“I’m sorry, ma’am. Your daughter died. We did everything…”
“But how can Joleen be dead? I was talking to her just this morning! We talked about making cupcakes for the kids! You know, Justin’s about to have his fifth birthday this coming Friday. He’s SO cute! He’s just AMAZING building those cute little Lego sets. My, I thought Legos were just these clunky little red and yellow squares and rectangles that connected together somehow when Joleen was a kid. Not that she liked them much anyway. Oh Lord, and that time she was doing the splits in Dance Recital and her leotards ripped wide open! Mercy! And another …”
“Ma’am! Ma’am! I’m sure it’s frightening for you,” Dr. Slice said. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Ma’am, ma’am. I think you’re in a state of shock. Here, Nurse Renstch will take you to a grief counselor to help you through this troubling time.”
Nurse Renstch took Mrs. Stuckley by the arm. As they went down the hall, she kept talking. “Oh, that girl, when she was teenager, oh! We were the kind of parents who …” Her voice trailed off.
~~~
Antigone Funeral Home technician Lily Devine sighed and unzipped the bag on another stiff. “MY GOD, SHE’S ALIVE!” she shrieked.
~~~
Nurse Renstch came into Joleen’s room in Doolittle Hospital to check on her vital signs. Mrs. Stuckley was talking as usual. “She was such a girly-girl. Sometimes I’d lie on the bed and she’d drag out every kind of makeup I had and just slathered everything there was on me. Let me tell you, I’d look a fright! One time …”
The vital signs checked out fine. She left the room as Mrs. Stuckley droned on, a white noise.
~~~
Joleen opened her eyes, startling Nurse Renstch. Can it be? From death to coma to consciousness? Mercy!
~~~
The next time Joleen awakened, she saw her husband, Jack, standing by the bed, holding her hand. He burst into tears. “You really are an Angel!” he sobbed. She smiled. She wanted to talk, but she couldn’t. He said, “Go back to sleep, Angel.”
~~~
“Are you really an angel, Mommy?” Justin asked.
~~~
Joleen sat up in the bed, eating solids for the first time. Dr. Slice smiled, then hemmed and hawed. “It’s been a long and strange journey for you, young lady.” Her sister Rose sat nearby, snuffling into her handkerchief.
“When you were admitted to this hospital a couple of months ago, we thought we had a classic case of Sudden Death Syndrome. That’s when your heart just stops suddenly even though you were healthy in every other respect. It’s a rare occurrence. We went through all our resuscitation procedures to no avail. I had to declare your death, so tragic. But when you were transferred to the funeral home … well … you were alive. Unconscious but alive. We can’t explain it. You cheated death and defeated science. It’s a mystery,” Dr. Slice grimaced, for he was an atheist, “but we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Hallelujah!” Rose shouted.
“Yes. You need a lot of rest. You should be able to start physical therapy before too long. If all goes well, you should be able to return to full health and a normal life.”
Joleen went to sleep.
~~~
“Glory Hallelujah!”
Joleen opened her eyes.
Pastor Babel “Bubba” Bathos and Sister Reemer of the Church of the Immaculation stood by her bedside. Sister Reemer knelt down and clasped her hands together, as if in prayer.
Pastor Bathos continued, “You, Joleen, are the second miracle that’s ever come to the great city of Chillicothe, Missouri! The first, of course, was when we invented sliced bread back in 1928. But this! This dwarfs that by a long shot! You’re the best thing to happen here since … well … since sliced bread! Haw!”
“Me?”
“Of course! You died and came back to life, just like Jesus his own self! Tell me, darlin’ – did you see God?”
“God? It’s all so confusing. I remember, well … I don’t even know if you if you can call it remembering. I was dead, you know. I think. Anyway, it was all as black as can be except for a tiny, tiny white light in the center. If even that, oh …”
“Praise the Lord, she saw the light! No more sorrow, no more strife!” Pastor Bathos enthused. “Yes, the light, the light,” Sister Reemer echoed.
“But I didn’t feel anything. I was dead, you know. I think.”
“But that light! It is a sign and a portent of the things to come! God has big plans for you, young lady.” Sister Reemer’s eyes fluttered, “Yes, big things. Big things.”
“Gee, Pastor, I … I don’t know.” Joleen felt weary. She closed her eyes.
“But I do, dear. Let us pray …”
~~~
Joleen went home and started her physical therapy and slowly regained her strength. But she worried. She had to tell someone.
~~~
Joleen and Jack made love for the first time since her death.
“Whew!” Jack laid back, exhausted. “That was divine. Now I really know what it’s like to be inside an angel!”
“Aw, Jack, come off it. I’m not an angel.”
“I’m serious! But that light? Pastor Bathos has been begging you to come to church and share your story!”
“I’m not going to do that, I told you.”
“But why?”
“Ok, I’ll tell you. I can’t bear it any longer, I have to tell someone. But it you so much as breathe a word to another soul, I swear to God, I’ll just die.”
“Die? Okay. You really did see God, then? That light?”
“Okay.” She took in a deep breath. “I saw a tiny white light. And, yes, I passed through it, my soul, I guess, or whatever.”
“Yes! And then what?”
“I saw me doing the splits at the dance rehearsal and my leotards ripped. Then I saw me run off the stage, crying.”
“Huh? And then?”
“That’s it.”
“But what does it mean?”
“It don’t mean nothing, Jack, and that’s that.”
“So … you’re really not an angel?
“Call me angel again, Jack, and I’m gonna slap you.”
Copyright © Johnny Clack 2022
Short Shorts 