Lost in paradise

 

           Camille’s feet drag helplessly along the ground as she swings gradually back and forth, almost to the point of motionlessness.  Her empty eyes bury to the ground of the earth, with nothing but the affliction of her melancholy.  She doesn’t even notice the draft of the wind pushing her dark hair over her face.  One hand is holding the rope of the swing while the other is placed on her lap clenching a red, silk ribbon necklace, with a bell attached to the end of it.  

            “What’s with the sad face?” a voice breaks through the calamity of her engrossment, awaking her from her obviation of the world.  She didn’t notice the twelve year old girl standing before her, with her long golden hair and bright yellow dress.  She was the complete antithesis of Camille, with a bright smile on her face, that could light up a room and her hand clasped behind her back. She was only a couple of years younger then Camille, but had the childlike wonder of callow youth.  She continues, “You should be happy!”

            Camille felt a cold frost solidify her insides, crushing her to a small ball.  With enough strength she manages to asks, “Ginger, why are you still here?”

            Ginger skips to the swing next to her and plops down upon it.  She smiles and says in a cheerful voice, “I like it here.”

            Camille doesn’t look at Ginger, but out of the corner of her eye she spots the angle of her head turn towards the red ribbon she is clenching.  “You really like that thing, don’t you?”

            With no words to say, Camille remains in cold silence. 

            “What’s wrong, sis?” asks Ginger.  “Don’t you like it here?”

            “Do you?” Camille finally breaks the surface of her silence.  She looks over at Ginger, who frowns at her. 

            “Of course I do.  It feels just like home.”

            Home…The word sounded like a phantom out of this world.  “Home…” She repeats to herself out loud.  The idea of home was nothing more then a couple of bricks and a roof, with nothing but empty rooms.  “Home.  Right.”

            “We shouldn’t keep Peter waiting. Come on! It’s time to play!” Ginger’s voice raids with stigmatic joy as she flees from the swing and runs across the green field of luscious grass.  The field felt as though it could go on forever and never end.  It was a meadow of blossoming bright green, that went on and on until the bordering of the forest beyond.  Ginger ran towards a small hill, where on top pinpoints the growth of a large old oak tree, casting a shadow on the ground by the flickering brightness of the lustrous sun. 

            Camille breathes in the warm fresh wave of the smell of peaches and flowers.  In a way this place melted the solid stone of her heart, but her anguish was buried too deep to dismantle.  She will never really belong here.  She places the ribbon necklace in the pocket of her black coat and arises from the swing and begins to follow Ginger to the hill.   But just as she begins to make her way towards her sister, something catches out of the corner of her eye.  She turns her head towards it and finds herself observing the site of a graveyard with black iron gates surrounding it.  A tension of provocation attends her, with the feel of hysteria and excitement colliding as a gravity pull, pulling her towards the cemetery that almost boarders along with the forest. 

            Along with the gravity pull, her feet slowly move its way towards it, like a magnet.  However, she stops promptly to the cold chill of Ginger’s voice.  “Where are you going?” she asks. 

            Camille turns towards her and it is as if somebody has switched a switch in Ginger.  Her blissful bubble is replaced by a restricting vexation, in which you could feel her sinister stare caress and slither up your skin.  The desperation in her eyes was so vibrant that it scares Camille.  She never wanted to see her sister like this, never in a million years.  One day she would have to go to the graveyard, but not when Ginger is like this.  “No where,” she says.

            The look in Ginger’s eyes is hard to decode whether or not she is united with fury or fear.  Either way, it’s as if you told a child for the first time that Santa Clause isn’t real and they refuse to believe to you.  “Don’t go into the graveyard,” she says with a calming voice of dismay. “Ignore it.  There is nothing there.”

            Camille glances back at the graveyard.  Despite Ginger’s anguish, there is something about it that gave a sense of authenticity among living in this world of cloud nine. But whatever gave her that validity was quickly washed away under Ginger’s look of discontent.  Camille nods over to where Peter is sitting and affirms, as though nothing ever happened, “Peter’s waiting.”

            They ran up to the top of the hill, where Peter is waiting for them under the tree’s branches, sitting upon a white blanket.  On top lays a large straw basket, keeping the lid closed by a brown thick string.  Three tea sets are arranged in the perfect symmetrical pattern of a triangle, with a small white tea pot, a cup of milk and sugar, placed charmingly in the middle. 

            Peter smiles and stands at the sight of Ginger.  Peter is a scruffy boy. His long coiled hair was shaggy and looks as though it hasn’t been washed for ages.  He wears an oversized coat that is shredded and stained with dust, and oversized pants that is held together by a brown cowboy belt.  However, despite his appearance, both Ginger and Peter exchange a look of affection that would melt the heart of anyone.  But Just as Ginger heads towards the basket, Peter quickly turns towards Camille as the look of affection on his face melts to the look of disquiet.  “Go to the graveyard,” he says, in a voice which isn’t exactly a whisper, but is quiet enough so that Ginger can’t hear.  “It’s the only way you can be free.”

            Camille nods, “I know.” 

            Ginger’s voice grows more impatient as she opens the basket and takes out a set of cards, “Come on you two! Let’s play already!”

            Both Camille and Peter sit down as Ginger deals out the set of UNO cards.

 

            Every game is always the same.  They must have played for hours on end, but every time it turned out to be the same results over and over.  Ginger is always the winner.  After the eighth round, Camille started to guess that she was cheating, or maybe that Peter was just letting her win.  Whatever it was, she no longer cares.  The game has gone on long enough.  Finally, on the forty-third round, Camille put down her cards.  “Ginger, don’t you ever get tired of playing this?”

            Peter gives her a look.  “Getting tired of having fun?  Never! At least we don’t have a dark cloud over our heads everywhere we go.”

            “Yeah,” agrees Ginger. “Why aren’t you having fun with us?  Cheer up! It’s not as though somebody has died.”

            A mood swing turns the tables with Peter.  His energy grows dark and constrained.  He lowers his head and grits his teeth.  “Somebody did die.”  His words are cold and coerced, forcing a mainstream of silence among the three of them.

            The deep silence could have lasted for a decade, or even maybe a millennium.  But in the ceasing of sound, Camille could no longer contest with this sorrow. They both look at her with eyes of bewilderment, as she jumps up from her seating position and says, “I’m sorry.  But I just don’t like it here.” 

            She then bursts into a run down the hill.  At first she aspires for the hopeful trueness of the graveyard, but in her heart she knows she isn’t ready for it quite yet.  Just along the meadow lies a red brick path.  Without thinking, she quickly follows it as it leads its way into the otherworldly dark forest.  The sun is quickly hidden among the dark patches of trees as she travels deeper and deeper among the eerie conundrum of the unknown forest. 

            Finally, Camille slows down to a slower, walking pace.  She looks up at the rotten, dying trees.  No majestic wonders lay here. For a second, she thinks of going back.  She reaches out for just the sight of her sister.  Oh, how she longed for the chance to hold her hand once more.  But every time she was there, it unravelled a dark never ending thread of sorrow and anguish that Camille could not cut.  All she could do was keep pulling the thread, over and over.  It was the heroin that she kept drinking up. More and more would give her happiness, even though it wasn’t real. 

            Suddenly, Camille is pushed by a forceful weight and thrown to the ground.  Confusion arouses in Camille, as she lay flat with her back to the ground.  As she looks up above her she finds herself staring strait into the face of perplexity itself; a pink bunny.  Well, it wasn’t exactly a bunny, but a mascot costume.  Its fabric was old and starting to turn grey and putrefy.  Only one black button eye remains, while the other is lacking and where it used to be only left is a white patch.  It stares down at her, still crumpled on top of her, unmoving. 

            Camille, inexplicit, has no feelings or thoughts that could describe her puzzlement to the disoriented reason as to why there is a mascot bunny on top of her.  How exactly could she feel? Fear of that it may attack her (as it is already on top of her), amusing as though this were some kind of joke, or maybe admiration as if it may just be looking for a friend.  Most people would have probably gone with the first option; fear.  But fear was a quality Camille often never really had tidings with, unless, of course, the stimulus seemed at all imminent.  However, it didn’t move a muscle to attack, and there was something about it that didn’t seem ominous. 

            “So…how are you?” Camille asks.  It was the only words she could pull from the air.  It didn’t move or say anything.  You could have probably carved it out of stone, it was that still.  “Right…Well if you could please excuse me.”

            She pushes the bunny off of her and sits up.  The bunny turns cross legged staring across at Camille.  Camille smiles at it.  In the midst of her mind being settled in a desolated place, this moment seemed to contain the black-humour of it all.  That is, until, she spots the red ribbon necklace in his hands. She tries to reach for it, but the bunny hops up with an embellishing force and runs off down the path.

            “Hey!” she screams and takes off after it.  But the bunny is faster and hustles with momentum.  She starts to lose sight of it as the curve of the path grows deeper among the trees.   It turns a sharp corner on the path, disappearing from life itself.

            She goes forth at full speed, turning the sharp corner of the path’s curve before desisting to a complete stop.  She finds herself at the edge of the forest, looking beyond onto a giant grassy plain, where in the middle, a small white farm house with black shutter and white torn paint is settled.  The vacuous house sits on its own and seems as though it hasn’t been touched in ages.  The rotting white paint demonstrates the houses senile immemorial usage, but whatever lies inside this house, Camille was certain that the bunny had gone inside.  She approaches the black, chipped wood door.  It creeks, as she pulls the door open wide into a macabre chamber of deep mysteries. 

            Inside, however, the house is a dreary blank room, with nothing but white empty walls and dust bunnies. The floor is grey and chipped.  It creaks as Camille makes her way across the room to another navy blue door.  As she opens it, it is as if she has just opened a door to another world of a dying enchantment; or so a dead garden.  Dead flowers spread all over the ground, leaving golden brown-black petals.  The weeds are the only thing left that is growing here.  The rest is all left for dead.  Whatever ravishing beauty this place used to be, it’s all gone now.

            Just as Camille is about to head back inside, out of the corner of her eye she spots something just barely growing a few inches out of the soil.  At first, it looks like a weed.  However, as Camille gathers closer to it, she falls into a pit of cognizance.  An epiphany unravels the bandages which close tightly around the wound in her mind.  It is time for the wound to breathe.  Camille comprehends this realization as she descries the little green stem growing to the optimistic portrayal of a flower.  It is growing hope in this garden of the dead.

            “Camille?” the voice emanates from inside the house.  Camille proceeds back inside through the blue door and finds Ginger standing in the middle of the room with a look of worry and confusion, which is quickly washed off with a look of relief as soon as she spots Camille.  “Oh, there you are,” she says. She looks around the room with a blank stare.  “What is this place?”

            Camille realizes an omitted brown door that she didn’t notice before.  A wave of uncertainty flushes through Camille, like déjà vu.  This is a house of importance, she realizes.  She passes Ginger, who stares at her with inquisitiveness, and slowly opens the door, with a well-worn groan.  Inside is an even bigger room, with no other windows or no doors.

A small wooden horse rocker is huddled in the shadowy corner of the room.  Dolls lay torn apart and spread all over the floor, with a flow of fake brown and black curly hair which has been thrown all over.  A cracked picture frame hanged on a sideways crook, holding a painting of various water colors portraying a couple holding each other in the sunset.  On the other wall, parallel to the painting, is an old round clock.  Like the picture, it too is cracked.  The little hand stood punctuated directly between the three and the four, while the big hand laid rest on the twelve. Nothing ticked or moved.  In the middle of the room, a wooden crib awaited for a child that would never be.  It stood isolated.  The whole room felt like a place of abandonment; a childhood lost in relinquish. 

Ginger follows up beside Camille and looks around the room with inquiring eyes. She turns to Camille.  There is a deep pit of trepidation hinting within her eyes.  “Can we go?” her voice trembles with an agitating fright.  “I don’t like it here.”

Camille’s first lucid reaction to Ginger’s remark is to laugh at her cowardliness.  Another deeper part of her felt the same pusillanimity she expressed.  The third deepest level of her, selfishly, just did not care about what Ginger thought.

Just like the same gravity that pulled anxiously preyed on Camille towards the graveyard, a same response pulls her forth to the crib.  However, this time Ginger’s revulsion won’t stop her.  Ginger tries to pull on Camille’s sleeve, but Camille pushes her away.  Her hands take hold of the edge of the crib, clenching to the point where the whiteness shows in her knuckles.  The image buries deep within the quandary of her mind, leaving only a question mark. It was questionable enough that in the midst of everything a random pink bunny had found her and taken her necklace, but this was unspeakable. 

She could have stood there for hours in a puddle of questions.  That is, until, the twist of fate hits her on top the head.  An epiphany collapses on her, opening her up to a whole new world.  She sees the damages; the pain; the fury.  And now she understands what she must do. 

            She turns back towards Ginger.  “Ginger,” How could she reveal this to her sister? Throughout Camille’s sorrows, she would never want the same for Ginger.  Ever.  “Come here.”  Ginger gives her a look of uncertainty. Camille nods as though everything will be alright.  “It’s okay.  Come.”

Camille gestures over towards the crib.  Ginger slowly creaks up until she reaches the crib.  She leans her head and observes.  Camille could almost see what she is viewing scan through her mind.  Perplexity crosses her face, as she stares down at the pink tiny version of the bunny, with still the worn out fur and the missing button eye.  In its hand holds the red ribbon necklace.  She turns to Ginger and asks, “What is this?”

“I was tricked into coming here. First of all, that bunny was way bigger before. I swear. Human size!”

            Ginger raises an eyebrow at her in question.  “Yeah, don’t ask.  I have no idea,” Camille continues.  “He took my necklace and led me here.  Do you know where we are?”  Ginger slowly shakes her head.  “This was our home.  A parallel version of it, but this,” she gestures around the room, “is where we used to live.”  No clarification is seen on Ginger’s face.  “Ginger, you were meant to see this place.  I know you don’t like it here.  Believe me, I know.  Neither do I.  This cold, isolated home is nothing compared to the ravishing meadow you’ve created, and you may keep that whenever you need to visit.  But there is a sacrifice you have to make in order to rebuild this home again.”

“Sacrifice…?”  Ginger’s small, little rasp voice manages to escape her throat.

Camille looks down at her red ribbon necklace and lightly caresses it. A small smile appears on her face.  “This used to be mine.” She turns back to Ginger, no longer a smile on her face. “The sacrifice is me.  We need to go back to the graveyard.”

Ginger’s eyes widen.  “No! I don’t want to go!”

“Ging, you need to do this.”

“No I don’t!” Her eyes blaze with tears, as she screams with revulsion. “The graveyard is nothing! Nothing! It’s an illusion.  It’s not real.”  Her voice cracks as she chokes on her despair.  “It’s a dream.  The graveyard is nothing but a nightmare.”

            Camille takes hold of her shoulders.  “Ginger, listen to me! I can’t stay here.”

“Yes, you can! I created this world for us.”

“No you created this world for yourself.  I’ve just intervened,” She wipes the tears from Ginger’s face. “I’m not really here, Ginger.  I’m just part of your imaginary world.  And its time for you to let me go.”

Ginger quietly sobs.  After a few minutes she quiets down.  At that moment, Camille witnesses a mature growth in her eyes.  Ginger slowly nods and takes the necklace. 

 

 

The iron black gates opened like a greeting towards them.  Peter sat on a giant rock just within the barded area.  No smile or appealing charm crosses his eyes when he spots Ginger. Instead only a fathom of understanding is shown on his face.  He stands up and takes Ginger’s hand.  “This is the right thing to do,” He says.

Ginger lowers her head in a languish sorrow.  Peter tilts her chin up and smiles at her. “Hey,” he says, with a soft, warm voice. “We can still be together.” He then frowns again. “But Camille can’t linger here.”

“I know,” says Ginger.  She travels over past Peter.

Camille stands by a growing tree of bright, lushes green color leaves.  Ginger comes to stand by her and observes the deep dug out hole just below her feet.  At the end, just above the hole lies the stone grave.  Camille watches as Ginger sucks in a breath of air.  A whole box load of emotions flashes through her eyes; intrepidity, loss, sorrow, strength, weakness, brokenness, sickness, anguish, antagonism, and so many other buried deep within her soul.  It was nothing no words could describe. It’s as if somebody had taken the innocent sunlight right out of her, leaving nothing but the empty cold space.

She holds up the necklace, feeling the empty weight of burden, and releases to the hole in the ground, dropping all of its misery and torment along with it.  And as she does, the pleasant sound of freedom fills her spirit, letting it lull her to the majestic world she once knew.

 

 

Author's Note

Won "wonderful job" on the stories, poems anything contest :)
http://www.writerscafe.org/contests/poetry-%2C-stories-poems-anything-/45210/

Reviews

[Claire's-Girl]

This is an incredible story. Well written, complex, fascinating, emotional. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the intangible. Still, the physical descriptions were lacking and sometimes hard to follow, but the rest of the story made up for it with every single word. I adore this story.

[jennifer little]

awsome story

[Wendy Seames Garner]

A well written, haunting story.

[Ambro]

Sorry for the late reponse. Been cooped up in the house studying for a test.
Anyway, this is a pretty darn good writting. I like it!