Hannah — Everyone at the Funeral Was Me

I arrived late to a funeral in a garden I did not recognize. Every guest wore a black veil, and nobody would tell me who had died. At the front stood five women who looked exactly like me at different ages. The youngest carried my childhood backpack. Another wore the uniform from my first job. One held the coat from the winter of my worst breakup.

The oldest version of me carried a photograph of a house I had never seen. She said the funeral could not begin until I identified the body. When the coffin opened, it was empty except for a ringing alarm clock. The hands spun backward whenever I looked directly at them.

Each version of me placed something inside: a diary, an unopened wedding invitation, a resignation letter, a key, and a list of names I had once imagined giving to children. The oldest woman told me, ‘We cannot bury the future until you decide which past is over.’

The guests lifted their veils. Every face was mine, but each expression belonged to someone I had disappointed, pleased, avoided, or outgrown. The alarm stopped. From inside the empty coffin, someone knocked three times and whispered, ‘I am not dead yet. You are only afraid to become me.’

The coffin lid began closing. I reached inside and found another photograph—the same unknown house, now with a light on in one window. On the back was written, ‘Move-in date: whenever you stop attending your own endings.’ The garden gates opened, but every version of me waited to see which object I would take back. I woke before choosing.