This Is Yr Life

Chapter Two

And so, still not wanting to go home, he decided to watch these lives before him. The couple who left appeared to be the last people in the cemetery, so he was able to wander through at his leisure.

The cemetery itself was vast, stretching out far into the darkness and lined with trees that Kyle knew he had learned about as a child but had since forgotten. He felt as if he had forgotten a lot of things from school. He ambled along the path, looking at each glowing screen along the sides of the walkway. At some headstones, lights had been installed in the ground to shine up revealing names of the deceased.

On the screens, the faces of dead people smiled at him as their life’s best moments were showcased for the whole world to see. He stopped every now and again and watched people get married, have children, buy their own homes. He watched people receiving awards, winning tournaments, celebrating.

And at first, Kyle smiled. He watched with fascination at the successes of the people buried beneath his feet. He laughed with families in the backgrounds of videos; he got all misty-eyed when a father held his child for the first time.

But all of these people had lived their lives; he couldn’t pity them. They had achieved everything society had expected of them during their time on earth, and Kyle knew they had died happy. Despite the freezing temperatures, he sat on the ground at some graves and stared attentively at every little detail. The ground was hard beneath him, but he didn’t mind. The surrounding trees shielded the wind, and so he was left in peace to watch and enjoy.

After some time, he moved along, searching further into the cemetery. He saw some screens which had been retrofitted to the gravestones. These were unlike the others in which they showed the progression of technology through the decades. Some graves were so old that the screens shone out black and white photos and low-resolution videos from the world pre-millennium. Kyle found it bizarre; the way people used to live before everything was available at the touch of a button. A lot of these pictures reminded him of sitting in history class and watching videos when learning about the Gulf War, of terrorist attacks, and seeing the fashions of decades gone by.

The further through he walked, the less prominent the screens became. Towards the back end of the cemetery, there were just some that lit the grounds with light dancing off the grass and pavement. These headstones were crumbling, forgotten, and neglected. He walked up to some and shone the light from his phone over the names and dates. All of them dead for a long time, many even before the new millennium. These people had descendants that probably didn’t even know where they were buried, and so they’ve been left to disintegrate into the soil below. Soon, Kyle thought, they might be removed to make way for the new generation.

But there was one more light he saw, far away by the perimeter of the cemetery, right beside the wall and next to a large tree that hung over the road on the other side. The lights of passing, silent cars illuminated the branches, skeletal and ominous in the darkness.

Kyle walked towards this grave. His hands stuffed into his pockets and feet crunching the frozen ground beneath. The stone was new, white marble with a globe engraved at the top, and two angels blowing trumpets on either side. From these trumpets flowed banners that wrapped around pillars that ran down either side of the screen and underneath came together where a name was etched into the stone.

Chloe Kennedy.

Kyle sat down, his breath misting out in front of the screen and watched. The girl in the video was unlike anyone he had ever seen. The video he had found her on saw her dancing in her bedroom. The walls behind her were covered in photographs too small to see properly, but Kyle wasn’t focussing on the background, Chloe had his full attention.

She glided across the screen and then back the other way. She twirled and bent and spun and jumped and landed so delicately that nothing in the room shook. She walked towards the camera smiling, and for the first time, Kyle saw she had brown hair and large, green eyes.

The video changed and now she was on stage doing the same dance as before. The last video had been her practicing, and now Kyle was able to witness the real thing. Dressed in a blue leotard with tassels fringing the shoulders, Chloe’s hair was pulled back into a ponytail. The video was being filed from the crowd, and sometimes people moved in the way, leaving the theatre, or returning from off-screen. Chloe spun and spun, pirouetting and skipping with such grace and lightness that it looked as if she was flying, her feet barely touching the floor.

The dance concluded, and the view was again obstructed by a standing ovation. Kyle stared, so amazed by the athleticism on show, and the video faded to black, and in that black he saw his reflection, his eyes propped up bags beneath them and stubble covered his face. He checked the time, but it wasn’t even seven PM yet. He waited.

After a while the video resumed in the same venue, only Chloe was no longer on screen. Instead, a woman in a long, sequin ball gown was standing in the centre of the stage with a microphone and talking, almost in tears. Kyle couldn’t hear what she was saying but soon there was yet more standing ovation, and from the side of the stage Chloe walked out, no longer dressed in her leotard but instead a dress even more elegant than the woman’s. She had her hair down now and was handed a trophy and a bouquet of flowers. Struggling to hold both prizes that nearly dwarfed her, Chloe looked at the camera, and Kyle saw that she was crying.

It started to snow as the next video faded onto the screen, and a long and winding road unfolded in front of him. Mountains rose and fell on the peripheries, and the sun shone onto the asphalt, making it look like there were puddles of water pooling far off in the distance.

And then, coming into view, a girl on a moped zoomed past, waving. She was wearing a pink helmet and snaked side to side, taking advantage of the vast empty road. She sped up and slowed down and sped up as she climbed a hill, going so fast that she disappeared from view. The camera followed her up and around until, at the very top of the incline, there she was again. The bike was parked by the side of the road, and the camera caught her as she was dismounting and removed her helmet. It was Chloe. Her hair fell and bounced from her shoulders, and she turned to the camera smiling and eyes wide as she pointed behind her. The camera moved toward her as she was jumping up and down pointing and pointing and, as the camera moved closer to the edge, Kyle saw what made her so excited.

Over the edge of the barrier stretched a lake with little islands dotted around and rising out from the surface. There were people, so small in comparison, rowing along in their kayaks, fishing or transporting goods or just relaxing. The camera panned all across the lake beneath, which reflected the sun and clear blue sky, so it looked as if they were in another world.

But to Kyle, they were.

He had never gone travelling like he had hoped. Always too poor or too busy or too scared to leap into the unknown. Instead, he had sat at home and fantasised about seeing everything, but everything never happened.

Chloe and the camera stayed at the viewpoint for a long time. They talked, though Kyle didn’t know what about. They laughed and took pictures and watched the sun move slowly across the sky until it was right above them and bathed them in light. When it was time for them to leave, Chloe leaned forward and kissed the camera. They returned to their mopeds and rode off, Chloe leading the way, back down the hill.

It had gotten too cold. So engrossed in what he was watching, Kyle didn’t realise that he was shivering, that he couldn’t feel his hands. Since he had last looked at his watch, the time had spun by; it was nearly nine PM.

Kyle stood up, his knees aching from having been sat down in the cold so long. He brushed the slightest drift of snow from his coat and shoved his hands back in his pockets. Before he turned to leave, he saw the next video. Chloe was sitting on a bench looking scared. Behind her, the walls were metal and grey. She was wearing a jumpsuit and a backpack. Kyle stayed to watch the rest of the video unfold, someone was talking to Chloe and she nodded her head, forced a smile, and took deep, deliberate breaths.

The camera was handed to her and she disappeared from the screen and now Kyle saw where she was. To the side, he saw an expanse of bright blue through a gap. They seemed to be moving. As the camera got closer to the blue, he realised she was in an aeroplane. Turning the camera to the right someone in goggles and a bright orange jumpsuit gave her the thumbs up and her hand returned the gesture. Then, after just a few seconds of hesitation, she fell from the plane. Below, the camera captured landscapes, farms and fields, lakes and houses and mountains and then spun around so quickly towards the sky where the aeroplane above was flying out of sight. Chloe rolled in the air and the pictures became a whirlwind of colours and shapes but nothing concrete and then, as everything seemed to be getting faster, it jolted, stopped and calmed. No longer racing towards the ground at inhuman speeds, Kyle could see all around. Far away, mountains peaked under clouds and green expanded into a dull blur. As Chloe moved closer and closer to the ground, Kyle saw a crowd of people cheering and clapping and when she landed she fell and tumbled across the floor. An older woman was the first by her side, helping her up and looking concerned.

The video switched. Now, Kyle saw it from the perspective of the crowd. As the woman ran over, this perspective moved out from the crowd and followed her. As it got closer and closer to Chloe, she emerged from underneath the parachute, tore her helmet off. The woman, Kyle assumed her to be Chloe’s mother, grabbed her by the shoulders and hugged her tight. But Chloe was just laughing.

Another parachute crashed into sight and Chloe, still with her parachute attached squirmed from her mother’s embrace and ran towards the tangle of nylon, rummaging through, trying to find whoever was underneath it. Finally, someone emerged from beneath the red and yellow and blue. As the camera got closer, Kyle saw it was another girl. Chloe held her and hugged her. She helped her remove her helmet and they laughed and hugged. The crowd came from behind the camera and soon Chloe and the girl were lost behind bodies congratulating and high-fiving the two of them. The camera stayed in place.

It was now that Kyle decided to leave. The cold had permeated his shoes and socks and now his toes felt like they were no longer attached to his foot. Before leaving he crouched down and looked at the date of birth, the date of death. She was just twenty-two years old.