Original Sender

JP: Contains sensitive themes, serious illness, familial distress, and spiritual reflection.

Beep.

The thin green line shot up in multiple, steady little diagonals against the black screen beside the bed.

Chris’s red-veined eyes, atop thin streams of dried salt, slowly opened and settled on it.

A light blanket draped across him—must’ve been an orderly, he figured.

He didn’t even know when he’d fallen asleep. Or for how long.

Beep.

Big, bright, rainbow-colored balloons awkwardly hang a few inches from the ceiling—slightly saggy from what they’d been just days before.

Dozens of cards full of cursive and doodles, from family, friends, and a classroom full of second graders, scattered across the vinyl-upholstered chair below.

Beep.

His daughter Ava lay still beside the beeping machine, seemingly frozen with the same subdued face since he’d dozed off.

Since earlier in the day.

Since the day before.

And the one before that.

Beep.

Not particularly interested in even more heaviness and things out of his control, but also not eager to endure the complete opposite end of the spectrum—a bunch of silly nonsense purely for laughs, with endless reruns of the likes of Married with Children and Family Guy—Chris had muted the little TV hanging in the corner not long after they’d arrived.

But with each passing day, he strongly considered a change of heart. A change of viewing preference.

A change of…

Something.

Anything.

To help drown out that…

Beep.

Suddenly, a sound—one normally very familiar, but here, far-overshadowed—interrupted.

It was the door to his daughter’s room swinging open.

Chris looked peripherally, his eyes mainly hanging on his little girl as a familiar face in scrubs walked steadily across the room and began checking the machines.

“Hi, Mr. Pricely,” the nurse practically sang, making Chris actually long now for Married with Children, as she peered down at the clipboard she pulled from the end of the bed. Little lines in the corners of her smile. “How are we doing?”

It was one of those questions, under one of those circumstances, that felt impossible to answer. Good? Okay? He was neither of those things.

“Umm…” he tried to muster, his gaze drifting.

Beep.

“God... How did I let this happen?!?” He suddenly blurted.

“Mr. Pricely…” she responded, her voice sounding like a human rattle. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was,” he said. “I should’ve been there. The school said she wasn’t feeling well long before it happened, and I should’ve been there.”

“Aww…” The nurse adjusted Ava’s IV drip and then placed her hand, covered in little lines deeper than those around her lips, on Chris’ shoulder and gently squeezed. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. If you would’ve known the baby was sick, you would’ve been there. You didn’t know! I mean, what are the chances they’d give that message to a different ‘Chris P,’ who was out of the office!! Hey, maybe you should change your name!” She jabbed him slightly with her elbow.

Married with Children. Family Guy.

“I’m just sayin’,” she continued after Chris’ face appeared unmoved. “Those doggone call centers. I swear, they don’t know their left from their right!!”

Chris sighed. “It just still feels like I should’ve known…”

He paused for a moment, reflecting on that day.

“Between me not getting that message and Marissa being on a long flight overseas at the time, Ava had been waiting and suffering in the school nurse’s office for three hours before she passed out and they had to call the freaking ambulance. The ambulance!! My seven-year-old daughter was alone with some strangers on an ambulance—”

“Mr. Pricely…” the nurse tried to interject as she made other adjustments around Ava’s bed.

“And I still didn’t know for another two hours, until I came to pick her up!” He felt his eyes begin to fill again. “She was at the hospital, undergoing emergency surgery—emergency surgery—for two hours… Alone!! She must’ve felt so scared.” He buried his wet face in his hands.

“To be honest,” the nurse said, “She probably never even knew.

“She knew,” he said. “She felt it.”

“Mr. Pricely, I’ll keep sayin’ it as long as you need to keep hearin’ it! It wasn’t… your fault.”

She walked over to him, picked up the blanket she’d brought in that had slid on the floor, and laid it across his lap.

“Look. I know this is tough,” she said. “But hang in there. Our girl is going to be okay!”

“She is?!” his eyes widened as they shot more directly at her for the first time since she’d come in, before promptly returning to the small, peaked face closest to him.

“Well, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that,” she followed. “I should’ve said, we’ll pray…that she’s gonna be okay…”

Chris’s gape softened, his parted lips clasping tightly again.

“Get some more rest,” she said and handed him a water bottle. “We’ll be right down the hallway, if you need anything.”

As soon as she closed the door, they made their dominating presence known again.

Beep.

Chris’s eyes rested on Ava again, taking in a slow, deep inhale before letting it out.

He rose and walked to her bed.

“I should’ve said, we’ll pray…that she’s gonna be okay.”

The nurse’s raspy words internally echoed.

Chris hadn’t been a praying man or even stepped foot in a church since even before he was a man, closer to when he was forced to by his heavily—in his view, painfully—devout parents.

Even before he’d slowed to a stop in his participation, he’d become increasingly skeptical about how well any of it worked—if any of it worked at all.

I bet it’s all a fluke, teenage Chris would often find himself thinking. I bet God and the devil aren’t even real!!”

Of course thoughts he’d only ever dare to think. In secret.

Not only were his parents highly devout, so were the school and community they’d insisted on raising him in. So, he’d long had to sit alone with his nagging cynicism and doubt.

That was, until he moved out after college. Once the garden of opportunity gave him that out, he devoured it like it was the last piece of fruit on earth and never looked back.

Since then, he’d avoided religion, and any talks of it, like the plague.

He felt he truthfully hadn’t had any compelling reason to think about or even consider it again.

Until now.

Now…as he watched his sweet, precious little girl battling for her life—right before his tired eyes.

“I should’ve said, we’ll pray…that she’s gonna be okay.”

He took another deep breath.

And let it out.

Chris scanned the room, visually casing the door, the window, every corner as if a parade might suddenly burst in and catch him doing what he was about to do, at 11:30 at night.

He turned and looked at Ava again. And stepped forward.

Kneeling against the metal guard rails, he clasped his hands.

His eyes took one last, quick peek around.

And slowly closed.

“Umm… Dear… Dear… Umm….” His voice cracked, and he tried to clear it, briefly opening his eyes again, and checking before returning—again.

“Dear… umm…

Lord? Lord.

Hey.

Please… Help me.

I know it’s umm… It’s been a while... Sin--since you last heard from me.

Beep.

I know I haven’t been perfect, but… you know I’ve done the best I can.

Anyway, umm… Regardless of what you think of me… which hopefully isn’t bad…

This little girl right here…”

His voice cracked again, but differently.

His eyes reopened, but this time only on her.

“This little girl right here… She hasn’t meant any harm. She’s only good. So, she only deserves good. Including… to live.

Don’t make her pay. Make me pay.

She’s only 7 years old.

Please don’t take her now. Now is too soon. We can’t handle now.

I’m begging you.”

Fresh salty streams rushed to cover the just-dried second layer as his eyelids tightened again.

Beep.

“Please. Please!! Bring her back. Wake her up. Make her okay. Make my baby girl okay,” he sobbed uncontrollably. “Make her alive.”

Beep.

Please.

Please.

PLEASE!!!!!

What do you want me to do?!

I’ll do anything. ANYthing.

I’ll never sin again!”

His eyes abruptly widened, and the stream briefly slowed as a seemingly groundbreaking idea came to him.

“Look. If you wake her up…” he spoke calmly. “I promise… Not only will you make me a believer. But I will become your soldier. Your evangelical posterchild. I will dedicate my whole life to you. I swear!! I will give my soul to you. As soon as you’re ready and as fast as you need it, you just tell me. Want me to praise you all day, every day? I’ll do it. Want me to testify and teach others, convince them, bring any who’ve been like me over to your side? I’ll do it.

Hell, I’ll—”

He flinched, slightly ducking as if something was going to rain down from the white stone wool ceiling tiles above.

“…If you want me to walk in front of a train… arms wide open, walking right for it,” he whispered. “I will do that.

Just tell me. I won’t ask no questions. I’ll never doubt you again.

Just, please…

Wake my baby girl up.”

He leaned over and gently patted her curly hair before rejoining his hands.

“Amen.”

Exhausted, Chris leaned again over Ava’s bed, making sure the metal bars carried the brunt of his weight, and covered his daughter with an embrace.

Soon, his eyes closed again, as he drifted off.

---------

“So, what’d ya do last night?” asked Albert as he walked over to the stack of big, grey boxes.

Kenny peered at him with slit eyes as he pulled an envelope from the grey box before him. He noted the red “L” scribbled on the front and dropped it in the large white cart, which was about quarter full. “Really, Al.”

“Whaat?!” Albert raised his shoulders before grabbing one of the other boxes.

“You know dam—ahem, darn—well what I did last night,” said Kenny as he pulled an envelope, eyed it also had an “L”, and tossed it in the same cart. “Probably the same thing as you—scrolled...for hours, looking at flowers.”

“For your information, I did not scroll for hours looking at flowers last night!” said Albert, lifting his box on the cement counter.

“Oh, then types of trees?” Kenny grabbed and saw this envelope was marked with a big, red “G”. He placed it in the black cart, nearly packed to the brim, on the right.

“Eh… Yeah. I mean, unless you all of a sudden know something I don’t? Are there any other options?!”

“Ugh. I don’t know how you just look at trees…all night long.” Kenny scrunched his face.

“Stay here long enough,” said Albert. “You’ll get tired of them flowers.”

Albert, with his hands on his hips, faced Kenny. “Alllright, so, ready to get started?”

“Started?” said Kenny. “Ha! I’m almost finished.”

“Finished? What?! But we always do our shifts together!!”

“Since when?!”

“Since I started training you several months ago, that’s when!”

“Oh. Well,” Kenny said as he retrieved and took a cursory glance at his last few envelopes before swiftly sailing them into the white cart. “I don’t need training anymore!!”

“Well! Just go on, then,” shouted Albert. “Go on!! Enjoy your… Your… Your flower-scrollin’!!”

On his way out, Kenny strolled past a woman approaching his and Albert’s station’s carts, pulling behind her a new white one that was empty.

“This it?” said Samantha as she grabbed the white cart Kenny had just filled.

“I don’t know, looks like it,” Albert replied. “I just got here.”

“Alllright!” she said, pulling the filled white cart away.

“Hey, wait, wait! Who’s coming to get the other one?” Albert pointed to the black cart with envelopes nearly sliding over.

She shrugged. “I’m only worried about the one I was assigned to. Wish it was that one…... Maybe next week.”

Albert sighed. “Not again. Ya’ know… They really need to do something about those delivering up there,” he pointed upward. “They go up and take their sweet time coming back down.”

“I mean,” said Samantha. “It is…”

“Yeeeah, I know what it is, but. Still. This is your job. Trust me, if I—all of us—would be up there all day, every day, if we could! Why, that’s the whole point of all this! This… Place. To do our job, do it right, and endless-scroll in the meantime, with the exciting chance that we might actually be able to go, and stay, up there some day! But we can’t do that if selfish bonehead ‘in-betweens’ keep going there and staying like they’re residents, not deliverers!”

“Hey, hey,” said Samantha. “You’re preaching to the choir.”

She turned and continued pulling the white cart towards the exit as a frustrated Albert looked on.

He sat against the cement wall, pulled out his phone, and began repeatedly swiping his thumb.

As soon as Samantha’s quiet descent began, she began removing all her clothes, leaving them in a neat pile in the corner. She tied up her hair and pulled from her knapsack her ashen bodysuit.

As the numbers dropped, she took her time stepping inside the cool, wet material and zipping it up.

Anything to give herself the feeling of delay, even though she knew there was no delay.

Once she was there…

she was there.

She secured her special, tinted goggles.

“Thank God they finally upgraded these things,” she mumbled to herself. “Almost had no eyes left!”

Ten minutes later, she arrived.

This heat was like that of a thousand suns.

Immediately engulfed in piercing, blinding white—whiter-than-bleach white—a thick, roasting wave crashed against Samantha’s specially protected body.

Having saved her strength all week for this, she thrusted herself through the unforgiving torrid space, dragging behind her with all her might the white cart which now felt ten times heavier than just ten minutes before.

Finally, she reached the wall—if one can call it that—at the opposite end.

Large stretches of white flames, mixed with faint purple and orange, shot upward like a reverse waterfall.

"Uhh… Hi," she said, her head slightly lowered. "I have your umm... Y--Your mail."

She counted her heartbeats while she awaited confirmation so she could hurry and go.

“Open it.” A voice spoke finally from the emblazed wall moments later.

"Umm… I’m… sorry…?” she asked.

“Open it.”

“Umm I I don’t… We don’t… do that,” she forced herself to say, not used to interacting with anything here. “And I really have to get back—"

"You will open it.” It spoke calmly.

A cold, dull ache suddenly vibrated through Samantha’s bones, as she watched the harsh white flames swell above her.

She looked down at the cart.

Reluctantly, she pulled out one of the envelopes with the strange red scribbles, and her eyebrows furrowed when she tore it open.

Instead of a letter, inside was a tiny black cassette tape.

“There,” said the voice.

Samantha looked around and saw in the corner a white tape recorder.

She walked over to retrieve it.

“Play it,” the wall said.

Samantha pressed the Eject button and slipped the tape inside.

Her finger hovered over the Play button a few seconds.

And then, she pushed down.

It was a squeaky, southern voice—a man.

“‘I come to you humbly to serve you and only you,

the TRUE Lord of Light, the ONLY Lord of Light,

the most powerful angel that reigns supreme over all beings

and does what needs to be done and to all beings, no matter what or who…”

Samantha raised an eyebrow.

“You are the one,” the man continued.

“YOU ARE THE ONLY.

I AM READY.

All them fake do-gooders... I can’t stand ‘em.

Acting so holier than thou. Man, I wanna shoot…” He sighed.

“Use me to do your deeds on this tortured earth…

USE ME TO MAKE THEM SUFFER.

USE ME TO MAKE THEM PAY.

“True Lord of Light, I am here to serve you.

Use me…to do whatever we—whatever you—need to do.

Hail, Great Lord.”

A thunder roared from the white inferno, nearly knocking Samantha from her feet. She clutched her arms as her inner ache sharpened—a sensation her bodysuit wasn’t designed to address.

“Say no more, my new child,” the wall blared with might and anger. “As one of mine, consider your will and every desire fulfilled. All is done.”

The envelope and tape instantly vanished from Samantha’s hands, causing her to jump back.

“One more,” it stated.

She turned and glanced at the elevator in the distance. “Umm, I’m.. I’m sorry, bu-- but my shift’s almost over, and I really have to get back to flower-scrolling…”

“One. More.” White flames lept from the wall, penetrating Samantha’s suit—melting the top layer, leaving it sizzling.

Her eyes bulged behind her goggles.

“Oh, my God,” she cried.

Gently rubbing her nearly exposed flesh, Samantha reached into the cart, pulled out and tore open another envelope.

Slipping the tape inside the recorder, she pressed Play.

It took a while for any sound to begin, so much that Samantha double-checked she’d pressed the right button.

Her ache picked up but then tapered off moments later when a weak male voice came through the speakers. It sounded like he’d been crying.

“Umm… Dear… Dear… Umm….

Ahem.

Dear… umm…

Lord? Lord.

Hey.

Please… Help me.

I know it’s umm… It’s been a while... Sin--since you last heard from me...”

Beep.

----

Her little brown eyes slowly opened just as Chris walked back in from the bathroom.

“Oh, my God... Oh, my God!!” his face lit up as he rushed over. “Ava?!?! Nurse!! Nurrrse!!!!!”

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