Stand Tall My Sweet Dandelion Girl

by Jimenez, Javier

  After a while, I entered a collection of run down markets. The buildings had scratched paint and walls that were chipping away.

  I walked past market after market. The stores had strange scents. They smelled like something was aging. I walked by an old leather store and a grocery market, both of which smelled very strange. And I walked by an electronic store for old appliances that smelled of old carpet. All of this was unfamiliar.

  I kept walking on the sidewalk. I couldn’t help but notice how unmaintained the street was. There was trash everywhere. It was picked up by the dry wind and taken to edges or corners where the trash would go to accumulate.

  I looked around, and began noticing that the neighborhood was not deserted. Men and women who were much older than me walked on the streets, sometimes with a small child. The men and women appeared to be somewhere around the age of forty or fifty. I heard a few different languages, but the majority was Spanish and English.

  I kept making my way, looking for a bus stop. I took off my drawstring backpack to check how much money I had left. I had a little over ten dollars.

  I was nearing the end of the street and came across a heavily aged school bus that was parked in an alleyway. The wheels and rims were missing, the yellow paint had long faded, and the seats inside appeared to be decaying. It was so strange. Looking at an abandoned school bus. This is not what I had envisioned when I thought about L.A.

  I was perplexed by the school bus, and almost drawn to it. I walked near it and stared at the mechanical door, most of which consisted of glass.

  I saw my own reflection on the dirt-stained, cracked glass. I stared at it for a long time. A nearby lamppost illuminated me enough for a reflection to be able to form off the dark glass.

  I thought about how children could have once used this bus. Now it was rundown and decaying. A metallic vessel wasting away in an alley. The front and back of the school bus both had the lids missing. It was apparent that several engine parts were missing as well.

  The sight of the bus gave me chills. I felt a little sad thinking about how I was no longer in school.

  I stared at the reflection. Longer and longer. I didn’t know what I was doing. What I was doing in L.A.? What was I ever doing? What is any of this? What is all of this? Why am I here?

  I thought about how absurd everything was. I’m in an alley, miles away from the Center. How I escaped. How motivated I was. And for what? A heroic act to say goodbye to an old friend?

  I felt exhausted. My eyes felt overused and wanted to shut. I felt time growing heavy, and how I was running out of time. I didn’t have a lot of time, but my exhaustion became more and more apparent.

  My eyes felt so sore. I could almost feel the whites of my eyes turning red as they burned with fatigue.

  I thought to myself, the absurdities of life, huh.

  I saw myself smile against the reflection of the glass door.

  “Sam,” my reflection said. “I know what you did. I know what you’ve been doing,”

  My reflection was still smiling at me, but I was not.

  Chapter 71

  I stepped away quickly, and began running. I ran and ran till my chest hurt and I couldn’t breathe. I need out. I need to leave.

  I thought about the most sensible thing I could do right now. I quickly made my way into an electronic store and asked for directions to the Union Station. They looked at me strangely, but they pointed me in the right direction. One of the employees told me I would have to get on a highway and then make a quick exit, and from there, I would be near the train station. The workers there were nice enough to mark it on my map as well. I asked them if they could show me to the nearest bus stops and they redirected me to the outskirts of the neighborhood. As I walked out, I quickly, but kindly asked them for the time. One of the employees responded, 11:10 P.M.

  I thanked them and dashed out.

  I began running again. I tried to keep my footsteps as silent as possible, but they soon became noticeably loud. My running became sloppy, the side of my torso began to hurt from the scratch I had received earlier, and an area inside of my chest began pulsing with pain as I exerted my body. My breathing became heavy. The soles of my shoes pushed against the ground creating a skidding sound, and the contents of my backpack knocked into each other. I was anything but silent.

  I force my body to keep running. I run through a series of blocks and find myself in an almost abandoned street. There were piles of black garbage bags. Trash was littered everywhere, from candy wrappers to broken T.V. sets.

  I kept running, my legs began to hurt and my torso was in so much pain, inside and out. But I keep pushing. Fear ran through me.

  I pass cardboard boxes and piles of garbage bags, till finally, I see them. Amongst the black garbage bags and worn-out cardboard boxes were people bundled up in layers and layers of mismatched clothing. Homeless sat throughout the street bundled up next to what little belongings they had.

  Most were unobservant of me. Some of them slept, while others just simply kept to themselves.

  I reached the end of the street. I look up at a green street signpost. It read San Pedro St.

  I am panting heavily. I feared turning back. What I had witnessed was insanity. Inhumanity. How lives were spilled out throughout trash bags and cardboard boxes throughout an entire street.

  I’m shaken from what I just witnessed. I kept running and running till I was so tired that I couldn’t think. I ran to suffocate my thoughts. I ran to keep my sanity. If I overthought what I had just seen, I knew that the shock of the event would disorient me. It was horrible seeing living people like that. So I run without stopping, my chest pounded with pain and I breathed heavily, but I felt like I was not breathing at all. I ran from a poignant reality.

  I finally reach an immensely large street. I look around and find the bus stop that the electronic employees directed me to.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about any of it. Dear god.

  The bus finally arrived. I asked the bus driver for directions to the Union Station. He told me that this bus would lead me directly to the train station. It was finally happening, I was about to see Maribel.

  I climbed and paid the fee. The bus was fairly empty. I sat in the front again.

  I found myself peering out the window, hoping to see UCLA, but I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to see it. I figured that UCLA would be nowhere near any of this.

  The bus came to another stop, and the bus driver informed me that this was the stop that I wanted. “The train station is very close to here, you can’t miss it,” he explained.

  I got off the bus and began making my way towards the train station.

  That’s when it began.

  “We know what you did, Sam,” a voice said. “We all do.”

  Chapter 72

  I begin to stammer. My footsteps become erratic. I felt my levels of anxiety shoot up. I lose direction of where to go.

  “You liar. You dirty pig. We know about you,” another voice said.

  I hold onto my head, trying to brace myself, pushing my hands against my ears, hoping to stop it, hoping to revert it, hoping for it to go away. “Not now,” I whisper to myself.

  “Where are you going, huh? Out on the streets? Solicitinggg. Soliciting your lies, Sam?” the voice continued.

  “The night is dark. The night is for monsters. Is this why you are out here, Sam?” another voice said.

  “You monster, Sam. You vile, vile girl. We know what you did. We know what you’ve been doing,” it continued. My body collides against an old chain-link fence. My foot slips against the concrete and dust, and I fall on my knee.

  “Sam. Get up, the other monsters will find you. You are not as strong as them,”

  “Shut up,” I murmur. I can’t let anyone hear me. I interlock my fingers with the chain-link fence and pull myself upwards. I try to walk, but I lose direction. Shades of darkness fluctuate among the street.

  “Why do you lie? Why don’t you do what you are
told? What do you run from silly Sam?”

  “Silly, silly girl,” the voices overwhelm me.

  I try to fend them off, but I quickly found myself spinning in a circle. As much as I want to yell back, I resist. I can’t draw attention to myself.

  “Scream, Sam. Do it. Let everyone know what you are. You are a failure. You are inadequate. You are flawed. You were left behind.”

  “The world doesn’t want people like you. All your friends left you. No one from school came back to see you, Sam. Your companions are in good colleges, and you’re jumping from hospital to hospital. No college education. No high school degree,”

  “And guess what?” another voice said. “You are mentally ill. Mentally disordered. Severely impaired. You are broken from head to toe, Sam, Sam, Sam. Ten months of hospitalization,”

  “What a work of wonder you are,” another voice added.

  The voices relentlessly flooded my head. I must have stammered about ten feet until I finally managed to look up. And then, I saw it. The train station! I sped up my walking, although my legs seemed to knock into each other. “Maribel!” I screamed. I kept trying to find an entrance to the station. The entire area was surrounded by the chain-linked fence. I took a more detailed look at the area, there was a huge parking lot and then there was a tall building and next to it, the train. “Maribel!” I kept screaming, hoping that somehow, through all this distance, she would some how hear me.

  “You wanna know the truth, Sammy girl? You would have never been accepted into UC Berkeley,” a voice asserted.

  “They don’t want you,”

  “You were not good enough, you are not good enough, and you will never be good enough!”

  The voices began speaking over one another, overlapping.

  “The streets are for monsters, Sam. They can hear your lies. They will find you, Sam Azalea,”

  “You aren’t worthy enough. That place wasn’t for you. They were never going to take you in. They don’t take people like you. They take prodigies and geniuses, not a mediocre like you. You self-proclaimed overachiever.”

  “You have quite an audacity there. You failed all your classes. You aren’t an overachiever; you aren’t an achiever, not even an underachiever. What you achieved is absolutely nothing. No one is going to want you as a student. The severely impaired Sam Azalea!”

  I kept stammering, trying my hardest not to let myself lose focus. “Maribel!” I shouted again, still trying to find an entrance.

  Suddenly, I felt something pinch my shoulder. Something was on my shoulder. My body is petrified. I felt my body instantly turn to stone and my movement ceased.

  A crow is perched on my shoulder.

  “See, Sam? I told you. The monsters are here.”

  I swing at the crow in frenzy. It takes off and hovers over me. And suddenly, it begins to caw, almost screeching.

  “Sam. Run! They are here!” one of the voices shouted.

  “They smell your lies, Sam. You see what you caused for yourself?”

  I run and suddenly, the building disappears, and the train disappears. A vast parking lot and its fence were the only thing in sight.

  “Maribel!” I keep shouting. “Maribel!”

  More crows begin to appear out of the darkness of the sky. “Maribel!” I shout, but I am not heard.

  A crow swooped down and attempted to attack me. I ducked, avoiding the attack. There were at least ten crows now. Some hovering over me, and others perched on the fence. All of them cawed at me.

  “You see what you caused for yourself? They are persecuting you for lying.”

  “Run! Sam! Those aren’t the monsters,” a different voice said.

  “What do you mean those aren’t the monsters?” I replied to the voice.

  “Sam. They are going to get here. They are going to hurt you.”

  I look across the fence, and as I was about to scream for Maribel one more time, I saw it. The black horned monster. The one that I dreamt of. The one that captured Pandora in my dream. It got on all fours and began charging at me.

  “Run! Sam! Run!” the voice said.

  The crows continued to hover over me and caw at me. They were giving away my location. I began taking steps away from the fence, and I almost tripped as I stepped off the sidewalk.

  “RUN!” the voice shouted at me.

  I took off running onto the street. The crows continued to follow me. I ran through the street and suddenly, a car honked at me. It startled me and I ran deep into an alley. My feet made crunching noises as I ran over pieces of glass and small pebbles. The stench of piss and rotting beer hit my nose. I held my breath and tried my best not to gag.

  The alleyway’s walls transformed into apartment buildings. I was confused. What was going on?

  I was alone in the middle of the night. My heart started beating faster as I became more and more frightened.

  I felt rats running over my foot and I began screaming.

  The apartments caught on fire and they began crumbling. From the ground, burnt hands began to emerge, reaching at me. I leapt away from the hands and I found myself running. In seconds, the hands transformed into arms. I only kept running faster and faster. They swung at me and tried to catch me. And then I heard screams—the screams of burning creatures. I looked behind me, and that’s when I saw them. They were the same creatures that attacked me a year ago.

  It couldn’t be.

  No.

  Chapter 73

  This is a dream, I tell myself. It’s absurd. This has to be a dream. I touched my bruise and it stung. I then realized that this was no dream.

  The humanoid creatures were standing now—decaying and rotting. At first, their bodies came out of the ground with a wax consistency. But as they walked, the wax seemed to drip away, revealing the flesh wounds and charred skin. Several of the humanoid creatures lacked limbs. But all of them shared one commonality—they were burned and decaying.

  They rise from the ground and began stammering towards me.

  “Sam. You have to get out,” a voice said. “Now!”

  I was caught in a trance. It was unbelievable. I stood between two apartment buildings. They collapsed as they were engulfed in flames and rats scurried away seeking salvation.

  “Now!” the voice yelled at me.

  I didn’t understand. Why? Why was this happening? I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to get out. I didn’t want to run. But I forced myself for some reason. And I started crying. I ran and ran. Apartment building after apartment building. Everything was collapsing in flames. A hoard of charcoaled creatures after me.

  That’s when a man grabbed me and slammed my body against a wall. I suddenly found myself in the alleyway again. The collapsing buildings and burnt creatures disappeared. The man restrained me, and for a moment, I was terrified that a cop had found me. Did the Center find out that I was missing? Did the Center file a missing report of me? I was never going to see Maribel now. I was going to be taken back to a police station against my will.

  The man grabbed the front of my coat and ripped it open, causing several of my coat’s buttons to burst and spill on the ground. He grabbed me by my chest and hurled me onto the wall. I felt blood running down the back of my head.

  And for a moment, I wish it had been a cop. But cops don’t wait in alleys like these.

  I resisted his grip, but he struck me again and everything went black.

  Part 7

  Chapter 74

  I woke up and whished that everything had been a dream. I hoped that it was all a nightmare and that none of it was real life. But the cold and dirty alley defeated whatever claim I wanted to make.

  I stood up and noticed that there were scratches all over me. I felt a pain in my nose. I touched it and I knew something was not right. It was severely swollen.

  I exited the alley. It must have been morning now, because the sun was up. I walked around the streets looking for the nearest payphone. I had to be strong for myself as I walked. My body limped a
nd people stared at me. My blood covered shirt and ripped coat drew attention to me, but I held back my tears.

  I eventually find a payphone close to a gasoline station. I slip coins inside and punch in my grandmother’s number. It rings for a bit. She picks up.

  “Grandma,” I say, almost choking. “Can you pick me up?”

  Chapter 75

  She arrives an hour later, extremely worried and mortified when she sees me. I tell her that I don’t want to talk about it and immediately pass out in her car.

  I open my eyes and suddenly, I’m in the Center’s health check-up room.

  Someone’s holding my hand. I look up, almost blinded by the ceiling lights. It was my mom. She ran her hand through my hair. “My precious dandelion girl,” she murmured. I felt as if I had heard her say that before, but where?

  She continued to run her hand through my hair, and I shut my tired eyes, and let her stroke my hair.

  “Her medical history?” a voice outside spoke. It was my grandmother’s voice. “Her father developed severe schizophrenia around the time that Sam was born. He was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital in Nevada. We never heard from him and his family again.”

  “What about the mother?” another voice asked, which I identified to be Dr. Alvarez’s.

  “No. Dahlia and I didn’t have any history of mental illnesses running through our family,” my grandma added. They both paused for a second and there was silence.

  “Poor girl,” my grandmother seemed to sigh. “Her mother died when she was seven. She always had trouble coping with it. The father had never been in the picture, and when her mother died, well, you could imagine.”

  There was another brief, but prolonged silence. “There was a fire in the apartment buildings where she was growing up,” my grandmother whispered. “Sam survived, but her mother, well. I can’t say the same. Last Wednesday marked the 12th year of her mother’s death, but I don’t think Sam would have remembered, or at least, she wouldn’t keep something like that in mind. But ever since then, I’ve been raising her.”