The Returning Soul

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It was early in the morning, around 6:30 p.m., when Ella's soul got up from the bed to meet her family in grief, her mom was crying so loudly while her dad was comforting her. She didn't understand why they were in grief until she saw her other self lying on the bed.

"Am I dead?"
She muttered, looking and touching her ethereal body. She saw that she was in a white gown while the body on the bed was in pyjamas.
Confusion and fear engulfed her as she watched her grieving family with tears streaming down their faces. She attempted to touch her mother's shoulder, longing to offer her comfort, but her ethereal hand simply passed through.

"So this is real," she said in a sober tone. She understood the truth with a heavy heart. She was dead, and her soul had awakened to a reality she could barely comprehend.

She shifted closer to the bed and laid down in the exact position of her mortal body in a bid to revive the body, but nothing worked. She got up, feeling angry.
The desire to return to her body consumed her thoughts, but it quickly became apparent that it was an impossibility.

"No way, I must find a way to return to this body before I'm buried," she said as she left the room.

She began to wander through the house, a ghostly figure drifting through familiar spaces. She listened to the conversations of her mourning family, yearning to console them while remaining an unseen presence. She watched her father weep silently in his study, her little sister clutching a photograph of them together, and her mother sobbing uncontrollably as she held onto Ella's favourite childhood book.

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Determined to find a way to return to her body, Ella's soul ventured outside to the street, hoping that the world beyond her home would hold some answers. She glided through the streets, her translucent form totally invisible to the living, searching for any sign or clue that could lead her back to the warmth of her mortal existence.

As she was roaming around, passing in the midst of people, an elderly woman who was trying to lift a bucket on her head beckoned on her to help her, "Please, my daughter, help me lift this bucket on my head."

She became shocked. She looked around to see if she was actually the one the Mama was talking to.

"Please help me," the woman said again while bent over, expecting her to help her lift the bucket.

"Mama, can you see me?" She asked in surprise.

"See you? Is this not you I'm seeing?" The mama replied.

Her eyes widened in surprise. She bent down to help her carry the bucket, but her hands passed through the bucket.

"You're dead?" Mama asked immediately after she noticed how her hand passed through the bucket.

"Yes, I am, but how you're able to see and talk to me is what I'm surprised at," Ella's soul replied.
Mama smiled and replied, "I'm able to see you because I was once like you."

"What do you mean?" she asked, but Mama shushed her because she noticed that people were seeing her talk to the air.

Mama begged another passerby to help her lift the bucket on her head. After she had been helped, She held Ella's soul in her hand and took her to her house.

When they got to her house, a one-room apartment that had everything well arranged inside. Mama sat on the bed while Ella's soul rushed her with the questions she had been waiting for an answer to, "So, you said you were like me, how? What happened? If you were once dead, how did you come back to life?"

Mama sighed and began to narrate,
"I died in a fatal motor accident when I was 31years. It wasn't my time of death, so I began to roam on earth like you're doing right now, until I met a spiritual man who offered to help me get back to my mortal body. He gave me a very small bottle containing a liquid and instructed that once I take it, I must rush back to my mortal body before it's buried, but if I can't make it, then I would have to live as a visible ghost to humans that don't know me in a very far land, and the day any of my relatives identifies me, that would be the end of my existence. I followed his instructions, took the liquid but before I could get to where my mortal body was, it had been buried. So, this is where I find myself—a ghost living a normal life in this land. I've spent 10 years already here."

"Mama, where can I get the liquid? Do you have some? Where can I find the priest?" Ella's soul asked all these at the speed of light.

"I still have it, but first of all, what happened to you?" The mama asked

"Please give me!" Out of joy, she pleaded in a slight high tone.

"Not until you tell me what happened to you," she said as she lay on the bed, expecting Ella's soul to narrate her ordeal.

"Mama, please, if I don't make it home on time, I may not meet my mortal body. I died this morning and because I'm a teenager, they'll go and bury me straight away instead of putting me in the Mortuary," she continued to plead.

Upon hearing that she was in a critical position, Mama got up, brought out the box in which she keeps her clothes, and brought out the small bottle containing the liquid.

Ella's soul stretched forth her hands to receive it, but her hands passed through it
"Oooooh God!" She screamed out of frustration.

Mama got up on her feet, shifted closer to her, used her hands to open her mouth, and poured the liquid inside her mouth.

"Go now!" Mama said to her, and Ella's soul picked a race, running with the speed of light and hoping to meet her body unburied.

Within a few minutes, she got to the compound and met series of cars packed outside, which got her scared.

With speed, she passed through the block wall fence and met multitudes in the compound. They were about to take her to the cemetery to be buried.

She passed through the building's block wall to her room, where her body was lying.
They had bathed her and dressed her in the finest of her clothes, with cotton wool on her nostrils, ears, and mouth. She didn't waste time, she hopped in and laid in the exact position on her body, and immediately she sneezed.

She got up, removed the cotton wool from her nostrils, mouth, and ears, and walked to the parlour to meet her parents.

"Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" All of them screamed upon seeing her and they dispersed in fear.
"Mummy it's me!" She screamed begging them to stay put but the shock of seeing a ghost was unbearable.
When they ran out of the house, the crowd waiting for them outside also diffused with shouts of "ghost! ghost! ghost!".

But at the end of the day, the parents were able to settle their fears and saw that it was really Ella and not a ghost.

Unfortunately, she could not remember the journey she went through in returning back to her body.