Fallen Star

Cold, hard floor. Bright light grating on my eyelids. Throbbing head. My limbs felt heavy. Dingy white plaster walls, swaying and foggy around the edges. Jagged slivers of glass, scattered across yellowing tile held together by clumps of dingy gray grout.

The weight of my life pressed upon me and I squeezed my eyelids together, willing myself to return to the peaceful nothingness of slumber. To something, somewhere, anywhere besides alone inside myself.

Toxic chemicals had always brought a sweet relief that was gone too soon, like waking up from a beautiful dream to metal box springs poking against my back. Every time it was slower to come and quicker to leave. Last night my cocktail of choice just stopped working. Perhaps it was synchronicity; perhaps coincidence; I will let you be the judge.

Out of desperation I called my sister and she referred me to someone. His tenement hall stank of sweat and urine. Cheap black particle board littered with baggies and paraphernalia in a damp living room with brown carpet and peeling wallpaper. His eyes were sharp and full of venom. And then there was nothing.

Bitterness rose up from the pit of my stomach, violently erupting into a brownish-yellow toilet, and I slumped to the floor, defeated, my frail figure racking with sobs until I could cry no more.

I looked up and sobbed, Why?! Why was I born if I am going to suffer?! I want to be someone else – anyone else – just not me! I closed my eyes again, willing myself with thick tears to the forever nothingness of death, free from the pain and weight of this world.

Suddenly the door opened and Michael entered, standing above me. He knelt

That smile is imprinted in my memories even now. He knelt

down, palm outstretched. As if guided by some unseen force, my shaking hand surrendered itself to his warm, thick fingers.

He spoke, his voice soft and soothing: “Do not be afraid.”

My world disappeared.

Darkness all round, and then a flood of falling stars raining down through a deep night sky. Gone was the harsh light, the cold, hard floor, the ugliness, the bitterness. Something soft and sweet rose up inside me like a helium balloon rising up to Heaven on a clear summer day. We were drifting through stringy cirrus clouds, up, up, to white cumulonimbus clouds as fluffy as cotton. With a final, soft sigh of wind, we stopped at a fluffy white cloud bedecked with a simple wrought-iron table and two chairs. A white candle gently flickered, casting its glow upon the wooden planks before me.

“Hannah, it’s time.”

My head spinning and my heart pounding like a thousand fans stomping at a concert, I opened my mouth but had no words.

He said quietly, “Please, sit down. I want to talk with you.”

And we talked. We talked all night until the rosy light from our distant star cast its red-orange radiance all around.

I discovered love that night. There were no fireworks or wild embraces, no airs or pretense. Just a boy in a white t-shirt and a girl who had fallen off a broken roller coaster. A slow, radiant warmth that gently caressed my broken heart. Golden dreams that had been lost to time gathered around us and we drifted down, down, back to the earth. To soft grassy hills dappled with dandelions and summer haze.

Our feet touched ground amidst a patch of goldenrods and I could see Bright Cellars Cottage in the distance, cupped between oak trees with sturdy trunks and long, leafy branches. So much time had passed since I spent school breaks there, at my grandparents’ house, and yet I could still feel the anticipation of dandelion springs and golden summer days. My child’s heart began to bloom with remembrance of days passed and more still yet to come.

sits across from me now, on our porch overlooking fields of color and life. He studies me, the fading sunlight painting his irises a pale green. I open my hand to his, our rocking chairs moving in a well-worn rhythm, and the familiar simmer rises inside of me. Peaceful contentment.

I am home.