Parachute


Present time, a town in the hills in the distant north

Martha stared blankly into the mating hues of red and yellow. The flames in the fireplace danced violently; with abandon, new shooting up from the smoldering firewood where the old ones died. The fire exuded a strange warmth, comforting in the cold winter, but inducing a drama of sad memories in Martha’s mind.
In photoplay of memories in her mind, a girl was born. Wails pierced a suddenly silent night, as a bundle, wrapped in a white towel was handed to her. She looked down at tiny thing of pink flesh, so little and with wrinkled skin like an old man’s, almost a joke on human features. She smiled when the little mouth yawned, and cried next with tears of joy as she pressed her daughter to her breast.
She was crying again, but with different tears, for the life of one so dearly loved lost, laughter reduced to echoes of the mind, and her baby reduced to dust.
“I have to go out Martha. We’re almost out of firewood and I should get some now, while there is still some light,” Jeremy said to his wife while pulling on his thick, fur-lined jacket. He put his arms through the sleeves and then turned around and saw two glistening streaks running down either cheek of her face. He got to her side in an instant, and wiped off the glowing lines from her cheeks.
Jeremy knelt beside his wife, put his head on her shoulder and whispered into her ear, “ Don’t do this, Martha, to yourself, to me. It’s been years, love, since our Alice chose to leave us. You have to let her go too. Let her go, Martha.”
“Why isn’t she home yet? It’s so late, almost dark outside. She should have been here, no? The town is not that far away, she…”
“Alice is dead, for goodness sake!” He shouted, stifling the sobs, not letting them rise beyond the throat. He couldn’t hold the tears though. Jeremy quickly got up and left, leaving the front door open. The winter seized the opportunity of an open door and rushed into the warm room, entering with a soft whisper. Martha remained seated, unaware of her husband’s absence as she had been of his presence earlier.
“I wonder why she’s taking so long, the silly girl. ”


A week ago, a playground in the city to the east

The playground rang with joyful sounds. The squealing and shrieking of many children at play rang as a raucous symphony in the patch of dying green in the middle of the industrial city. Little packets of boundless energy, in the form of children’s bodies, ran all over the place, intersecting each other’s paths and rarely colliding. And when the rare collision did occur, larger, more sedate bodies of governesses or guardians rushed to the location to ease the scattered and ruffled atoms, and put them on their random paths again.
Alicia sat in a corner, by an overgrown bush, away from all the drama of juvenile action, watching her counterparts move and laugh and cry, but not looking at anybody or anything. She stared into some blankness of her own. A shadow fell on her and she looked up at its cause.
“Hey there,” a gentle female voice said. Alicia looked into a familiar face smiling down on her. She did not respond, but continued to look with an unchanged expression.
The smile on the lady’s face grew deeper and her eyebrows crept in closer as Alicia continued her silent stare. She sat down next to Alicia, on the grass. The silence stayed for a prolonged moment until, finally, Alicia spoke.
“Why is the grass dying, Lara?” She asked in a soft voice.
“It’s the weather, too hot and dry. And the air, too dirty,” Lara said.
“Dirty air?,” Alicia said pulling out a stalk from the ground and examined it. Lara put an arm around her little neighbour and pulled her closer.
Alicia remained rigid, but after another period of silence she said, “ Today is my birthday, Lara.”
“I know that, Alicia,” Lara said, giving her a little squeeze. Alicia relaxed and put her head against the older girl’s shoulder. Lara felt Alicia’s body shudder which soon grew into violent sobs, despite many soothing words.
“I miss them… really…” Alicia continued to cry, as Lara caressed her hair and her face, trying to ease the little orphan’s grief.


Present time, a town in the hills in the distant north

The thud echoed through the hills, disturbing some bird from its night-perch, the annoyance of which was made amply clear by the angry avian cry.
“Yeah, you too,” Jeremy shouted out in reply to the bird’s cursing. He replaced the block of wood, and lifted his axe above his shoulders again. Just as he was readying to smash it down on the block of wood, he caught something red in the corner of his vision. He let his axe hang midway, which bereft of the chopper’s strength made not even a chip in the wood and just fell to a side.
Bright red is a strange colour for a winter forest, or any forest for that matter, Jeremy thought to himself, as he strained his eyes trying to figure out what the red thing was. He walked towards it, realizing that it was something stuck up in the branches of a pine tree.
Jeremy walked up to the base of the pine tree, and looked up to see that the object was a red balloon.
A week ago, a playground in the city to the east
“You know what you should do?” Lara exclaimed.
“What?” Alicia asked in response mechanically, rather than with interest.
“We should send them a message, I mean, you should,” Lara replied getting up from the ground and dusting her skirt. She pulled Alicia up as well.
“How will we do that?” the girl asked, with more interest in her voice this time.
“You see that?” Lara pointed to the other end of the park, at a balloon stall, “that is how!”
“A balloon! I get it now!” Alicia squealed, quickly casting off all remnants of sadness, and set off for the other end of the park, without waiting for Lara, or paying heed to her calls to wait.


Present time, a town in the hills in the distant north

“Hey Martha, Martha...,” the excited voice of Jeremy called out from the fading day outside, as his figure soon followed appearing in the frame of the open door. Martha looked up at her husband, his excited state having no effect on her.
“Look at this,” Jeremy said, gently taking Martha’s hand from her lap. He put a yellowed scrap of paper on her palm. “Go on, read it. It’s a message.”
Martha took the scrap closer to the fireplace. It was a note, but the ink was all smudged so she had to strain her eyes. ‘’ I… love you… Mommy and Daddy.. ALIC.. .”
“Alice. It is a little smudged, but..,” Jeremy said to his wife, his eyes sparkling with great emotion.
“It is from Alice, but she …” Martha pressed the note to her heart, and collapsed into her husband’s arms. “How, Jeremy… this note, how?”
“I don’t know, Martha,” said Jeremy, “ I really don’t!”


A week ago, a playground in the city to the east

“Are you done, Alicia?”
“Yes, Lara,” the girl said passing on a piece of paper to her companion. “Are you going to read it now?”
Lara smiled warmly at the child, and got a little curl of the lips in response. She bent down bringing her face close to Alicia’s and said, “No, my child. But I’m sure who will.”
“Really? I mean…really?”
“Uh-huh. Now what we need to do is secure this…” Mrs. Samuels took the string of the balloon from Alicia. She rolled up the paper, making a small scroll of it, and took the string around it twice, and then made a firm knot. She tugged at it to make sure of the firmness.
“It’s strong enough,” she said while passing it on to Alicia, who grabbed it at once. “Easy now! So are you ready then?”
Alicia nodded in response.
“But wait a minute!”
“What is it?” Lara asked, a little worried that something had occurred in Alicia’s mind which would take away this hard found joy.
Alicia began slowly, “This is not possible. It can’t reach them this way. How will it know where to go? There must be so many people up there!”
Lara was relieved. She began, “ Hm. What I’m going to tell you now, Alicia, is perhaps the most closely guarded secret ever. There is a way to make that balloon get to where you want it to, or rather who want it to. This is so secret, in fact, that I cannot even say it out aloud, for the wind might carry a few words here and there, and some cunning mind could put two and two together, and that would be, well, the end of the secret. And then the sky would be cluttered with balloons always, and imagine how the birds would feel about that! So here it is…” and Lara bent down to say the secret into Alicia’s ears.
A few moments later the balloon had gone so far up that Alicia could see it only as a tiny dot. She closed her eyes and said the special words again, just like she had when she released the balloon some time ago. She opened her eyes slowly and looked up into the sky. She could not see the balloon anymore, only the blue-gray sky.
Alicia smiled one more time, and then ran off to play.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 18.09.2009

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