THE COMFORT OF HOME

BY DOROTHY ZHENG

When familial love transcends life and death

On a sunny, peaceful day in the comfort of his home, Caelus lies on his deathbed.

He comes to this realization abruptly, his heart sinking as he notices his heart slowing and his breath becoming increasingly labored.

He comes to terms with his condition pretty quickly. Caelus was not unfamiliar with grief in the slightest. He’s grieved for many others—certainly grieving for oneself was not any different?

His twin sister squeezes his hand lightly, bringing him back to reality.

Celine’s eyes sparkle with unshed tears, the usual air of serenity around her nowhere to be seen.

“Caelus, you have to hang in there, alright?”

He smiles but doesn’t respond, his eyes slowly drooping. Celine seems to notice this as well, her eyes gradually widening.

A smile is the last thing he leaves for her.

Celine wakes up the next morning feeling as if the previous day’s events were just a fever dream. Her head throbs painfully, supporting this idea, but the drying tear tracks on her cheeks pull her back to reality.

“He’s gone,” she mutters. “He’s really gone.”

She scrambles out of her bed and rushes into her brother’s room, desperate for some sort of concrete answer. She really hopes he is still there, like it was all just a horrible, horrible nightmare.

She’s met with an empty, soulless room. Celine’s heart drops. She moves to sit on the floor, practically collapsing, shaking from her sobs. She hugs her knees tightly, curling into herself.

While she could’ve easily been delirious, she feels a soft touch on her shoulder. It feels like a light breeze, but she appreciates the comfort nonetheless.

Caelus observes his sister’s state, and the pain he feels for her is harder to bear than the pain of death itself.

He floats down and pats her on her shoulder in the same way he used to. Celine shifts slightly at the motion.

She felt it? he wonders. It must be a mere coincidence.

After Caelus’ eyes closed for the last time, he was left in absolute darkness. Throughout his life, he has always believed that this would happen after death, but it felt worse when it is his new reality.

Just as he was getting comfortable, Caelus is transported back into the familiar atmosphere of his home. He looks down, and in horror, the absence of his body makes him realize that he is a ghost.

A sob in the distance cuts off his train of thought.

Caelus finds his sister in disarray, hunched over on the floor.

“Denial,” echoes an otherworldly voice.

Celine stands up, roughly wiping away the tears on her cheeks. She mutters something intelligible as she leaves for her room, closing the door.

His sister comes out a few moments later, clutching a ripped t-shirt that Caelus recognizes as his own. In her other hand, she holds her mom’s old sewing kit.

“Victims will often busy themselves with mindless tasks in the denial stage. It keeps their minds.”

Caelus watches as Celine’s hands shakily thread a string through a needle. She begins to sew the garment, slower than she once had but managing nonetheless.

The needle suddenly slips from her grasp, the sharp point grazing her hand.

“Anger,” the voice continues.

She studies the light scrape the needle had made on her hands. She drops the shirt in haste.

“Victims experiencing the anger stage are often irritable. Their actions are both unpredictable and violent.”

Celine paces around the room, gnawing on her thumbnail.

Her gaze returns to the garment thrown haphazardly on the couch, and the angry facade that she put up shows its cracks. She rushes back to her original place, clutching the shirt once again, flipping it over, and studying the place where she started her stitches.

Caelus can hear the noise of the shirt ripping even further. Celine stares at the disarray of fabric in her hands.

“Bargaining.”

She tries to fit the fabric back together, but it seems her efforts are futile. The seams of the garment fall apart at the touch, the shrill noise echoing through the empty house.

“Victims often feel guilty or shameful during the bargaining stage. They tend to think back to the past and question their decisions.”

Celine studies the destroyed design. “It’s my fault,” she whispers. “I’ve lost him.”

Caelus reaches out for his sister, but he misses her by an inch as she stands up hastily, retreating to her room. Caelus follows her as if he was being controlled by a supernatural force, watching as she tucks herself back into her bed.

“Depression.”

He listens as his sister sniffles as she sobs, the sound muffled by the covers. She tosses and turns, seemingly unable to rest.

“Aside from crying and signs of despair, victims will often have trouble sleeping or eating during the depression stage.”

He watches helplessly as she cries, not knowing how he could give her any assistance.

Time passes and Celine falls into a light slumber, but the voice does not return.

“Depression,” the voice suddenly says, repeating itself.

Celine sits up suddenly as if she was startled by something.

“Aside from crying and signs of despair, victims will often have trouble sleeping or eating during the depression stage.”

Why is she still in this stage? Caelus thinks.

“She hasn’t progressed yet,” the voice replies.

Days go by. Celine doesn’t leave the house and remains in her bed, only getting up for the bare necessities.

What can I do to help her?

The voice doesn’t reply.

In this form, he finds that he can only slightly manipulate wind. Nonetheless, she is sound asleep, so he chooses to clean up her room, blowing papers and trash away.

At the disturbance, Celine wakes up. She slowly wipes the tears from her face and climbs out of bed.

Caelus follows her to the restroom, where she stares at her reflection in the mirror.

In the past few weeks, he notices that his sister starts to cry whenever she sees herself. This time, she doesn’t. He grows more hopeful at her reaction.

As Celine makes some food for herself, Caelus waves over a paper crane that he made for her a few weeks ago. She smiles at the sight, picking the item up and studying it for a while.

A few days later, when she leaves the house for the first time, a flower miraculously lands at her feet.

With little actions like these, Caelus slowly guides his sister to acceptance. He can’t do much in this form, but it seems to be enough.

As the days go by, the absence of the voice becomes glaringly obvious. It was as if the voice was the only thing holding Celine back, keeping her in the endless cycle of grief, like a pesky gnat that was constantly buzzing in her ear, affirming her insecurities and worries.

The voice disappears, and Celine realizes that she can decide when she will proceed to acceptance, when she can let Caelus go. As her life begins to return to normalcy, he starts to play less of a part in her day.

The voice never returns. Soon after, Caelus doesn’t either.

On a sunny, peaceful day in the comfort of her home, Celine is able to move on.