Another Star in Heaven

April 24, 2018May 20, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

flowers grieve and fall

Kaan and Alli walked through the night, their flashlights cutting wide swathes of light through the darkness. The beams bounced off the trees, shone through translucent leaves and often pointed down at their toes.

The night hung like a shell over them. The stars wavered like ghosts in the ether. They were making their way down the hill, in a long, sweeping arc. Their shoes dug into the layers of dead, brackish plant matter. Dust congealed in the conic sections of their artificial radiance.

In the valley, a bulky black and gray building swam in front of them, materialized out of the inky gloom. A twisted chain-link fence, long rendered useless, cordoned the area, festooned with loud ‘Keep Out!’ signs of black and white painted metal.

The door was rusted and hung ajar. The lock had long been picked and someone had taken the time to kick the entrance in. Leaning down, Kaan and Alli folded themselves into the parcel-sized opening.

The two of them turned their lights to race down a long, abandoned corridor, with sheet metal walls. “Still feels like a prison,” Kaan remarked.

They got to one of the many test rooms, with a white, battered chair – much like one a dentist would use – only fashioned with heavy, leather straps for the abdomen, legs and arms. In the white room, at the top corner, was a two-way mirror, that opened into a control room above.

“I’m surprised they still haven’t torn this place down,” Kaan thought aloud.

Kaan looked around. The room was dusty from lack of use. Twigs had blown in, through unseen holes. Webs stretched across corners. Little rat feet could be heard crawling around in the walls.

“Do you think Nealy would ever come back here?” Alli asked.

“I doubt it,” Kaan said, “This place was abandoned for a reason.”

“Still worth a look, right?” Alli wondered.

Kaan didn’t answer.

They left the dilapidated, unmarked lab. As she got on the back of Kaan’s old Harley, Alli pretended she could see Nealy there – between the branches, coming through the ether, bleeding through from the other side, wearing a beige suit and a red ascot, ensconced in the brilliant rays of an aura – bright and shining, like the sun.

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Residential

April 13, 2018May 13, 2018 ~ Piece, of the Sky

Alli was in the attic of her house. She came up there to study, to read the articles in the green leather-bound encyclopedias, with gold letters on their binding. She was a freshman in high school. Her dream was to go to Cambridge and stroll across the fiery, green lawns, which only graduates could walk across.

The sky groaned under the weight of the rain, morose and the color of graphite. The attic had a wide semi-circle window that gave her a panoramic view of the town, its squat little apartments lining streets, that went downhill. The attic had no carpeting. The wooden boards were soft from years of damp weather. Other than the light from the window, the attic was quite dim, almost foreboding, but Alli was used to that. What she wasn’t used to, was the red-haired girl now curled up in her perch.

“Hey,” Alli said, “What are you doing up here?” She tried to hide that she was startled. Hardly anyone ever came up here. Alli’s voice seemed to have awoken the girl. She jumped and then struggled to get up. “How did you get in here?” Alli asked again. How had she gotten in? Perhaps, she was homeless or a petty thief. The back of Alli’s neck tensed; she was ready to run back down the stairs if the intruder lunged at her.

The girl looked frightened too. She was dressed in ancient jeans and a jacket frayed at the shoulders. “Hey, don’t rat me out,” she whispered, “It was just so cold out there last night. I was going to catch pneumonia out there.” Her voice was more delicate than Alli thought it would be, soft and immaterial, like satin curtains, trimmed with lace.

Alli lowered her shoulders a little and came in, off the landing. “Alright, come down with me later and no one will suspect anything.” The girl nodded and sat back down, her face a little calmer. She couldn’t have been more than a year older than Alli. The girl went over to Alli’s pile of books. “Are these your books?” the girl ventured, with a light smile.

“Yes, they were my cousins’ and now they’re mine,” Alli plopped down cross-legged and picked up the ‘R’ volume.

The girl nodded. She turned back to the window, glazed with rainwater.

Curious, Alli looked up from the book and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Nealy,” the girl said. Alli later found out her real name was Elizabeth, but she didn’t ask then.

“I’m Alli,” she said. “Hey, if you want something to eat, I have some odds and ends that I can throw together.” Alli didn’t feel too bad about offering, since they both looked about the same age.

Alli took Nealy downstairs and made her a sandwich. The linoleum was a shade of pea green, the table old, its wooden legs pockmarked. Nealy tried not to wolf down the rye and salami.

“Where are you headed?” Alli asked.

“My aunt’s place in Rochester,” Nealy replied

Alli wanted to fix Nealy some lemonade, but she didn’t have any lemons, so she just gave Nealy a soda. Nealy turned the can around, on the faded tablecloth, with her long, thin fingers, before opening it.

hello