DISCLAIMER: All trademarked items in this fanfiction is owned by their respected copyright holders. The ones which are owned by me are merely the plot and the author's thoughts. This fanfiction is made solely for entertainment purposes and not intended for any material gain.
The Wake
A fanfic derived from the screenplay of 'Eulogy' by Joshua Gonzalez
"Mmh…" Jam groaned as he felt his own consciousness tug him out of blessed sleep. He remembered that hair dryer, two teens whom name escaped her. Himself in the bathtub, the wracking pain, everything.
"Morning, sleepyhead," a feminine voice greeted. Jam knew this voice so very well.
"So… fia?" Jam muttered. "Is that… you? I mean, really you? Sofia Pandit?"
"Maybe, maybe not," Sofia whimsically replied as she broke into a smile.
"Where… are we?" Jam asked again, voice slightly raspy as he got his head out of Sofia's lap and started to look around.
It was a vast grassland, with semi-long grasses rustling and swaying to the wind. There was no trees, but Jam can see the rolling terrain and blue cloudless sky quite well. It was serene and peaceful, light-years from what Jam has surmised about fire and brimstone hell.
"Where is not the essence," Sofia softly replied. Jam, now standing up, can see that she wore a simple, white one-piece dress. As a sharp contrast, his own clothes consists of a black trousers plus a reddish t-shirt.
"… so did I die?" Jam asked again. Because nobody could have withstood a 110 volt, 60 hertz jolt right through the heart, the male teenager silently added.
"You might, or you might not," Sofia lightly replied. "It is not yours, or mine, to decide how long one might have lived."
"Some sick higher being he is…" Jam grunted.
"Well, at least you have me now. What are you to lose?" Sofia chimed.
"My soul, I guess. Lilith would come to claim my soul any minute now," Jam replied flatly.
"Silly, silly Jam," Sofia chuckled, her laughter simple and pure. "Is Lilith even its true name? Besides, I think your heart doesn't really believe on anything but God."
"How would you know?" Jam seethed a reply. "You weren't there when we partook on the vows. For… oh, I don't know, being dead I guess?"
"Of course I could know, we exchanged diaries!" Sofia said in mock hurt. "I'm your girlfriend for close to seven months, dummy. That oughta amount to something…"
Jam sighed. There's no winning in this argumentative duel. Sofia was even the captain of the school's debating team, of he is not even a match.
"Hey Jam, do you remember?" Sofia re-started the conversation.
"Remember what?" Jam shot back, a dash of irritation in his voice.
"When you first asked me out…" Sofia said, sighing at the fond memory. "I mean, I can't believe I gone out with you at the end."
"Yeah…" Jam said, plopping beside his once-girlfriend. "A punk like me asking a princess like you out. The betting pool was hugely against me succeeding."
"Aaah! So you did open a betting pool!" Sofia shrieked, scandalized.
"Don't blame me, even I bet against myself," Jam grunted to the memory. "Ritchie got twenty bucks, that filthy bastard."
"But you did liked me, do you not?" Sofia softly replied. "In the end, at least."
"Who could possibly turn you down…" Jam sighed. "As you often said…"
"Time is as much a cutter as it is a binder," Sofia finished the sentence. "I liked what I say."
"I missed you, Soph," Jam finally blurted out.
"Oh don't be such a baby. You managed just fine when I went to Semarang to watch IVED," Sofia replied.
"You came back," Jam replied matter-of-factly.
"You also called every day while I'm there," Sofia fondly sighed of the memory. "And worked your ass off for the next month to repay the phone bill for that week alone."
"Well shucks," the teenaged boy said.
"I liked that side of you," Sofia commented, tucking her knee into her chin. "Tough on the outside, but sincere in the inside."
"But I can't go on without you," Jam replied. "These past week has been… well, hell. On earth, at least."
"You have my memories. You'll be fine," the highschool graduate girl replied. "Besides, you're closing your heart to new experiences. You might even find an even better girl than I do."
"A borderline Sue like you? Slim chance," Jam spat out.
"A chance nonetheless. You're still what? Seventeen, if I'm not mistaken? Older than me by a year…" Sofia replied calmly. "Still a long way to go, dear. By modern standards, you would have had at least thirty-three years to go… possibly more. Cherish them, dear."
"So I'm…" Jam surmised.
"Oh, modern circuit breakers are a wonder of engineering," Sofia chuckled. "We watched it in Mythbusters, remember?"
It took a few weeks after the ordeal for Jam to be considered well enough to be discharged from the hospital. He owe his survival to the fact that Mr. Pandit has replied his aging circuit breaker with a new set just a mere week before. Both parents were thankful for the fact, for the loss of Jam would surely strike a fatal blow to the parents' hearts.
"Well hello there, Jammal. I heard you just got released from the hospital?" a kindly old voice Jam recognized as belonging to the resident preacher of the church shook him out of his daydream.
"Oh… um, yeah," Jam replied simply. "The doctor told me that I can go to school again next week."
"I see. Praise The Lord, for giving you another chance in life," the priest said.
"Father… can I ask you of something…?" Jam hesitantly said.
"Ask away, child," the priest said, sitting on the pew across the lad.
"In my moment of weakness, I… think I have committed… something blasphemous," the young man said, a heavy burden lifted visibly off his heart.
"Tell me, did you mean it when you perform such acts?" the priest concernedly asked after a short silence.
"Now that I thought about it, no," Jam answered. "I was grieving over Sofia's death at the time. Everything I do felt like an auto-pilot or something."
"Then you need not worry. The Lord's mercy is boundless, and by His Mercy you shall be forgiven," the priest said.
"Uh… thanks, I guess," Jam gingerly said. Already, the joy of life crept up his face.
"Thank me not, my child," the priest kindly said. "Thank The Lord."
"Here's your Mocha Latte and chocolate cake," Jam said in a practiced tone as he served the young customer in his parent's small coffee shop.
"Thanks, Jam-senpai! Yummy!" the girl said cheerfully. The girl was two years my junior and a Japanophile to boot, Jam thought, and I can't figure out why she would drop by here from time to time, her side of the suburbs isn't exactly next door…
"Time… is as much a cutter as it is a binder," the ponytailed girl reads an inspirational poster aloud. "Gee, who would have thought of that words?"
"Oh, that's the words of someone I know," Jam said off-handedly.
"Really? You know the guy? Tell me that story, Jam-senpai~" the junior implored with something Jam can liken with a puppy-eyed stare.
Sighing, the youth took a seat across the girl, starting his story. The coffee shop doesn't get many costumers at this time of the day, anyway, Jam thought.
"So there was this girl I knew…"
A/N:
I just sort of grabbed this from a screenplay site on the nets... SimplyScreenplays, to be exact. I need it to prove a point. *waves to Joshua Gonzalez*
To tell you the truth, I am utterly baffled by the sheer abundance of Korean boybands' slashfics in this section of ffn. The fourth rule in the forbidden entries clearly states that "Stories with non-historical and non-fictional characters: actors, musicians, and etc" are not allowed... meaning that there are almost two thousand fics with serious rule violations in here. Please, if you care about ffn and respect these rules, move these stories anywhere else. The net is a vast and wonderful place; i'm sure that those fics will find other, more suitable homes elsewhere in the nets. But not here.
