A Lovely Day to Go to God

A haunting story.

Winna believed that she was immortal �" as everlasting as the angels in Heaven, as the Universe, as the cosmos. A place had been reserved for her. 

 

Sometimes, though, she fancied herself in a darker realm of clanking chains and shrieks and rats scurrying out of the way into the cold, dark shadows. In the dank presence, she would tread as lightly as a tiny tree frog so as not to be discovered by the ravenous rats, the Fates from mythology, permeating Winna’s existence and weaving themselves in and out of the threads of her daily destiny. Nothing would stop Winna as a young woman from fulfilling her own immortality. Not rats or Fates or any dark beings from the other side.

 

Organ music swelled and surged the morning she had carried Baby Johnny up to the altar with her, her mind ready to burst with confusion and wretchedness and reality and love all battling for her soul. All that she wanted to do was swim within a sea with love. Just her and Johnny. Mother and son.

 

It was almost too windy to go for a walk, as Winna walked up the St. Thomas Bridge’s pedestrian path carrying Baby Johnny under her arm like a loaf of bread. Her other hand gripped the rail, pulling her on, further and further on her way to the top. It was, in a way, ceremonial, this expenditure of the last remnants of her energy. Finally she made it to the observation tower at the very top of the suspension bridge.  As darkness began to permeate her psyche, it didn’t look the way that she had imagined it would. She decided not to go through with it because this wasn’t the immortality that had been promised to her.

 

Winna slowly walked down the steel, windy path, pulling tangled, strands of hair out of her eyes and mouth. Johnny’s crying brought her back into the moment as she wrapped her fleece jacket around her boy and hugged him tightly to her chest. They would be distributing medications soon and Mother would want to take little Johnny home.

 

When she returned, though, no one knew that anything out of the ordinary had transpired, except that it looked as though the baby had been crying because he hiccupped at regular intervals and shuddered the way that babies do when they cry themselves to sleep. Winna handed her sleeping bundle over to Nurse, who handed him to Mother. Winna sat down silently as small, paper Dixie Cups, each with its own cocktail of medications, were distributed to the patients.

 

Winna reflected on her time with Johnny and decided that today had been all wrong. Winna would think about going to God tomorrow.