Saving for a Special Occasion

The gift cards made her cry.  You get them for a special occasion, you save them for a special occasion, and then, one day, you've saved them too long and there they sit, waiting to be picked up by a relative who's trying to clear out all the crap you thought you couldn't live without and all the precious crap you saved for a day that never came.  All the precious crap and most of it became instantaneous garbage the moment you left.

Definitions

How difficult it is to keep caring about life.  Is that ennui or apathy?  Whatever.

Douglas G.

Douglas died in 1995.  Twenty-six years later, a former elementary school classmate tried searching his name again on the internet.  If you had told Douglas at any point while he was alive that someone in the future would be using a computer to search worldwide records for his name and picture, he may not have believed you.  He would have been fairly certain, however, that his obituary would be written by then.  By then, he was dead for three years longer than he had been alive.

Jessica thought it likely that he wouldn't have even remembered her.  After all, the last time they had seen each other was 5th grade.

Heart-Shaped Locket

When the patient in room 225 died, Hera was the one who found her.  As a nurse's aide, she knew the head nurse would page for "Dr. Blue", who wasn't a doctor at all, but rather code for death.  Hera had seen death before, of course.  She didn't think anyone in the world hadn't seen death by now.  But this one stopped her.

The woman looked peaceful.  Her face was smoother than it had been and she seemed to finally sleep.  It was probably because the pain was gone.  No more furrowed brow or pinched lips.  No more tensed muscles or fretful movements, trying desperately to find a position that was comfortable.  The sheets were draped and smooth, as if the woman knew she was about to die and straightened them herself.

Hera stepped closer.  The woman's hair had been brushed--how had that happened?  Did she brush her own hair, too?  The hospital gown was clean.  Perhaps the night shift had changed and cleaned her.  The woman's hands were folded, one atop the other, calmly, neatly.  Hera couldn't stop staring.  Most in the hospital died in agony.  Most were covered in the filth of the end, their hands clawing at their own faces, at the air, at the inevitable.

She never touched the dead, but Hera found herself reaching.  She lay her hand atop the woman's.  They were cool and smooth.  Hera held the woman's hand.  As she finally pulled her hand away, she felt the necklace chain.  How could she forget?  The woman always wore a heart-shaped locket.  She had screamed herself raw when a nurse tried to remove it.  Since the woman was at the stage where she could no longer speak, they could only speculate.  Children?  Parents?  Spouse?

The locket slid easily from the woman's hands.  Hera opened it.

Outliving Old Friends

An old woman creaked onto the bus and lowered herself carefully into the first row.  Halle sat a few rows back and wondered what it would be like when her first friend died of old age.  Unless, her mind wandered towards the idea, she would be the first.  She made herself long-lived and killed off her friend Nora at the age of 89, which she felt was pretty good.  You can't complain if you manage to hit 89.  Halle imagined herself mourning each of her friends, wearing black to their funerals, and being patted for her losses as everyone she knew dropped away into time.

Common Ground 1

The phone ringer was on too loudly, but Claire didn't want to miss the phone call she didn't want to have.  Claire and James both startled out of their nap, but she was on her feet and answering even as James groaned and rolled over.

It wasn't the call.

Claire felt sick anyway and pushed memories and sadness and worry down deep again as she hung up on a telemarketing robocall, cursing them for scaring her.  Irrationally, she wanted to write to whatever company it was to tell them it was cruel to call her uselessly and make her think her father may be dead.  She pushed the thoughts away again and concentrated on blissful ignorance.

Inspiration #4

A mass grave was found in the Gundersons' backyard when Harry's Pools had only halfway dug their dream kidney-shaped in-ground.  The discovery put the kibosh on hopes for a sparkling, sun-drenched summer basking on nylon and aluminum chaise lounge chairs.  While Lauren and Steve decided who to sue, an archaeological team had the front loader backhoe removed and replaced the heavy-handed scoop with the tiniest of shovels, the teeniest of picks, and regular-sized toothbrushes.  Steve swirled the ice around his rocks glass and stared through the patio door at the dusty brown figures ruining his plans.

Inspired by "The Specialist's Hat" by Kelly Link:
"When you're dead," Samantha says, "you don't have to brush your teeth..."

If you were a shoe, what kind would you be?

He was beyond indignities.  Whatever could be done to him had been, and he was simply tired of the time that stretched in front of him.  He shuffled slowly, partly because he had nowhere to go, and partly because the shoes on his feet didn't fit.  Cars beeped, but couldn't get him to raise a hand.  He shuffled, and waited for the end of his time.

If you could change one thing in the world, what would you change and why?

It was nearly Pandemic Day and we were very excited because this was the Bicentennial and it was going to be extra special.

If you had to perform some talent for us today, what would you do? What does your talent mean to you?

"Jorah slipped and fell into the gorge.  I can't see him anywhere.  I can't get down to him."  Filan was flushed and panting, having run the entire distance back to the Hall after his friend disappeared, hands scrabbling and useless, down the steep embankment to the rocks he knew were below.

Donno the Blacksmith was in conference with Hammon, so the Council's leader asked Donno to fetch other strong men and as long a rope as possible.  Even as he began the trek back to the gorge following the distraught Filan, Hamm began composing what he'd say to Prince Edman, Jorah's father.  At least they could bring up the boy's body to identify.  Other, lesser folk who had fallen, or jumped, into the gorge had only been left, buried only by rockfall.

How do you define integrity?

These grave sites tell a story, each of them as unique as the person buried beneath.  Not all that's on top reflects the person below at first glance, though, so don't be afraid of the dark stones or the gnarled trees or the withered grass.  The top reflects the living as much if not more than the dead.

Pageant Question: Who do you think will be the first woman to become president? Why?

I remember learning in Ancient History that when faced with the first knowledge of what they called "alien" life, Earthlings went to war with each other.  Leaky, I know, but that's what they did!  War used to happen a lot on Earth, and the reasons were both complex and animalistic.  Earthlings didn't like change, and they were intensely self-absorbed.  Individual Earthlings were self-absorbed, and their increasingly larger tribes were self-absorbed.  They had family tribes and community tribes and religious tribes and belief tribes and national tribes not to mention a starload of sub-tribes.  The change that came from the "aliens" shook up all those tribes.  It's ridiculous to think how many they killed while fighting change.  The word "eventually" is a horrible way to skip over those decades of death, but eventually Earthlings created a panel able to handle their new, galactic world.

Pageant Question 28: How have you been active in protecting the environment?

Albert Einstein was wrong.  When the honey bee population died out, humans did not go extinct.  At least, we haven't yet.  Life did become infinitely more difficult, however.  Of all the disaster scenarios predicted by climatologists and anthropologists and sociologists and any group that conservatives would have called "tree huggers", none contained the mass extinction of so-called lesser animals in so short a time period.  None contained the scenario that other animals and insects that normally wouldn't be problems would suddenly surge in population and become deadly to humans.

Pageant Question 23: What is your feeling about the saying, “The grass is always greener on the other side.”

The first death I attended was that of my cat, Iggy.  He was old, but in such great health right up until the end, it didn't seem right that he had to die.  He was clearly unhappy about it, too, but there was nothing left to do but sit by his side.  I was ten, and he was eight years my senior.  I was compelled to keep watch and stroke his back; everyone else was at the Harvest Fair, but I had refused to go.  My step-sisters laughed at me, and I remember it was the first time I applied the word "heartless" to anyone.  I knelt over Iggy as he hissed, drew his last breath, and exhaled gently one final time.  I don't know why I did it, but as he exhaled, I leaned over Iggy's face and breathed in deeply, pulling his last into me.  At that moment, a light flared in my mind, and I saw his soul.  It's the only way I can explain it.  It was not a version of my cat in my imagination, nor was it a ghostly film, but an impression in my mind of Iggy's essence, and I knew that what made him Iggy was forever.  My ability has developed since, and it has been both a blessing and a curse at times, but I will always remember my beautiful furry brother and I will always be proud that he was my first connection to the other side of life.

Pageant Question 8: What one thing do you want people to remember about you at the end of your life?

Hadal was the eldest member of the tribal community, and he was dying.  He knew he was dying; he know a lot of things, though he didn't often have the words for them.  Hadal had kept his tribe safe through the years by his daily observations of the winds and sky, by his implementation of a scout system, and by his ability to find the underlying causes behind events.  Most in his tribe thought Hadal was in communication with the gods, and that he was given special knowledge, but he knew that anyone could do what he did, if only they would take a moment to think.

At this moment, Hadal was sitting in one of his favorite places along an overlook on the clifftop.  There was a tree and a stone and he leaned back in the angle they made and thought.  Hadal thought further forward than he had ever thought before, and he imagined the generations of decedents of his people.  He imagined what they would do based on what they would need when more children were born, and more elderly lived longer, as Hadal had lived longer than his parents, who had lived longer than their parents.  The elder imagined a future that he could not even name, and he saw the wind blowing the dust.  He saw the clifftop where he sat worn by the wind.  He saw the river that gave them life eating the world.  He saw the clouds gather and release, relentlessly through births and deaths.  He saw the world washed and his people taken.

He let these images wash over him, like the warm wind was at that moment, and he sat until the next thought came as it always did.  It was a question: what would remain?

365

Tyra had left their group ages ago, so long that they had just about stopped wondering what had happened to her.  The relief of her being gone had been enough for them to discuss for days, but days to weeks to however long it had been meant the stories about her had run their courses.  Once in a while, Jen might snipe at Baxter, or, perhaps, Ross would put on a superior air, and the others would call a "Tyra" to diffuse the situation.  Nobody wanted to be a Tyra.  Though she had been tiring, annoying, and even dangerous, they still felt a sense of guilt when they found her body lodged under a cement pipe outside a crumbling, half-completed construction.

364

The end of it all,
will there be burning
When the end finally comes,
will we still be here
At the end of me,
will you bear witness
At the end of you,
how can I ever be the same
All beginnings have an end,
or that is what we see
It's a limitation of humankind
to follow time only so far
The end of it all,
is it illusion
Or is end just the beginning
and we will meet again.

(Sorry about this being poetry, but I gotta go with the flow of whatever happens.  Only one more "Once Upon a Time" left!)

362

"Every child needs to experience the final loss, Carter.  That's why you're here."  Grandpa Henry's barn was dark in the corners, a single, bare bulb swinging from its cord near the door made the shadows grow and shrink.  Carter shivered in the clothes he threw on over his pajamas when his grandfather woke him.  There was a small noise somewhere in the dark.  "Come on, boy.  You've got to watch."  Carter pressed backwards, against his grandfather's large hand, but there would be no resisting his strong, farmer's push.

352

Doug woke early, having to pee.  He peered myopically at his alarm clock, telling himself that if it was still before eight, he could go back to sleep.  It was seven.  Doug made sure he threw the covers closed again so the bed would stay warm, and he shuffled into his moccasins, crossed his small room in two steps and  opened the door to the dark hallway.  He was so glad to be back home and away from his crazy mother.

When his parents were divorcing, his mother had uprooted him from the city in which he had been raised and pulled him as far from his father as they could get, to his grandmother's house.  Doug loved his grandmother, but moving to a tiny town in rural Pennsylvania, being dragged out of school in the middle of his extremely awkward freshman year, and having his family torn in two was devastating.  The more he lived alone with his mother without his father's influence, the more he resented her and the more he understood why his father would cheat on her.  For three years he endured his mother's faint heart and weeping and bitterness.

Doug was what was called a late bloomer.  He was short, pudgy, and his voice hadn't changed yet.  He believed it was because of his mother, and lack of contact with his father, that had stunted him.  In his junior year of high school, he took the GED instead of enduring another year of mockery.  In a finally deepening voice, he announced his intention to move back home, to the city, with his father.

His mother wept, of course.  "Your father won't want you back," she announced.  "He loves his freedom."

"He already said he wants me back."  Doug stood, defiant.  He had been secretly calling his father and arranging it all behind his mother's back.  When he told her, she accused him of the same kind of deception as his father.  Doug was secretly proud.  His father picked him up himself, driving a new vintage Volvo.  They took the winding roads back home at top speed.

Doug had been back with his father for just under a year when he woke a seven in the morning in his old room, mattress on the floor and clothes in a pile simply because his mother never would have allowed it.  His eyes were only half open when he got to the bathroom door and found it closed.  He knocked lightly, "Dad?  Gotta pee."  Without an answer, Doug turned the knob and was only able to push the door open a couple of inches before it bumped to a stop.  "Sorry!"  Without a response, Doug blinked the sleep from his eyes and pushed harder at the door, shoving his father's arm and shoulder enough to poke his head inside.  His father lay on the floor, unmoving.  Cold.  Dead of a massive heart attack.

348

Hospitals made June sad, but old people going into hospitals made her sadder.  Not the ones being brought in for medical attention, but rather the old people going in to visit.  June slowed as she walked to her routine mammogram appointment in the imaging center of the hospital to avoid getting too close to an old man entering with a bouquet of flowers.  His life flashed before June's eyes, and she saw him visiting his wife who would never leave her room alive.  The old man patting her hand for the last time.  Kissing her forehead.  Going home and never seeing his love again in this world.  June clutched her purse to her chest and started to run.