Celeste felt a slight elevation after taking the test. Sure, with no sleep she would crash early tonight, but for now she was certain of a B, or at the least, a high C. That was passing. Before her schooling was over, she couldn't imagine a cell in the human body that she would not be able to resolutely define in both form and function. A little confidence was slowly seeping back into her life.
She passed Sai on the way to the room and asked her how she did.
"Piece of cake, sister-girl. You?"
"The same," Celeste lied.
As Sai turned to head to her last test, she spun back around and hollered at the retreating Celeste.
"Oh, yeah. Your Uncle is waiting for you in the room."
Sai continued walking, but Celeste stopped in her tracks.
She did not have an Uncle.
Her mind went straight to the Travelers. She began walking and turning things over in her head. Why would they have sent someone out to contact her? She wasn't a rebel. A free thinker, yes. But she wasn't one of the ones that were stirring the pot. She kept to herself here. Went about her business with her head down and was only a couple of years away from a B.S. in PreMed, the pathway to true freedom. Financial independence. Maybe the stories you heard as a child were true. Maybe they never really let you leave. Maybe they show up in your dorm room and smother you with a pillow.
Ridiculous. People were everywhere. And here she was again, letting that silly fear creep into her gullible spine again. It was entrenched. Little soldiers of dogma, bore down tight in the trenches of her doubts and revelations. A constant pressure point, applied from afar by a history of conditioning from the time she could crawl. Nature and nurture. Maybe everywhere else the environment was only fifty percent, but in Herlige Eng Af Håb it was more like ninety nine percent. Let the brainwashing begin.
As she walked slower and with anticipation back to the room, she remembered the first time someone had asked her where she was from. She had answered quiet truthfully – The Glorious Meadows of Hope. There was a blank stare and an unsure smile. And that was the end of that conversation before it ever began. She learned to tell people she was from a farm. Simple enough. It seemed to paint the same benign stereotype in everyone's head. And that was fine. The more history she learned, the more she studied other cultures and countries, the more she realized that it sounded strangely like some North Korean propaganda. Come relax in our glorious meadows of hope and shining heaven.
She pushed the door open, trying to seem unabashed by the intrusion, as if she was perhaps accustomed to strange men showing up unannounced in her room. The man was standing by the window to the courtyard –
- Right where the thing would have been standing in my dream –
- and turned slowly and calmly around when she entered. He had a kind face, like a monk. A light silver beard, trimmed short and blue eyes like the sea. She knew he was from the village immediately. The man smiled a wan smile.
She had decided before entering the room that she would inject a forceful silence upon whoever it was and force them to speak first.
"Hi," she said.
The man looked stunned for a split second and then recovered immediately.
"Hi, Celeste."
He walked a little closer. They stood three feet apart and stared at each other for a moment in silence.
Celeste said, "Did I do something?"
The man looked slightly incredulous and then saw her confusion.
"Oh, no child. Forgive me... forgive me." He carried such a strange, offsetting disposition. She had yet to form a first impression. "My name is Paul. I come from the Meadows."
"I got that."
She followed with a smile when it came out a little harsher than she had anticipated. He smiled back.
"Yes, of course. I um... I am very sorry to come to you this morning. I was informed you were finished with your tests?"
This Traveler was sorry. About what? Her mind went straight to her mother.
"What's wrong? Yes. I'm done," Celeste offered, shaking her head and shaking away this man's stupid questions about her test. "What is it?"
"It's Elsa." Celeste could feel her stomach clench. "I'm very sorry. She passed last night. It was a stroke. It was very quick."
Celeste caught herself shaking. Remembering the last time she had called her mother. Almost three weeks ago. Two weeks. How could she wait two weeks to call her mother? She suddenly had an intense dislike for this man in her dorm room. This smiling little man who was telling her that her mom was . . . dead. Gone forever. Good morning. How'd you do on your tests? Your mother's gone forever.
Celeste sat down on the bed and felt helpless teardrops stream down her face.
"I'm so sorry child. So very sorry. She was a wonderful woman."
Emotions welled up in Celeste that she had never felt, deep seismic forces that she was finding hard to control. This wasn't fair. This was . . . this was . . . she didn't have the words to even describe how horrible this was. Her confusion and fear and despair all pushed forward, a tidal wave of anxiety with no outlet. She began sobbing like a child.
"How do you know!" Again, even in her misery, it was too harsh. She followed with a less severe, "How did you know her?"
The man looked like he was searching for the right words in a dense forest of awkward phrases and canned clichés. He had no answer. And how could he, she thought. She had never seen this man before in her life. He didn't know her mother. He didn't know anything. He was a messenger from a place she was trying to escape. Somewhere her mother never would, not now. Not that she had wanted to.
"I need to be alone," Celeste blurted. "Please."
"Yes, of course. Forgive me. I'll wait outside. "
The man made his way to the door before turning around –
- right in the spot where she was burning alive the night before –
- and added, "I've booked us a flight for this evening. The funeral's early tomorrow."
He closed the door. Celeste wanted to scream. Couldn't bring herself to. Her mom was gone. She was going to be buried tomorrow and no one had asked her a damn thing. A flight reservation and the funeral time made without her consent. In a world that she was imposing her will upon not thirty minutes ago, she now felt the world pushing back, imposing its will on her. A rug had just been jerked from under her feet. She fell sideways on the bed and soaked the pillow with sadness.
She stayed on the bed for thirty minutes, then began to slowly gather her things. In the dream the night before, she had no time to waste grabbing pieces of nostalgia, and had even cast them aside in order to save herself. Now she had all the time in the world. She gathered the blanket close to her chest and inhaled deeply. It was useless. It had been through a hundred washings in the past three years. It didn't smell like anything but detergent and sweat. She added some tears to the soft quilt.
She took her time packing, almost hoping that when she opened the door the man would be gone. It was just some cruel prank. Some Alzheimer's patient wondered off and mistook her for someone's daughter. But when she opened the door, she found the man, Paul he had said, standing just down the hall. He made a move to grab her suitcase but Celeste kept walking.
"I've got it," she said curtly, and kept walking without knowing her destination.
The man put his arm down and followed.
There was no conversation in the car.
When they reached the airport, it was only noon. They had four hours to kill.
"Are you hungry?" Paul asked.
She was not.
They watched people hurry along. Some people smiling and happy. Maybe they were headed on a vacation. Celeste began to weep silently, her head turned so as not to attract attention.
"We need to push the funeral back a day. I'm sure there are some things you haven't taken care of."
Paul hesitated. He looked helpless for a moment.
"I'm sorry child. The . . . the festival starts tomorrow night."
Celeste shook her head in silence. Her mother's funeral was moved up to accommodate the festival. If this would have happened six or seven years ago, she wouldn't have thought twice about such a thing. But she was out of the box now. Now it was a slap in the face to Celeste.
And to my mother, Celeste thought.