Moving

   Slowly, everything appeared to make its way to a box. It begin on a Monday and by Wednesday, most of the objects in the house were already in one of the many boxes. As the family had lived there for so long, there were many, many boxes, which piled up in some corners and then disappeared through the door, taken away by the men in blue who worked for the moving company.

 In one box it was all about CD’s and music and movies and others boxes were filled with books. Others held stacks of papers that were useful or not at all useful. The most precious objects were wrapped in plastic and then put in their respective box. That plastic was all over the house, the children having played with it. But, after Wednesday, children appeared to have been boxed too because they were nowhere to be seen.

 Their father had taken them with him in order to prepare everything in the new home. The idea was for them to arrive before any of the boxes did and help settle everything on the other side of the world. The woman, the mom, would stay behind making sure every single object in their house was properly treated and that nothing was left behind. They decided it should be her who stayed behind because she was more organized and more attentive to detail, so she could realize when something was being done wrong or if something had been left behind or anything like that.

 The day her husband and children left, she was free to cry for a good while in her room. She had loved that room since the first day there and was heartbroken they had do to leave. It was a silly thing to be so attached to a place but that’s what humans are like, we form very tight relationships with inanimate objects, with things that will inevitably change someday. We make our lives harder that way but we kind of love it. We do like to suffer over silly things.

 After crying like a fool, she decided it was best to get organized and make the process faster because she didn’t wanted to be away from her family for a long time. So Thursday morning she made a list of the boxes that were still in the house and the objects that hadn’t been wrapped or put away. None of their paintings had been taken care off, as well as some of the kitchen objects that she used quite often.

 It was so difficult to organize because they had so many things. Not only because they had bought them but they were also gifts and things that the families passed on. She realized they had things they hadn’t even seen in a couple of years and that was ridiculous. She had to work a lot to organize the process and to try for her family in the other side to have what they needed soon.

 The furniture was already there as well as the big appliances like the fridge and so on, but they didn’t have many of the basic things like cutlery or the children’s toys in order for them not to get bored. That hadn’t been planned correctly and the mother had to make it all as efficient as she could.

 By Saturday, the house was practically empty. There were only couples of boxes left, which were going to travel with her to the other side of the world. The trip would take her many hours and she would have to take two planes by herself, which seemed like a very horrible thing to do by herself. The truth was that she had always been with someone in her life, whether it was her parents or her husband or a friend or her children. Someone had always taken her hand when the turbulence hit the plane or when the car ride was getting too long.

She had to prepare for that mentally, as she would travel the very next day. On Saturday afternoon she put the boxes and her suitcases by the door and gave a last grand tour of her house. They had lived there since they had gotten married, twenty years earlier. They had seen the house many times from afar so, when it became available for rent, they launched themselves at it and tried by all means to be the ones to live there. There were many others interested and it was a long and annoying process but, at the end, they got the deal.

 As she walked through the living room, the kitchen and the bedrooms, she realized every major event in her life had taken place there or was connected to the house. Her wedding was only a month prior to moving and even on that day she dreamt about the house she was going to have and it was amazing how that house in her mind was similar to the real house she ended up living in.

 The birth of her two children had taken place while living there, as well as the death of her parents and the engagement of her brother and many other happy and sad moments. She had organized parties and had also stayed in on rainy days with her husband and just hugged and watched movies. She had played with her children, running around as if she was a child again and she had cried when life threw them a curveball.

 Her favorite part of the house was the backyard, a fairly nice extension of well cut grass that extended some meters away from the house. It was her favorite place because she loved to read there, to exercise, to play with her children and even to make love with her husband. Even if it was a place outside, it fell as a very private part of her world. She could be herself there and no one would know or care.

 On Sunday morning, she had a big breakfast on one of her favorite restaurants. She wanted to treat herself before leaving the city she had been living in for so many years, since she had been born. They had held a party to say goodbye a week earlier but she managed to visit a couple of very good friends again before living. She stood strong as she talked to them but when she got home she cried and realized how much her life was going to change.

 She had a couple more hours to spare so she grabbed the book she was reading at that moment and just laid down in the grass in the backyard. She put the book away very soon and just looked up, to the sky and then to the side, to the grass and the fence that separated her home from the others. She had no choice anymore, she had to go through with it and she had to try to enjoy the adventure because if she didn’t, being miserable would take a toll on her.

 Her transport arrived just in time. She made sure she had everything and gave one last look to the house before leaving, trying not to extend the pain for too long. The boxes were inside the taxi as well as her suitcases so they left for the airport in seconds. On the way there, she didn’t say a word. She wasn’t really the kind of person to talk to a stranger but right then, she wouldn’t have talked to a friend either.

 In the airport, she paid for the extra weight of her luggage and then passed through the emigration area. The man that checked her passport was very silent and she was thankful for that. He asked her what was her business in her destination and he told her, choking up a little, that she was moving there because of her husband’s work. The man nodded and put on the seal on her passport and let her pass.

 She went directly to the assigned door and sat down, as she felt heavy, she felt a horrible weight on her back that couldn’t be properly lifted. She wanted to cry and scream but she also knew that wouldn’t help at all because everything was done, there was no turning back in the decisions she and her husband had made a while ago. Things were as they were and they couldn’t be changed.

 The boarding procedure begun some minutes later and she was one of the last passengers to board. Her husband had paid for business class seats on both her flights, so she could be more relaxed because he knew her and wanted her to know she didn’t have to be uneasy. As she sat down, she took a deep breath and thought she was going to see her family very soon. They were buying a cake to celebrate being together and she was going to adapt quick, as it always happens.

Dollhouse

   And then she found herself in front of a pretty neat table, with various forks and spoon and knives. The room was very bright and she could see the rest of the room was also very well taken care of. However, there was something that made her feel uneasy: she couldn’t move.

 Betty felt she was tied to the chair, arms and legs. She fought with it for a couple of minutes until she felt suddenly freed and fell to the ground. The chair also fell but instead of a loud noise it didn’t almost make a sound. Betty wondered why that was but she decided it was better to know where she was.

 The last thing she remembered before appearing in that strangely perfect room was thinking about her problems paying her tuition at college and paying the rent and paying every single thing she had to pay. She was in a lot of debt and didn’t know for how much time she would have to keep juggling it all. So that room she had suddenly appeared in, had nothing to do what the problems she had. In fact, she had never been there before.

 She realized that, despite the bright light, there didn’t seem to be anyone else there with her. She got near to one of the wall to hear if someone was coming from outside and discovered the wall were hollow, like made from plastic or something like that. That feeling made her nervous so she decided to try and not touch any of the stuff anymore. She put her hands on the back of her body, one hand holding the other and walked around the room to see if she recognized something.

 But there was nothing to recognize. Inside a big cupboard there were many cups for serving tea and coffee and also very cute plates with amazing floral and animal designs. She wanted to take them out and see them closely but remembered she promised herself not to touch anything. She just put her nose against the glass and saw every single little thing. Nothing. Nothing made a memory appear or made any connection to anything she knew.

 She kept looking at the small paintings depicting flowers and landscapes and realized the room was almost prepared for a dinner party of sorts but there was no food or other people there.

 Then, a clicking sound made her flinch for a moment. It had been the room’s door, which she hadn’t seen before, that had suddenly opened. Immediately, she walked towards it and pushed it. Again, there was a feeling that the door was not real, was something like a toy, a fake. She put her hands back to where she had kept them and slowly walked past the doorframe to the next room.

 It was really beautiful but it was then that she realized that something didn’t really make any sense. It was a ballroom, with what seemed like woodcarvings all around. It had been painted in pastel colors as well as some touches of gold and silver and bronze. It was beautiful and, for a moment, Betty forgot that she was scared and imagined that this room would have been were a beautiful princess would have danced with her lover whoever that may have been.

 She wanted to touch the perfect vases apparently made of glass and painted by hand; she wanted to get closer to the many mirrors surrounding the room. But she didn’t. She controlled herself and, instead, decided to just sit on the floor, in the middle of the room, and try to be objective. She really liked the place but Betty knew she didn’t belong there. She had never been in a palace like this. Every single house, mansion or palace with such rooms was many kilometers away from where she lived. How was it that she was suddenly there?

 Betty forced herself to remember. She crossed her legs and closed her eyes and tried to remember every single little thing she could. She had been worrying about money… But, what about it? Did she do something about it? Or was she waiting some kind of help or at least some clue to how to get away from all the problems she had?

 The fact was, she couldn’t remember. And suddenly, a strange thing happened. It was as if she felt compelled to stand up, open her eyes and dance around the room as if she had a big gown and was accompanied by the prince. But Betty didn’t want to dance: she wanted to remember. Yet, there she went, gliding gracefully all around the room, doing nice turns and beautiful gestures with her hands.

 But she didn’t want to, so she started crying and kept on dancing. It was a very awful thing to see, like a doll movie around without any will of her own. And then, in one of those turns, Betty saw that mirrors were very close and then she realized something she hadn’t really seen before: her image in the glass was different. She wasn’t looking her reflection but some deformed face. She screamed and moved away but then she tripped and felt backwards.

 She felt herself fall and fall. Betty didn’t open her eyes until it felt safe. When she finally did, she realized she had somehow arrived to the kitchen. But it wasn’t a modern kitchen like the ones she knew. It was a kitchen made for a house with ballroom full of mirrors and a dining room filled only with tiny cups and utensils no one was ever going to handle. It was scary.

 She stood up and decided to sit down in a small stool near a fireplace that seemed to be on but didn’t produce any heat. Betty suddenly felt very cold and then tried to remember, again, what it was that she was doing before she had arrived to this place. But her memory was blank, as if it had been erased by hand. She even tried remembering something else but she couldn’t. Betty only knew her name and random words and that was it.

 In a sudden move, she touched her throat. She had just realized she wasn’t able to speak. Everything she thought she had said out loud had simply not produced any sound. She had just thought about it. So Betty started crying because she felt miserable and was sure she didn’t belong to this place. After all, people belong to where other people are, right? Why weren’t there any other people around this place? Why was she the only one?

 Like an answer to her question, a door she had not seen by the cupboard had opened and a girl, maybe a bit younger than her, entered. She was wearing a dress that was a little bit more in tune with the room. She walked very slowly but did so towards Betty. When she was close enough, she sat down in another stool and just stayed there. She was very beautiful but sad. Betty wondered if she looked like her.

 Suddenly, she almost fell of the stool. She had heard a voice. She looked one way, then the other. And then towards the girl, who was looking at her with her big eyes. She then understood it was her who talked. Somehow, without moving their lips, they were having a conversation. The first thing Betty asked was if they could walk out of that place. But the other girl didn’t even answer.

 She only said her name was Norma and that she didn’t even remember there was somewhere else to be. She had also appeared there one day and, in time, she had gotten that outfit. She didn’t really moved anymore. It was hard for her to explain but, although she did walked all around the house, it wasn’t her who made her legs move.

 Betty got stuck on the word “house”. For a moment, she was master of her own body again, standing up and running towards a nearby window. But she suddenly tripped and fell hard to the ground. Her feet had stopped responding. She slowly got up and returned to the stool, with no will of her own.

-  What is this Norma? Where are we?

But Norma didn’t answer. It was a voice, coming from every single side, which answered: “This house is now your house”.

 Betty begged for all of it to be just a nightmare.

Shooting stars

   The shooting star crossed the sky fast, almost not giving anyone time to properly think about their wishes. It was a silly tradition but people had been doing that for so much time that, it made no sense not to do it. Monica watched it from her bench, comfortably seated there with her son Matt. He was complaining about not having been able to take a picture of the shooting star but Monica didn’t hear him. She was still thinking about her wish; about the only think she really really wanted. But it was one of those impossible dreams, one that had to defy science if it were to become a reality. So she knew there was no way.

 When they got home, Matt was still talking about the shooting star, how he had read about it in a book in school and how his teacher had told the class that shooting stars were just space junk, little and medium rocks that get trapped in the atmosphere and burn. Monica was now listening but she didn’t have anything to add. She felt tired and wanted to rest. Her weak had been very difficult and Matt could talk for hours if she didn’t said anything back. So she asked if he wanted some macaroni and cheese and, of course, he said yes. She gave him a big bowl and sat down with him in front of the TV, watching some animated movie. She didn’t eat. He fell asleep after he was done.

 Carrying Matt had been easier before, when Luke was alive. But things change and now she had to do all that by herself. Her friends told her to start dating, to look for someone to spend the rest of her life with. The truth was she was still young but the memory of Luke was still so fresh that she would feel as if she was cheating on him or something. That was silly but it’s always a difficult thing to go through. Matt, luckily, had been far stronger. He did cry at first and sometimes he asked things about Luke and heaven and things about his days as a baby. But that was it. Monica was his world now.

 Tired, she went to bed right after leaving Matt on his bed. She washed her face, brushed her teeth and put on some old pajamas. She looked at the bed and sighed. It was a king size bed in which she navigated every night, not capable of being still, not capable of keeping her body on her spot. Her body knew Luke wasn’t there anymore but her brain apparently had other ideas as she often saw him besides her before closing her eyes, his kind smile and big nose. She loved that big nose.

 The next day was a Saturday. She realized it was late because the sunlight was hitting her right in the face through the window’s blinds. Monica normally woke up early because of Matt but apparently her state from the day before had caused her to oversleep. She was about to convince herself to stay even for more time but then she heard a loud sound, something crashing against the floor, shattering. Matt had probably attempted to get his breakfast by himself and now there was glass or bits of plates all over the kitchen. That’s the just of a mother for you. She begrudgingly got out of bed, put on her slippers and went down to the kitchen.

 Not having arrived yet, she started telling Matt to get out of the kitchen so she could clean first and then make him pancakes. But it wasn’t Matt who came out of the kitchen.

 For a moment, she felt she couldn’t properly breathe. She had to grab the sofa and try not to fall down. Her heart ached and her eyes were trying to focus on something else and not on the person that was coming closer, grabbing her, helping her not to faint. She was very scared but her body was not responding properly, so she could fight her helper. She was powerless and she was crying too. She couldn’t stop the tears or her heavy breathing. The man laid her down in the sofa and looked at her with his kind smile and his big nose.

 Matt finally came out of the kitchen holding a broom. Before he had seen his mother, he told Luke he had cleaned all the man and that now they could keep cooking for mama. Then he looked at her and his voice was lost. Luke told him to come closer and tell Monica to breath slowly. He would start with breakfast so they could properly begin their day. As he disappeared into the kitchen, Monica was able to breath slowly. She grabbed his son’s hands and tried to talk but nothing would come out. He told her that she should breath slowly and that Dad would take care of anything. She then heard him singing, and that confused her even more.

 Luke had always sung. He loved to do it and had always had the dream to become a professional artist. But then they had Matt and money was needed so he entered the retail business. He managed a big department store and that was a good job that gave them many possibilities, even money for a guitar and lessons for Luke. As a matter of fact, he was coming back from his first audition when the car he was in with a friend was hit by truck and killed them. She went to the morgue and saw his body and cried and yelled. And now that same man was in her kitchen, apparently cooking her favorite type of eggs.

 She pinched herself once and again to check if she was dreaming, Matt looking at her a little scared. She indicated she wanted a hug and Matt complied. As she did so, Monica could still hear the song they had danced to on their day being sung by Luke. Her wish had come true and he was somehow there. She inhaled deeply, caressed her son and stood up, then slowly walked to the kitchen.

 He was chopping onions and bell peppers. He had already done that with some tomatoes and had a big bowl of eggs he had already whisked. She saw him from the doorway but Matt entered and opened the refrigerator. He pulled out a carton of milk and the big bottle of juice. It was a bit heavy for him so Luke helped him and he then saw his wife standing there. He asked her if she was okay. She just nodded, controlling her body in order not to faint. She was amazed at how good she was at trying to keep everything in check.

 Luke approached her and told her she had to add all the spices to the eggs. He stood up behind her and passed Monica some pepper, salt, paprika and some hot sauce. She poured the sauce slowly and he grabbed her hand and her body shook uncontrollably. She excused herself and his response was to hug her from behind and just say: “I’ve missed you so much”.

 Monica turned around right then, her eyes very open. She was touching his face, which felt real, and kissed him. He felt real then too. She then remembered the first time they had kiss, one day after class in college. He had bought her some pizza and she had bought the drinks. They had been talking about some new movie and how amazing it all was, the visual effects and the story and so on. And then, a shooting star crossed the sky. They smiled and then they just looked at each other and kissed. Simple as that.

 Matt made her comeback to the present, or whatever that was. She was holding Luke very tight and realized it was an opportunity and that she would have to be very stupid not to take it. She went along with it, cooking breakfast and laughing at the table, helping Matt do the dishes afterwards and planning a great day for the three of them. They went to a park to which they hadn’t gone for a while and gave Matt a kite to run around with and took pictures of Luke teaching him how to do it. Monica also tried it but she wasn’t very good.

 After that, they decided to have a small picnic and Matt fell asleep for a few minutes, full and tired. During that time, the couple just held hands in silence and looked up at the sky, very blue and without any clouds. She felt she had so many questions and so many things to say. But she didn’t want to break the spell of the moment. So she didn’t say a word and just held him hard. He gently squeezed her hand and they played that game until Matt woke up and they decided to play a short game of football.  They were both good kicking it and blocking the goal post. They played for hours, the here of them, until the stars began to appear in the sky and the cold settled around them.

 Again, they saw a shooting star. And then Monica turned to Luke and saw he wasn’t there. She smiled and sat on the grass. And Matt, he had vanished too.

Messenger

   It was the children that love to look at him more than anyone else. Maybe it was because he was some kind of a novelty in their lives, having seen only their parents all their lives. The man in the bed just lay there, having been unconscious since the day he appeared in the front lawn of their cabin, far into the tundra. They had a decent life there, maybe not very exciting but they it was consistent and it was mostly safe to raise a family and to create values that in the rest of the world we in decline.

 The man they had found had his nose broken and several bruises all over his body, as if someone or something had kicked him repeatedly. He had some older scars and he had a black eye that healed pretty quickly. Yet, he wouldn’t wake up. Mama would try different salts and medicines they had, she tried the fat of the animals they hunted and several leafs and fruits from the forest but he appeared to be oblivious to an of them. Father was a bit more violent and would yell in different volumes to try and wake him up. He would say different kinds of things including asking him if he was a soldier or a spy but it never worked.

 After the first month, they got really worried. Even the children, who love to go into that room and play around the man, were now tired of him been asleep and wanted him to live, maybe even to tell them their story. The kids, boy and girls of around ten years old, jumped all around the poor man and screamed like crazy, hoping it would work but it didn’t. They pushed him hard and were even as violent or more than their father. They cried and screamed and the kicked him and screamed again but eventually they would just make their parents crazy so they stopped.

 Outside, winter was finally over and the sun was beginning to be a little stronger. In this region of the world, winter never really ended and it was cold all year except for some days were things appeared to change. Anyway, the fact was that there was no more snow and the temperature was tolerable so Father took both kids hunting one day and retook the lessons he had been giving them before the winter. He had been teaching them about the bow and arrow and how to use them and how not to scare your prey.

 As the kids and their father bonded, Mother stayed in and cooked some deer meat she had frozen a week before. Deer meat was the best kind of food one could find in the region as it was soft but also rich in nutrients and could pass for cow meat, which they never consumed. She chopped some of the vegetables they grew on the greenhouse and put them in the pot with the meat. She realized she had forgotten to chop the onion so proceeded to do it but them a muffled voice, more of a complaint, was heard all over the house. She turned and screamed her lungs out.

 The youngest heard her and ran as fast as he could to the house, followed by his sister and Father. When they got there, the man that had been in bed for so many months was laying face down on the kitchen floor, now drooling and making a very strange sound. The Mother was livid, shaking like crazy. She was still holding the big knife she used to chop things and only let it go when her husband pulled it away from her. He then checked the pulse of the man on the floor and realized he was still alive and that his pulse was faster than before. He asked everyone to help him carry back to the room and there they tied one hand to the bed, preventing another scare.

 At dinner, everyone ate their deer in silence. They didn’t talk, ever, during meals, but this time Mother started crying and told Father she couldn’t keep living like this, with that man being captive in and improvised room. It was like keeping a prisoner and that didn’t make senses. She proposed to take him to the authorities, even if it meant travelling a full day to reach the nearest settlement. The Father did not respond, not right then at least. He had never trusted the authorities, even if it had been the government itself the one that had gave them authorization to live there.

 He finally said he would think about it. He wanted to know that man wasn’t going to die in the middle of the journey. And he really wanted to know who he was and why he was wandering so far into the tundra. Mother did not insist, changing the subject to the children not eating because of the earlier scare. She was right: they had always thought of the man in the bed as some sort of good elf but after hearing their mother’s tale of how he yelled something she couldn’t understand and then collapsed and drooled making sounds, it scared them.

 The next day, the Father tried again to make the man talk. This time, he didn’t yell or pushed him. He just sat down by his side and started reading the man in the bed the contract the government had given him in order to be able to live there. He started reading from the very beginning, with a normal pace and changing pages with a gracious move of the hand. The document consisted of at least twelve pages, detailing every single aspect the family had to take into account while living there.

 Back when he had signed the contract, it was only Father and Mother. But the contract specified how many children they could have living in that house, the dimensions of he house itself, which animals they could hunt and which ones they couldn’t, from where they could grab the water to survive and which trees they could use for heating and so on. Every single detail about living in that remote region of the world was in those pages and Father read every single one of them. But he didn’t need to as he knew them by heart.

 When he finished, he raised his head and realized the man had his eyes open. Without changing his pace or volume of voice, he asked the man who he was and what he was doing in his land. The man open his mouth but the words appeared to be trying to get out of it all at the same time. He grunted and tried again but nothing came out. He seemed to wanting to say something and he wasn’t happy at all when he couldn’t. He was certainly not happy when he couldn’t move one of his hands in order to complain. He looked at Father with red eyes, grunting.

 Kids and wife looked at Father, how he asked silence from the Man and slowly move his mouth, making soft sounds and then reciting all the letters of the alphabet. The Man stopped grunting and looked at Father. There was something dark, something mysterious in his voice. As he tried to recite the alphabet two, he started sweating and his eyes went very fast from Father to Mother and then to each of the kids. It was unsettling and combining it with the letters of the alphabet didn’t make it any better. Father continued, slowly, by spelling his name. He did it several times, pointing at himself with a finger.

 Then, he pointed at the man and fell silent. The man looked more scared that ever before and tried, again, to talk. At first, the same type of grunts returned to his mouth but then he tried to clear his mouth and a letter came out in a very deep voice. Mother let out a squeal and the kids’ mouths were very open. The letter was “D”. Father asked Mother something to write on and a pencil and she looked for them after snapping out of it. He wrote a big D and showed it the man, who nodded.

 The following letters where “A” and “N”, so they decided that his name was Dan. He started coughing like mad after he had said that last letter; coughing so hard blood came out of his mouth. Mother brought him something to clean himself with but he prevented her from coming neared. He saw the spots of blood in the covers with terror, his eyes also filled with blood. He looked at them, hopeless and guilty. Trying to calm him, the family came closer but he just said to more letters, which Father wrote.

 Something happened then that no one would ever be able to explain mainly because no person alive can really say what happened. Some say the gran began to shake, others say it was the roof that suddenly came off. All agree, however, that sound appeared to disappear for a moment in the world. Many years later they would found that house destroyed and the notebook where Father had written the word “DANGER”. In smaller writing, below, he had also written “deaf”, and that was it. No one ever knew what happened but it was clear the Man had failed to deliver his message.