You Can't Get There from Here

“Does it do any good sitting here. We’ve been coming since the accident. Last Christmas Eve, and now it’s another Christmas Eve and she’s still in there someplace but doesn’t seem like she is ever coming out. We should go back home. We got other’s to think about. It’s Christmas. She won’t know if we are gone or not. They say when she’s ready she’ll come out. Comas they said, don’t have an expiration date. Could be tomorrow, never. We should go.”

“You ever pray to her?”

“No use in praying. If God was going to help her, He’d a done it already, don’t you think?”

“I’m not talking about God. I’m talking about her. You ever just talk to her? Find out what’s going on. Tell her to come back, we are waiting.”

“Well, no. I don’t believe much in that Voodoo stuff. To tell you the truth I think it’s like talking to dead people. And worse, expecting they are going to talk back. Don’t you think if she could hear you, she’d make some kind of acknowledgement of it. Blink or something. Not just lying there with the tubes everywhere, looking like she ain’t going to make it. I feel bad, but it’s been a year and they don’t know, could be another year or never. You heard them say that. I can’t go on hoping forever, got other’s that need me. You coming along, or staying? It’s Christmas, everyone will be coming over and we got work to do to get ready. Let’s go.”

“You go on. It ain’t far from here. Walk will do me good. Sometimes it’s best to be alone when you are thinking. You go on. I’ll be there soon enough and help.”

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Funny how one minute you are laughing and talking and not thinking much about anything and then… I look around and she is sitting in the chair. Looks like she’s asleep. Don’t recognize this place, and these machines and tubes. Got one in my nose, several more sticking out of my arm. Got this mask thing on and pumping some kind of cold into me.

The ceiling looks like a white sky with a bunch of holes punched in it. The walls are some putrid green color, looks like somebody got sick in here on the walls.

This one machine over here keeps spitting orange lights at me like it’s trying to get my attention. And Milly, she’s sleeping right through all the racket. Milly, wonder what she is doing here. I can’t remember much of what happened to get me in this place, but I can remember something coming at my face. I remember putting my hands up, like trying to stop it, but then nothing.

Wonder how long I been like this. Can’t have been long, although I don’t know. My arms look different, like they lost weight. Milly, she looks older somehow too, like she was in a time machine or something and come out at the wrong time. Her face, what I can see of it looks sad, like when something bad happens.

I hope someone’s been taking care of my dog Jesús. People is always calling him Jesus. They think it’s funny. Don’t know about the blasphemy stuff Milly had told me about, but then I ain’t the one calling him Jesus. Guess others going to have to figure that one out for themselves.

I wonder what’s happening at school. Seems like if I’ve been here a few days I’m going to have a lot of catching up to do. I can’t have been here long, cause there aint no flowers or cards or anything like you get when you been hurt or sick. It’s kind of like you go to sleep in one place, and end up in another when you wake up. I don’t suppose that happened, but then with all the changes happening to the world I guess anything is possible.

I heard something a while back about people goin to this Mars place. Don’t see why we’d need to, but then can’t see why we shouldn’t. Seems like a lot of wasted money though, when my school has a leak in the roof, and they say they can’t fix it, not enough money. They keep a bucket in the hall where the water comes down. They put one of those stupid signs next to it telling you not to fall. More likely to fall reading the sign than tripping on the bucket. It’s big enough to see if you was blind.

I wonder if Daniele knows I’m in here. We was supposed to go shopping. I was walking to her house to meet up. All the sales on Christmas Eve, best time to go, although all the crazies do come out. But they’re fun to watch too. Saw one old lady hit another one with her purse when they was fighting over this game, they just both had to have, or the world would end.

Daniele likes me to come with her cause she don’t know what to buy for people; like I would. I don’t know the people she’s buying for. She says, “Think Grandma would like this?” Well, I got a Grandma, but she’s kind of particular about things. She dresses like she’s goin to meet the Pope or President, all the time. Never seen her without a Vogue magazine kind of look. She’s got a personality to match too. So all I can tell Daniele is sure, “She’d love it.” Asking people to get something for someone they don’t know just ain’t right, but she means well, I guess.   

We were supposed to go to this New Years party next week. I hope I can get out of here by then. Never been to a real New Years party, where at midnight people have balloons fall on them and they blow these whistling things and wear funny hats. Don’t want to miss that. Only seen it on TV when we’d watch this big ball drop, and everyone would count. 

Milly said she’d have to come to the party to keep an eye on us, we being too young to be out alone that late. I don’t see why we’d need her to come, but if she wants, it can’t hurt I suppose.

She was telling me about New Years wishes, or changes. Something you want to do in the New Year, or something you want to stop doing. I need to think about that. There’s plenty I need to stop doing, but I’ve got to think about what needs doing for me to change. Don’t know that I need a lot of changing, but then Milly always says, “can always be better at being better.” I don’t know what that means exactly, but I’m sure she’ll explain it to me. She’s good at things like that, explaining things. She keeps telling me I can be anything I want to be if I just try. Don’t know about that, but I like the thought of it, being somebody.

Looks like Milly’s finally waking up. Hope she’s glad to see me. Maybe she can help me figure out why I’m here and have got so skinny. I can see the bones in my arm. Just skin covering them. Wonder where the rest went. Remember them talking about Emily, Milly’s sister looking like a scarecrow in a ball gown when we went to her funeral visitation. She got hit by a car. Some people just don’t seem to watch where they are going. Daniele is like that. She’s forever running into things cause she’s so busy talking, she ain’t got time for listening.

“Child! You’re back.”