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Isn’t it funny the thing Charles missed most about living was death? Now that he was dead it was… underwhelming. It wasn’t the quick relief or eternal peace he expected. He didn’t expect to meet his best mate or find actual purpose to his life. Not that that wasn’t all well and good but… It wasn’t what he expected, it wasn’t what he imagined.
Just be clear, Charles doesn’t want to be dead. Sure, it isn’t terrible and it isn’t eternal damnation so it could be worse. But he still would very much prefer to be alive. He missed his mum’s cooking and the way he sank into his bed after a long cricket practice. He missed putting patches on his jacket and the way the music would rattle his bones at ska concerts. He missed kissing pretty girls behind the bleachers and whatever it was he had going on with the cricket captain Mark Pearson. He missed breathing and the way blood pumped through his veins when he was running.
When he was running. When he was running for his life from his mates. When he nearly escaped drowning only to die from hypothermia and internal bleeding. At least he was bleeding and he felt cold. He can’t feel cold or hot anymore. When he gets hurt he doesn’t bleed, he doesn’t bruise, he just is. He doesn’t get hurt. He wished he could hurt.
Charles got hurt a lot. Sometimes on accident but mostly on purpose. His dad would beat him and that hurt. It was only where people couldn’t see it until he started getting into scraps with his mates. Then he started having bruises on his arms and his face. He was a troublemaker, always getting into fights, his teachers thought. Charles took up smoking to cover the cigarette burns on his collarbones and arms. He was clumsy, that was all. He hated smoking but it wasn’t worse than people asking questions. He got into fights more than he needed to. His mates played rugby and cricket so they were bound to be rough. It wasn’t anything unusual, just lads being lads, right?
At some point in his life, Charles stopped running from pain. His dad was always going to get angry and Charles would never be able to fix it. He was going to get beaten to pulp and there was nothing he could do about it. He decided to let it be. It was a fact of life. The smoking was hurting his lungs, he could feel it. He couldn’t really stop now, could he? If it killed him a little sooner, he was alright with that. Just a fact of life. His mates liked to jump people for fun. Charles always knew it was wrong but he valued his life enough to keep out of it. He started sticking up for the people they were tormenting. They got on him fast after that. Sure he got more of the beating than that poor 8th year, but at least the other kid got out unscathed? Just a fact of life. Charles stepped in, the other person got out, the lads blew off some steam, and everything went back to normal.
Life got dull, Charles found. Predictable. Wake up, go to school, go to practice, go home, nurse his injuries, sleep, repeat. He was in pain all the time. Physically, of course, but there was more to it. Even when he wasn’t covered in bruises he felt achy and empty. Something felt off. It was like he forgot how to feel. How strange is that? He didn’t feel scared when his dad started yelling. He didn’t feel heroic or brave when he stopped his friends from saying slurs. He won cricket games but didn’t feel excited. He got good grades but that was just the bare minimum, wasn’t it? Nothing he did was special. He was just doing it.
Charles started chasing the pain. It was the only thing he could still feel. Nothing before it, nothing after it, but for a split moment he felt. He wasn’t chasing it outright, but he wasn’t hiding from it. He knew what happened to those sick people that hurt themselves. They went away. He wasn’t sick. He didn’t want to kill himself or anything like that. But he didn’t really mind if he died.
He stopped tiptoeing around his dad. He didn’t sneak out to go to concerts, he just walked out the front door. He stepped in front of his friends without a second thought. He crossed the street with music blasting on his Walkman. He smoked more, just to give his restless hands something to do. He drank his tea boiling hot and walked without a jacket though the freezing winter streets of London.
Girls started noticing him more, weirdly enough. They said he was edgy and confident. He got his ear pierced and started wearing kohl outside of shows. Apparently he looked like he didn’t care, probably because he didn’t. Was he cooler when he wasn’t trying? What’s that thing alt people say - it takes a lot of effort to look like you didn’t try? People said he was funnier but he just stopped holding his tongue. He said whatever was on his mind, it didn’t matter if people got mad, did it? They would punch him in an alley and forget about it.
Isn’t it funny that people liked him more the more he hated himself? He spent most of his life performing, trying to seem normal and likeable. But here he was, giving zero fucks and people were eating it up. Life’s a bitch like that.
Life felt dull again. No matter what attention he got or punishment that followed, it felt like nothing. New days, same routine. Wake up, go to school, go to practice, go home, nurse his injuries, sleep, repeat. Fucked up problems require fucked up solutions, don’t they?
And so Charles thought about death. When he died, would he be reincarnated? His mother told him about how her people believed in being reborn. He hoped he would be something without so many problems. Maybe a cat or a flower? Flowers don’t have problems. He can’t say he really believed in that, though. His dad got mad and said he should stick to being a good Englishman and ignore hippy bullshit like reincarnation. It’s a beautiful idea though, Charles had thought. If he wasn’t reborn, he didn’t think he was going to Heaven. Heaven was for the people that worked in soup kitchens and went to church on Sundays. Heaven was not for teenage boys that got into fights and rocked out in basements to songs about overthrowing the patriarchy. Heaven was not for people like him. So, Charles decided he liked the third option: nothing. When he died there would be nothing. It would be quiet and empty and peaceful. When he died it would be over, and he would be happy.
When days were long and boring he found reprieve in his imagination. He thought about how he would want to die. Not drowning, you spend much too long fighting against the water as your brain refuses to open your mouth underwater. It is only when your head feels like it is about to explode that you take a desperate breath in and then it's over. Drowning is not bloody, but it is violent. He doesn’t want to drown. A stabbing doesn’t sound too bad. It’s quick and you lose consciousness fast enough it isn’t too painful, kind of like falling asleep. He could get stabbed just for walking around the wrong part of london. It would look like an accident. Ultimately, he decided he wants to die falling. Off a building or a cliff, it doesn’t matter. He would die on impact if he fell right. But most importantly, he would know what it feels like to fly. He wants that final burst of adrenaline before he dies. He thinks about death a lot but never acts on it. It’s just the idea of it that keeps him grounded. If it ever gets too much, his life is in his hands and no one else’s.
Naturally, he dies at someone else’s hands. That one last thing he had was taken from him just like everything else in his life. His childhood, his innocence, his passions, his dignity. He didn’t even get to die on his own terms.
That night in the attic, Edwin asks him how he is feeling. He’s awkward when he says it, like he is afraid of scaring Charles off but also trying to comfort him. Charles could be honest with him, but when is he ever honest about his feelings? He tells Edwin he is sad, that seems like a logical emotion to feel. But really, Charles is mad. He is furious.
The first emotion he feels in months and it is anger. He almost laughs at the hilarity of it. He doesn’t. He doesn’t want Edwin to think he is some sort of crazy person. He likes Edwin.
Edwin tells him that he must go because he is running from Death. Charles asks to go with him. He isn’t ready for it to all turn to nothing. Sure he is angry and that is not a very pleasant emotion but it is an emotion and he wants to feel it, to relish in it. If death is a blank nothing, he isn't ready. And so they run as fast as they can, out of the attic and onto the dimly lit rugby field. When Charles turns back, he sees a bright blue light in the attic window. He didn’t imagine death being so vibrant.
He asked Edwin what he wants to do now that he is out of Hell. Naturally, he wished to see the library. What a proper geek. They walked across campus rather slowly as Charles tried to get accustomed to his new form. He couldn’t feel anything. He hadn’t quite decided if that was a blessing or a curse.
Edwin settled into a chair in the library, catching up on a history textbook. Charles rolled his eyes. Textbooks always seem to ignore the ugly parts of history, Edwin was in for a crude awakening once Charles starts telling him about what he really missed in the last 80 years. He decided that could wait, he had one last thing he wanted to do before he started processing the fact that he died. He told Edwin he was going to get some air. He replied with a snitty remark about ghosts’ inability to breathe. God, he was liking him more by the minute.
Charles searched around the first floor until he found a stairwell and followed it up to the roof. It wasn’t a very tall building, only three stories and a small attic. Charles thought he would’ve felt wind up here if he could still feel. He walked over to the edge and looked down onto the perfectly manicured yard out before him. No rocks or hard surfaces, a terrible place to jump. It would have to do.
He placed one foot on the edge and then the other. He had pretty good balance, but it didn’t matter. He was weightless. He tried to think about being pulled down, tried to think about gravity. Edwin said that sometimes ghosts can will themselves into having physical attributes. Weight was a physical attribute, right? Maybe it was working, or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Did it really matter anymore?
He stepped off.
There was no adrenaline, no wind rushing past him. He was on the ground. It was just nothing. He fell off a roof and nothing happened. He grasped at the grass beneath him and couldn’t feel a thing. His anger turned to desperation. He felt tears rolling down his face. He started shaking. It felt like he was floating in a world made of static. This was worse than nothing. Had he made a mistake, not going with Death? Or did his mistakes start the day he told his mates to sod off beating that kid up? Maybe before then, the day he was born?
“Charles? Are you quite alright?”
Edwin’s voice snapped him into the present. Charles realized he was wracking out loud, desperate sobs. Edwin moved the length of the room in one swift stride to kneel beside him.
Charles could only shake his head to respond. He curled tighter against himself. He was sitting on the floor in the corner of their office. Edwin had returned home from the magic market earlier than he had expected. Usually finding ferret tears is an excruciating search.
“Are you hurt?” Edwin probed. “Just shake your head yes or no.”
Charles shook his head no. He opened his mouth to say something but it turned into a gasp for air between sobs.
“Did you come into any contact with magic? A potion, spell, or enchanted object?” Edwin pushed. Another shake for no. “Are you upset about something?”
Charles attempted again to speak and it came out a small, wavering whisper. “I can’t feel anything.”
“Charles, we cannot feel anything, we are ghosts.” The way Edwin usually said that was snarky, but this time it was tender and soft. He looked at Charles with understanding, they had this conversation before. “We cannot feel anything. I know this is something that pains you. I know you miss being alive. Can I hold you?”
Ghosts cannot feel anything but they can feel one another. They discovered this early on because Charles is naturally touchy. Edwin is not, but he makes exceptions on occasion, this being one of them.
Edwin put his arms tentatively around him and Charles all but threw himself into the touch. Edwin reached a hand up to stroke Charles’s curls as the boy cried into his shoulder.
“I can’t feel anything, Edwin,” he mumbled.
“I know, Charles. I know,” Edwin assured him quietly.
“Charles, are you quite alright?” Edwin asked.
Charles looked up from where he had his head buried in the grass after his fall. He plastered on a fake smile. “Just peachy, mate.”
“You’re on the ground,” Edwin noted.
Charles could play this off. He can’t exactly say he just jumped off a building. “I was trying to feel the grass.”
Edwin raised an eyebrow questioningly. “And?”
“I can’t feel anything, Edwin. I can’t feel anything.”