Grieving comes in stages. Denial, guilt, anger, depression, and then acceptance. A single stage could last a year or a fleeting moment. The pain does fade over time but not after it hits you again, again, again, and again.
Sometimes thinks can waver and then fade out. This usually happens with small children once they start to approach a development milestone. Is there really some tooth fairy out there that pays for baby teeth? Is there really a fat, magical guy out there that wants to give children presents for just being good? Do rabbits really leave baskets of sweets once a year?
When thinks waver and fade with adults, it's usually because of one of two things. Mental disorders and those grieving the loss of a loved one.
Thinks and things that are the result of a mental disorder are probably the hardest things to fix. The mind isn't an easy thing to maneuver around. However, those kinds of things rarely happen.
Just Alzheimer's disease alone can trick the mind into thinking that people are younger, for example. The dead are still alive and living people don't yet exist (namely grandchildren), depending what point in time the mind has wandered back into.
Sometimes the mind wanders into a dark, dark room and then devours the key.The Fixer didn't need to consult his address book, he knew he was at the right place.
Dog turds hid themselves among the tall, uncut grass. The bulging mail box could not hold any more weight, as it was hanging by a single nail. Flowers and plants laid tired and wilted in their gardens, like terminal patients on their death beds. However, the dandelions were standing over a foot tall. A season's worth of Sunday newspapers were choking in a mud puddle.
The Fixer steps out of his car and approaches a zombie kneeling on a foam pad, pulling out dandelions.
“Thank goodness you're here. Please excuse my appearance, not much I can do about it. Hi, I'm Cynthia,” she pulls off a gardening glove. The Fixer shakes her hand carefully, as he doesn't want to accidentally pull anything out of socket, as zombies are fragile creatures. “But I'm sure this isn't new for you. I'm supposed to be in eternal rest but here I am-tending to the flower bed. He's inside the house.”
Her skin was white, peeling in layers like an onion. As she was trying to pull a huge thorny weed out of the flower bed, the Fixer noticed the bone in her elbow looked as though it could rip through the skin if she tugged a little too hard. Her blonde pageboy haircut, however, was immaculate.
The Fixer walked toward the front door before she could pull that weed so hard that it would make her fingers (with the remaining flesh stretched over it) fall apart inside her gloves.
“I'll be in soon to prepare lunch,” she hollered.
The Fixer shudders as the image of Caesar salad with fingertips crosses through his mind.
“Is she still there?”“Yes,” the Fixer accepts Clyde's second offering of chocolate chip cookies.
“I'm running out of tasks to give her. Luckily, the dandelions keep growing fast enough to keep her occupied for a while. I'm scared,” he sinks under the comforter.
“Something is making her stay,” thought the Fixer out loud. He gazes at Cynthia's husband, who has his hand down the ceramic cottage shaped cookie jar. In most zombie cases, it's either the person wanting the zombie to stay or the zombie wants to stay and take care of unfinished business.
“Do you have debts?” asked the Fixer.
“No,” Clyde answered.
“Did you hire someone kill her? Did you kill her?”
“No!”
“Just checking. Ruling out possibilities of why she might be hanging around. Did you two have children together? Was she writing a novel? Does she own a small business?”
“No to all.”
The Fixer looks at the towering stack of plates on the dresser, the remains of meals in the waste basket, and smelling a souring glass of milk hidden somewhere within the mess. “Can you cook?” asked the Fixer.
“No. I can barely work the toaster.”
The Fixer thinks about this, while Clyde goes on to say, “My mom keeps wanting to come over to do laundry and dishes but I tell her no. No one else can see her but me. So, how can I explain all the cooking and cleaning? I can't tell them that their daughter has come back from the grave”
“Give me just one moment,” the Fixer leaves the man in mid bite of a cookie.
A pile of drying dandelions laid next to a pair of shears. The front yard was now vacant, thanks to the agreement the Fixer made with the zombie wife. He exchanged goodbyes to the widower, got into his truck, wrote in his logbook, and then drove off to his next client.
Name: Mr. And Mrs. Clyde Bennington
Location: Winonya
Think: Wife is not really gone.
Thing: Zombie wife, tending to the needs of her still living husband.
Status: fixed pending as is
Comments: One detail remains unfixed, the cookie jar. His wife had a little bit of business to tend to, she expressed fear that her husband would starve if she left. She agreed that has long as she knows he has something to eat, she will not visit again.