🪦Death-ish

Rosa, my older sister, had a dream a few nights ago about seeing a bright white light which she started walking towards just before she woke up. Disappointed...she became curious as to what really lies beyond. So, she...we, decided to have her, or me, sleep and dream again so she could prove her point. We couldn't do our experiment at home...mother would ground us for life. So, we would go to the only place where the living or the dead would not interfere.

It should have been a great shock to both of us when we decided to agree to the experiment...I mean, whichever one of us became the dreamer, it would be dangerous. But...we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into.

We had both decided to go to the "Angel Walk Graveyard" in the evening when no one was around. Armed with oxygen masks, sheets, pillow, smelling salt, a clip for the nose and tape...not jut any tape...the large silver-black types people use in the movies to tape over their victim's mouth.

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Officers Perth and Lang whispered between themselves in the stark glow of the interrogation room - one appeared calm but piercing, the other pale and tense, leaning forward under the harsh fluorescent light. Across from them sits one of the sisters, her hands folded over the duct‑taped pillow, eyes flickering between defiance and wonder. The air feels heavy with questions that sound more like riddles than accusations.

One glared solemnly at Juno, the other smiled in a kind of evil but friendly way - doing the good cop, bad cop routine as her parents and their family lawyer looked on.

"You don't have to tell them anything if you don't want to, Juno". The lawyer advised her.

Still, one officer smiled, the other scowled.

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Juno continued bravely...saying that she had nothing to hide.

The Graveyard was a moss-bound reverie as dusk tiptoed across the horizon. There was an exhaled quiet that felt older than we will ever be. Shadows stretched long and languid, curling around crooked headstones cocooned in memories. The air was damp with the scent of moss and loam, and every surface - stone, soil, and root - is softened by nature’s slow reclamation.

Perth, the bad cop, yelled indignantly..."Enough with the poetry...we need cold hard facts".

"Ok. We will leave if you continue to shout at my client. She is only a child and I will not allow her to be intimidated".

Juno winced...but decided to continue, telling the story her own way - the only way she knew.

🪦

The Gravestones are weathered and lopsided, some are barely legible, their inscriptions worn down by centuries of rain and silence. Moss clings to their flanks like shrouds, and vines coil around them in slow, serpentine embraces - green fingers of time pulling them gently back into the earth.

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"What the hell are you describing the graveyard in such detail for...Get to the point of what happened". Officer bad cop growled.

Officer Lang groaned, this child sounds like an old soul wrapped in the guise of a little devil. Which young person speaks like that...she whispered to Perth.

"Don't yell at my child....Juno, just tell us what happened". Her mother begged, almost in tears.

"I am getting to the point, but I will get to it in my own way, if you want it any other way, then you have to lock me up...then you won't hear the real story".

Bad cop huffed, but said nothing. Good cop was intrigued by the bravado of this young teen in the face of impending prison time.

Anyway...

The uneven path is swallowed by creeping ivy and patches of wild grass, with ferns unfurling in the dimming light. Ghostly mushrooms bloom pale at the base of ancient trees.

Gnarled oaks and weeping willows stand sentinel, their branches tangled with vines that sway slightly in the evening breeze. Overhead, leaves cast dappled shadows that flicker like candlelight on the mossy ground. The silence is punctuated only by the distant call of a crow and the rustle of something unseen moving through the underbrush.

"Ok, that's it...just lock her up...I don't have time for this nonsense of prose and poetry". The bad guy half of the duo snarled, as Perth loudly pushed back his chair.

"Just humor her", Lang said..."she just had a fright after all, maybe she is still traumatised from the incident...God knows she must be under some kind of spell to be spouting such wise poetic mumbo jumbo".

Juno smiled, infuriating Perth even further. This child is really the devil incarnated.

"Our daughter has won prizes for the amazing maturity of her poetry. We are very proud of her". Her father said, smiling at Juno.

"Can I have something to drink, and maybe a sandwich". In what seemed like only a minute...the door opened, soda and sandwich magically appears. So Juno knew that others were watching and listening.

"Start from the beginning, please. just the facts, no more rhetoric".

Once upon a time, Juno began...There were two sisters whose curiosity about death took a wildly theatrical turn - complete with graveyard antics, questionable science, and a whole lot of duct tape.

🪦 “Operation: Near-Death Experience” - Well...

It began, as most questionable adventures do, with a half-eaten cheesecake and a philosophical debate.

“I just want to know,” said Rosa, the elder sister, dramatically spooning cheesecake into her mouth, “what happens right before you die. Not the dying part. Just the moment before. The big reveal. The cosmic trailer.”

Her younger sister, Juno, blinked. “You mean like... the prequel to death?”

“Exactly”.

Naturally, the only logical place to conduct this experiment was the local graveyard - a mossy, vine-choked plot behind the abandoned petting zoo. They arrived at dusk, armed with:

~ Two oxygen masks (borrowed from their cousin’s scuba kit)

~ A queen-sized sheet (for ambiance)

~ One pillow (memory foam, for comfort)

~ Smelling salts (in case someone fainted from the drama)

~ Nose clips (because death probably smells weird, but mostly to stop the breathing process)

~ And a roll of silver-black duct tape (because every good mystery involves muffled screaming, and also to stop the beathing.)

They called it Operation: Near-Death Experience, and they were very serious about it.

Having collected the loot...they made plans for Saturday night...no one visited graveyards on that night...too busy doing enjoyable weekend stuff. They did what any respectable sixteen and fourteen years old would do...they lied through their teeth. Going to Marla's house...Ok...be back my eleven. Sure thing Mom!

🪦 The Cemetery Setup

After a great debate about who should die and who should keep watch - Rosa won the coin toss.

“I’m going to simulate death,” Rosa had whispered. “You watch for signs of transcendence”.

“What do those look like?”

“Probably glowing. Or a sudden craving for jazz".

They both laughed.

Rosa lay down on a grave marked “Mildred Featherbottom. She died from a habit of Competitive Napping. Finally resting in peace”.

More giggling.

With her sister's help, Rosa slipped the pillow under her head, arranged the sheet over herself like a Victorian ghost and clipped her nose shut. Juno, wearing both oxygen masks for “extra safety if needed by Rosa”, hovered nearby with the smelling salts as she duct taped Rosa's mouth shut..

🪦The Descent into Absurdity

Two minutes passed. Nothing happened. Except for guttural gasps, and heavy heaving breathing from Rosa.

Three minutes...Rosa started to turn purple.

Juno ripped the duct tape off just as a squirrel fell out of a tree and landed on Rosa’s stomach. She sat bolt upright, flinging the sheet and pillow into the air, oxygen masks flying as she bumped into Juno, and let out a muffled scream that sounded like a haunted vacuum cleaner. She then proceeded to fall into a comatose state onto the ground.

Juno, convinced this was the moment of transcendence, waved the smelling salts like a wand and shouted, “I SEE THE LIGHT!”

It was actually the graveyard caretaker’s flashlight. He’d come to investigate the ghost reports.

Seeing the taped up young lass on the ground, he hurriedly assisted Juno in removing the rest of the tape and nose clip from Rosa's face.

Rosa had passed out cold from asphyxiation...oxygen deficiency and the state or process of being deprived of oxygen, which can result in unconsciousness, suffocation and or death.

The sisters, now tangled in duct tape, sheet, and squirrel panic, were enough to drive the poor caretaker into thinking ghosts were finally rising from the dead.

While he called the police and ambulance, Juno tried to explain their experiment. The caretaker stared from the unconscious Rosa, to the bawling, bewildered Juno. The fourteen year old was envisioning herself behind bars for trying to kill her sister.

He stood shaking his head for a long time, then said, "You girls need Jesus. Or maybe a podcast".

🌟 The Revelation

Rosa awakened in the hospital...light-headed and convinced that it had all been a dream.

Then it all came rushing back to her. She did indeed dream quite a few different scenes again while lying in the hospital. She had been an angel herself...admonishing herself against trying to kill herself by doing foolish things. So weird.

They never discovered what happens right before death. But they did learn:

- Oxygen masks are not good for graveyard acoustics

- Smelling salts can't bring you back from the dead

- Duct taping someone's mouth can land you in prison

- Squirrels and caretakers are not agents of transcendence

They had left the graveyard with one pillow, a squirrel-shaped emotional scar, and a new theory:

“Maybe the moment before death is just realizing you taped your own sister's hair to a pillow in a graveyard.”

Rosa said that in one of her comatose dreams she walked down a very dark tunnel where God and the Devil stood waiting...the path to God was less travelled...

She turned and ran back towards the light, ending up in the hospital.

The judge ordered 200 hours of community service each...cleaning the cemetery after school two days per week and on weekends.

This was as close to death as they ever wanted to be for a long time to come.