Chapter Two: I Don’t Want to Be Remembered
697 Words
She came back on a Wednesday.
Ade had just arranged fresh lilies in the viewing room — not because anyone was coming, but because the quiet was beginning to choke him.
The bell jingled.
She walked in like she owned the place.
“Good. You’re not dead,” he said, not looking up from the guestbook.
“I said thirty days. Don’t doubt me.”
She dropped into the chair like it was hers and pulled out a small wrapped snack — chin chin, maybe. “Brought you something.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Poison?”
“Tempting, but no. I figured even the Grim Reaper deserves a treat.”
Ade sat down opposite her. “Still planning your death?”
“Still counting the days.”
She was in jeans today. A hoodie with a faded logo. No makeup. She looked... real. Not broken, but not trying to look whole either. Just there.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“About what?”
“Why you’re killing yourself slowly with charm and chin-chin.”
She popped one in her mouth and chewed slowly. “Because living loudly didn’t work.”
He waited.
“Because being the girl who always had a plan, always smiled, always said, ‘I’m fine,’ got exhausting. No one asks the strong ones if they’re sinking. They just wave while you drown.”
The room felt heavier.
She looked up. Her voice softened.
“I'm not here to make peace with life. I'm here to plan a graceful exit.”
Ade leaned forward. “And what if I don’t let you?”
“You think you’re that important?”
“No,” he said. “But maybe I’m the first person who’s actually listening.”
She looked away. Her eyes glistened, but she blinked the tears back like it was a sport.
“You want to hear something stupid?” she said after a pause.
He nodded.
“I don’t want to be remembered. Not even at my funeral. I want it small. Quick. No speeches. No one posting selfies with my coffin and writing ‘You were light’ when they barely knew me.”
He smiled at that, but it was sad.
“Then why come here?” he asked. “Why bother planning anything?”
“Because I’m tired of everything being a mess. If I’m leaving, I want control over something.”
Ade stood and walked to the display wall. He pulled down a simple brochure and handed it to her.
“Fine. Let’s plan your perfect goodbye. But for every day you stay alive, you owe me one real answer.”
Efe snorted. “This your version of therapy?”
“No. Therapy charges per hour. I just charge in truth.”
She opened the brochure but didn’t look at it.
“What happened to you?” she asked suddenly. “You talk like someone who’s been to the other side and came back quiet.”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Then he said, “I buried someone I loved.”
Her eyes flicked up. “Who?”
“My brother.”
She waited.
“He smiled a lot, too. People liked him. He made it easy to forget he was suffering.”
Her fingers tightened around the brochure.
“Did he...?”
“Yes.”
Neither of them said the word. It hovered between them like a ghost.
Efe whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“I was too late,” he said. “So now I’m early. With everyone else.”
She looked down at the papers in her hands. Then back at him.
“Okay, Undertaker. I’ll give you twenty-seven more days.”
“That’s all I ask.”
She stood.
He walked her to the door.
Before she stepped out, she paused and said, “If I cry here one day, you better not write a poem about it.”
“I’m more of a eulogy guy.”
“Ugh. Morbid.”
“Alive?”
“Barely,” she muttered. Then smiled.
She walked out.
The door closed.
And for the first time in a long while, Ade looked forward to the next day.
- Writer
