Science Fiction

Ghosts 12

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The symphony hall was not far away.  There was a little time yet before the concert since the sun had just about set.  They spent the time looking at the posters and reading about the season’s offering, and Nathan confessed that he used to have season tickets.

“I had to give it up when my ears started to go,” he said.  “God knows that when you get older, all of the senses start to go, one by one.”

“Can you hear me now?”  Mya whispered.

“Yes, I can.”  Nathan whispered back, and she laughed again.  Nathan thought it was a great pleasure to hear her laugh and he wondered if she might be ticklish.  She was, and in short order they were both on their knees laughing as hard as any two people had ever laughed.  Finally, as Nathan got hold of himself, Mya had a thought.

“Oh, but I have never heard a symphony before.  Mother only listened to country music.  What exactly is a symphony?”

“What is a symphony?”  Nathan puffed.  “What is a symphony?”  He grabbed her hand, pulled her to her feet and rushed her inside.  They snitched a program and ran up the stairs to the box seats, Nathan hoped that the performance had not sold out.  “I used to sit here,” Nathan said as he caught his breath.  He was certainly under forty-years-old by then, but not by all that much.  Mya, not winded at all, had to be maybe and finally an honest eighteen, maybe.

In the hall outside the box they found a man, a ghost dressed in old fashioned clothes, sitting by the entrance to the box seats, leaning against the wall. Nathan was inclined to ignore the man, but the man looked up at the couple and spoke.

“Haven’t seen you two here before.”

Nathan moved Mya to his other arm so she would be further from the man and closer to the stairs, then he thought he could be friendly, but Mya spoke first. “Do you like the symphony?”

The man shrugged. “The music helps me sleep.”

Nathan looked at the man’s clothes and asked a different question. “Hoe long have you been here?”

The man shrugged again. “Must be a couple of years by now.”

Nathan imagined he had been there considerably longer than a couple of years.

“Why would you sleep?” Mya asked. “We have a whole world to explore. Nathan is taking me to the symphony for the first time ever.”

“Why should I care? What difference does it make?” The man shrugged a third time. “I spent my whole life doing as little as I could get away with. I did not see any point in doing more. Then I died, and now I think it is all pointless.”

Nathan shook his head. “The world is full of wonders,” he said, and Mya nodded. “I’m sorry you can’t see that.”

“Buzz off,” the man responded, shifted a bit in his seat to get in a more comfortable position, and shut his eyes. He said one more thing. “I keep hoping to go to sleep and never wake up again.” He clearly shut them out. He would be snoring by the time the music started, and Nathan thought it best to take Mya into the box seats.

“There is nothing we can do for the man,” Nathan said as much to himself as to Mya.

“We can pray for him,” Mya said, and Nathan nodded and added the man to his ever increasing prayer list.

They sat and Nathan explained all he could about Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, and then after an intermission there was going to be a waltz by Strauss and a piece by Mahler.  By the time he finished, the hall began to fill up, and Mya began to get excited.  Nathan gave her hand a fatherly pat as if to say, just wait, when an older woman came to sit in his seat.  Mya nudged him and he got up as quickly as he could, but not quick enough.  The woman’s shoulder went right through his shoulder.

The woman paused and looked at the ceiling as if searching for the air conditioning vent.  She pulled her shawl up fully around her shoulder and took the next chair over so Nathan got to sit down again.  Mya tried to hold back a laugh and Nathan wiped his brow.  “That was close.”  He spoke to the woman, but of course, the woman heard nothing.  He turned back to Mya but she hushed him.  The orchestra started warming up and the lights were going down.  Beethoven was wonderfully done.  Nathan could not resist pointing out his favorite part in the piece, but he saw Mya moved to tears, so he really did not need to say anything.  When the piece finished, he thought that Mya applauded more than anyone, and then came the intermission.

The old woman beside them did not look like she was going to move, so Nathan politely said, “Excuse us,” even if she could not respond.  Of course, their legs inevitably went through her legs, and Mya stopped them at the curtain for a moment to watch.  The woman bent down as if searching for the source of the breeze.  She pulled her dress all the way down to cover her legs.  Mya did finally giggle a little, but Nathan heard no little girl sound in it.

When they got downstairs, they found it very crowded and very difficult to get around without walking through people.  Several men turned up their collars at the sudden cold, and some women adjusted their shawls and sweaters, but really, Nathan and Mya disrupted very little.  Nathan felt bad, briefly, that he could not get them some of that famous watered down orange drink.  They found the water fountain but Mya said that even in the hospital all she could do was wet her lips.  The lights flashed and that startled Mya for a moment.  She grabbed on to Nathan, but he assured her it was nothing to worry about.  They went back up the stairs, more slowly than the first time, but when they arrived, even as the orchestra began to warm up once more, they saw that two late arrivals were sitting in their seats.

Nathan had a thought, and without saying anything, Mya asked, “What is it?”  She was beginning to know him rather well, too, and she could read the excitement etched across his face and eyes.

“Come on.”  That was all he said, and they were off, running again, going down the stairs two at a time.  The lights were off by the time they broke into the orchestra seating.  They reached the stage as the applause for the conductor abated.  Nathan dragged Mya right up on the stage.  She looked more than once, nervously at the crowd, even if she knew the audience could not see her.  By the time the first strains of the waltz began, he had her in the back corner of the stage, opposite the percussion section, where they had some room to move around.

“What is it?”  Mya finally insisted.

Nathan smiled and lifted his left hand.  “The waltz,” he said.  “We should be dancing.”

“Oh.”  Mya put her hand to her mouth.  “But I’ve never danced like that before,” she protested.

“Then time you learned young lady.  Come, come.”  He insisted.  She took his hand and he lifted her other hand to his shoulder while he set his hand gently on her waist.  “Just do what I do.”  He said, and they bumped legs.  “I mean the opposite.  When I step forward, you step back.”

“Oh.”  Mya turned a little red and decided her only recourse was to keep looking into Nathan’s eyes.  He looked into her eyes as well and waited for the right time to start, and then they waltzed.  She seemed so unsure at first, but it did not take long before she got it.  The waltz was not a complicated dance.  By the end of the Strauss piece, Mya moved with delight, so gracefully and effortlessly, Nathan felt a bit awkward as only a man can feel when dancing with a beautiful young woman.  He stepped back at the end to look at her.  Her school clothes were gone and she appeared dressed in a lovely gown, all pink and sparkling and a little bit low cut, he thought.  He still had on his suit, but his shirt appeared tight and spotless.  The suit looked like it just came from the dry cleaners and he wore a tie.  He had not worn a tie in years

Then it was over and while the people applauded, Nathan leaned over and kissed Mya’s cheek, and she kissed his.  Nathan thought of this as dancing with his daughter on her wedding day.  That was a dance he never got to have.  She ran away when she turned eighteen, and when she came home, she already married.  Not that she eloped, though.  She lived with the scum for two years first.

Mya thought something quite different.  She still had to get a little on her tip-toes, though not much, and she kissed him softly right on the lips.  “You could be my boyfriend,” she said.

Nathan’s eyes got big for a minute before he grabbed her hand roughly and dragged her backstage and down the hall.  They went out the stage door, actually walking right through it without realizing it.  She shouted the whole way, “Let go, let go!” and tugged against his big hand.  He did not speak but thought terrible things.  When he got her outside, he found some stacks of crates in the alley and he threw her down to sit on a crate, not to hurt her, but to not take no for an answer.  Then he spoke.

“Stop it.”  He shook a finger in her face.  “I’m eighty-four and you are just seven years old.”  He knew that was a lie when he said it, but his mind still told him that.  “I don’t mind being your grandfather.  I don’t even mind being your father, but I’ll have no talk about boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“And why not?”  She shot right back at him, not intimidated in the least.

“Because I’m too old for you, I mean way too old,” he yelled.

“Don’t you think that is for me to decide?”

“You can decide anything you like.  I don’t care.”

“Well, I don’t care either.  I don’t need you hanging around, you know.”

“Oh no?  Where are you going to go?”

“I don’t know.”  Mya shrugged.  “What do you care?”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I don’t care either.  I’m grown up and I can take care of myself.  I don’t need you.”  She folded her arms, turned her head and stubbornly refused to look at him.  Nathan paused.  He just realized something he had overlooked.

“But I need you,” he said, softly.  “Your insight and willingness to go through all of this no matter what is the only thing that has kept me going.”

“Really?”  Mya asked.  She turned back to face him her eyes grew terribly wide with surprise.

“Really,” Nathan confirmed, and he lowered his eyes, unwilling to look into hers.

Mya got up and put her hands on his arms, not hugging him exactly, but inviting a hug.  He responded by squeezing the breath out of her, and she found a few tears.  “But don’t you know?” she said.  “You saved my life.”

“I tried to.”  His answer suggesting that he failed.

“No, I mean really.  I thought you were nice from the very beginning, and I was right.  I was wonderfully right.  Don’t you know you are the most wonderful man in the whole world?”

“Hardly,” he said and looked once again into her eyes and loved her smile.

A voice came from overhead where there were likely some apartments, though they could not see a speaker in the dark.  “Hey, buddy!  Could you keep it down?”

Another voice joined the chorus.  “Take her home and screw her brains out, you’ll both feel better in the morning.”

“Come on,” Nathan said and Mya went right with him.  That last was certainly a line he was not going to cross, but the taking her home bit made some sense.  His condo sat not all that far away, and they walked hand in hand, but both were quiet.  Neither seemed willing to bring up the boyfriend-girlfriend thing again; but in Mya’s heart, that was the way it was already, and Nathan kept telling himself it could never be that way.

Ghosts 11

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

After that experience, neither felt any desire or need to return again to the scene of the accident—the name they finally settled on calling it.  Nathan decided that they needed something good to do, so he led them to a nearby garden which he knew and which always seemed to have something in bloom, and certainly at that time of year promised plenty.

While they walked, Mya found a question that started with her short summary of recent events.  “So, the suicide bomber thought he would go straight to paradise, but he didn’t.  That young man thought God owed him tons of good, but nothing happened there.  The minster refused to believe that he was not already perfect, though he was still stuck on a park bench, and the burly man refused to believe in anything at all, even if his own experience proved the opposite of what he was saying.  I don’t get it?  Why don’t they just say, I was wrong and get on with it?”

Nathan looked at Mya and slipped his arm over her shoulder.  She responded by placing hers around his waist. She looked up at him like a girl might look up to her father to explain the hard bumps and curves of life in a way that she could understand.

“I have made plenty of mistakes in my time, and I have generally admitted them, but for most people these days that is not how the world works,” Nathan began.  He paused for a moment while he remembered a story.  “There was a woman in church way back when Mildred and I were going.  I remember whenever the preacher started talking about sin; she would arch her back and give him terrible stares.  I heard her once going out the door in front of us.  Even as she shook the preacher’s hand she said, “Some of us don’t think of ourselves as sinners.”

“But that’s crazy,” Mya said.

“But she was absolutely sincere.  You see, the world has become a very hard and fast place.  If you admit doing something wrong, and especially if you apologize and say you are sorry, most people see that as a weakness, as something they can hold over your head and manipulate you with.  Consequently, most people will never admit a mistake even if they know better, and they will never, ever say they are sorry.  Do you follow what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” Mya said.  “You are telling me the whole world has gone crazy.”

“Maybe the world is crazy.”  He would not object to that description.  “But it gets really bad when you think that no one can ever start over.  You see, when you admit the wrong and apologize, you get over it and it gives you the chance to try something else, something different or new; but if you never admit that you were wrong, you get stuck.  It’s kind of like telling a lie, and then trying to cover it up with another lie, and then another.  If you don’t confess, you never get over it.  It just gets worse and worse.”  Then Nathan added another thought.  “I think the whole problem with every one of those men is they are unwilling to admit that they were wrong.”

“What about you?”  Mya asked.

Nathan leaned over and rubbed his knuckles gently, lovingly really on the top of her head.  He spoke instantly.  “Sorry.  That was wrong of me.”

Mya pinched him in the roll he still had around his stomach and caused him to yelp.  “That might have been wrong of me.’  Mya grinned.  “But I’m not sorry.”

Nathan grinned right back at her.

When they arrived at the garden, Nathan did not feel disappointed.  It looked as beautiful as he remembered.

“It’s lovely,” Mya remarked.  “So charming and quaint.”  She tried out the words, and then she tried something else.  She got on her tip-toes, steadied herself with a hand on Nathan’s arm, and she kissed Nathan right on the cheek.  She smiled as she stared at him with true love and affection in her eyes.  No one would have ever guessed that a day ago they were complete strangers.

Nathan coughed to bring her back to the flowers.  He also took her to a bench where they sat and drew in the myriad of scents.  Mya kept saying how beautiful everything was, and she got up a couple of times to take a closer look when she saw a more distant flower with a new color.   Nathan could hardly bring himself to move at all.  He felt amazed at being able to catch all of the aromas, which were indeed beautiful, and he found he could even pull out the scent of one or more flowers independently from all the rest.  Poor Nathan could hardly smell anything after the age of seventy-five or so.  Now, the return of this most vital sense positively overwhelmed him with pleasure.

He got startled out of his reverie when he heard Mya let out a little shriek.  He bolted to her side, his first run in more than twenty years, but he found her delighted, indeed, enchanted, and not in danger as he feared.

“Look.”  Mya pointed, and they saw a kind of light fluttering around one of the flowers.  Nathan looked again, and he noticed that there were several lights in that corner of the garden.  Then he looked closer and gave his new, wonderful eyes their first real workout.  He saw a little human-like figure with wings, a figure no bigger than a hummingbird hovering over a rose.  He noticed, because the light right then noticed him.

“Fairies.”  Mya named them and she clasped her hands together in pure delight.  Obviously her seven-year-old world view had no trouble accepting such things.  But that was not fair, Nathan thought, because she was clearly now more like seventeen, and he knew it.

One part of Nathan’s mind tried to say that fairies were impossible, but it another piece of his mind parted the silence of his lips.  “I knew it,” he said.  “I always knew this universe was not the way I was taught.”  Mya looked curious, so he explained.  “Like the burly man.  We were all taught that this earth was no more than dead matter and energy, that our minds, our consciousness, mere accidents of nature.”  Mya shook her head as if that did not make any sense, especially in light of their experience.  “But somehow, deep inside, I always knew the universe was alive, everywhere.  I bet there are all sorts of things in the real world about which the living with their closed matter and energy minds have no idea.”  He concluded, and Mya nodded as if to say that now she understood.

The fairy flew up to Mya’s face and then Nathan’s face, and finally began to fly around them in a circle of streaming pink light.  Other fairies were attracted to this and joined in adding gold, lavender and pale blue lights to the mix.  Round and round they went, faster and faster so that Mya and Nathan could not keep up and began to get dizzy.  The two humans drew closer to each other, and eventually held on tight.  They got as close as they could lest they inadvertently bumped one of the speeding fairies which they could no longer distinguish from the light.  Then the circles of light began to rise and for a second, Mya and Nathan thought they were going to rise with it; but as soon as the circles got above their heads, they began to contract in size.  They became smaller and smaller circles until it came to a single point and the light and the fairies vanished altogether.

Mya clapped her hands and squealed with delight.  If she had been younger, like closer to actually being seven, she probably could not have resisted making the sound.  Nathan stood with his mouth open in wonder.  It was the most glorious sight he had ever seen!  Then he remembered the angel and said to himself, the second most glorious.

Nathan started to let go of Mya, though he felt very comfortable holding her in that way.  Mya also did not seem to want to let go, but they did, and Nathan had a terrific thought.  He held out his hand, palm up as he spoke.

“Would my lady care to attend the symphony with me this evening?”

“Yes.”  Mya spoke a bit loud and much too quickly.  “A date?” she asked.

Nathan shrugged off the implication even if he could not stop smiling.  “No, no,” he said.  “You are supposed to say, “Yes, My Lord.  I would be delighted.”  And then you put your hand, palm on my palm, and give a little curtsey while I bow.

Mya laughed briefly at the idea, and it sounded like no little girl giggle.  She offered her hand and spoke as requested, and then Nathan drew her in to hold his arm again and noted that she was now as tall as his shoulder, and then just a little bit more.

************************

MONDAY the symphony, a night of tears, and a morning of surprises. Until next week, Happy Reading

*

Ghosts 10

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

They found a second gate that let them out of the fenced area down closer to the actual scene of the accident.  Nathan felt reluctant to lead them past the angry young man again, though he added that man and the minister to his prayer list, even if that list started growing rather long.  He knew the angel only asked him to pray for the terrorist, the young suicide, and he was tempted not to worry about the others, but he also knew that Mya’s prayer list had gotten very long and that she prayed regularly, if not continually for them all.  He could only imagine her asking God to love and help others in a completely kindhearted, loving and selfless way, and he thought that perhaps that might be another lesson the grown-up world could learn from the young.

They saw the man as soon as they got through the gate.  He paced back and forth on the edge of the street.  Nathan had no trouble identifying the man as the big, burly fellow who moved up at the last to sit behind him.  “What is it, friend?” he asked without hesitation, feeling very gregarious with Mya so close beside him.

The man turned to face them and Mya gasped and buried her face in Nathan’s side.  The man was missing the side of his face, down to the bone, and including his eye.  His right hand was missing almost up to the elbow, and the stump looked like a bloody mess that appeared to be festering.  The man recognized them right away, too, though his vision of them seemed a little skewed through that one good eye.  “The old man and the little kid.  What are you, a hundred and something?  And Kid, you must be, what, four or five?”

“I’m eighteen.”  Mya picked an age, though she probably was not that old yet.  “And he isn’t a day over forty,” though he probably was.  She brushed Nathan’s hair again behind his ears and this time he did not mind at all.

The big, burly man stared at them for a moment and Nathan prepared to run and drag Mya after him if necessary.  He felt a bit surprised that the man did not respond to her teenaged flippancy with anger.  Instead he looked up and threw out his good hand.  “What is wrong with everybody?”  He shouted to the sky.  “So tell me this.  When is the ambulance going to get here?  I could die before they show up.”

Mya and Nathan looked at each other with the most curious expressions.  It was Mya who spoke.  “But we are already dead.”

The man frowned as far as they could tell from what lips were left.  “Don’t be stupid.  We can’t already be dead.”

A woman took that moment to come by on the sidewalk.  The burly man jumped out in front of her and began screaming.  He raised his arms, including his stump and yelled.  “Would you get me a fucking ambulance!”  Mya and Nathan were repulsed by the man’s anger, but not as shocked as they were by the woman’s response.  She screamed which made Mya burry her face again a bit deeper in Nathan’s arm to prevent her own scream.  And then the woman shrieked something about a ghost and she hurried off back the way she came.  It was the woman’s terror that Nathan and Mya felt most of all, and as strongly as they felt the cruelty in the woman with the puppy.  Nathan suddenly felt glad that they had not spent much time around many living people since the accident.  It reminded him, once again, that he and Mya had become very sensitive to the disposition of the souls of the living.

“Damn selfish bitch,” the burly man said.  “Can’t she see that I need help?”

“Why not?”  Mya looked up again, now that the feeling of fear had passed, and she genuinely seemed confused.  “I mean, we are already dead.  Why can’t we be dead?”

“Eh?”  They had the man’s attention again.

“You said we can’t possibly be dead.”  Nathan reminded the man.

“Because missy.”  He spoke to Mya.  “If we were dead we would no longer exist.”

“Not if there is a God,” Mya said forthrightly.

“Maybe the spirit can survive after death.”  Nathan tried to add his own thoughts but stopped when the burly man’s frown deepened and a little piece of lip fell to the ground.  This caused Mya to hide her eyes a third time.

“Don’t give me that sky-god crap and all that spiritual mumbo-jumbo.  That’s all just so much shit and you know it.”

“No.  I know the spirit can live after death.”  Nathan sounded completely certain about that, obviously, and his words reflected his certainty.

“If you believe that, you’re an idiot.”  The man walked to the back of a parked car.  “Look, I know what is real and what isn’t.  It’s like this car is real.”  He pounded on the hood, and though in fact he put his hand right through the hood, but there was no doubt he thought he pounded on it.  “Science tells me what is real, and that is good enough.  If you want to believe in some fairy tale, that’s your business, but I’ll say you are an idiot.”

“But maybe there are some things science doesn’t know,” Nathan suggested.

“I’m sure that is true.”  The burly man responded.  “But when they figure it out I am also sure it will be as solid and real as this car.”  He made to pound on it again and went through it again.

“But please.”  Mya could not stand listening to the pain in the man’s voice.  “We all died yesterday.  The accident was a whole day ago.”

“Yes.”  Nathan took up the cause.  “If you were bleeding for a whole day, you would be dead by now, except you are already dead.”

“What are you talking about?  Did that concussion rattle your brains?  That kid only blew up ten, not five minutes ago.”  He went to look at his watch, but that part of his arm was missing.

“But.”  Mya did not want to give up, but the burly man was not going to listen.

“Look.  I don’t want to hear about your God.  I don’t want anything to do with a god because there is no such thing.  I don’t want some freakin’ fairy tale hanging over my shoulder telling me what I can and cannot do.  I am my own man, the captain of my soul and master of my fate or whatever.  And even if there is a God, I don’t want anything to do with it.  A pox on your moronic God.  He should leave me alone forever and I’ll do just fine without him, and when I die, and when you die, I am sure we will all just blend back into the universe and cease to exist.”

Nathan felt concerned for the vehemence and seriousness of the man.  He thought it best if they did not tempt him any further, but Mya still did not give up.

“But.”  She tried again, but the man’s shout cut her off.

“Screw your God.  He can leave me alone, forever!” he said, and suddenly he began to sparkle like the old woman sparkled, except his sparkles were pitch black, of a kind that swallowed all of the light rather than giving light.  It started out in small spots, but as it spread, the spots began to join with others and became black blotches all over him.  The man screamed.  Nathan heard, “Not that. Not alone.”  Or Nathan thought he heard those words.  Mostly he just heard screams.  Mya had her face pressed into Nathan’s chest and she started crying her eyes out.  Nathan felt frightened half out of his mind, but he could not tear his eyes away to save his sanity.  Then it was over. The man had gone and only a black wisp like smoke remained.

Then Nathan heard a voice come from the smoke that frightened the other half of his mind.  “Would you like to join him?”  The voice asked.  “It will be very easy.  Curse God and die.”  Nathan nearly lost his wits completely on hearing that, but Mya dragged him to his knees by then and he wrenched his eyes from the black wisp to see her kneeling and watch her clasp her hands in the classic position of a child at prayer.  Her eyes were shut tight, too, and Nathan thought of that as a good idea.  Nathan squeezed his eyes shut and felt his mind and his heart go out to the God of gods.

“Please, please.”  That was all he could think at first.  “Let there be light.”  That came to him.  “The darkness can’t stand against the light.” And slowly he regained his wits.  “God, give that man another chance, just a little more time to see the light, and please send a better messenger than me.  Please, please God, please.  The man can’t hear me.  I tried.  I tried.”  After another moment he opened his eyes, and he saw that there was an actual light shining over his shoulder.  He knew, without looking, that it was the angel, and the wisp of darkness stood no chance at all.  When Mya opened her eyes, she saw the man sitting on the curb, gasping for air.  With that done, Mya took Nathan’s hand and quickly led him away.

“We have so many to pray for,” Mya remarked.  Nathan agreed and he lifted-up a prayer then and there for the suicide bomber.  He was told to pray for the man but thus far he had not actually prayed at all.  He had just said he would like he always did when he was alive.  Then he added a prayer for the angry young man, and one for the minister, and another one for the businessman and the hungry man from the hospital.  Then he started on his daughter and eventually worked his way through everyone he could think of.  He did not pay much attention to where he was going, but he trusted Mya implicitly to lead him carefully down the street.

Ghosts 9

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Well, I am glad that is settled.”  They saw a man sitting on the park bench, their park bench, and he kept reading the newspaper.  Nathan did not have to guess who it was, and when the man lowered the paper, Nathan saw that he was right.  “So, the terrorist does not understand why he is not in paradise, and Mister Thomas thinks God owes him, and the little old lady has vanished to who knows where, no great loss there, so, what is your problem?”

“None,” Nathan answered honestly.

“We’re just great,” Mya said.  She stepped up and took Nathan’s arm for the first time.  She grew tall enough now that she could do that, and as she placed her other hand on Nathan’s bicep, she glanced down at her own breasts.  She thought they were turning out just right.  She imagined they were not even finished growing, and she was still smiling about being called beautiful and attractive and sexy.  It felt like heady stuff for her.

“Nothing?’  The minister asked, skeptically.

Nathan felt surprised to see that the minister had hardly changed at all by the experience.  He appeared a good-looking man with a full head of black hair that was just beginning to gray a bit at the temples.  He looked fit besides, like he ate all the right foods and worked out regularly at the gym.  Indeed, Nathan got the impression that this was just the sort of man who would actually go to the gym.  Nathan shrugged as he spoke.

“I was thinking that there have been a lot of cultures throughout history that believed the spirits of the dead could not pass fully over to the other side until they were properly buried.”  He could think of no other reason for their still being there.

“Not catholic, huh?  This is not purgatory, you know.  There is no such thing.”  The minister sounded like he knew all about it even though Nathan guessed it was his first time being dead.  “So, don’t you wonder why you are not in heaven, or someplace else?”

Mya and Nathan both shook their heads and laughed a little about sharing the same response.  Then Mya spoke.  “I assume when God is ready he will take us to where he wants us to be.”

“Blind faith.”  The minister looked disgusted with that idea.  “It is just one step before ignorance.  I spent my whole life fighting blind faith and trying to educate the ignorant masses about the ways of God.  I regularly made profound statements from the pulpit, most of which would probably go right over your heads.  And then I lived it out.  That is very important, too.  I fed the poor and clothed the naked and visited those who were sick or in prison.  Let me tell you, the only question anyone should be asking is why I was not translated instantly to heaven to receive my reward.”

Mya cocked her head to the side a little in a very teenage maneuver.  It looked like she was trying to get a different perspective on the man as if that might make things clearer.  “Maybe God wanted something else from you,” she suggested.

The minister got agitated.  “I’ll have you know I was called to ministry at a very early age.  I have given my whole life to God since that day.  Who are you to question my calling?  Young woman, I’ll have you know there is probably a whole book in heaven listing the names of people that have been brought to the faith by my work alone.”

Nathan interrupted.  He felt close enough to Mya by then that he imagined he could understand some of the ways she thought.  “Oh, she is not questioning your calling, and I take nothing away from all of your good work and all of the names written in heaven’s book.  Nor is she questioning your intellectual honesty and no doubt brilliance.  I am sure all of that is very important, and I am sure God is grateful.  No, I believe she was thinking of God maybe wanting something entirely different.”

The minister’s face reddened a bit.  He seemed to be getting beyond agitated, but he refused to show it, which in its way was less honest than the young man they left by the gate.  Nathan thought steam might come out of the minister’s head at any minute.  “Like what?”  The man spoke through his teeth and barely slit his lips in the process.

“Like your love,” Mya said in all sincerity as she straightened out her head.  Nathan nodded his silent agreement.  He could see that.

The minister turned pale for all of a minute before he responded.  “Now that just proves your ignorance,” he said at last as the color began to return to his face.  “We cannot love God, you see?  At least we cannot love God the way he has loved us.  We are not going to die for him.”

“But haven’t you just said you did that?”  Nathan asked, but it sounded like a genuine question.  From Mya’s teenage lips it would have sounded flippant.

“In a sense, yes, but what I mean is the way we show our love for God is in doing what is right and good and true according to his divine will.  You see, that is why I said that I lived out my faith.  A faith that is only words and a matter of the mind is really no faith at all.”

“So, what you are saying is it is impossible to love God, directly, I mean,” Nathan said.

“I know love by the way I feel,” Mya interrupted.  “I feel my love for God.  Isn’t that the way everyone knows love?”  Mya’s simple innocence caused her to look up at Nathan in case she had it all wrong.

“That is exactly how we know love, sweetheart.”  He patted her hand on his arm and began to move her away from there.  The minster swallowed, and Nathan felt quite sure without asking that the man had spent his whole life trying not to feel anything at all.

Mya looked up at Nathan and opened her big brown eyes even bigger than usual.  “You called me sweetheart,” she said.  It sounded almost like an accusation.

“Because you are,” he said.  “I think you have the kindest and sweetest heart of anyone I’ve ever known, and I am beginning to believe the adult world would do much better if we listened to more seven year olds.”

Mya frowned on hearing that reminder of her true age, but then she sighed and laid her head against Nathan’s arm.  She had grown almost big enough by then to set her head against his shoulder, the place where she slept so comfortably in the night.  Nathan responded by giving her hand another fatherly pat.

Ghosts 8

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The base of the bus stop sign had broken off and looked jagged and sharp.  The police had put some orange cones around it and strung yellow “Police Line, Do Not Cross” streamers between the cones, but otherwise it hardly looked like anything happened.  People continued walking up and down the street, cars moved in their early to mid-day routine, and they even saw a bus pull to the stop and wait a minute before starting up again.

“This is it?”  Mya complained.  “We died here, just yesterday afternoon, and this is all there is to show for it?” She certainly sounded very teenager.

“What did you expect?”  Nathan asked the rhetorical question.  “Unless there is a personal connection, the world of the living does not want to think about the dead and dying.  Death is a subject best left buried in normal conversations, if you know what I mean.”

“Fuck you.”  Both Mya and Nathan heard the words and were startled by them.  They looked, and saw a young man just inside the gate, staring at them.  He came out to confront them.  “What did you expect, a monument?  In a week, no one will even remember that we ever existed.”

“My mother won’t forget,” Mya insisted.

“And my daughter won’t let anyone else forget,” Nathan added.

“Fuck you.”  The young man said it again.  It seemed to be his favorite phrase.  “I don’t care what people think.  I’m still here.  God can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Why would God want to get rid of you?”  Mya asked and showed her innocence once more.

“Because God owes me, stupid.  I got nothing but bad all my life, so God owes me tons and tons of good, and I will accuse him to stinkin’ high heaven and bring down the whole racist lot of them if I have to.”

“But why do you think God owes you?  Who told you that?”  Mya really did not understand, but Nathan drew her a little closer for her own protection.  He had an idea of where this man was coming from and he understood it as a hair trigger from violence.

The young man looked at Mya like she might be as thick as the fence post and almost as smart.  He pointed sharply at Nathan in his suit.  “I don’t expect some motherfucking rich man and his daughter to understand, but I learned from a very early age that I did not have a chance in this world.  I was born poor trash and I would never be anything other than poor trash.  You see?”

“What’s being poor got to do with it?”  Mya searched for understanding, and looked up at Nathan thinking that maybe he could explain it to her.

“Man, are you stupid!”  The young man backed up a little, threw his hands to the sky and almost turned in a circle before settling down to explain.  “My mama and grandma told me all my life that a poor man in this Goddamn America would never get a break, and they were right.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have listened to them,” Mya suggested.

“What?  Not listen to my mama and grandma?”  The young man looked at Nathan for support in his argument, but Nathan could only shrug.

“Don’t look at me.  My mother was a penniless immigrant and my grandmother died at Auschwitz.”  That made both Mya and the man pause and stare for a minute.  Mya had heard the word and knew it as something terrible, where a lot of people got killed.  The young man knew exactly what Auschwitz was.

“You a fuckin’ Jew?”

“In part,” Nathan said.  He looked at Mya in a kind of reflex action to see if it made any difference to her.  It did not, and Nathan wondered if she ever met a real Jew before.  Probably, he decided.  “I’m actually sort of a Baptist-Jew.”

“Awesome.”  The young man settled down a little in his attitude and vocabulary.  “So, tell me, Jew-boy, how did you manage such a hot lookin’ daughter.”  He leered at Mya and Nathan almost said something, but Mya nudged him.

“Do you really like what you see?”  Mya asked.  She set her hands on her hips and swaying just a little as if to show herself off.

“Mama, you and I could make love all night.  Sweet sixteen I bet, and I could kiss you all over.”  The young man responded.  Then Mya pushed it too far.  She leaned forward to show her young breasts just a little and she lowered her voice in imitation of a movie she once saw.

“Do you like what you see?”  She asked again.  She had turned maybe fifteen or so by then, and quite capable of enticing any young man with such a move, but of course she was just play-acting, imitating a movie.  She had no idea the reaction she would provoke.  The man leapt for her, no doubt with the intention of raping her on the spot, and Mya screamed.  A woman waiting at the bus stop also screamed and backed up a couple of steps.  Nathan reached for Mya to pull her to safety, but he moved a bit slow.  The young man went right through Mya as if she was just a ghost, which she was.  The man fell on his knees on the pavement and let out a frustration scream of his own.

“It’s not fair!  God, you owe me big time!  Goddamn you God.  It’s not fair!”

Nathan hustled Mya through the iron gate and up toward the park bench before he scolded her.  “Okay?  Are you happy?  Do you see what a good looking young woman can do to a man?  Part of growing up has to be learning to keep your sexy self to yourself.  There are certain things you just don’t go around flaunting all over the place unless you want reactions like you just got.”

“Am I really good looking?”  Mya heard him, or at least the part of what he said that her teenage mind could process.  “Am I really sexy?”

Nathan stopped.  He remembered scolding his own daughter more than once, and he thought that this time he could afford to be a little softer.  “Yes,” he said.  “You are very beautiful and enormously attractive, and I think you are doing a remarkable job of growing up, under the circumstances, but you have to promise to be more careful about just what you do.”  He spoke out of genuine concern, and she knew it.

“I promise.”  Mya said.  She raised her hand to signify a pledge not to be broken, though to be sure, she was not exactly certain what she was promising.  Her mind got stuck on the words very beautiful and enormously attractive.  She needed to hear that.  She needed her best friend in the whole world to say that.

************************

MONDAY, pride and wrath, or near enough. Until then, Happy Reading

*

Ghosts 7

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“I have a daughter, Lisa, and she is basically a good girl, or she would be if she would just let go of her Jezebel spirit.”  Nathan talked as they walked.

“Her what?”  Mya asked as she chose to let go of Nathan’s hand and walk at his side.  She felt like she was getting too big to be hand holding like that, and anyway, he said she was growing up so she decided she had better start acting more grown up.

“It means she always has to be in charge and control everything,” he said.  “She has driven out three of the last four preachers at the church.”

“I thought priests got appointed,” Mya said.  She did not understand.

“Not in the Baptist Church,”

“Oh, we’re Episcopalian.”

“I’m sort of a mix myself.”  Nathan let out a little smile.  “I guess that is why I fit well with the Baptists.”

“I’ve always been Episcopalian,” Mya said in all honestly.

“Anyway, I have a daughter, Lisa, and she is all right I suppose, but a hard woman.  She does not put up with any nonsense and does not have much of a sense of humor.”

“So, you are married?”  Mya said, seriously, but it was like a question.

“Was married.”  Nathan answered and came to a stop.  He stooped to pick up a stone from the curb and tossed it into someone’s yard.  He missed the tree he was only half aiming at.  “Mildred ran out on Lisa and me when Lisa was about your age, seven I mean.  Actually, she was eight.”

“I’m not eight anymore.”  Mya said with a grin.  Once again, Mya had accepted all that was happening to them.  It was Nathan who had a hard time thinking of her as anything other than a crippled seven-year-old.

“So, she abandoned us.”  Nathan went to pick up the story but he felt Mya’s hand on his cheek and in his hair.

“Poor baby,” Mya said, softly and with all gentleness.  Nathan turned, and there must have been something in his eyes because the girl quickly withdrew her hand and looked almost like she got scolded, even without a word.  “It is what my grandma always says.”  She cringed a little in defending herself.

Nathan softened.  “I didn’t mean to startle you.”  He did not want to upset her because after all, she was only a child.  “I got over it.  What?”  He asked what because she started staring at him.  Her hand reached very hesitantly for his hair again, and he did nothing to stop her, so she combed it behind his ear.

“You have brown hair.  It’s nice.  You know it isn’t so gray anymore.”  He did not know, but to be sure, he found the whole idea of getting younger a bit disturbing.  He felt glad for her, that she was growing up, but he was not sure he wanted to get much younger.  He lived a good long life and he felt sort of afraid he might start to forget who he was.  He decided that he needed to get them back on the subject so he started to walk again and she walked at his side.

“Anyway.”  He exaggerated the word.  “I have two grandchildren.  My granddaughter, Susan, is twenty-eight and lives in California with her husband and two perfect children.”  He rolled his eyes for her and that made Mya giggle.  “My son, Stephen is local, and still married, sort of, and they have a daughter, my great-grand Emily.  She is eight.”

“What do you mean, sort of still married?”

“Separated.”  Nathan shrugged.  “But they are in counseling so who knows?  Maybe they will reconcile.  Personally, I am not holding my breath.”

“You don’t sound very happy with any of your family.”  Mya thought hard about it.

Nathan shrugged again.  “I suppose I blame myself.”  He held up his hand to keep her quiet until he explained.  “I am the one who raised Lisa to be the way she is.  I don’t know, but I think she needed her mother, a mother, any mother.  I worked way too much and I put too much on her shoulders at too young an age.  I made her grow up too fast, you see?  That is my only real concern for you.”

“I will be fine,” Mya said quickly and took his hand once again to reassure him.  “I don’t need to be in charge of anything.”

He glanced at her.  “You say that now, but wait until you’re a little older.”

“You mean ten minutes from now?” she asked, and they both laughed a little.

“Anyway.”  Nathan stressed the word again.  “I’m the one who made Lisa into a hard woman, and she raised Susan and Stephen to be warped in their own ways.”

“I think your wife might be blamed for some of it,” Mya suggested.

Nathan shook his head.  “I can’t blame her.  She wasn’t there.”

“Exactly,” Mya said.  “My mother and I are alone, too.  I know that is not the way it is supposed to be.  My father should be there.  I am sure I missed out on lots of things because he was not there.”  She paused and wondered ever so briefly if she might be clinging to this man because he could maybe be the father she never had.  “I am sure my mother has had me take responsibilities that I should not have to take, or have taken, back, you know, when I was seven.”

Nathan let out his breath in what sounded almost like a little growl.  “Parents talk all of the time about raising their children, but I think most of the time all we do is ruin them.  We fill them with our disappointments, our anger and frustrations with life, and twist their little minds until they become something they were never meant to be.  I suppose that is the nature of sin.  I never realized it before, the way the sins of the fathers keep getting passed on from one generation to the next and twisted in the process until it becomes something downright wicked.”

“Stop it.”  Mya interrupted his tirade.  “I am sure you did just what you told me to do.  I am sure you did the best you could and my grandmother used to say you can’t expect to do any better than your best.”

“I suppose,” Nathan said, but he became quiet for a time.

“How come you never remarried?”  Mya asked at last.  Nathan looked at her for a minute before he answered.  He wondered what might be going on in that little mind of hers.

“Because it never seemed the right time or the right woman, I don’t know.  It had to be right for Lisa, you know. Not just for me.”  He shook his head and looked away from the girl.  He took a deep breath before he spoke again.  “I guess I did not want to go through all of that again.  I was thirty-four when Mildred left, but I still feel the sting of her rejection.  She ran off with a minister, though how you reconcile infidelity with ministry, I – I.”  He shrugged again, and did not have the words.  When he looked again at Mya, she looked deep in thought.  He nudged her rather than ask what was on her mind.

“Uh?”  She looked up.  “I was just thinking that I hope my mother remarries, especially now that I am, you know, gone and all.  I think she needs a chance to start over, and I was thinking that maybe I was kind of standing in the way of that, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Nathan said.  “I can’t imagine you standing in the way of anyone’s happiness.”  He smiled and she did too, drew a little closer and tried to match his stride as they walked.  Nathan noticed that Mya now stood as tall as the half-way point between his elbow and shoulder.  She was certainly growing.  Her bumps were getting bigger, too, and she showed more curves in that figure. She appeared to be turning into a beautiful young woman and he felt happy for her. He put his arm around her in his happiness and in true affection.  “You’re as tall as my heart now.”  He said and sounded very much like the grandfather that he thought of himself, or the father Mya presently imagined him to be.  She stopped and gave him a big hug.

Ghosts 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Nathan woke when Mya wiggled a little to get into a more comfortable position.  He felt her breasts against his ribs and he imagined she was also making little curves in the beanpole body she had been.  The breasts were still small, but he imagined she did not grow that much while they slept.  All the same, he hoped they were nice ones for her sake, in whatever way she imagined breasts should be nice.  He looked down and he knew he had judged about right.  Mya appeared to be about thirteen, fourteen at most, and she was looking up at him.  Her hand came up to touch his face—not such a little hand now, but he spoke before she could say anything.

“You have bumps.”  He said.

“I have bumps?”  Mya’s mouth opened in a tremendous smile and her eyes and hands shot instantly to her own chest.  “I have bumps!”  She declared and she rushed into the bathroom and shut the door.

Nathan sat up more slowly, not because he felt stiff like he used to feel when he woke at home, but because he was savoring the morning and feeling truly rested for the first time in ages.  He thought of Mya as he heard a little squeal of delight come right through the door.  If she turned fourteen, he recognized that she was now twice as old as she had been only a day ago.  He felt happy for her when he thought about it.  He had no idea what kind of relationships they might form in the next million years, or more.  He could not encompass that though; but even so, he felt that she should not have to go into eternity always being referred to as a kid.  He had heard the word used twice already, and both times he heard it spoken unkindly.

He looked down at his own clothes.  They were not as wrinkled as they had been, and what is more, his handkerchief looked pressed and clean again, as if it had never been used.  He imagined Mya’s clothes were adjusting as well as she got older and taller, though he could not imagine how that might work.  He did not worry about it.  He did not know how a lot of things worked, like microwave ovens, but it never stopped him before.

After waiting for a very long time, Nathan stepped to the door and knocked.  “Are you all right in there?”  He raised his voice just a bit against the wood.

“Yes.  I’m fine.”  The answer came sharply through the door.  Something seemed to be happening but he could not guess what.

“I’ll be right here when you are ready,” he told her.

“Fine!  I’ll just be a minute!”  She responded, and Nathan shook his head and wondered what it was about women and bathrooms.  He imagined he would never understand that either, so he did not let it bother him.  He stepped into the hall and watched the shift change at the nurse’s desk.  He followed one of the morning nurses with his eyes as she went from room to room with her tray of morning medicine.  Out of curiosity, he looked in on room 312, but there was a new man in the bed and the business man had gone; then he hustled back to 307.  He did not want to be found wandering when he was supposed to be waiting patiently for Mya.

Nathan paused outside the door to their room.  He saw a woman on her knees in the hall, cleaning.  He thought little of it until he saw her give a furtive glance in his direction and immediately she started scrubbing a little harder for a few strokes of her brush.  They were in a hospital, he remembered.  People often went to hospitals to die.  Nathan imagined that most of the staff had to be immune to having ghosts wander the halls, but there would always be some that were sensitive to it.

The woman glanced his way again and squinted as if she could not quite grasp what she saw, or thought she saw, or maybe she did not quite see at all.  Again, she scrubbed harder for a few strokes, and Nathan wondered if the woman thought that she could clean and sterilize the ghosts away.  Nathan felt sure that was one thing she could not do, and he felt a momentary twinge of sorrow for the woman.  He could almost taste the woman’s fear, a kind of palpable sense of foreboding.  He felt it as surely as he had felt the cruelty of the woman with the puppy and concluded that ghosts must be hyper-sensitive to the emotional state of the living.  He imagined this woman might have a break down, or anyway, this would likely be a very short-lived job.  He felt sorry for her again, as he walked slowly back into his room.

Mya did not come out of the bathroom until seven, nearly an hour after she went in.

“All better?”  He asked.

Mya sat on the bed, not ready to walk yet.  It seemed like she wanted to talk and so Nathan took a seat on the bed opposite to her and prepared himself to listen.

“I know in my head that I am really only seven years old.”  Mya started right in.  “But I also know I am a teenager.  I know this isn’t going to make any sense, but I don’t think I am just growing up on the outside.”

“No.”  Nathan interrupted.  “I have watched you and listened to you so I believe you, even if it doesn’t make any sense.”  He smiled.

“I want pizza, and I don’t even like pizza.”  She joked and tested herself, and Nathan gave her a little laugh.  It seemed the least he could do.

“But what is wrong with that?” he asked.  “You told me you did not want to stay little forever.”

Mya nodded.  “I don’t.  But it is all happening so fast.  Shouldn’t growing up take time, I mean to learn things and explore things and all that?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”  Nathan turned thoughtful.  “There really isn’t a whole lot to learn about being an adult, at least not much more than you knew by the time you were seven.  Be good, do your best, love your neighbor and that sort of thing.  When you grow up you have to take more responsibility for yourself and your own actions, decisions and choices.  You know, like when the bird leaves the nest it must fly on its own, but you seemed like a very sensible and responsible girl since the first time I saw you.  I can’t imagine trying to hitch a ride on a city bus at age seven.  That must have taken great courage.”

Mya smiled and turned a little red.  She fanned her face for a moment as she spoke.  “You have no idea.  I was scared out of my mind.  To be honest, I just did not know what else to do.”

Nathan nodded and smiled his most reassuring smile.  “Being an adult is a lot like that.  Most grown-ups do things just because they don’t know what else to do.  You have to be over eighty, I think, before you realize it doesn’t matter mostly what we do, as long as what we do is done in love and kindness.”

Mya smiled again and looked down into her lap where she worried her own hands.

Nathan asked because he picked up on the clue.  “So, what took you so long in the bathroom?”

“I think I had a period,” Mya said and did not look up at first.  “Mother explained it all to me and I did not really understand what she was talking about, but now it kind of makes sense.  I felt all crampy and then all fattish, though I had already taken off my clothes and I did not notice getting any fatter in the mirror.  Then I felt like I had to go, you know?  I sat down on the toilet and tried, but nothing happened until I noticed I was bleeding a little.”  She looked up.  “I didn’t know ghosts could bleed.”

“I didn’t know there were really ghosts until yesterday.”  Nathan countered with a motion that suggested she should go on and finish the story.

“Well, that’s it.  Then I got better and got dressed and came out.”

“But I thought such things lasted for three or four days.”  Nathan sounded unsure.

“Oh, a week.”  Mya responded with her eyes as big as they could be.  “But that’s what I mean about everything happening so fast.”

“Still, you experienced something,” he pointed out.

Mya made a very teen age, exasperated expression come to her face and she threw her hands out to slap the bed, palm up, on either side of her.  “But that is what I mean about not experiencing things.  How can I really grow up without experiencing things?”

“Hmm.”  Nathan tried to get serious again.  “Have you experienced frustration and anger as well as accomplishment and satisfaction?  Have you ever been worried and afraid sometimes and felt safe and secure at other times?  Have you known sadness as well as joy, hate and love, cruelty and kindness?  Have you ever felt the excitement of trying to go to sleep on Christmas eve?”  Mya nodded to all of it.  “Then I would say you have already experienced everything there is to experience.  Grown-ups just experience these same things, though the world is full of fools these days who seem determined to cut back on the joy, love and kindness part.”

“I’ve never experienced falling in love with a boy,” Mya said a bit shyly.

“And never had your heart broken either.”  Nathan raised a wise, old finger to emphasize his point.

Mya puffed a teenage puff.  “I would still like to fall in love with a boy,” she insisted.

“Bah.”  Nathan shrugged it off.  “Boys are not so special.”

Mya rolled her eyes.  She had practiced that in the mirror, but she did not need to tell him that.  “Now you sound like my real grandfather,” she said.

“He must be a very wise man,” Nathan responded, stood and puffed out his chest just a little.  “Now, shall we go?”

“Go where?”  Mya suddenly got serious.

“To see your real grandfather?”  Nathan suggested.  Mya shook her head.  “Well how about just your regular father?”  Mya’s head shake became more pronounced.

“Dad left me and mother when I was just a baby.”

“Well, how about your mother then?”  Mya’s head shook hardest of all.

“I’m not ready for that yet,” she said, and then she added something that did not surprise Nathan at all since he was feeling the same tug on his soul.  “I think we need to go back to the place where the bus, you know.”

“The scene of the accident?”

“The scene of the crime.”

“Yes,” Nathan said.  “I was feeling that myself but I wanted to hear it from you.  I was willing to fight the feeling if you said you needed to go somewhere else.”

“No,” she said and held out her hand for him to take.  It was a bigger hand by then and they were more truly holding hands now rather than Nathan enfolding her little hand in his palm.  “I go where you go.”  She finished her thought and Nathan simply nodded as they started to walk.  They chose the stairs this time, and without Nathan thinking twice about the choice.

“But what about you?”  Mya asked.  She drew the thought from somewhere in her growing-up mind.  “Don’t you have family?”

“I’ll tell you on the way,” he said, and they went through the sliding doors and out on to the street past the man attempting to fix the doors.  Apparently, they were opening and closing at all sorts of times, and all on their own.

Ghosts 5

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Come on.”  Mya took the lead.  She grabbed Nathan’s hand and only stopped briefly at the hospital map on the wall.  She seemed to know where she was headed.  This time they took the stairs down one flight and she pulled him through the authorized personnel only hallway to enter a different wing of the hospital.  Nathan guessed where they were going, but he said nothing.  They spent a long time looking through the glass at all of the babies, but she did not want to go inside.  At last, Nathan thought they needed to change venues, so he asked as kindly as he could.

“Are you hungry?”  Mya looked up at him with a forlorn expression that proposed never to leave her face.  It broke Nathan’s heart to see it.  He realized that he missed the little girl smile that had meant so much to him and kept him steady, especially at the first.  Mya had accepted the truth before he did, and she kept him going with her smile.  She kept him from thinking too hard about it all and maybe becoming morose.  Little Mya had no morose in her until the subject of bumps and babies came up.  Now, she looked in danger of becoming hopelessly mired in her own sense of loss, and what would never be, and Nathan desperately wanted to save her from that.  She certainly deserved better than to be depressed forever.  “I could go for some Italian right now.  Do you like Italian food?”

Mya looked up at him with her tear streaked face and those big brown eyes with their sadness etched into the black depths.  She said nothing, but she did not resist him when he took her hand and headed them toward the stairs.  Nathan hoped there might be food left in the hospital cafeteria since the time was getting on, but he would not have been surprised if it had all been cleaned up and put away for the night.  Hospitals, like grade schools, tended to run on a very strict schedule.

The cafeteria was located on level B-1, ground level at the back of the building.  They still had some service, though only one worker behind the line who wiped a spill around the macaroni and cheese.  A couple of men and a few women in white coats sat around, talked quietly, and nursed their coffee and tea, having pretty much finished eating.  Nathan supposed they were doctors, nurses, or more likely attendants of some sort hanging out to get the full extent of their breaks.  They saw a few tables with dirty dishes, but the man behind the counter did not seem in any hurry to get out and clean them up.  Instead, the man looked at the clock on the wall as if waiting for the right moment to close.

Nathan also looked.  It was nearly eight-thirty, perhaps five or five and a-half hours since the accident.  He brought Mya up to the line, but they quickly realized that they could not pick up the trays, plates or silverware.  Their hands simply passed through the items, and while it came as a bit of a shock at first, Mya spent the next few minutes passing her hands through all sorts of things; and she smiled at the sensation.

Nathan looked at the food.  They had some spaghetti in a kind of dark brown crust that might have been an attempt at meat sauce.  It was real thick spaghetti and it did not look too appetizing.  Still, he would not have minded a taste, though to be honest, he did not feel hungry in the least.

“I don’t think we can eat anymore.”  Mya put her hands right into the hot macaroni and cheese and swirled them around with no effect on the dish or her hands whatsoever.  “But that’s okay.  I wasn’t really hungry.”

“Me neither,” Nathan said, and he looked up to see a big man staring at the deserts.  To his surprise, the big man turned and looked right at them and with a quick comparison to the attendant behind the counter, Nathan recognized this man as another ghost.

“I’m hungry,” the man said.

“You’re fat,” Mya said as she stepped up beside Nathan.  She clicked her finger nails on the metal cafeteria rail a couple of times and Nathan thought she needed some chewing gum to complete the pre-teen picture.  “You should go on a diet.”

“Screw you, kid,” the fat man said.

“That was very rude.”  Nathan turned and scolded Mya.  She looked up at him with some concern to be sure he still liked her.  She knew she was being rude, only now, after being scolded, she felt she paid her penalty and so she did not feel like saying she was sorry.

The fat man looked down for a minute before he turned his eyes again to the deserts.  “The doctor said it was the fat that killed me.  What does he know?  The quack.”  He looked at them again before his eyes were drawn back to that last piece of chocolate cake.  “I didn’t think it would be like this.”  He seemed to need to confess.  Nathan stayed to listen, so Mya stayed, too.  “I used to eat everything and anything I wanted.  Mom was a great cook, and there was always plenty of junk around the house, you know, cookies, chips, treats and frozen waffles.  God, I can’t think about it.”  He paused to take in a deep breath.  “I didn’t think it would be like this.”  He began again.

“I pretty much lived my life whatever the hell way I wanted.  I didn’t let anyone tell me no.  I lost a couple of jobs, but screw them.  I screwed everyone I wanted and when I wasn’t screwing, I was eating.  God there was this one restaurant that made… but forget it.  I thought when I died, like it would not happen so quick.  I thought I still had years left to live and I thought I would straighten things out some when I got older.”  He looked at them again.  “I didn’t have the time.  It all went by so quick.”  He looked again at the cake and reached for it only to have his hand pass right through.  “I thought when I died all of these old habits would be taken away, you know?”  He looked up one last time and asked.  “Why are we still here?”

“Maybe so you can have one last chance to straighten things out,” Nathan suggested what he and Mya were both thinking.

“Maybe you need to let go of some things,” Mya said and reached for Nathan’s hand which he readily gave her.

The man merely nodded and then ignored them.  His hunger had him once again.

Mya and Nathan went out from there wondering what to do next.  Then Nathan saw Mya yawn a big yawn and he thought they might find a deserted room in which to rest.  He led the girl back to the elevator.  He felt better than he had in years, feeling no pain at all, but he was still not sure about climbing a bunch of steps.  Fortunately, the elevator arrived empty at eight-forty-five in the evening.  They went again to the third floor, but Mya resisted seeing her grandmother.  Thus they wandered in the other direction, past 315, 314 and 313.  They found someone in room 312, and would have moved on if he had not shouted out to them.  When they entered the room, Nathan noticed the bed had been stripped clean and the man sat on the edge of it, fully clothed as if waiting for a ride home.  They saw another patient in the room, but he was sleeping.

“What is going on?”  The man asked right away.  “I can’t get anyone to listen to me, not the doctors or nurses or anyone.”

“What do you think is going on?”  Mya spoke right up before Nathan could get a word in.  Her words were not exactly meant to be rude as if to suggest the man was being stupid or something, but they came out that way and might have been taken that way.  Nathan pulled her hand up to his chest and patted her hand to keep her quiet, even as her grandmother had patted that same hand.

“I don’t know.”  The man spoke honestly to them, but something else could be seen behind those blue eyes. Nathan and Mya just stared into those eyes until the blue turned a little gray and the man turned his eyes to the floor.  “I think I am dead.”

Mya almost said something, but Nathan hushed her and spoke instead.  “I think you may be right,” he said calmly.

The man slid off the bed and threw his fists up to cover his eyes.  He turned his back on them and began to spout. “I have a wife and three kids who need me.  I can’t be dead.  You don’t understand.  I was just working on a big deal at work that was going to make my career.  We were going to be set for life after that, and… and I was going to be able to spend some quality time with Sharon and the kids.  I can’t be dead.  I never got the quality time.  It isn’t fair!”  He blustered himself out and despite the closed eyes and the fists over the eyes and also the fact that his back was turned, both Mya and Nathan knew he was crying, just a little.

Nathan thought that you have to smell the roses every day as you go along or otherwise you will never catch them in bloom.  His mother taught him that, but of course he did not say it out loud.  He looked down.  Mya stayed good.  She felt the man’s pain, but she looked up to get Nathan’s unspoken assent before she said anything at all.

“It will be all right,” she said.  “That is what I keep getting told, and…”  She looked up to catch Nathan’s eyes again.  “And I believe him.”  Nathan smiled, dropped Mya’s hand and threw his arm around her for a big squeeze.  He needed to hear that as much as she needed to say it.

“What do you know?”  The man turned on them with a little anger.  They felt it, but not nearly as much as they felt the cruelty of the puppy owner, perhaps because this man was not among the living.  “You know nothing.  You don’t understand.  How could you?  A girl and a doddering old man.  I have to get back to work.  I have to finish the project.  I have to succeed.  I spent my whole life striving to be successful.  I got the right wife, the right kids, and the right job; and now, just when I am on the verge of reaching my dream, my only dream, I have it yanked out from beneath my feet.  It isn’t fair, I tell you.  It isn’t fair!”

“I’m sorry,” Nathan said.  It seemed the least he could say and probably also the most he could say.

“Forget it,” the man said, having vented for the moment.  He threw his hands out as if dismissing them.  “It isn’t your fault.  I wouldn’t expect you to understand.  There is nothing you can do about it.  Just leave me alone for a while.  Please.  I need to think about this.  I need to think.”  He sat again on the edge of the bed, closed his eyes, dropped his head, put his thumb to his temple and began to slowly rub his fingers across his forehead like a man in deep concentration.

Nathan turned Mya by the shoulders until they faced the door, and before she could say anything else.  Then he withdrew his arm and took her hand once again.  Room 307 had two empty beds, and as Mya seemed to be yawning up a storm, he thought that this would be as good as they were going to find.

“Now we are definitely past my bedtime,” Mya said.

“Mine too,” Nathan agreed, not entirely joking.  Any time after nine o’clock was late for him.  “Do you want the bed by the door?”  Normally, the gentlemanly thing would have been for him to take the bed by the door to protect her against any intruders.  At least that felt like the right instinct, but in this case, since she already died, he imagined there was not much that could hurt her, and he also imagined if they brought someone to the room in the middle of the night they would more than likely put the person in the bed by the window, interrupting him, not her.  Mya just looked at him.

“Okay,” she said and sat on the bed, but she did not sound too sure.

Nathan nodded and opened the bathroom door, just to check things out, not that he had to go or anything.  He turned on the light and paused at the sight in the mirror that greeted him.  He saw his own reflection, and he was first of all surprised that he even had a reflection.  “Of course, I’m not a vampire,” he mumbled to himself and grinned at his own humor.  Then he touched his teeth.  They looked good, better than he had seen them in some time.  He had let them go a little and raised his eyebrows at himself for that thought.  Then he wiggled his eyebrows and looked quickly at his hand.  It still looked fairly wrinkled, but not so bad, and most of the age spotting was gone.  He looked again at his face.  The hair was still gray, but there seemed more of it, and in fact he thought that maybe he looked more like he had when he retired at about seventy-two, or maybe when he first retired at sixty-eight.  He definitely did not look eighty-four, and for first time he admitted that while Mya was growing up, he was getting younger.  It was also the first time he wondered if they might meet somewhere in the middle.

“Let me see.”  Mya pushed her way into the room and Nathan backed up.  She smiled at her reflection, pouted her lips, checked out the curve in her eyebrows and puffed her chest out, but there were no bumps yet.  “I am growing up,” Mya said with some excitement.  “I am.”

“Yes you are,” Nathan confirmed as he turned away.  “But right now I am tired, even if you are not.”    He laid down on the bed.  “Funny our not being able to eat but our being able to sleep.”  He reached down and pulled up the hospital blanket that lay folded at the foot of the bed, and let his head rest on the pillow.

“We’re not asleep yet,” Mya said, as she turned out the bathroom light and crawled under Nathan’s blanket.  She curled up with him like any young girl might curl up beside her grandfather on a cold winter’s night, and Nathan willingly slipped a protective arm around the girl.  Neither felt uncomfortable with the arrangement and soon enough they were both fast asleep.

************************

MONDAY, through the night and morning surprises. Until Monday, Happy Reading

*

Ghosts 4

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Do you know your Grandmother’s name?”  Nathan asked when he finally broke the silence.  They had walked right into the hospital lobby through the sliding doors which opened readily for them.  One young man in the waiting area gave the doors a strange and uncomfortable look when they opened and no one came in, but otherwise neither Nathan nor Mya caused any disturbance.  Now that they reached the front desk, though, Nathan had to ask.  He decided it would be far easier to look her up than wander the halls for half the night.  The sun looked ready to set.

“Marylin Thorn.”  Mya spoke without hesitation.  Nathan nodded and started to reach for the front register when he heard a woman’s voice.

“Marylin Thorn is in room 317.”  The woman behind the desk never once looked up.

“Thank you,” Mya responded.

“Yes, thanks,” and Nathan hustled Mya away from that area.  He did not want to scare anyone.  Without thinking things through, both went to the elevators and Mya pushed the button.

“Mother always lets me push the buttons,” she said.  Nathan wondered how this was going to work out.

When the elevator came, they found one man in the car.  He did not get off as they scooted by, but he did stick his head out the door to see if there might be anyone there.  The man shrugged and stood back while the elevator doors closed and Nathan stopped Mya’s hand from pushing the button for floor three.  He noticed they were going down one more flight.

“But we have to go to three,” Mya protested at full volume.

“Shh!  I know.  Just wait, please.”  Nathan answered as quietly as he could and he saw the man lift his head as if he heard something but not quite sure what he heard.  Fortunately, the doors opened fairly quickly and the man got out and stiffened his collar tight against his neck as if suddenly chilled.  “Now,” Nathan said, and Mya pushed the three just before a big woman got on and pushed four.  The woman frowned once at the man who just left.  Nathan matched the woman’s frown, because he thought if the woman stood by the doors, there was no way they would be able to scoot around her to get out on the third floor.  Fortunately, the woman pushed to the back and Nathan and Mya were just able to squeeze past her without touching her.  They got off quickly when the doors opened on three before someone else got on.

“Three seventeen, now let’s see.”  Nathan looked at the numbers and arrows on the wall.

“Down here.”  Mya took Nathan’s hand and lead the way.  Now that she arrived on the floor, she remembered better.  In fact, Mya found her memory and her mind overall started becoming very sharp and focused.  She started thinking and seeing life through pre-teen eyes by then because she was indeed growing up even as Nathan was getting younger, not that they knew it, exactly.  His mind, by contrast, started mercifully forgetting all sorts of embarrassing and difficult moments as the years dropped away, even while his mind also sharpened overall with the clarity of youth.  With Nathan, though, he thought of it as only how he felt.  That long walk down so many city blocks, and without the least hint of pain or difficulty, had done him wonders.  But with Mya it started becoming obvious if they cared to notice.  Still, they really did not realize any of this until Grandma noticed, and said as much when they saw her.

“She has Alzheimer’s,” Mya warned before they entered the room.

What they found seemed a bit of a surprise.  The woman had physically curled up in a ball, her knees drawn up to her chest and her hands in tight little fists pulled right to her chin; but that was just her body.  The woman herself, or at least the image and outline of the woman, like her spirit or her ghost, sat up, legs outstretched and hands resting comfortably at her side.  The woman appeared to be asleep at the moment, so they came in quietly and Mya pulled up a chair.  As she sat, she reached out.  “Grandma?”  She found that she could touch the woman, or at least she could touch her grandmother’s spirit hand.

Grandma opened her eyes slowly.  “Mya.”  She recognized the girl right away; her spirit-self did all the talking and seemed very animated.  The body in the bed, by contrast, barely fluttered her eyes.

“Grandma.  I wanted to see you.  I – I.  Are you better?”

“No dear.”  Grandma took a firm hold of Mya’s hand and reached over with her other hand to pat-pat that hand.  “I’ll be gone soon I think.  Sometimes the body doesn’t have the good sense to quit, but I am very sick, Pneumonia, you know.  Still, I am content to wait.  It would be wrong to rush these things, though I hope they have the good sense to let me go when the time comes.”  She stole a glance at Nathan before she returned her eyes to her granddaughter.  “But now stand up so I can get a good last look at you.”  While Mya stood, Nathan thought that this woman’s body might be wracked with Alzheimer’s and pneumonia, but her spirit seemed strong and healthy and very aware.  It was something that people—living people should know.  Too bad he had no way to tell them.

Mya turned once slowly all of the way around.  Nathan had his hands at his side at the moment and he noticed that presently the little girl looked nearly as tall as his elbow where she had started out barely as tall as his wrist.

“My, how grown up you are getting.”  Grandma made the expected comment before she added a thought.  “What are you now, nine or ten?  Pretty soon you will be getting bumps of your own.”

“Grandma.”  Mya sounded like a true pre-teen.  She sat, turned a little red and glanced briefly at Nathan.

Grandma explained for the stranger in the room.  “When Mya was just a baby with a limited vocabulary she called them bumps every time she wanted to nurse.”  Grandma smiled and Nathan smiled, too, as he looked at Mya and watched her turn a bit redder.

“Grandma.  This is my friend.”  Mya attempted to change the subject.

“Nathan.”  He introduced himself.  “You have a fine granddaughter.  She missed her school bus, so I took it upon myself to bring her to see you.  I have a great-grand just about her age.”

“Very gentlemanly of you,” Grandma said.  “But I should say, you hardly look old enough to have a ten-year-old granddaughter, much less a great-grand.”

“Grandma, I’m only seven,” Mya said, though that did not sound right at the moment even to her own ears.

Grandma lifted her brows and her body shifted ever so slightly in the bed.  “You know I cannot speak to your mother like I can to you.  That is very frustrating.  I tend to sleep a lot when she is here.”  Grandma sat up a little straighter and her body moved a little again.  “I think you had better tell me what happened.”

Mya started slowly, but she finished the story in a rush.  She left out nothing, including the part about the angel.  Nathan found some tears as she talked, and Mya had some tears as well.  Grandma’s eyes filled up with tears, but it was her body that let a few of those tears fall while she went back to patting Mya’s hand and said, “My baby.  My poor baby.”

“It will be all right, Grandma.”  Mya kept trying hard to be positive about it all.

“I won’t leave her alone.”  Nathan promised.

“I am so glad that you are not alone.”  Grandma finally took her hands back.  “He seems a fine man.  Don’t be afraid.”

“That is what the angel said,” Mya responded, and as she thought about the angel, she found her tears were finished and she felt much better.

“I am so sorry, my baby, but right now I am tired.  I am so very, very tired.”  They watched as the old woman closed her eyes.  A few more tears fell from the woman’s physical body.

Mya did not want to leave right away, so they stayed for a little while and watched the old woman sleep.  Soon enough Nathan stepped up and put his hands gently on Mya’s shoulders.  He helped her rise from the chair.  He wanted to get her moving before the tears returned, but he did not move quick enough.  Mya threw her arms around him and cried into his belly, while he smoothed her long black hair with his hand, patted her back and made reassuring sounds.  He led her back into the hall just before the nurse came into the room.

“It will be all right.  Everything is going to be all right.”  He helped her down the hall only to stop in front of the water fountain.  “Are you thirsty?”  She was.  They found a tall water fountain there, and a second fountain, lower to the ground for the children.  Mya had to stand on her toes, but she seemed delighted that she could reach the big fountain.

“I don’t want to stay little forever,” she said when she pulled back from the water.  Some of the water dripped off her chin and down the front of her dress.  She looked and wiped the water with her hand, but she really looked at her chest.  “When I get breasts, I hope they are nice ones.”

Nathan felt a little embarrassed on hearing that.  He could hardly say I hope they are, too; but he felt he had to say something.  “I would not think that was so important,” he said.  When she looked up at him with deep questions in her eyes, he put his foot in it.  “Breasts are for babies, right?”  He regretted saying that as soon as it came out of his mouth.  Mya wailed and began to cry again in earnest.  The nurse came out of the room and looked up at the ceiling before she shivered and walked hurriedly back to the nurse’s station.  Poor Mya became wracked with tears, and all Nathan could do was hold her and let her weep.  He dared not say anything more.  He dared not open his mouth.  But when she collapsed to the floor, Nathan got right down with her.  “There, there.  It will be all right.”  He felt he could say that much, even as he found a few tears of his own.

After a time, when Mya’s and Nathan’s eyes were both red, and Mya’s breathing only got interrupted now and then with moments of sniffles, Nathan got out his handkerchief and found it clean.  He took a corner to wipe her face and have her blow her nose.

Ghosts 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Oh, look.”  Mya spoke first.  They saw a puppy on a leash.  It looked right at them, wagged its tail and panted with its tongue.  It looked like a little Labrador, and obviously very young.  Mya let go of Nathan’s hand to get down and pet the puppy.  She did not think about it, she just did it, and the puppy responded with a lick.  “Oh, cutie,” she called it.  The woman on the other end of the leash was gabbing with another woman.  Mya did not care about that.  “Yes, cutie,” she said, and she looked up at Nathan who smiled.  “Come and say hello.  He won’t bite.”

Nathan felt reluctant to squat down.  He felt very afraid for his knees, but as he did, he found that his knees were well up to the task and did not hurt at all.  That became as much pleasure for him as a chance to pet the puppy.  The puppy responded by lifting its paws to his shoulders and it gave him a lick.  Everyone smiled and felt happy until the woman jerked the leash.

“Egbert, behave!”  The woman spoke sternly and tugged a couple of unkind tugs on the leash until the puppy came to obedience at her feet.  The woman had a cruel streak in her and Nathan was surprised at how strongly he felt the woman’s cruelty.  He looked down at Mya and saw that her eyes were wide.  She felt it too. Nathan and Mya did not interfere, even when the puppy looked at them, sadly.  “Yes, Egbert is an old family name,” the woman said.  “I promised my mother I would use it for one of my children.”  The woman laughed; or at least Nathan and Mya guessed that the sound was supposed to be a laugh.  The two women returned then to their inspection of the disaster, and since neither Mya nor Nathan were interested in going there, they said good-bye to the puppy and walked, hand in hand in the opposite direction

“Poor Egbert,” Mya said.  “He is going to have to live his whole life with that name.”

“Poor Egbert,” Nathan agreed.  “And with that woman,” he added, but his mind stayed on other things, and at once he saw what he was looking for.  He found a distraught looking young man sitting on the curb, ignoring everything that was going on around him as if lost in deep thought.  Nathan stopped their forward progress for a good, long look. The young man’s black hair appeared unmoved by the wind, though of itself that meant nothing.  He decided a comparison was in order so he looked back at the woman and her dog.  He felt astounded.  The woman behind looked as real as any he saw in life, but the young man on the curb looked more real.  It did not make sense, but that seemed the only way he could understand it.

Mya, who stood still and patient, got it at about the same time.  “He’s a ghost,” she said.  Nathan nodded, and he felt fairly sure that this was the ghost of the suicide bomber.

“Hello, friend.”  Nathan interrupted the man’s thoughts.  Nathan had decided that he had no ill will toward the man.  After all, he had lived a long and rich enough life in his own small way.  He did feel strongly for Mya, however, that this man’s actions were decidedly unfair to her, young as she was.  That was why he refused to abandon her, he told himself, though the truth was he felt he needed the little girl as much as she might need him.  “Friend?”  Nathan reached out to touch the man’s shoulder, but the man turned suddenly to stare at them with dark eyes filled with fear and hatred.

“Go away!”  The young man shouted.  “Why can’t you demons leave me alone?  Go away!”

Nathan squatted, now that he knew he could do that, and he looked toward the man, eye to eye, though he kept his distance and made no further move to touch him.  “Can I help?”  He asked and felt Mya squat down next to him.

“Maybe we could help.”  Mya agreed with Nathan, and they saw a slight softening in the man’s eyes as he turned his eyes to take in the girl.

“There is nothing you can do.  It is done,” the young man said through gritted teeth.

“But what is the matter?”  Mya apeared very sensitive to the young man’s pain, though that was just a blessing of human sensitivity sometimes found in the very young and rarely found in adults, it was not a hyper sensitivity such as they both had felt in the cruelty of the puppy owner.  Nathan had to catch Mya’s hand to keep her from reaching out to touch the young man softly, as she had petted the puppy.

“It is done,” the young man said again, and then he shifted his gaze to the heavens.  “Why am I not in paradise?  They all said I would be in paradise!”

Mya took the question seriously and responded with the only answer she could come up with.  “Maybe they did not tell you the truth.”  She spoke in her most encouraging voice, but Nathan had to move fast.  He grabbed Mya around the middle and pulled her out of reach just as the man’s face turned wicked, and his arms, with hands formed like claws, reached out to scratch her, to grab her, to hurt her in whatever way he could.

“Leave me alone, demons!  They warned me about your wicked tongues.”  The young man shouted, but very quickly a voice of reason interrupted.  It came from the side of the confrontation.

“Surely you did not believe the slaughter of the innocents was your ticket to heaven,” the voice said.

“Liar!  You are all liars!  I will listen no more!  Leave me alone, you demons!  Leave me alone!”  He slapped his hands over his ears so there would be no talking to him, and he turned his face back to the curb.

“There is no reaching him at present,” the voice said, and Nathan and Mya turned to see something they both expected to see and dared not hope to see.  Mya shivered and went straight to her knees.  She drew a hesitant Nathan down with her.  It was not that Nathan did not believe in what he saw, but rather his rational, worldly mind had been more developed, and after all, he had never seen an angel before.  He felt it, though, in his deepest marrow; that sense of awesome wonder, and not a little fear that showed in the trembling in his bones and in the pit of his stomach.  He felt in a sense like he was naked in a way he had never been before, and that feeling came with the realization that not every corner of his naked life was exactly clean.  It made him lower his eyes, not that he could have looked into the golden glare of those orbs regardless of how much they smiled.  He imagined Mya, being seven, had far less filth on her plate, but then he did not know for sure.  It does not take some people very long at all to build up all sorts of wickedness in their lives.  Maybe she felt it more strongly and that might be why she humbled herself first of all.

“Some people prefer to live in a box.”  The angel spoke, and both Mya and Nathan could do nothing but listen.  “They imagine they have put God in a box and believe that they understand his eternal, almighty nature, but in reality, all they have done is box up their own minds and hearts.  You must pray for him before the box becomes as hard as concrete.”  The angel paused and both Nathan and Mya ventured to look up.  Perhaps they were drawn to do so.

The Angel looked at someone beside him.  It was the old woman from the bus.  Nathan felt sure of that, even if she no longer looked like the old woman.  She had become, well, it seemed hard to tell what age exactly.  She looked like she was ageless, young one moment, but very old as well.  What is more, she looked all sparkly, like Christmas lights on a grand old tree, and the lights were blindingly bright even if they looked dim beside the glowing presence of the angel.  Anyway, her eyes were on the angel and she smiled, even when the angel turned again to look at Mya and Nathan.

“Do not be afraid,” the angel said.  “For you there are two times, a time between and a half time.”  And then it vanished—the angel was just not there anymore.  The young suicide bomber had gone as well, probably run off somewhere.  The sparkling woman turned toward Mya and Nathan.  Nathan could not quite be sure where the woman’s eyes were focused, so he could not be sure if she saw them or not, or if her smile was for them or not, though he liked to think it was.  All he could say for sure was her sparkling presence got very bright for a moment before she vanished as surely as the angel.

Nathan had tears in his eyes from the strain of all that bright light, or so he told himself.  Mya also had tears in her eyes, but neither of them felt sad in the least.  Indeed, when Nathan helped the girl up from the sidewalk, she seemed elated.  Her hands had been held palm to palm in the classic image of a child at prayer, and though she readily gave up her pose to take Nathan’s hand once again, she still seemed to be praying, so Nathan kept quiet.  Thus, neither said a thing as they walked the many blocks to the hospital.