New Oblivion

"Just read it, Helena."

The dust motes dancing in the winter sun beams breaking through the blinds of my apartment in these early hours of the evening bring the words back to me. I lay in my bed staring at the ceiling, tracing the cracks, counting them, as my fingers play in the pale golden beams of light dancing with the dust.

"Just read her journal. She left it for you."

Julius' voice crowds my thoughts as I try to drift off into oblivion again. The cracks on the ceiling have been embedded into my memory over the last three years. I close my eyes, still following the paths of decades old cracked paint made from years of water damage from leaking pipes that have never been properly fixed.

My mind wanders backwards in time. The notebook left on my bedside table calling to me, begging for me to open its pages. Black leather, small in size. One of my mothers most treasured possessions when she was alive - never out of her reach.

"Helena, if you don't read it, you will never forgive yourself." My brother's pain still radiates through his voice, in memory only. A ghost of what once was, now meant nothing at all.

Going to Julius' funeral was the last straw. I was left with no one now. Completely alone in the world. Yet his voice still haunts me. Begging, hoping, bargaining with me to JUST READ THE DAMN BOOK! An heirloom passed down to me, as alone as I in the end.

My eyes startle open with the electric shock that follows my hand grazing the little black journal. Placing my hand back against my body under the covers where it's warm. Maybe it's time, I think. For closure. To finally seek the answers to all our family secrets and how name crumbled to pieces, fallen to the depths of the ocean upon Mothers' death, with no hope for recovery. From anyone.

I sigh, my breath clouding in the room around me. The chill creeping in further as the sun sets.

Curling up on my side, blankets wrapped around me, I stare at the journal left in my possession. Reading Mothers words would be a comfort after these hard, lonely months alone. I reach out my arm and pick it up with a tingly sensation crawling up my arm. There is some weight to it. Made from quality smooth leather, creamy white pages, like velvet to write on. Utterly beautiful in its simplicity. Classic.

Hugging the journal to my chest, I take a deep breath. In and out.

"You're more than ready, Helena. Take the dive. I'll be with you when you do." I know he isn't here, but I still feel him none the less.

"Okay, Julius. You win. It's time." I whisper into the cold silence of my bedroom."I will not deny your dying wish any longer."

I roll over, taking a shaky breath, and open to the first page.

The words tremble and blur together as I struggle to take in what they say. What she wrote for me to read upon her absence. Again and again, I try to focus my eyes on the page.

Over and over, page after page, I fail to grasp the words, the letters. Another page, another. Nothing comes into focus.

Frustrated tears escape my eyes. This has got to be a joke. I close my eyes, praying for clarity, focus, some kind of answer. I open my eyes, point them down towards the page. Squiggles and shapes - indecipherable to my mind. The letters are there, the words are there... my comprehension of them is not.

Tears drip down my face, off of my chin, plunking down onto the swirling words. For a moment I just sit there dumbfounded, letting the tears fall.

I scramble toward my bedside table, looking for something, anything with words on it. A pamphlet, business card, take out menu - anything to test my eye sight, my reading ability.

A scrap of paper slides beneath my fingers. I snatch at it, greedy to know what secrets it holds, hoping there is something written there.

2:30pm Thursday 22nd April - Julius says goodbye to the world.

I could read the note I left myself to remember the importance of his last day. When his breathing apparatus was turned off. When he chose to die. Clear as day.

There must be a code in the journal, something needed to be able to read it. Something to keep prying eyes out, and secrets close within. For the life of me, I can not imagine what. a certain light, place, sound?

"How am I supposed to read it if I do not know the damned trick?" I sob into the silence.

Little rivers of tears continue to run down my face, cascading down from my chin onto the swirling blackness of should-be-words in the journal. Drop by drop, they splatter and dampen the creamy white pages and mottled ink.

In my frustration, I forgot the journal lay open on my lap, gathering my tears, harming the integrity of the pages. Panicked, I scramble to dry my eyes, use the blanket corner to pat the pages dry.

The swirl of words straighten as I dab away the tears, small and clear.

Confused, I pick up the journal, studying it. It has to be some kind of magic, trickery, some science, technology? Yet, there is no denying the clarity of the words.

This was but a trigger for when you are ready. Check your bank account. Go through the door. Keep our secrets. I'll see you soon.

A picture of an ancient wooden door covered in vines appears below the her words. I touch it.

Shockingly, I can feel it's rough wooden texture, solid, the smoothness of the vines.

PING!

A notification on my phone draws my attention. I place the journal that's not quite a journal back onto my lap and reach for my phone.

Bank notification. A new deposit into my account. Odd.

I click into the details of the deposit. One million dollars. With the description "Your future'. I drop my phone, look back to the journal.

The ancient door is glowing, growing out of the book. larger and larger with each passing second. Big enough to crawl through.

My heart pounds in my chest.Without my want, my hand reaches out. I try to stop it, but I no longer control it. It reaches the handle, cool metal against my skin, and turns the knob. The door swings open.

I feel the pull. A need like no other to cross the threshold. The other side covered in swirling grey smoke, nothing more can be seen. My body propels its self forward without my permission, I try to catch myself, but it is too late.

I am falling into an empty oblivion of another world as the door slams shut above me.

Endless grey encompasses my entire being. I think I stop breathing for a time.

A golden light shines ahead of me as I continue to fall down.

"Falling into a glowing future." She says. And I struggle to contain my joy.