Free Remember the Stars by Natalie-Nicole Bates

Remember the Stars
      The stars were a spark that pierced the night sky .
    It was the first thought to enter Leah Rhodes’s mind when she woke up. The second thought was why the hell she was lying in a gutter.
    An acrid smell of smoke mingled with iron hung in the air. Pain blasted through every muscle, every bone, as she struggled into a sitting position. Blinking several times, shapes came into focus beneath the solitary street lamp that burned above her and she realized where she was. She was all alone on the street, across from her former high school. It had been well over a decade since she last stood on the steps at graduation.
    Something was terribly wrong. This was a place she would never return to. One moment she had been at her surprise birthday party, the next, she was alone in a gutter.
    An accident.
    It had to have been some sort of terrible accident, she realized as she rubbed circles over her aching temples. For a moment she took in how silent everything around her was.
    Turning her head to the right, she let out a laugh that echoed into the darkness. She was sitting in a gutter right in front of the Moreland Funeral Home. How ridiculous it would be to die on her birthday and somehow land in front of a funeral home in her old neighborhood.
    But the laughter died in her throat when she saw the glass-enclosed funeral notice illuminated with a tiny bulb and attached to the facade of the funeral home. There in letters was her name: Leah Rhodes. Beneath her name, were the words “Private Arrangements.”
    The laughter only a minute before was now replaced with a sob from deep in her throat. This had to be someone’s idea of a cruel joke. But whose ?
    Leah struggled to her knees, the asphalt digging painfully them which were bare beneath the mint-green bodice dress she wore. Her feet were mysteriously bare. It took a concerted effort to fight through the pain that enflamed every nerve of her body, to get to her feet. She wobbled unsteadily and shuffled her way to the glass front door. Just the few steps left her out of breath. She grabbed the handle and shook it with fury. But the locked door would not budge. She pounded with her fists, but to no avail. All remained dark and quiet.
    Finally, she turned and saw the remnants of a broken paving stone lying in the gutter. Lifting the jagged rock into her hands, she heaved it through the lit funeral notice, the glass shattering on impact. The shards rained down and landed at her feet.
    She reached again for the paving stone and was about to hurtle it through the front door when a light came on inside the funeral home and the door slowly opened.
    A man cautiously poked his head out the door. He looked vaguely familiar in the low light —maybe someone she had known in her past, but she couldn’t be certain as she stood trembling, but still armed with the paving stone.
    “You’re going to have to pay for that, you know,” he said.
    How absurd, she thought. Here she was alone and disoriented on a street she hadn’t set foot on for years, and she was being told she had to pay for a piece of glass.
    “Is this your idea of some kind of joke?” She gestured toward the funeral notice. Who the hell put you up to this, and how did I get here? I shouldn’t be here,” she babbled.
    “Put me up to what?”
    “You know!” she accused, “my name!” As she pointed to where her name had been only moments before, all that remained was an empty hollowed out shell in the facade of the building.
    He looked around the street left to right before motioning to her with his hand. “Come on, crazy girl.”
    Ignoring his invitation, she turned away and spotted a pay phone across the street. She had no money, but 911 calls were free, weren’t they?    She took off running toward the phone. Each step was agony, and she was nothing short of surprised when she arrived at the pay phone beneath the street light. Lifting the receiver, she listened for a dial tone, but there was