Who were you?

Brigit

I sat on the floor and stared at the dead body lying lifelessly there. The face was familiar yet not. This is what I looked like when I was alive? I could see wrinkles and deep lines on the skin I did not remember and the glare in the eyes was empty. I had never thought myself as particularly beautiful but I never thought I was this ugly either. This was the first time seeing myself with an outsider’s eye. I snorted and lifted my head. The clock on the wall was ticking loudly. Two hours it was now. I had died two hours ago and no one else was aware yet. Outside the sky was beautifully clear and the air was vibrating hot. There were great tits and bullfinches singing as they flew in and out of the bird feeder gathering seeds. The small window in the corner of the kitchen had been left open and the smell of my corpse invited flies and fleas inside. I had not eaten anything that day but death had taken away the hunger. And the thirst too. I had grabbed the glass full of white wine with me as I went down and the wine had dried out all over the cabinet door and the floor. There was a big piece broken from the glass but it was otherwise intact, to my surprise.

Long five hours had passed before I heard someone coming through the front door. I stood up and waited until a familiar figure emerged into the kitchen. As soon as Nana saw me she screamed and dropped her purse, she always carried her working clothes in, on the floor. Nana was still working as a nurse in a nearby hospital even though she had already reached the retirement age four years ago. She was wearing her work shoes, you know, the big and bulky health shoes that looked like little, black boats. Her old knees made a crack as she went down to tend my corpse. She acted as a professional but it was too late, obviously. She called 911 and I was listening to her sobbing. I rested my hand gently on her shoulder but she could not feel it. She did not know I was still there.

Finally the police and the ambulance arrived and I was eavesdropping on their conversation. Someone made a claim that it had probably been some kind of a seizure. I wanted to scream that he was wrong but they could not hear me anyway. I would just have to wait until the autopsy results came in as at that point it would became apparent I had been poisoned. Someone had poisoned me, but who? I really wanted to know. It would have been possible to anyone to poison my wine especially when everyone knew I was the only one in the house who drank Pinot Grigio. The perpetrator could be anyone close to me. That felt so painful I could not leave before I knew who it had been.

That meant, unfortunately, that I was stuck in the house. It was not too long that every suspect had gathered in that house. Those were the people I had loved the most: Nana, my sister and my brother, my best friend, my psychologist and even the old man living next-door who I used to help with chores and gardening. I was standing at the living-room doorway overseeing them. Which one of you is my Judas? Who could have murdered me? Instead of sorrow I felt anger and disappointment. I think it was due to my new form as I could feel a difference in my soul. It felt empty in a way it never had before.

Nana was sitting on the cream-colored couch, her face buried into her hands, she was sobbing. The next-door neighbor sat on her right side and gently brushed her back. Beth, my sister, sat on Nana’s left side, staring emotionless with a wineglass on her hand. We had both loved our alcohol but as I drank white she preferred red. My brother Paul was standing in the middle of the room and pacing nervously around from time to time. He had always been emotionally reserved. I knew he would feel uncomfortable as he did not know how to cry or comfort others. My psychologist, Mr. Allen, or to me just Thomas, sat alone in the corner on a dark-green armchair observing others. That was his job, after all. Helen, who was my best friend, was the dearest to me. We had been friends since childhood. We had both been over thirty and unmarried before I died. That had made us even closer, we were like an old couple the two of us, I wanted to think. Helen was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed. She reminded me a lot of myself. Her hair was blond like mine but longer and had a warmer tone in it. She had tied it up on a loose bun and her make up was running down her face as she cried. Helen was smaller than me, and prettier. I did not feel jealousy about that though as I admired her so. I felt suddenly so cold when I thought of her as a suspect. I would not believe that. I was sure, that it had not been Helen.

At first, I could not believe anyone of them had murdered me but as I started to ponder on it I realized that everyone of them, surprisingly, had a motive. Nana had blamed me for grandpa’s death. That was kind of true since I had gotten myself in so much debt they needed to take care of me. They had took me in and used all their savings to pay out my debt, but it was not enough. My grandpa had to return to work from his retirement to earn more money. And soon it got too much for him and he had suffered a heart attack. I knew Nana had blamed me even though she was still nice to me. At times I could sense the hostility in her voice. Beth had the very same reason to hate me and she was brutally open about it. She had told me I was a burden to anyone who loved me. I had not taken that too seriously though, as she was an alcoholic and had recently gone through a divorce. Beth was angry with everyone in her life.

Paul, on the other hand, had stayed out of everything going on in our family. After our parents had died he became a hermit. But I knew he had a reason to hate me as well. When we were kids I had bullied my brother so much that that was probably the reason he was such a socially awkward loner right now. I had not done that on purpose, we were children and children bully each other, but I had been too mean, I guess, and he had been such a sensitive child. I had apologized of course but I knew it was because of me that he feared people even as an adult.

My psychologist, Thomas, what about him then. I was convinced that he was some sort of a sociopath himself. He was constantly trying to scare me and provoke me on purpose to get a reaction out of me. He seemed to enjoy my pain. Even though, I did open up to him, I did not trust him. Some instinct told me not to. Thomas thought it was just my imagination. He said it was convenient to me to not wholly trust him as that way I would not have to be totally honest with myself.

Lastly, there was old Otto, our lovely neighbor. No one could think anything bad about the man if they had not seen him get angry. He was conservative beyond belief, extremely racist and potty-mouthed when challenged into a political debate. If someone had a differing opinion he got real scary. Person with such strong believes was impossible to live with without getting into a fight with him now and then. I had fought with him sometimes. They say though, that a barking dog does not bite, but I was not sure about that.

One of you? Who was it? Show yourself.

Helen

I murdered my best friend. I had felt as if the space was getting too tiny for the two of us. One of us had to go or neither of us would get forward. We had both known our relationship was not a healthy one and was preventing us both living our life normally. Brigit had been positive that we should stay together but she did not convince me. Mr. Allen had told Brigit that she would need to cut contact with me because I was bad influence to her. What kind of a psychologist would say that, I did not know, but I thought he was right about going our separate ways. I had everything better in my life than she did, though. I was more beautiful than Brigit, and more successful and I had once gotten engaged but Brigit had ruined it for me. That was when I started to get bitter.

I solved the problem by poisoning her. Now I was sitting on a living-room floor and watched everyone around me. They did not know I was finally free.

Brigit

The days went by and I roamed the house restlessly. I knew that if I stayed too long I would not be able to move forward. I would get angrier and more bitter as the days passed by, until I would forget who I had been when I was alive. The human in me would wear off and I would became a creature of nightmares. I could feel it was already happening. But I could not leave before I knew who had murdered me.

At last, the police came back. Thomas came with them. What is happening? They told Nana to sit down and then started to talk. I was standing right next to them but they did not notice.

“We could confirm that Brigit had poisoned her wine herself earlier that day. I'm so sorry Mrs. Hayden”, one of the police explained. I could not understand. Big tears were running down Nana’s face.

“Excuse me, I have to say, that I don't believe it was Brigit per se but rather that it was Helen”, Thomas said. Nana looked at him straight in his eyes and answered:

“I think so too.”

I still did not get it. How could my best friend had done something like that.

“I think”, Thomas started saying, “Brigit never knew Helen was not real. She could never admit that she had invented Helen herself.”

That is when I saw Helen standing beside me. She told me:

 “Do you get it now? We were two souls trapped in one body. I always knew but you didn't want to see. But now we are free. No I can be with you and you don't have to go away when I come out.”