Isabella’s first trip

Grass and… “What was that other smell again?” She wondered. She knew, but could not remember precisely what it was…

She felt herself rolling down over the wet grass. Isabella blinked, but she did not see it properly. Everything was a little blurry. Was She rolling down a hill, maybe? The sweet, delicious scent in the air.

It smelled like green too, but a little sweeter than grass. She wanted to remember what it was. She took a long breath. It was delicious, a tender smell, delicate, smooth…

Childhood…

“Ohhh, yeah! That was it! Childhood” She remembered, something from her childhood. A flower? Something grandma used to have in her garden and, when she was a little girl, she loved it! Isabella remembered. But she also remembered that she only had sensed it at night… Ohh, yeah! Not exactly a flower, but a small tree, full of small little beautiful white flowers. Grandma called it Lady of the Night because the flowers only open at night and only at night we can feel their fragrance. A remarkable scent, it can be sensed in a distance.  

Although… as far as she could remember, it should still be early in the morning yet and she was at her father’s lab. There was no Lady of the Night there. It was her birthday and she was talking to her father in his Lab… wait a minute, something was not right…

Trying to understand what was happening, she recalled in her mind the last events before she felt herself rolling down in the humid grass:

After breakfast, her father called her to his Lab, to ‘show her something’, he said. He always had all kinds of interesting inventions in the lab. As a never completely satisfied alchemist, he was always up to something new. What could it be now? She was very curious about it and she was excited! It was always something astonishing, even though most of the time it did not work as expected…

Lab was a mess, as usual… he worked until after midnight last night. She knew it because she and her mother were still talking in the kitchen, eating coconut cake, around midnight and he had not come back yet from the lab when they went to bed.

That morning, her father was very very happy and looked proud too. For sure he had a great new invention! Once in the lab, he gave her a small box. Yellow, with a white bow and some sparkling purple little little points. It was clumsy, but beautiful in its own way.

“Your birthday present!”. He said smiling.

“Ohhhh…” She smiled at him too. The box had a rough touch on her fingers. She opened it carefully and took from it a necklace. She held the cold blue rock, the necklace pendant, inside her hand. “It is gorgeous!”

“I’m glad you liked it!” Gordon, her father, laughed to himself. He turned his back to Isabella and began to wash the alembic and the aludel in the sink, it was a mess there. Then he started blabbing: “And you know, your mother was not so sure about it for your 21st Birthday present”. He laughed again. “You know your mom; she always worried too much about nothing. You just have to be a little careful and I’m sure you are old enough for that now.”

She tried on the necklace. It was a little bit heavy on her neck because of the rock, but she would get used to it. She looked at herself in the mirror close to the door. It was indeed a beautiful necklace.

When she looked back at her father by the lab’s sink, he was fading away… All the utensils in the lab were fading away… the balconies, the sink, everything around her was fading away…

But she still could see his eyes opened widely in the shocked expression on his face when he turned to look back at her since she was not responding to him. She also saw when he put both of his soaked-in-soap hands on the side of his head. When she did not see anything anymore, she still heard him screaming:

“Isabella? Isabella? Ohh, my God… Isabella!!!” He exclaimed. Was she fading away to him too? “Your mother is going to kill me! That is for sure!”

“Ohh, my God…” She heard something crashing. “Oh, my God… your mother is going to kill me, for sure. I didn’t even explain to her how to…”

And then there was she. Rolling down in the wet grass, sensing the smell of the Lady of Night’s flowers. She finally stopped with a last bump of her head in the soil.

“Uhuu…” She contracted her eyes. “That hurt.”

She began to hear some crying in the new environment… several crying actually. A very sad crying. Why were they so sad? She wondered.

Little by little those people began to appear in her view.

Where was she? She sat on the grass; it was almost night already and there were several Lady of the Night around her. That explained the smell she was perceiving. It was a large field of grass.

Who were those people and why were they all crying? Why were they dressed so differently from everything she knew?

Ohhh… it was not a field of grass. It was… a cemetery. Someone had died.

She decided just to stay there and wait. In respect for those who were in grief and in respect for the one who had just left this world, she waited. She waited while they did their prayers, while they cried some more, while they said their goodbyes, while they hugged and comforted each other. She waited until the day finished completely and became a full night.

She just stayed there sat under a Lady of the Night tree, in silence, appreciating the sunset and the delicious aroma of wet grass with the sweetness of the Lady of the Night’s flowers. Someone was playing a peculiar musical instrument. She heard someone calling it ‘violin’ and Ravel’s bolero. It was a nice song for someone’s soul to be received in heaven. It was a spectacle just for her, apparently, since the others were too busy crying.

Then, they all began to leave the place, still crying a little. Sobbing. She was thinking about what she should do next when the oldest lady in the group passed by her and called her:

“Come on, dear. Let’s go. Let us all go together.” The old lady had a sad smile, a very sad one.

Her invitation sounds like something that she should follow. So she got up and walked by the side of the old lady, who embraced her with one arm and said: “There is a hot soup for all of us. You should have dinner with us tonight.”

Why did she feel as invited for that moment? As someone who should be there?

The old lady gave Isabella a cozy sensation, a familiar one. She felt like at home embraced by her and the old lady had the aroma of vanilla with cinnamon, one of her favorite aromas.  

The old lady continued to walk side by side with her.

Isabella looked back. There were way more people there than she noticed at first. Most of the women there were wearing pants, like the men. She had never seen that before. There were a lot of things that she had never seen before that moment… Some of the women had their arms and their legs without being covered by any clothes. That would be a scandal as far as she could understand. But it looked pretty normal there.

Suddenly she had a clue, that necklace… and she asked the old lady:

“What day is today?”

“You are not from here. I notice. But that is not a reason for not to have dinner with us. You are here for a reason.”

Isabella was confused. If the lady knew she was not from there, why was she being so friendly with her?  

“Today is June 23.” The old lady answered.

What? Her birthday was in May…”

The old lady smiled at her “from the year 2019.”

Isabella opened her eyes in astonishment at the old lady and thought: yes, Dad, it is a big, huge, ‘Oh, my God!’

“By the way, my name is Clara.” The lady introduced herself.

Isabella looked down, trying to organize her thoughts. The necklace must be a time-traveling dispositive.

Clara gave her a clever smile: “Don’t you worry, honey. You must be hungry. Let’s eat first.”

Isabella got the courage to ask Clara what she was wondering about: “Who died?”

Clara sighed heavily: “Well… someone’s old friend, someone’s newer friend. Someone’s lover. Someone’s teacher. Someone’s inspiration. Someone’s buddy, someone’s last harbor, someone’s first door…Someone’s wife and someone’s best friend…” There was a tear in Clara's eye. “Someone loved, someone very very loved.”

The old lady might be a little bit crazy, Isabella thought; that would explain a lot. Anyway, she was very hungry indeed. She would stay for soup… hopefully it would have some crackers, too.

During soup, the crying had stopped, finally, but the sorrow was palpable. Everyone was in deep silence. Only she was there not sharing that sadness. She was confused, true. She did not know what would happen next in her life, which also was true.

Nevertheless, despite that, she was pretty much okay: she watched an amazing spectacle, the soup was delicious, and there were crackers. Later worries were for later. The silence was a little bit embarrassing, but that was fine, too.

Then Clara, who had been sitting in front of Isabella, asked everyone for attention, looked at the strange girl in front of her, and said:

“Isabella, why don’t you tell us one of your stories to distract our minds?”

What? What? Wait. Why? She questioned in her mind.

But the old lady kept smiling at her. She was already a fan of Clara and she felt as if she should pay for the soup or something.

“Well… hurm, hurm”. She cleaned her throat. She was taken by surprise. She heard some wings flapping outside and looked through the window. There was a beautiful white bird flying against the blue sky. It was a big bird and the sky was so blue, without any clouds on it. His white feathers got remarkable in the sky. His freedom, flying away to the infinite, melted her heart in tears.

“Well… ahh… It all begins with Once upon a time, isn’t it?”

Everyone stopped eating and turned their heads to her, listening. An old man, not too far from her, was smiling tenderly. His smile gave her comfort and the sense of a safe place. Warm and cozy, like a home. She instinctively smiled back at him.

Then it all started to begin inside her and the story just flew as a river…

“Once upon a time, there was a young woman called Alya. She had brown skin and dark hair that matched the deepness of the even more dark night of her eyes.

She always wore very colorful clothes in the old India where she lived.

She lived in a small village and she used to walk to the Ganges very often.

In those times,  the path to the river was full of trees, flowers, and other natural beauties.

She was happy that way. She had a lot of friends inside and outside her village. Her father was the leader of their village, but it was only to organize things since everyone worked for the well-being of all of them. Everyone had their own chores to keep things well balanced. People in that village were so peaceful that they were vegetarian, unable to kill anything.

In her free time, she danced alone, keeping the silence of her mind. She walked alone in nature, sang, or spent time with her best friend. A boy who was born on the same day as her, but two years earlier.

One day, though, the village was conquered by some foreign warriors. Since people in her village were too peaceful, they were left to surrender themselves.

The chief of the warriors said that he was ‘taking care of them’ and obliged them to serve him. Her father tried to argue that they were doing pretty well until then and did not need any kind of protection, but that was.. in vain.

The warriors’ chief became fascinated with Alya. He forced her always to dance, sing and make company to him. She was also forbidden to walk outside the village.

She missed her lonely time and her walking to the river.

In the beginning, Alya thought things would change in time. That the Chief would forget about her, that she would be in peace again and would have time for her own again. But that did not happen.

Every day, she became sadder and sadder.

She did not want to dance, sing, or even eat anymore.

The warriors’ Chief got worried. Ayla’s father could only say “She got sad.”

Then the Chief got her one gorgeous, beautiful white bird in a golden cage that sang so preciously that she could stay all the time just listening to him.

She loved the bird, of course, she loved animals. And she loved to hear him singing.

Over time, though, the bird too stopped singing and eating.

She looked closely at him. Would he be ill?

She looked at him and wondered what would be wrong… He always had fresh and clean water. He always had the best fruits to eat, and the best grains. And, also it was a very beautiful golden cage…

She sighed… The bird sighed too, looking at the endless blue sky.

It was a cage. She understood. Even though it was a golden one, it was still a cage, like her own.

She looked at the bird, so sad he was… from time to time he looked to the freedom above him.

Thus… she opened the cage and released the bird. He immediately flew away to the big blue. His wings were wide open, flapping and flapping away. As higher as he could go.

She cried a lot in missing him… You know,  as we always do when we miss someone. But she knew that freedom meant everything to the bird. And she was happy for him.”

People smiled at her at the end of the story. “But…” someone asked. “What about Ayla?”

Isabella smiled as if she could hold everyone and their sorrow in her own arms and comfort all of them, one by one:

“Well, some say that she ran away in the middle of the night. Others that her soul flew away from that body. Her father said once, ‘Every sorrow finds its ends, here or beyond, in the afterlife.’ Alya lived the time she had to live there, then, she left…”

People smiled at Alya’s happy ending.

Then Clara, the oldest lady in the room, concluded: “When the Soul ends its journey in its body cage, it is time to leave. It needs to fly away to the infinite blue sky. To where is its real-life… as the bird”

Isabella smiled at Clara as if smiling at an old friend, although it felt like a fresh new friendship. The old man smiled at her again and then, everything began to fade away… she could still hear some of them whispering about the story, how their beloved one was flying happily in freedom. She could still sense the vanilla-cinnamon smell from Clara.

Then she could smell recently baked honey cookies for breakfast in her house while hearing her father and mother arguing loudly about her in the kitchen.

Her mother worried, calling her father crazy and threatening to kill him if he did not bring Isabella back before noon.

He was trying to explain and justify himself. Although it was not working…

At this point, she arrived on the couch. How convenient was that! A soft landing this time. She would eat again, that was great, she was hungry again!

She quickly took off the necklace, she would need some explanation from her father before wearing it again.

“Mom, mom!” she called, making herself to be noticed in order to finish that confusion in her house…