Sonora Hill

A Story by LBarney

A young girl is trapped between life and death, her only hope is scruffy haired, fight-prone nerd. An exciting, light hearted tale about overcoming struggles and finding friends, and loves.

Okay, so here’s the thing. I’m not sure I should really be saying anything about this, but it’s killing me. Literally. Promise you won’t think I’m crazy, this is the truth.

So they say the best place to start is that the beginning, so here goes. I was on my way home from school not too long ago, I’m not sure precisely. I guess it was around the three weeks, four days and eleven "ish hour’s mark now. My pal James had just said goodbye. He’d insisted he should walk me to my door, but I had a feeling he might try to kiss me or something, and I just really didn't want to deal with him and his stupid attraction thing, so I told him I’d be happy to go alone. So he left. I rounded the corner of my street humming away and bobbing my head a little bit in time with my iPod. And along comes this crazy arsed car with some hoodlum yelling something from the top of his voice from the sky roof. He threw an empty beer can at me and then shouted “You alright love? Fancy a go?” in some barely decipherable drunken slur. I had to laugh. What was it, five in the evening? And already there’s some drunks driving around throwing cider cans at me. ‘Oh sure’ I thought. ‘I’ll ‘have a go’; the can thing was a mighty romantic gesture. Oh hang on, it shows me you’re drunk, and I wouldn't want to take advantage.’ I'm a proper little joker me. Well I thought the whole thing was funny, until I realised he was steering the car with his feet. Yes, you heard me correctly.

Well anyways next thing I know I’m waking up half way across the street, feeling happier than I ever have in my life. I was what I imagine being a young child again must feel like, you know, when you think that Santa is real, and your dad is the strongest man in the world, and grown-ups aren’t scared of anything. Nothing could touch you in that place; you were just doing what you were doing without a single thought in your head. That’s what I felt like. It was the strangest thing.

So I climbed out of my body, not even feeling shock or sadness, and I set about investigating the wreckage, CSI style. Well hell! He’d only scarpered. Not without leaving mangled car wreckage in a garden fence first, the coward. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the police found him in a bush the next morning, passed out and drunk like so many others. But they didn’t.

So three weeks-something later and here I am, sat on a park swing. It must have looked really spooky to see the swing moving all by itself. But there was no one around. I sighed. Well, I blew air in the equivalent of a real life sigh…sigh.

You may have guessed. I’m not currently breathing. I’m not currently living. My body is in a hospital a town away from here, being kept on life support. I guess you could say I’m in a coma. But that’s not what it feels like.

I’d always imagined a coma to be like one of those epic dreams, where hindsight shows us that nothing actually made sense. This was so weird. I have heard the term ‘phantom limbs’ (spooky huh?). I felt like a phantom…person! I could still fell my whole body, but it just simply wasn’t there. Creepy. So I sat here wondering whether I would be like this forever, or if they would take me off life support and what would happen to me then. Was I in limbo?

“Sonora?” the familiar rough voice shook me alert again. I smiled. I knew how this worked. He wouldn’t be able to hear me, so I just focused on welcoming thoughts and the word ‘Hi’.

The tall, scruffy haired boy walked forwards and took a seat in the swing beside me. “No luck today I’m afraid. There’s always tomorrow though” he smiled encouragingly in my general direction. I wished for a moment that he could look me in the eye at least once. What eyes? I thought disdainfully. I focused on ‘Thanks’.

Joshua nodded. He bit his lip like he was thinking about something hard. I reached out to him and he flinched at the chill that crept down his spine. Then he laughed “sorry” he said earnestly. “I guess you wanna know what I was thinking. You’re so sharp.” He paused for a moment while a mother and child walked past the park, the child apparently too sleepy to even consider begging to stay and play. This was something Josh had gotten used to. He didn’t want to scare people by ‘talking to himself’ so he just kept quiet when other people were around. Once they were gone he turned to me again “sorry”

I honestly didn’t mind. Focus; ‘It’s okay’. I hope he got that message. Really I do. If he thought for one moment that I didn’t like his company he might leave. And then what would it do?

I didn’t know whether to pursue. Did he want to tell me what he was thinking or not? If I am totally honest, I wanted to know. But I felt rude to ask.

“Okay!” he said, slightly irritated. He added a laugh though to lighten the mood. I was shocked at how easily he had picked up my train of thought.

“The thing that has really got me down…” he dragged out the word ‘really; “is that your spirit…really, really, really smells!” he laughed and when I tried to punch him with my phantom hand he laughed even harder. What kind of dodge was that? He really didn’t want to tell me something. I laughed nonetheless, well sorta laughed, you know how it is.

“Sonora”

Yeah, I thought, and then remembered that I had to really think it.

He looked passed my shoulder, I guess that where he imagined my face to be. His face was happy, a faint smile lingered from his moment of laughter; his light brown hair was in a mess on top of his head, making him look young and playful. But his eyes, a mixture of green brown and blue, were sad. I shifted in the swing; put my face where he thought it should be. He looked me dead in the eye and my breath caught (well as much as it could).

“You know, whatever happens, you’re going to be fine”

Oh really? I was under the impression that I was currently floating around while my body was in a coma and for some ugly reason I just couldn’t get back inside. My poor body was going to die, I bet.

“If you can’t go back, you don’t have to be afraid to, you know, move on”

Oh.

“Ive heard about you, when you were ali-“

My eyebrow cocked. He must’ve sensed it.

“- when you were conscious. You were a nice girl, everyone says so. I don’t know everything about you, but I can sure as hell bet you never did anything too bad. You don’t have to come back. I bet there’s paradise waiting for you, a little welcome banner and everything.”

He smiled sadly and I could tell it made him sorry to admit that there was really nothing left we could do.

“You know what else?” he paused so I could answer, though it’s not like he could hear me.

“You’re beautiful too” he said. And he bowed his head bashfully. He really was sweet.