Forever is Our Today

One tip-toe away from free fall, Dody gazed down into the unlit depths of the stairwell she found herself atop of. A red something glowed far past the place where she lost count of the stairs, beckoning to her with a crimson lark and a faint hum. It seemed animate compared to the surrounding obscurity. Breathful. With a squint, Dody reached her hand straight out from her chest and parted her lips in a soft oh of appreciation; she imagined her fingers getting warm where the light met her skin.

The sound of music waxed and waned as the door behind her opened and closed.

“Come on Dody!” called a voice; its owner, a cousin, rushed past and half-fell-half-flew down the stairs in an ebullient ta-ta-ta-ta of feet against stairs. Moments later, a veritable herd of children followed in the pioneer’s wake, their shrieks made bountiful by echoes; they carried with them an electric energy, as though to light up the obscured stairwell. When the last of them dissolved into the darkness, Dody obeyed her cousin’s order.

Down! Down and down and down she soared. The endless nature of the stairwell seemed for a dozen steps inevitable: She could fall forever and never hit the bottom. A dead wind rejoiced at her finding it there, where dead things grew lonesome and were oft forgotten; it licked her cheeks and gave her wings. When at last she caught her weight against the wall at the bottom of the stairwell, a kind of thrill filled her chest. She needed to go down again.

Out through the door. On the other side lay an empty and unlit hall, characterized by towering stacks of chairs and cold tile. Dody peered around the room with arms still outstretched as though to catch any leftover thermals; her hair stood on end when she noticed that another red light glowed above another door. It, too, hummed. Motivated by the thought of further flight, Dody zipped through the hall and beneath the exit, up two sets of winding stairs to the entrance of the venue, and, with a flourish, back into the hall where her adult family gathered.

Breathless, Dody glimpsed her cousin’s herd as it disappeared behind the curtain of the stage at the back of the hall and ran to catch up. Empty threats of shushes nipped at her heels just as they had the herd’s, chasing her out of the solemnity, out of the grief. By the time Dody reached the secret stairwell (having tumbled onto the stage and over the various backstage items to which she paid no mind), triumph filled the space. No longer did the stairwell buzz, its hummed tune replaced by giggles and screams; the uninhibited energy lent goosebumps to Dody’s pale skin.

The game went on (round and round). Endless freefall enchanted Dody’s laughter and a hazy red light coloured her eyes as she played. She felt invincible. She wished for her cousin Sam, he whose shoulders she rode atop of and whose arms administered gentle hugs. She couldn't fathom why he chose to be dead instead of there with her.

By the dozenth circuit, the herd grew tired and paused their game. Children made their ways to adult-riddled tables all around the hall.

Dody, too, made her way. Storm-blown and cheerful, she walked up to a nearby Aunt Cece and tugged on the woman’s black sleeve, her hunger circumvented by curiosity.

“This music doesn’t sound like a queen,” Dody announced. (She remembered her mother saying something about music by a queen in the car). Aunt Cece slipped to Dody’s height, the tremble of her lips ill-disguised by a smile. Can my lips do that?, Dody wondered. She puckered up but Aunt Cece seemed not to notice.

“It’s not being sung by a queen, Dody, it’s being sung by a band called Queen,” said Aunt Cece. She nodded her head and patted Dody’s yet-confused cheek; grief rushed her patience and perceptivity. The thin woman sniffed. “Sam loved Queen. He requested that we play it for him.” Her lips pulled taut. “He said it would make us smile.” Dody smiled.

Aunt Cece straightened and returned to her adult conversation.

Stranded below, Dody crossed her arms and felt the finger-shaped grooves there, where Aunt Cece had held on to her as though for dear life. But she’s not the one who died, Dody puzzled. Sam is. She imagined her cousin’s face, pale and framed by thin black hair. Luke killed him. Cancer. She rubbed her arms. Oh well.

With a mind full of half informed-thoughts, Dody walked away from the tangle of adults and sighed. She imagined Sam’s kind smile, the way his eyes lit up when he laughed — she’d wanted to see his eyes earlier that day. Her father, however, had restrained her hand as it reached for Sam when they walked past his forever-bed, saying something about respect. She pouted. I guess I’ll see his eyes later, she thought.

Dody bumped into something near the center of the hall. The food table. Tongue warm against her lips, Dody grabbed a paper plate (it felt flimsy in her hands) and made her way along the table, neck craned and toes tipped. A hungry belly bid her grab five finger-sandwiches, three chocolates, and a sea of potato chips. That done, she turned, eyes spellbound to her first meal of the day. There’d been too much yelling going on that morning for mommy to remember to feed her.

“Aa-oof!” She crashed first into a tall body and then on to the floor. Her plate fell, too: The chips voiced their dismay with a clatter while the sandwiches dirtied themselves in silence. Dody looked up. An apology attached itself to her thin cheeks by way of a girlish smile.

Her father’s face held no such expression of kindness.

“What are you doing with that much food?” the tall man growled. His voice reminded Dody of an angry dog, coming from between his teeth and loud but quiet at the same time. Her eyes felt wet and she flinched when her father stooped down. The image of someone holding on for dear life came again to her as her arm bent back in her father’s hand. “Look at the mess you made, Dorothy. As bad as your mother.”

“I was hungry...” Dody mewled. The rest of the girl’s whispered apology went unheard. When she made as though to clean up her mess, her father yanked her to her feet; “I’ll still eat it daddy!” she cried. Yet she found herself moving further from the food, not closer, the tangled seams between her and her father pulling taught. She wailed as her father dragged her from the hall. Her bereaved family members took no notice.

Children ran up from the basement as Dody and her father passed through the entrance of the venue. They screamed for the thrill of it all, rather than for the fear.

Dud-dud. Dody recognized the sound of the men’s bathroom door closing. Her black dress half-fell-half-flew towards the floor as the walls winced to hear her screams. From afar, Dody wondered if her father’s fists felt like they were in free fall; she wondered if to him she looked a hazy red light.

(In later years, Dorothy would ask her therapist why she had to be naked for her beatings. No easy answer made itself apparent, then or ever).

Minutes later, Dody and her father rejoined their grieving family, the former with come-undone hair and the latter with a slicked back mane. Dody’s left hand rested in her father’s right while the other pressed to her lips; they’re trembling like Aunt Cece’s, she thought.

Consciousness waxed and waned in the girl. She sat in her mother’s lap and heard her father pour himself funeral champagne from across the hall. Anyone who noticed Dody’s crying said there there and we miss him, too: grief rushed their patience and perceptivity. When offered some finger sandwiches, Dody threw up what little occupied her hungry stomach. Her mother gathered her to her chest. Clasped together, they rocked back and forth, the physical touch reinforcing Dody’s trauma, her associations with death and finger sandwiches and champagne, with reflexive vomiting and the color red and free fall, with beatings and reassurance, with Queen’s Who Wants To Live Forever.

Glasses shattered. In response, the halls’ mourning eyes lifted and witnessed Dody’s father as he stumbled and slurred. A fight broke out. By then, Dody’s mother affected preoccupation with her dissociated daughter. The word alcoholic meant nothing as it echoed around the hall in the screams of their family members now, and it would mean nothing when the abusive man walked through their doors at night.

The fight settled.

In its wake, Dody and her family half-fell-half-flew towards the hazy red light of destruction.