Not Quite Dead Yet

by Holly Jackson

There was a humming too, but that wasn’t down the corridor; it was in Jet’s head, behind her eyes, playing with her heart. A symphony of the damned.

Jack bowed his head, like it hurt to hold her gaze. Mourning her before she even had the good grace to really be gone. Pre-dead. Un-dead. Fuck sake, a zombie, that’s what she was. Talk about foreshadowing.

Death was everywhere, linguistically speaking; she hadn’t really noticed until she was dying.

And her heart was right: what was the point being afraid anymore? The worst had already happened—the thing from your nightmares, the reason you didn’t go out alone in the dark or held your keys in your knuckles if you had to. Jet couldn’t get any more dead; it had already happened.

Was this what it felt like to be a man? Walking on this creepy dark bridge, not scared for a second that she wouldn’t make it out the other side, because it didn’t really make a difference whether she did or not. The night belonged to her now too. A dead woman walking. And dead women had no use for fear.

You’re bad at murders, Billy, god.” “It’s my first time!”

“But,” she said, “what’s the point in doing it, if it’s not to achieve something big?” “Maybe there is no point.” Jet felt a flash of annoyance warm up her neck, sitting straighter with it. “But there has to be a point. Otherwise you’re just wasting your time.” Billy shrugged. “Is it a waste of time if I love every minute?”

She didn’t want to die. She did not want to die. Her heart screamed it and her head too, guiding her feet back. She was scared to die. She would not die. All that fear she thought she’d lost, because the dying didn’t need fear but the living did, it all came rushing back, wearing her skin, roaring in her ears.

Don’t you ever think about it? Somewhere new? Maybe a lot of somewheres. Not the place that’s supposed to be home, but the place that feels like home.

“Jet.” Billy turned to her, the storm settling in his eyes, reaching out to take her hand, holding it in her lap. “It was never your fault.”

I’ve spent so long waiting for it all to begin, for life to really start, that I missed out on what it was really all about.

It’s about all of those small moments I missed while I was waiting.