by M. Demetrice
***
It is eleven o’clock in the morning and I am holding my daughter’s hand as we look up at the Felipe building that stands tall and mysterious. The same security guard is here and watching us. I give him a thin smile and a slow nod. He leave us be. I take in a deep breath and exhale, my daughter squeezes my hand as if she knows the reassurance will help in this crazy thing.
Why are we going to the twenty-third floor? My husband is dead, buried in San Antonio off of I10 beside a family that treated him like shit.
“Mama, let’s go.” I haven’t heard a peep out of her today, however, she speaks with confidence as if she is the adult and I am the child. She has so much of her father’s personality. Don’t minced words - just do it.
We go through the revolving doors and pass well-dressed men and women of all races and creeds. The first floor ceiling is tall with a large antique chandelier that looms over the middle sitting area. The place is dimly lit yet elegant, decorated in neutral colors that exudes wealth.
The elevator door opens just as we approach it. It’s as if someone was holding it just for us. People are waiting to get on and we stand behind them. They don’t move. My daughter looks up at me with impatience.
“Excuse me, are y’all going to get on?”
“Oh, excuse us. We’re sorry,” an older gentlemen replies. “You go right ahead; we’ll take the next one.”
“Well, there’s plenty of room if you want to join us,” I say.
“No, you two go right ahead.”
I give him a slight smile and hesitate thinking maybe this is a bad idea. If not for my daughter’s late night visits to my bedroom informing me of Dan’s request, I would be at home grieving instead of standing here at the elevator fearful of what I might find. This fear sends heaviness to my feet, causing them to grow numb. I shuffle them knowing I cannot simply stand here and waste more time. The elevator’s loiterers stare at me; their expression says, Get on if you dare.
My daughter pulls me slightly by the hand and we get on. The elevator’s interior is mirrored and I can see our image clearly on the smudge free walls. That’s strange - someone had to at least lean against it with their body or hands. There should be smudges or finger prints.
I breathe harder because this slight thing that is not there concerns me. I press the button for the twenty-third floor and the elevator moves with an easiness I have never felt.
The bell dings.
We are on the twenty-third floor.
Now what?
“Come on, Mama, let’s get off.” I realize that I’m standing there with my finger pressed on the open button not moving. I’m mesmerized by the feeling I’m having. Suddenly, I feel lightheaded and again, my feet feel heavy. I can’t move from this spot. Although, today, is the first time I have ever stepped foot into the Felipe building, familiarity washes over me as I stand looking down the hallway of the twenty-third floor.
There are only four doors on this floor connected to four suites. The light flickers off and on. Seem like it is sending an SOS. My left foot moves then my right. One foot follows the other. I am moving slow and my daughter is pulling me in aggravation.
“Come on, Mama, right there. We’re close, just move a little faster.” Her aggravation is causing her to speak more words than she has ever spoken to me in her short six years. I understand her annoyance with me. My hesitation is slowing her down and I knew she wanted to throw a tantrum but that would only delay our mission and she knows this. I take a deep breath and follow her. “That’s it, Mama. We’re almost there.” She is calmingly coxing me to our destination.
Room 2303.
This is it. He had been found outside this room’s balcony. I was told the room had not been reserved the day they found him crushed. His eyes looking heavenward.
We stand there before the door, Sam squeezing my hand harder than usual.
“What now?” I ask.
“We wait.”
I nod, complying with my daughter’s orders.
We wait, staring at the door of 2303, our fingers intertwined. It is the first time my daughter has never pulled away from my grasp. Finally, the door opens inward. We are greeted by hundreds of fireflies as they bask the room in blue light. Soft music plays in the background. A soft aah escapes Sam. Her hand leaves mine as she steps into the empty room and looks around.
“Mama, this feels like the room to Up.”
“Up?”
“Up, Mama. He fell up. This is the place where you come to enter Up. Daddy told me in my dream. We’re here, Mama, but where is he?” and then she whimpers, scared Dan will not show. A tear escapes and I go to her.
“Baby, it’s okay. We will wait. Your father has never failed us. He will show.”
We sit on the carpet in the empty suite and watch as the fireflies surround us. I wasn’t scared or hungry. I wasn’t anything.
Just here.
I close my eyes and bask in the moment while my child did the same.
“Open your eyes,” I hear a familiar voice say.
I open them to find myself sitting in a field of wild flowers too beautiful to describe. A few yards away, Dan, surrounded by fireflies, stands watching us. He is younger in death.
“Daddy!” Sam stands and runs into her father’s arms. I continue to sit, shock registered on my face.
“Dan?”
“Hello, Barb,” he says into my mind.
I am speechless. This moment feels like a dream. I continue to look around. Sitting here, I witness the sun set hundreds of times, it setting glorious than the previous.
“Is this Heaven?”
“No,” he answers, now sitting beside me. I take in his youthful features.
“How is this possible?”
“It just is,” he answers with his eyes. They are magnificent. Clear and welcoming. Staring into mine, he uses his eyes to speak to me.
“Dan, what’s going on? Why do you look so young?”
“This is simply a body I have taken for this moment. The human form you knew was not of my true form. It belonged to a man named Daniel Mortonti.”
“But your family – the terrible things you told me.”
“Daniel suffered greatly by the hands of his family. The life I shared with you was the truth except it was me, for the last forty-seven years, living Daniel’s life. The real Daniel lives on the planet of Up. I took on his identity for my sabbatical.”
“Planet? Sabbatical?” I am too shocked to comprehend his words.
“I came to earth over twenty-three cycles ago – forty-seven of your Earth years – to have an adventure. Instead, I found love. Daniel’s body was meant to die and wither but instead I kept it alive so that I could be with you . . . and Samantha.” Dan turns to Samantha. I follow his gaze and gasp. She stands before me a grown woman. Beautiful and healthy. Only the eyes are the same.
“Samantha?”
“Already Samantha is responding to her true home.” My husband takes me by the hand. “Barbara, you cannot go with us.”
“But you told us to come. We’re here now. Why can’t we stay?”
“You cannot stay. You are meant to be out there. Sam and I are meant to live on our world of Up. Up has always been our home. It is the only place where Sam will be able to thrive. On Earth, she would have been smothered by the world.”
“But why?” I ask again as if I am a clueless child.
“You must be part of Up which you are not. Samantha is a part of me. She carried the cells necessary to function on Up.”
“Can’t you give me these cells? Give me your blood.”
Dan shakes his head. “It is not that simple.”
I cry out, “What about the real Daniel! You said he was now on Up.”
“Like many others on this planet, Daniel had a parent from Up. There are hundreds of us that reside here.”
“Hundreds!?”
�
�Many like me who have laid with Earthlings and procreated. However, unlike me, they decided to stay instead of return to Up where their child would have prospered – foolishly they left them here to wither inside bodies that are not compatible with your Earth’s atmosphere. You have seen many of these children of Up’Tarians. They are what your people call special needs – those with mental disabilities. On Up they would be just like you and I. Functional.”
“This is too much,” I shake my head, his admission overwhelming.
He only smiles and then lays a kiss to my forehead that calms me.
“One day we shall all be together,” he sends through his kiss.
“I know,” I reply. My husband was a man of action. If he said it, I knew it would be so.
I reach for my daughter and take her hand. She is so striking standing in her adult body with confidence etched across her delicate face.
“I feel after you have left me that I will not be strong enough to even function.”
“No, Mama, you will do more than function, you will thrive. You were always the strong one.”
“No,” I shake my head. “In the end you were the strong one. You pulled me here.”
“Only through your love, was I able to do so.”
I nod with her truth.
Sam gives me a hug; it feels like a warm blanket in winter.
“I love you, Mama.” I quiver in happiness, for it was the first time I have ever heard words of fondness from my daughter. I return her hug and caress her adult face. “I love you, too,” I reply, wiping away a tear.
Dan was right, my daughter was already showing signs of improvement within this room to Up. With that, I immediately understand and accepted what Falling Up truly meant.
Sam steps away from my arms. “Mama, you belong in this world. Here you can help those like me.”
“How can I do that?”
Sam glances at her father, his expression, pensive. “Barb?”
I already know what he is about to say. Dan knows that my life will be meaningless without my family so he ask the one thing that will keep me busy and sane.
“Go out and find those like Samantha. Be their advocate. Bring them here so that they may enter their true home.”
“Dan, I just can’t kidnap someone’s child and bring them here. I will be locked up for it. There are rules here on Earth.”
Dan grabs a firefly and I watch its wings go still but its light brightens. Fireflies are from Up. Place a firefly on the hand of the child. The firefly will carry them home.”
“Seems impossible.”
“The shell – the body will be left behind, however, the living force will return to Up.” I nod in understanding. “Will you do this?”
“You know I will.”
“Then close your eyes,” my husband whispers.
My eyelashes rest on my cheeks and when I open them, a wail escapes, my heart catching up with what my mind knows.
I stand and leave the room now filled with expensive furniture with no hint of Up and walk out the Felipe building alone.
Thank you for reading Goodbye: a short story compilation. Feedback is essential to my growth as an Indie Writer therefore, I would love to hear from you!