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As I walk out of the bathroom of our hotel room in Florida, my head rings with the optimistic song I sing. The humming leaving my lips almost echo in the room where whispers linger, like a smoke from a birthday cake, too sweet-smeeling, and making you cough. But the coughing is a happy feeling, because you're surrounded by people that love you and are laughing about how that last candle just wouldn't go out.
I look up, singing merrily the last few notes of the words I wouldn't remember having sung just seconds before as soon as I laid eyes on my family. It was the last day of our vacation... I expected them to be arguing in some way, at least, as they always did. I expect them to be making some squabble about something or another that was ridiculous to begin with, or be joking about a terrible pun my father made, or... something a little less like what was going on.
With grave expressions my entire family stares at something or another, just not each other, but not in anger... confusion and shock, along with doom pierce the air in the room. My mother's hushed words to my father break off and with a shaken-cage look she glances towards me... then quickly averts her gaze. My father turns and stands, meeting my eyes. His expression is wrought with a sickeningly frightening, realistic pain. His eyes speak of something he doesn't want to tell me. But he begins to talk.
"Marlena... something's happened." He says, and then looks down for a second. My eyes search the room hungrily for my sister, wondering if something's happened to her. They find my sibling hunched over with her hands resting weakly in her lap, looking at the floor with a tear threatening to break the seemingly tear-proof emotional seal she has on her beach-sunburnt face. And then find my father again.
"What?!" I ask, and the towel falls from my fingers. "What is it, is Caleb hurt? What ha--"
I'm cut off.
"The... Howards have gotten into a car accident." My father interrupts. He looks up again and says some other words... they blur together in my mind... I fear the worst. The descrptions flash by in my head of the situation... I imagine a horrid scene, and lower my vision to the stereotypical-hotel-room carpet, the complicated weave of celtic knot and monotonous pattern so common in these places.
My shoulders sag, and the emotion drains from my face. I hear that three are alive... the other three... one is in bad shape. Two passed on impact.
The rest of that day goes by, I barely speak another word at all, except to directly answer questions.
That night as I slide into bed... I cry. But silently, after everyone has begun to sleep.
When I eventually get to sleep, I begin to dream. My thoughts conjure a nightmare.
Matthew and Janine sit in their van, in front of my house. They laugh and cajole... curious, I walk up to their big red vehicle... it's an impossible distance from my house. But as soon as I get there, to the car, they open the door. Matthew smiles toothily down at me, his cheeks red from smiling and laughing so much, his touseled red-blonde hair shining in the suddenly bright sun. Janine looks back at me and says, "See? It was a joke. All a joke!"
Matthew laughs at his mother's "jest". He looks at me and sees my horrified expression, and laughs some more. A child's humor, a small giggle that he only uses when he's perfectly at ease. I'm almost tricked into alughing along... but I hold back. Helooks at me oddly. "What?" He asks, as if reading my mind. "We said it was a joke! We never died. They were joking."
My eyes light up, I'm somehow convinced that this is the truth... somehow, I want to believe this falasy. I laugh with them, and lean on the step-up of the car as I do so. The rest of the family runs out of my house, the father walking behind. They laugh with me, laugh with my own chuckles, and as they surround me, I feel a twang in my heart choke on my laughter. But again, I feel compelled to feel joy that they aren't really dead.
And then I'm shaken awake with a gruff, "C'mon. Our plane is leaving in a few hours."
I almost begin laughing again, that sound tickling in my heart. But only a whimper comes out, and the tears almost break their levvi and unleash upon my face, rivulets casting down my cheeks. But... I manage to remain calm somehow... I realize reality with a shock once more... and have to sit up, my hands shaking in front of me.
"Okay..." I whisper. "I'll get up."
 Marli-oneechan · Sun Jul 19, 2009 @ 03:03am · 0 Comments |
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