was the sound of shots being fired, and Jo screaming.
Abruptly, the sounds ceased.
I died at 11:06pm.
REQUIEM
Chapter 5
I t’s true what they say about your life flashing before your eyes when you die. It really does happen. It’s a bit like watching a film, but with all the added sensory perception of actually being there, just as you experienced things the first time they happened to you. It’s an odd feeling, knowing what’s going to happen next, but at the same time not knowing. You don’t have any control over it, either. Everyone has some parts of their life that they’d like to fast-forward through, to get to the good stuff, and then play those good bits over and over again. But it doesn’t work like that. Someone else controls what you get to relive, and the speed at which it all happens. I learnt later that it was supposed to prepare me for what was to come, sort of like when you skim through a textbook at the last minute before an exam, but at the time, I had no idea. All I can tell you is that for me, the show began at the same place it all ended: with Jo.
We first met when I was thirteen and she was seven. My parents were still together back then, and at the time it was hard to imagine that anything could ever separate them, so strong were the Christian foundations of their marriage. Their faith seemed to be woven into the fabric of everything our family did; not just the obvious business of going to the church service every Sunday, but other things too. Even the films we watched were carefully chosen for their spiritual cleanliness. It’s obvious to me now that the Church was simply too central to our lives, and that’s almost certainly why things fell apart as spectacularly as they did; but before the apocalypse, it all seemed perfectly normal. And Jo? Well, her family went to the same church we did, although she and I were too far apart in age to move in the same circles. I hardly even knew who she was until the events of that winter.
The replaying of my life began on the eighteenth of December. Don’t ask me how I knew that was the date—I just did—but the time of year was unmistakable in any case. Snow had been falling heavily on and off for the previous seven days, covering Hirston, the village where we lived, with a great lumpy white blanket, and everyone was taking advantage of the unusual weather. I include myself in that, of course; for the first moments immediately after my death, my mind was filled with images of tobogganing down the hill in the nearby country park, snowball fighting, and making snowmen, all done with the enthusiasm you would expect given my age and the rarity of the opportunity. Everywhere around me, wholesome chaos reigned.
But I knew that this carefree state of affairs would not persist; and even as this thought occurred to me, the fast-forward button moved my consciousness forward.
At about three o’clock that afternoon, Jo and some of her friends had gone off into the woods that bordered the park. The eldest of the girls had recently finished reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , and her head was full of infectious fantasies about snowy kingdoms and magic. As time passed, her enthusiasm led her and her friends deeper and deeper into the woods. By five o’clock, the grey clouds that had been crouching over the area were steadily shedding thick flakes of snow once again, and the explorers’ delight was slowly replaced with apprehension, and then terror, as they realised they had become hopelessly lost.
By the time seven o’clock had arrived and Joanna hadn’t, her mother was on the verge of panic. The sun had gone down about three hours earlier, and her anxious vigil at the kitchen window showed her nothing but snowflakes whirling crazily against the blackness. A flurry of phone calls, each increasingly more desperate, passed between the girls’ parents, gathering speed and momentum like an avalanche, but no-one knew where the girls were. By
Abruptly, the sounds ceased.
I died at 11:06pm.
REQUIEM
Chapter 5
I t’s true what they say about your life flashing before your eyes when you die. It really does happen. It’s a bit like watching a film, but with all the added sensory perception of actually being there, just as you experienced things the first time they happened to you. It’s an odd feeling, knowing what’s going to happen next, but at the same time not knowing. You don’t have any control over it, either. Everyone has some parts of their life that they’d like to fast-forward through, to get to the good stuff, and then play those good bits over and over again. But it doesn’t work like that. Someone else controls what you get to relive, and the speed at which it all happens. I learnt later that it was supposed to prepare me for what was to come, sort of like when you skim through a textbook at the last minute before an exam, but at the time, I had no idea. All I can tell you is that for me, the show began at the same place it all ended: with Jo.
We first met when I was thirteen and she was seven. My parents were still together back then, and at the time it was hard to imagine that anything could ever separate them, so strong were the Christian foundations of their marriage. Their faith seemed to be woven into the fabric of everything our family did; not just the obvious business of going to the church service every Sunday, but other things too. Even the films we watched were carefully chosen for their spiritual cleanliness. It’s obvious to me now that the Church was simply too central to our lives, and that’s almost certainly why things fell apart as spectacularly as they did; but before the apocalypse, it all seemed perfectly normal. And Jo? Well, her family went to the same church we did, although she and I were too far apart in age to move in the same circles. I hardly even knew who she was until the events of that winter.
The replaying of my life began on the eighteenth of December. Don’t ask me how I knew that was the date—I just did—but the time of year was unmistakable in any case. Snow had been falling heavily on and off for the previous seven days, covering Hirston, the village where we lived, with a great lumpy white blanket, and everyone was taking advantage of the unusual weather. I include myself in that, of course; for the first moments immediately after my death, my mind was filled with images of tobogganing down the hill in the nearby country park, snowball fighting, and making snowmen, all done with the enthusiasm you would expect given my age and the rarity of the opportunity. Everywhere around me, wholesome chaos reigned.
But I knew that this carefree state of affairs would not persist; and even as this thought occurred to me, the fast-forward button moved my consciousness forward.
At about three o’clock that afternoon, Jo and some of her friends had gone off into the woods that bordered the park. The eldest of the girls had recently finished reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , and her head was full of infectious fantasies about snowy kingdoms and magic. As time passed, her enthusiasm led her and her friends deeper and deeper into the woods. By five o’clock, the grey clouds that had been crouching over the area were steadily shedding thick flakes of snow once again, and the explorers’ delight was slowly replaced with apprehension, and then terror, as they realised they had become hopelessly lost.
By the time seven o’clock had arrived and Joanna hadn’t, her mother was on the verge of panic. The sun had gone down about three hours earlier, and her anxious vigil at the kitchen window showed her nothing but snowflakes whirling crazily against the blackness. A flurry of phone calls, each increasingly more desperate, passed between the girls’ parents, gathering speed and momentum like an avalanche, but no-one knew where the girls were. By
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