Last week during lunch break I popped into Borders next door and bought Alice Sebold's famous novel "The Lovely Bones". I'd watched the movie, without sound, during a transit flight between Melbourne and Perth. My headset was dodgy, and the Qantas staff didn't seem to want to replace it, so I sat back and contented myself with just a little lip reading and the visuals, which reminded me a little bit of the movie The Fountain, and quite coincidentally also starred Rachel Weisz.
Obviously the book gave me more insight, and with the visuals from the movie still fresh in my head, I could flesh out the characters easily. I was disappointed with the ending in the movie, where the protagonist's murderer gets away and dies in the end (apologies if you haven't seen this movie yet) without ever having to face the music. But when you think about it, isn't that how life is, really? I am sure that, in this big, bad, world, people disappear everyday, body and soul. And nobody can find out where they disappeared to or why. Nobody knows if they're dead or alive.
I have been thinking about my friend Stephanie all this time while reading the book. Wondering if she was watching me then, if she is watching me now. Still grieving, but not so much as before, and if the book is true to its words, she is in her own version of Heaven now, sipping on a glass of margarita, with lit cigarette in one hand, and laughing as me as I trudge through this life, my comedy of errors.
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