Stand Tall My Sweet Dandelion Girl

by Jimenez, Javier

  The cry.

  The cry.

  The cry.

  It was midnight and my body finally rendered itself to the darkness.

  Chapter 60

  There was a tapping sound. A very hard tapping sound. The bedroom was dark. It was still nighttime. The tapping sound was echoing from the first floor. I found myself walking down the hallway. I made my way down the staircase, and the tapping sound was much more clear. It was coming from the other side of the dining room.

  I kept walking to the direction of the tapping. I don’t know why it attracted me so much. Why did I want it so much. It just tapped. And tapped.

  I neared the end of the dining room, until I reached a wall. There it was. The painting. Of the Nightingale. The sound was coming from there. I kept walking closer and closer. Until it was in full vision.

  It looked so real. The painting of the nightingale appeared so realistic. I kept staring at it, and suddenly, the nightingale turned to look at me, still perched on its branch. And then it began tapping. And that’s when I realized that it was no longer painting. It was a window. A glass window. And on the other side was a living nightingale.

  It pecked at the glass. And Pecked and pecked.

  We had a lot of paintings of nightingales at the Center because nightingales were native to Greenwood.

  It suddenly began chirping. I could hear it, but the window slightly muffled the sound. It kept chirping, it was almost as if it was singing to me. It made a variation of different sounds. It was adorable. I found myself staring at the small creature. It was about the size of my palm and it was puffy and several shades of browns and creams.

  The chirping kept getting louder and louder, and then it looked upset. I was confused. It began fluttering and screeching. It began banging its body against the glass and suddenly. I couldn’t hear anymore. I couldn’t hear the bird or any of the noises that it was making. I just watch the bird bang itself against the glass repeatedly. It was panicked. The bird began leaving traces of blood on the glass, and I immediately felt startled. I take a step back, and I bump into someone. I looked back. It was me. A replica of my body, standing right behind me. I was stunned. The replica didn’t move and had its eyes closed, but I felt paralyzed from watching myself. Suddenly, all sound in the room went blank. I couldn’t hear the sound of the bird striking the glass, or my foot taking a step away from the replica, or the sound of my breathing, or my heartbeat. All sound ceased. It was unnatural. It was an anomalous occurrence.

  Suddenly, the replica opened its eyes. It made contact with mine.

  And she whispered, “I sing for you during the night.”

  My eyes opened wider. I tried to say something, I tried to gasp, but nothing was happening. I couldn’t produce any sound. I took another step back, and no sound. My body bumped into the wall, dropping the window. I looked down, and it was just a frame. “Where did the window go?” I tried to shout, but it felt as if I had gone mute, as if I was in a universe that was void of sound. My lips moved and my throat contracted, but no sound was produced.

  I was in a state of horror. I couldn’t produce any sound. I made a second glance at the frame that was on the floor. It was the frame of the nightingale painting. Except it was different. The branch was still there, but there was absolutely no nightingale. Was I seeing things? Was it even there to begin with?

  I looked up and laid eyes on my replica, expecting to get an answer. But all I found myself doing was interlocking eye contact with her, and I watched as she opened her mouth, as she was going to say something. I was mortified—mortified about what she was going to say.

  Her lips slowly slid open. She stuck her tongue out. It split into two. Her eyes grew menacing. And her voice completely changed. The vocal range completely dropped to something barely even human. She whispered, “cry.”

  Suddenly, a stream of blood began flowing out of her nostril. It ran down her upper lip, down her chin, and began to drip onto the ground. Panic emerges from my chest and spreads throughout the rest of my body.

  She lifted her hand and pointed directly at my face. I put my hand right under my nose, and I’m bleeding too. I looked at the floor, and saw maroon droplets splashing onto the ground. I tried covering my nose with my second hand, but the bleeding refused to stop. My entire nose was smeared in maroon and my mouth tasted like copper.

  I began screaming but I couldn’t hear my voice. I couldn’t hear anything. I tried to scream even louder, but my throat pulsed with extreme pain, and I began choking.

  I looked at the floor again. The splotches of blood developed into a puddle. What the hell is going on? I tried to shout, but I began choking again as blood seeped into my mouth.

  She gave me a menacing smile, and she began thinning and thinning. First she looked like she only slimmed down, but within a matter of seconds, she looked completely skeletal. She looked like she had not eaten for days. But she kept smiling at me.

  I felt my movement becoming timorous. Mentally, it perturbed my thoughts, watching her bleed and smile.

  Her mouth opened, and opened, and opened until it looked like her jaw had been snapped. I could see her snake tongue, but what instilled fear into my chest was a substance growing, oozing out of her throat. It was silver. It filled her mouth and slowly poured out her jaw. It was fog.

  I tried to move my body away from her. My legs felt weak and knocked into each other as I tried to run. I used the wall as support and began forcing my body in any direction away from her. Fog began spilling all over the floor, covering everything. My feet were concealed in the silver essence. I kept forcing my body to run, but I kept having so much trouble. Suddenly, something caught my foot, and I fell. Everything went black. Still no sounds. The last sound I heard was the eerie pronunciation of the word “cry.” Everything went black, and my head felt heavy.

  Chapter 61

  My head feels heavy and groggy. I sit up. Everything is bright. It’s daytime.

  I look around. Everything is green. The sky is completely white. It isn’t blue, or violet. There were no clouds present; the sky was just simply white. Void of color.

  I ran my hands across the surface of the floor. I feel strands of grass running through my hands. I keep looking around me. I am in a meadow. A meadow that stretched for miles and miles. It seemed to never end.

  I stand up and began searching for anything else besides grass. I quickly began spotting weeds all over the meadow. Random patches of dark green weeds everywhere. Long moss-colored stems protruded from the patches of weeds. And at the very top of the stems, were white fuzzy spheres.

  I walk towards one and took a close look at the plant.

  Dandelion weeds. Everywhere. Not one was yellow. Every single stem had a white sphere that swayed as wind picked up.

  They are beautiful.

  For some inexplicable reason, I began plucking the dandelions, collecting a handful. I didn’t understand why I was plucking them. I usually never pluck flowers, or in this case, weeds.

  I stop when I have a good number of stems in my hand. I look at the dandelions. It feels like I am looking at a white cloud.

  I found it strange. How when growing up, I was never taught about this. Why one moment they are yellow flowers, and the next, they become patches of white, fuzzy seeds.

  Suddenly, I heard the call of a nightingale. My body froze. I wasn’t sure if I heard correctly. I second-guess myself. Again—I heard it—the nightingale’s singing echoed through the meadow.

  I looked around. Trying to spot the bird. But all I saw was the great luminous white sky, and the brightly lit meadow that stretched for eternities and infinities.

  I kept turning and turning, hoping to find the bird. Till finally, I felt something pinch my shoulders. The nightingale stood on my shoulder.

  It chirped so beautifully, and I stayed still, and after a few minutes, it took off.

  “Sam,” a voice said. A voice that had been so distant in my life, but was so distinct at the same time. It was
my mother’s voice.

  I looked around and spotted her. She was walking towards me. I ran to hug her and she hugged me back. “Mom!” I shout in excitement. I clutch on to her tightly, checking that she is real. My arms were completely around her, encasing her. I felt her and I knew that somehow, she was truly here.

  “Hello, Sam. I see you found yourself some dandelions there,” she stated.

  I loosen my grip on her and let go. “Mom, what are you doing here?” I ask her as glee ran through my body.

  “I love seeing you, Sam. I hate passing up the opportunity to see my daughter,” she responds.

  “Mom,” I paused. Trying to decide if I should tell her about what has been happening to me. “Things have been bad,” I inform her. “I’ve been having visions of horrifying things,”

  “We all see horrifying things, Sam. We feel horrifying things,”

  “No, Mom, you don’t understand. Things have been getting really bad over the past year. Really, really bad. My waking life is haunted with living nightmares and I’m constantly on medications. And in my dreams, that’s when they get me. The nightmares torture me. There are inhuman things in my mind at night, and they eat me away,” I confess to her.

  She had a grim and serious expression. “Sam, I know that this life isn’t easy, and no matter how hard things get, don’t give in to things that scare you. It’s okay to be scared, we all are. But don’t let your fears faze you. Humanity is a fragile thing. And you will break, and break, and break. Things are going to get very hard. And you are going to be scared of a lot of things. But no matter how scared you are, I want you to always lift up your fists, and fight. You can be reduced to tears, but always keep your fists up. And throw your punches, Sam. Because you are my little fighter.”

  I tightened my grip on the dandelions.

  “You are my sweet little dandelion girl, Sam. When the world disheartens you, be tough. Be tough for me. But most of all, be tough for yourself. The world is relentless, but I want you to stand tall, even when you think that you can’t. Stand tall and raise your fists.”

  A breeze picked up, and the dandelion seeds blew from my hands. They twirled and swayed, and disappeared into the white sky.

  My mom leaned over and kissed my forehead.

  Chapter 62

  I am thrust back into reality. I’m back in my bedroom. The sun is just beginning to rise for the morning. I sit up, and I know that I’m conscious this time. I am awake. I can feel it by how still time was and the way I had control of every sense on my body. I looked over at my foot. It got stuck in between the mattress and the wall.

  I remained immobile. Something lingered in my mind, but I wasn’t sure what it was. A vague memory that I could barely recall.

  I remember being on grass, and it was bright, and something about dandelions and seeing my mother, and I think she kissed my forehead, but my memory of the dream was collapsing faster and faster, till finally, that’s all that I could vaguely remember, and nothing else. The rest of the dream was lost—lost by the brain cells that could not capture the entirety of what was running through my mind over the course of the night.

  How is it that the night before, I could remember every detail about running with Malory, to not being able to recall a day in a grassy terrain?

  I couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything else? And if I had other dreams?

  Everything was lost in a matter of seconds. I felt as if I had failed when I couldn’t recall anything else.

  My alarm began buzzing, breaking me from my daze. I walked over to my wooden desk and shut the alarm off. The clock read 7:30 A.M. I stared at my wooden desk, realizing that I had left Maribel’s letter on the desk. And there it was, in visible sight.

  Only one thought came to mind. I knew what I would do. I will find someway to get to the train station in L.A. to see Maribel.

  Today was September 23, a Tuesday. Maribel would be at the train station by 11 P.M. and depart at midnight. I began assessing how I would get there and what I would need.

  I focused my attention to my cabinet. The top two drawers were used only for clothing. Most of it was the Center’s pastel green uniform.

  I opened the bottom drawer, where I kept my more hidden items. That’s where I would keep my roll of tape that I picked up in the Commons area when a nurse left it unattended. I also kept the envelope here from where Maribel’s letter came from. I had some writing utensils, a notebook that was slightly used, and a few other things. I pulled out a gray drawstring backpack and a metal water bottle, both of which, my grandma had given to me when I first arrived here. She also gave me some money in case of an emergency. I had several different dollar bills, but in total, I amounted 23 dollars and a few extra coins. This was enough to get me to LA by bus. Greenwood was only a two-hour drive to L.A.

  I began planning what I would take. I placed my notebook and a few pens into my drawstring backpack. I filled the metal water bottle with tap water from my bathroom’s sink, and placed it in my backpack. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of here yet, but I knew it would have to be inconspicuous. I thought about asking nurse Jackie to let me out, but she would have said no. I thought about asking my grandma to help me, but she would not have approved. And besides, the few times that my grandma asked for me to have a day away from the Center, the faculty denied her request. Not on my birthday or her birthday, or on holidays. Plus, my treatment was long from over and I was still under psychiatric care, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I thought about maybe trying to convince people of power to let me out? Like talking to my counselor about my situation. All of these seemed like good propositions. Except for the fact that if they denied my request, not only would they know of my destination, but my chances of running away undetected would be reduced to zero.

  Running away sounded a bit exaggerated at first. But I convinced myself that it was not as much running away, but escaping. And temporarily too. I would come back after I had gotten what I wanted, which was to go out into the city, since I have been under a year of constant hospitalization and monitoring; and especially to say goodbye to Maribel. I couldn’t help my fascination towards city life now that I had been here so long. That’s why I found myself captivated by photography books of cities and Zoan’s cologne that spoke the words ‘city life.’ Beautiful or not beautiful, I wanted to voyage across buildings and streetlights. But ultimately, what was most important of all was seeing Maribel again.

  I dressed out of my pajamas and into my hospital attire. I put on my Canvas Cordones and brushed my teeth. I patted my hair and ran my fingers through it. I refused to comb it because it would take away the wavy appearance. I washed my hands and made my way down to the dining room to have breakfast.

  George greets me. He offers me pancakes, and blueberries, and a cup of milk. I accept it. I also ask for a banana, and he hands one to me.

  I go sit off on my own. But this time, I needed to be alone. I couldn’t let myself be distracted by other people right now. I have to think about a lot of things.

  As I ate, I second-guess myself consistently, questioning whether I should even go. I keep imagining a scenario in which I could actually get permission to leave. And I want to ask, but I don’t ask anyone because what would happen if they say no? I would not only be denied, but if I decided to runaway on my own, they would know where I would be headed.

  I suddenly realized that maribel’s letter could be evidence of my whereabouts. I have to either shred it or take it with me. I decided to simply take the letter. I figured I could use whatever information I needed from it to double check the location and time if I did end up running away.

  I chewed on my pancake, and thought about whether this was all worth it? Did Maribel mean this much to me? Risk myself running through cities alone? I don’t want her to get ashamed of me. If I find her, I’ll just say that I was escorted and that I got permission to go see her one last time. Or better yet, I can tell her that I finished my treatment and that my grandma brought m
e to her.

  Urgency grew inside my chest. I wanted to tell Nurse Jackie if I could leave, but there was too much risk if she denied my request. She would know where I was headed. But if I didn’t tell anyone, no one would be able to track me down. Best-case scenarios, they don’t notice that I am gone. The nurses only check that there aren’t any patients wandering during after hours. They don’t physically go through room after room, checking that we are all tucked in bed. If I can just go unnoticed, everything could work out. But when would be the best time to leave? This is all absurd. If I leave too late, I won’t make it on time to see Maribel. But I have to leave when it’s not broad daylight. Or when everyone is distracted.

  How would I sneak out? There’s no backdoor to this hospital. I can’t go through the front office; the nurses would never let me. There are emergency doors in the dining room, but those trigger alarms. The only other exit is the Commons Area. The door next to the large glass windows that led to the patio is a very good possibility, except I would have to avoid being seen. The patio consists of large, stone tiles, systematically placed maple trees, and then a large row grass. And after that, a fence. It’s double my height. It must be at least eight feet tall. There’s no other way of exiting besides the fence.

  I weighed my options. I couldn’t risk an alarm going off, and the front office would be almost impossible. And I can’t ask them for permission because if I get denied, then once I go missing, they will know where I am going.

  Missing? What are you talking about, Sam? What are you doing? What am I doing? Is Maribel worth this much to me?

  From my second floor of the window, I could see the small sidewalk that was part of the patio, the row of grass, the fence. Passing the fence, there were a few trees, and then there were some buildings a bit farther back. More in the distance, I could see the cluster of buildings and electrical poles erected from streets. Wires ran through them connecting from one pole to the other. And that’s where the crows’ caws come from. After that, I don’t know what is beyond. This is all I have ever known. But I want to understand more.