To Be Alive

Big blue pretty eyes. Big blue pretty eyes deadlocked in a vanity mirror blooming out of porcelain skin with rouged checks and supple lips, all framed by tussles of blond curls. Big blue pretty eyes staring, but in their stillness feverishly examining a slight distortion; a twitch. White teeth are revealed and then concealed again and again, a dozen times. There is something unsettlingly if not manic in this smile stretched to it’s limits.

“Amber?” a soothing voice called beyond the bathroom door.

“Yes, mam?” Amber replied.

“The celebration of life ceremony will begin in 20 minutes. I expect you’ll be ready by the them. I love you.”

“I love you too, mom.”

Amber is seized by the thought of her great grandmother, caught in a space that suspends time and sanitizes the room. She realizes she can’t access a single definite memory, just a warmth. She almost imagines something quite queer about that but then remembers, big blue pretty eyes.

Finally her smile releases into something that excites her quite tremendously. Her mouth begins to form a perfect oval. But oddly, this rather simple gesture becomes quite laborious to maintain, as if someone else is physical pulling against her face. This distortion registers quite profoundly as Amber looks onto her own face, seeing perhaps herself for the first time truly.

Her left eye begins to blur and to her surprise she finds that it is bleeding as she wipes it with her hand. But when she returns her gaze up from her hand to the mirror, the blood is gone except for a disappearing smear on her palm.

In the mirror, white teeth are revealed and then concealed again and again. Perhaps the perfect oval never was, she considers.

“Amber?”

“Yes mam?”

“If it pleases you, I’d like to share with you a gift from your late great grandmother.”

“A gift for me, from gram? How delightful, mother. It’d please me immensely.” She allows one last look at herself before exiting the bathroom to find her mother holding a simple small wooden box.

“Here you are, love. I must be honest and say I do not know what this box possesses but it was imperative that you receive it. Gram insisted. I love you, darling. See you at the ceremony.”

Left alone, Amber opens the box to find a necklace with a simple silver heart shaped locket and a small handwritten note: “To be alive. Love Gram.”

To be alive - Amber didn’t immediately understand but didn’t think much of the words. She felt at ease to have a bit of her great grandmother to carry with her. Her great grandmother who was the last to live from before The Cleanse.

Gram lived in a time where there was suffering, pain, poverty, starvation and The Undesirables - feelings of sadness, lost, and confusion. Amber felt a slight sting pondering the possibilities of these realities and then a warmth. In The Home, everything was provided by The Father, endless unconditional love, shelter, food, and a stream of euphoria. The Father came and during The Cleanse released all women from the Undesirables and Gram lived through that.

Amber opened the locket and found big blue pretty eyes peering back at her in a heart shaped mirror. But these eyes weren’t hers. They couldn’t be. They were leaking quite profusely and missing an accompanying beaming smile. She closed the locket, felt a wave of warmth and thought no more of the subject as she placed the necklace around her neck.

She rushed excitedly down the hall from the bathroom, down the grand stairs of the main entrance, through the front door and across the large yard to meet all of her sisters, aunts, cousins and nieces with her mother and grandmother for the celebration of life ceremony.

Everyone gathered in hugs and laughter, drinking, and eating as they remembered nothing in particular but a feeling of warmth. They huddled in a large circle, all 200 of them, as the body of her great grandmother was laid on a bed of roses in the center.

Amber held her locket lovingly as her mom stepped forward to speak.

“We celebrate the life of one loved boundlessly. We return her to The Father and we feel her love again.”

And with that, they danced unabashedly as one by one each laid flowers over her. Amber had retrieved hollyhocks to lay in honor of her Gram. As she drew near, she saw. painted red, her great grandmother’s mouth open in a perfect oval. She felt compelled to open her locket for reasons unknown to her and when she did she was met with her reflection exerting much effort to call out.

Amber closed her locket, dropped her hollyhocks and in the center of all her sisters, aunts, cousins, and nieces with her mother and grandmother; she screamed a piercing shriek through The Home. The dancing stopped. The music stopped. But everyone continued to smile, again and again and again.