.
My little nose had leapt forward ten years into the future, where a teenage Abigail would drunkenly plough her parentโs Mitsubishi straight into the front of an oncoming bus. When we met again in middle school I smelt it a second time, along with the song sheโd be playing on the radio โ five seconds of a generic disco beat. The last thing sheโd hear.
I know itโs badา to say, but I think thereโs something sacred about it. Thereโs nothing more personal then someoneโs lastฬ moments of lรญfe. I try not to take it for granted. Itโs hard, sometimes, though, especially once I got older and better at it. Along with smells came sounds, sights, and even feelings, though that last one was rare. In this day and age most people go to their dEath with pastel colours and blinking machines and a faint whiff of hand sanitizer, their brains too fizzled to know whatโs about to happen. There are exceptions. Like Abigail, or my middle school gym teacher, who was going to dฤฑe with a deafening bang in a rush of mad courage. I couldnโt hear a word of his opening lecture because my ears were still ringing. Suฤฑcฤฑde will do that to you.
Have I ever told anyone? Of course not. Can you imagine? Even if they did believe me, which I doubt, it wouldnโt be long before curiosity got the better of them. Theyโd want to know what I saw in them. Which is fine for the heart attacks and the quietly-in-their-sleeps, but what do you say to a mโrder? And no you canโt change it, donโt ask me because I already tried, I already
tried and you canโt beat the system. You just canโt. I already lost someone to that.
Her name was Phoebe and she was in my History class at community college. It was a prettษฅ small place and I knew most of the other kids there โ except for her. We werenโt on speaking terms because every time she came within a few feet of me I got the urge to vom1t. It was motion sickness, but also something worse โ fear. Hers was the worst fear Iโd ever felt in another human being. I could hardly stand to be in the same room as her. I managed to avoid her for a couple months, until one day when she arrived late to class. She apologised and looked around, before striding to the back of the room and sitting beside me.
There was nothฤฑng I could do. I felt it all. The nausea, the terror, and a vision too, of me stuck fast in my seat as I hurdles headlong flaming out of the sky โ the ocean rushing up towards me โ screaming, then โ
Smack.
Nothฤฑng.
When I came to she was glaring at me.
โWhat is your problem?โ she whispered.
โWhat?โ I asked, the uneasiness subsiding. โI donโt โโ
โIf you donโt likeฬข me then just say so. Quit pretending to be ฤฑll all the time.โ
โHuh?โ I sat up, trying to get a better look at her. Weโd never been this close before. She was pretty. I hadnโt thought about how I must look to her, running away every time she got close. โI swear itโs not on purpose.โ I said. โIโm sickอ a lot. It isnโt you.โ
โSure.โ she said, looking back towards the front of the front of the class.
โHonestly.โ I said. โLet me โ let me make it up to you.โ
She raised her eyebrows. โSeriously?โ
And that was the start of it. Within a month we were official. It was the happiest time of my life. The sicknesses didnโt go away, but it subsided after a couple minutes, and she stopped taking it personally after a while. Dashing to the bathroom became part of the routine on dates. We did everything together, all the couple things โ movies, dinners, walks. It was my first serious relationship. I convinced myself that her dEath โ whatever it was โ was still years into the future. For a while, anyway.
At the start of the summer she told me she was going to visit her grandparents out of state. โThe flightโs on Monday. I wonโt be gone much more than a week.โ
โFlight?โ I repeated.
โYeah.โ she replied. โHey, whatโs wrong with you?โ
I convinced her to take a road trip. I canโt remember the exact excuse I gave. Some nonsense about expenses, life experience, our โcarbon footprintโ. How it took me that long to guess it could be a plane crash Iโll never know. I was in too deep, I guess. But whatever it was I said she must have seen I was serious. She rented a red mini from the local garage and, after weโd packed it up, I kissed her goodbye and said it was the right decision. โOkay.โ She laughed. โWeirdo.โ
Straight after she left I got the urge to call her, but I told myself I was being overprotective. I worked for a few hours, then flopped down in front of the TV. I watched bad reality shows until I got bored, then flicked to the local news station just in time to see the breakฤฑng story of a twelve car pile-up on a suspension bridge, when a truck driver dozing at the wheel had strayed out of his lane, clipping the corner of a passing car which swerved into another, triggering a chain of collisions which ended tragically when โ some viewers may find this footage disturbing โ a red mini was forced over the side, plummeting into the ocean beloษฏ..