Hello Again
J.T. Pierre
Ringing. It began as a dull subdued tone, and increasingly got louder and clearer until it faded into nothingness. There was a bright comforting blanket of light that surrounded me. I felt warmth and peace. After some time, it began to fade.
I looked around as the brightness dimmed and saw two people. They were on a bed. One of them was a woman. Her hair resembled the golden blanket, which captured my attention. It tickled her collarbones and she was covered with pale white skin. It was a sharp contrast to her face which was flushed with shiny lines running from her eyes and gracing her cheeks. She wore an unsettling expression but her face was one of beauty. She held a bundle in her arms, but I couldn’t see what it was. Beside her sat an older gentleman with dark hair, who carried no expression at all.
Hello little one, I heard a voice behind me say. I glanced at the third person who was somehow hovering both above and behind me, with shimmering hair and a transparent face. She smiled softly at me. We will see them later, she said, but her lips didn’t move. Everything around me became blurry, and the strange lady whisked me away.
I didn’t understand where we went. It was a kaleidoscope of colors, constantly swarming around and enveloping me, sifting through my fingers. They moved in a particular rhythm, as though there was a sound I couldn't hear. I was constantly floating above the ground, but I wasn’t being held by anyone. There was so much I didn’t know, but I recognized that I felt peaceful.
I could walk now. There were more things I understood as time passed, including things that seemed to transcend far beyond what others knew. I went around to many places, looking around the unfamiliar world.
Without realizing where I was going, I found myself on a street I visited often. I turned my head and saw the couple walking down the street towards me. There was this connection I felt to them, every moment of every second. No matter where in the world I was traveling to, I could find them in an instant, an invisible thread binding us all together.
They took this route every Tuesday, the woman would buy pink carnations, and place them in the window of their home. As they approached the traffic light to cross, I noticed the woman’s hat was crooked. She wore it all the time. I tried to readjust it for her, but I pulled too hard. It blew away with the gentle breeze down the sidewalk. She stumbled after it, with the man quickly following suit - her knees were bad, and I could feel he was anxious when she moved.
At that moment, a car crossed over the curb and violently smashed into the traffic light pole. It wasn’t a particularly bad accident, and the driver walked away unscathed, but with its speed and sudden impact, it could have caused injury to them both. The woman worked as a nanny, and the man was an office worker. They worked hand to mouth, and the repercussions of being out of work, even temporarily, would have created hardships.
The man whistled in surprise as the woman bent over, picking up her hat and dusting it off. “I guess someone out there was looking out for us.”
My next memory was me standing next to the man as he got ready for work. I'd grown considerably now. We were both standing in front of the mirror, almost perfectly matched in height. I didn't realize how similar we looked. I had the woman’s strawberry blonde hair, but the man’s face. There were lines around his eyes, and his hair was peppered with hues of white and black, but always carried the same weary smile, as if he was waiting for the sun to come from behind the clouds. He was a quiet and stoic man, and not nearly as expressive as the friendly woman, but he had a soft heart that melted in her presence. I could sense that behind the stern facade he often put on, he loved her dearly.
That same day, I was watching them both in the kitchen, the woman berating the man about his smoking habit. I stood next to her, practically towering over her small statured body.
She’s right, you know. All that smoke is bad for you.
He pushed out of his seat, clearly not in the mood, and walked towards the door to smoke on the terrace. She gripped the towel in her hands as she sighed and spoke softly. “You can’t leave me too.”
His steps faltered briefly. “I know,” he whispered. I turned to look at her, unsure of what they meant.
He stopped smoking the day they brought a baby home. She was a tiny little thing. Her big eyes were curious, always looking around for something to stick in her mouth. I would play with her sometimes, and those beautiful brown marbles would fixate on me. She laughed when I made funny faces at her, and her fingers touched my cheeks, sending warmth throughout my body.
I will always protect you, I said to her.
I loved watching her run around the backyard playing with the woman and the man. She loved when they tossed her into the air. She had a laugh that was contagious, and a goofy toothless grin. I remembered the first time she tried to ride a bike. The couple bought her the cutest pink and white bike with training wheels because she wasn’t old enough to use it without them. The man held onto the back, while the woman and I walked by her side. When she was old enough to ride without training wheels, they would take her to ride around the block, never letting her out of their sight. “Emma,” they called her. “Don’t go too fast, or you might fall.” That didn’t stop her though. I think she enjoyed the way they had to run after her to catch up.
One day she wasn’t able to see me anymore. I’d wave and make the same silly faces I always had, but she stopped responding. All I could do was visit her dreams and remind her that I was always there. I don’t know if she remembered once she woke up, but I told myself that deep in her heart, she knew.
She became a beautiful young lady. She was the type to put her head down when she entered a room, but she was also the kind of person to slow down and match her steps with the elderly when she crossed the street and made sure the cars waited for them both. She was a bright vibrant orange that radiated wherever she went. She graduated from school at the top of her class and became a dental assistant. She married a banker named Tom, a funny-looking man who always wore mismatched socks, but he was hardworking and earnest.
The couple was older now. They had deep crevices on their faces, and their hair was as white as the clouds I slept on. It was strange. It felt like all my memories of them just occurred. Emma and Tom would drive them to their doctor appointments whenever they could. The woman was no longer able to work as a nanny due to her arthritis, and the man developed COPD from all the smoking he had done in his earlier years.
They didn’t let that hold them back though. The woman loved to cook, and the man praised her daily like her food was gold. I enjoyed watching her bake, since she would always hum and dance in the kitchen. Every now and then she would make a little plate of whatever she made and place it by the window, right next to the carnations.
Every Sunday the man would water the lawn. Afterwards, Emma would come over with her husband and later on with her twin sons. The man turned on the record player and did his jazz solos. I couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous he looked. Neither could the rest of the family. They did this every weekend - baking, dancing, and laughing. Sunday was my favorite day of the week. This was our happiness.
There were only a few moments I can remember him frowning. One was when he lost his job selling insurance. He walked in the house with his shoulders heavy. The woman was in the kitchen making soup when he sat down at the dinner table, not saying a word.
“How was work?” She would ask. His usual response would be, “Good. Nothing special.”
Today he didn’t say anything. She walked over to him and looked at his face. I always felt they had some kind of telepathy because she always knew what he was thinking. She put her hand over his. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.” He put his arms around her neck and hugged her silently. I sat across the table, looking at both of them. They always found solace in each other.
Time felt like it was racing by, but it had already been forty-eight years now.
On January 7th, 1998, after the couple fell asleep, their heat generator malfunctioned, leaking carbon monoxide into the house. It was a painless way to go, and as devastated as Emma was, she explained to her husband she was happy they didn’t suffer at the end. She arranged a lovely funeral, where people all over town attended. The twins were young, so I watched them quietly play with their toy trucks off to the side.
The shimmering figure I met when I was a stillborn appeared in front of me again. Are you ready to meet them? She pointed a slender finger behind me, and I turned. Standing near some trees was the couple, watching the ceremony.
I walked over towards them, petals of pink carnations fluttering down from the sky.
My mother cocked her head as she observed me, her eyes going wide as I approached. The man cupped his hand over his mouth.
I was their spitting image, so I suppose it wasn’t too difficult to figure out who I was. The woman looked me up and down as if she couldn’t make sense of what was happening. “You...” Her voice broke. “I can’t believe it. Our baby boy.”
I walked over to my mother and gave her her beloved hat, with a knowing smile. Her eyes kept filling with tears as her small hands tried to wipe them away. “It was you that day, wasn’t it?”
My father sniffled. “I knew it was a guardian angel. Our own personal star in the sky watching over us.”
I turned to my father and laughed. The sound of bells enveloped us. My father was a proud man, who didn’t express his feelings often. To hear such a sentiment was a lovely surprise. I never thought of myself as an angel, only their son, and Emma’s older brother. He chuckled sadly with a raspy sound, evidence of the decades of cigarette use. “We only saw you once as a baby, when we held you for the first and last time...” his voice choking off into sobs.
I wrapped my arms around my parents, covering them in a shroud of warm bright light. This hug felt different. I could always hold them, but this time, they could hold me back. I closed my eyes as my own tears traveled down my cheeks and onto the grass, like early morning dew.
I spoke with the words I'd written for them all these years. I read them the letter about our life together, and how our deaths were just the beginning of forever. My dear death letter.
"Hello again."
J.T. Pierre
J.T. Pierre holds a degree in Asian Literature from the University of Texas at Austin, a foundation that informs her nuanced understanding of storytelling and cultural narratives. A dedicated writer, J.T. has honed her craft through extensive work in poetry, short stories, and several unpublished manuscripts. Her passion for literature extends beyond her own writing; She shares her love of literature with others as the organizer of a local library book club, creating a space for readers to connect and engage with diverse narratives.