She had always been a crazy, risk-taking, kind of a kid.
Her young playmates had always loved her for it. It was nothing to see her walking across the roof of their house, or in the nearby playground, at the top of the tallest tree, swaying around on the thinnest of branches.
Her mother said that Wagner had a lot to do with her aggressive, carefree nature. The girl had been taken to an opera when she was young. Without understanding much of it, she loved the idea of these heroic female warriors being given special treatment when they were taken to the afterlife. Her father was only too keen to pass on all of the lurid details. From that time on, her expensive poster hung on her bedroom wall. The warring figure waving a mighty sword, sitting astride a great white horse, its wings spread wide, carrying the warrior into battle.
At night, she would dream of entering the hall of the fallen, taken their by Odin’s attending maidens, to be honoured as a chosen warrior. These fantasies became more and more real and it was around this time that the drugs really took hold.
As she grew into her late teenage years she bragged openly about being able to cheat the grim reaper. Her friends listened wide-eyed to her boasting, always giving the impression that they shared her feelings. However, it was that delicious mixture of absolute dread and the elation of pure ecstasy coming together as one that drove her on. Only she could properly understand it.
Then came the scooter; not powerful, but pretty nippy. She refused to wear the helmet her parents had bought her. Nordic riders didn’t wear them, and that was that!
On that wet Saturday evening when both wheels slid sideways at the same time, she fell so heavily that she barely saw the truck.
Valhalla wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting.