Blue Sky

Ida

Four days are up. I am Ida.

This is the afterlife. I drowned after my father’s boat was attacked by pirates four hundred years
ago. I can always remember that now. When I died, I came here – the Charlet. That’s Swedish, I
am from Sweden. I did not think death was going to be like this. I was chosen to observe this
place two years ago. I am in the sky. At the end of every four days – thirty two hours here –
memories reset. Once someone dies, they come here or I suppose they go somewhere else, a
different place. I wonder why we can only remember four days at a time. People die and then
they wake up here and ask “What’s happening? Where am I?” It’s the Charlet, I tell them.
You’ve just died. Another four days pass, the same question, the same answer.
After I was chosen, I was able to retain my memories forever. No more confusion, but more
anguish. I liked the waking up to find out I had died. I watched my family move on from me, but
I also got to see the Other. Before I was chosen to observe, the previous one told me that the
Charlet lets you see the Real, and the Other. I hadn’t died, I moved on to marry a man and have
children and die at eighty seven. Most people that are here die before they are supposed to, I
guess that’s why everyone’s stories are so bleak. Sarah died from her mother’s drunk driving,
Pete walked in front of a bus unknowingly, and Anne tripped on her brother’s truck and was
brain-dead instantly. These weren’t meant to happen, but they did and now they are dead.
After four days, a white crystalline powder falls from the sky. The people on the Plain fall
asleep, and wake up in thirteen minutes confused and questioning. “You’ve all died, welcome to
the Charlet”.
They have just awoken, Elizabeth just arrived.
Thirteen Minutes
Elizabeth woke up to sunflowers, a hybrid it appeared. More golden than ever. Elizabeth was
raped and murdered after a run in a forest. He came from behind, dragged her body, and disposed
of her in some thorny brush. She was twenty seven, ran a flower shop with her aunt. Her mother
had died four years earlier from a heroin overdose. Elizabeth had lived with her aunt since she
was about thirteen years old. Every day, starting at five o’clock until seven, she cut and tended to
her flowers. Mid-day, she would go on a run, usually around the block, but on such a vibrant
day, mid-Spring, she decided a forest was better. She was dead after this decision, a cosmic
shame.
“Am I alive?” asked Elizabeth. The sky was a light purple, the grass plush. She awoke to find
seven others strangers around her. All around he were mountains bathed in life; streams, exotic
birds, and flowers unknown to humans sprung from the soil. “What is going on?” was the
general consensus among the group. Natty remembered a flying pole, Mara could picture a
hospital room. They knew they were dead, but their memories were cloudy. A day in the Charlet
is eight hours, and as each hour passes, clouds disappear. The first day is called Remembrance,
the second Grief, the third Reflection, and the fourth day is called Acceptance.
Elizabeth remembered what had happened over the course of the first day, from her being born
to her murder. It was so vivid, and she saw her life in everything; the water, the sky, even the
eyes of the others. Everything in her life had led up to her murder by a man she had never met or
crossed paths with. The beauty of the Charlet was the reality of her life; she could never go back.
The first day was filled with thought, but mostly a deep detachment. A deep disconnection
between her and the earth.
The second day brought the tears. She watched her body be identified, her aunt notified of her
death, the grief that her death had brought. The sky in the Charlet was always grey on this day.
All the people of the Charlet, new and long-time residents, struggled to accept their existence.
But it was more than this – Grief brought the worst part to the surface. They had to watch their
families struggle in their loss, or watch how their death meant nothing.
Reflection opened a new part of the Charlet, the Other. Residents were able to discover what
would have happened, if they had changed the one thing in their life that led them to their death.
By now, Elizabeth had been three days on earth. She chose to go on a jog around the block, ran
into a stranger, but was still living. The view of what could have happened was painful, for all
the people. “I took a different route to work”, Natty blurted. Acceptance was the hardest, but the
most genuine thing they could feel. Brilliant colors filled the sky, they appeared to glow like
neon. Beyond the tears lied hope, a communal hope they all felt together. The sky became blue,
and thirteen minutes later, Remembrance had arrived.
Elizabeth