Darkness. Pitch black. I could see nothing. Confused, I lifted my hand to touch my eyes. There was a hollow sound as my knuckles struck something very close. Too close. I froze a moment, then my hands moved to either side of me and touched the rough texture of wood. I kicked my feet and the hollow knocking reverberated within the confines of my resting place.
I was inside a coffin. A coffin made of pine boards. Panic swelled inside of me. I finally came back to myself, my throat swollen and sore, my hands battered and slick with what could only be blood. In my hysteria, I had kicked at the sides of my prison, and I had knocked a pine knot out of a board. The light that seeped into my dark place was heavenly, as was the icy, fresh air.
Calmer, I began to think. It was winter, and the ground was too hard for burying. I must be in the shed behind the funeral parlor. I felt a little wiggle as I adjusted my body to the confining space, which meant that the pine box I was in was likely propped on a sawhorse to let the cold air circulate around my body. It would be at least four months before the temperatures allowed the earth to be turned for burials; unless someone else died, nobody would be coming out to this shed for some time.
I couldn't wait. I put both my hands flat out in front of me and pushed. I wiggled. I rocked. I kicked. Finally, the pine box toppled slowly over and I was falling, my stomach lurching just before I hit the ground with a crack as the coffin split at one corner. I pushed and pulled at the splintered wood until the hole was big enough, then I struggled out.
The cold immediately turned my skin blue, but I took a moment to be grateful. Then I picked up the remnants of a pine board and went to the door of the shed.
My sister needed a lesson.
