The Flight of the Ravens

a strange trip

She lowered her head, allowing her too numb and badly shaking hands to catch the remains of her strewn brain. Suddenly, everything was too loud; the constant wub-waaaah-wub bub-bwaaah that spewed from the speakers like grimy waste out of a sewer pipe, the thock-dwawp of the ping pong ball as it plopped into the gaggle of cups on the table, even the jagged yellow lights in the half-hazed room contained their own little jang, like the sound that keys made when dangling in mid air. At a distance and through the murky red noise, someone was laughing; it sounded like a machine gun fired in a pottery museum. The noise rippled, warbled, echoed around Hannah’s head. Who made such a God-awful noise? And why?   

    “What’s so funny, Hannah?” asked someone to the sitting girl’s right. Apparently, she made that God-awful rapid fire laugh; her name was Hannah, after all. She lifted her head from her hands and stared into her addresser’s face. It was Audrey, and alongside her was Michael-- only, to Hannah, they looked more like wax sculptures of her two best friends. Their faces twisted, warped, melted, began to drip down their shirts and onto the floor. Hannah’s laughing caught in her throat, choking her. She managed to squeeze out a terrified little whimper and snapped her head back down.  

The murky noise that washed over the room grew dark, turning from a bright, jabbing red, to crimson, then to maroon. It dripped down the walls and mingled on the floor with Audrey and Michael’s faces. Maybe if she stayed in this position-- with her head in her hands, her elbows planted on rattling knees-- the room would stop spinning, flashing, falling, breaking. Maybe if she kept breathing deep, long breaths, her head would stop throbbing with the bass. Maybe, if she was lucky, Mother Mary herself would touch her shoulder, or sit down next to her and ask if she was okay.

Mother Mary, full of grace: help me get away from this place! she prayed silently.

“Hannah-nah-nah, are you o-ay?” asked a woman’s warbling, whispering, screaming, echoing voice. Hannah did not answer. No Mother Mary here. Not this place. This was Hell-- Hannah was sure of it. Only loud noises, jagged colors that kept melting, bleeding, burning, warping like some type of reality-breaking soup simmering in the Devil’s kitchen existed here.    

“Miiii-hull.. Suh-ing wrong wuh Hannah-nah-nah” the voice warbled in the language of mud bubbles in a pond. She snapped her fingers somewhere in front of Hannah, adding a grimy clop-clop-clop to the heap of sound.      

“Wha-you-een?” asked a man’s deeper voice in the same dense language. Somehow, Hannah’s brain associated this noise to Michael.     

“Do you nah see her crouch-ch-ch-een dow onna couch-ch-ch lie suh cornered turtle? She’s nah res-on-deen to anything-ing-ing.”  

“Sheel be fie-ie-ie. Shees jus nah inoo diss whole par-ee scene. Ann sighs, once thah duss starts to kick-ck-ck in--”

“Whah duss-ss-ss? Oh, Gaaah. Doh tell me.”

The towering wax-like people grew quiet as one of them leaned over and whispered to the other’s ear.

Hannah, a woman’s scraggly old voice gently whispered to her own ear. It was so clear, crisp amongst the raging background noise that Hannah’s eyes snapped open, revealing the slithering, cracking floorboards beneath her feet.     

“You did-d-d spie er drink, dint you!?” the warbling woman hissed. “Whah duh hell were you--”

Hannah.

“--think-een, Miii-hull-ull-ull? She could be dying! Whah if you gay er too much-ch-ch?”  She sat on the couch beside Hannah and began to stroke her hair, leaving behind a sticky, globular residue on her head that made her want to hurl. Hannah tried to pull away. She felt nothing for the girl who petted her head as if it were some estranged poodle. She just wanted the voice that called her name so soothingly. To whom did that voice belong? She would love the owner of that voice to stroke her hair, to tell her everything was fine. It was the sound of sunlight on a sunny afternoon, the sound of sitting in the grass under a weeping willow next to a lake. It was the sound of a real home.     

“Wee nee you tuh tall tuh us, sweeee,” the warbling woman said. “Can you looh ah me? Hannah-nah-nah? Hannah-nah-nah?”

Hannah.

“Hannah-nah-nah, I’m go-ee tuh go caw an am-buh-lance. O-ay, swee? You juss sih tie. I’ll be rie back-ck-ck. O-ay, hun-un-un?”

“Juss gih her a kwai play tuh lie dow ann sheel be fie,” mumbled Michael. “You’re juss o’er-ree-acking tuh a lil trip-p-p, Hannah-nah-nah. You’ll be fie-ie-ie.”

Audrey glared at Michael, her eyes blazing like the neon lights in some strange town far away. “You doh know thah, Miii-hull. Whah if you gay er too much-ch-ch? I’m cawing an am-buh-lance.” With that, she stood and headed for the kitchen.  Michael, with his hands still stuffed in his pockets, gazed at Hannah, then quickly shifted his eyes to the floor and followed Audrey into the kitchen. He didn’t feel like looking at her. It made him nervous, the way her hands trembled and her muddy red eyes never blinked. The way she stared at the floor without moving, stiff as a stone. She looked possessed. Suddenly, he was not so sure that this was any definition of the word “normal.”

Hannah, my girl, my pet.

Hannah knew that voice; she was sure of it. It had found her during the year she went camping with her friends during the summer between high school and college, not far from where she sat now. That was the year she almost died in the lake behind this very house. Back then--right now--her vision clouded, her limbs went numb, yet her ears tuned in to that smooth voice, even from under the tons of water, fish, algae, the deep red noise that hovered over her head. That voice-- it pulled her out, hugged her tight, told her it was ok. It was her Savior.

Be with me, my child. Find your home.

She wanted to find her way home more than anything in the world. Suddenly, Hannah snapped her head up. She stared straight forward, toward the sliding glass door that led outside and into the pressing darkness. Something was out there, and she wanted to be out there with it. It saved her from the water once, now it will save her from this burning, dripping hell.  

Hannah gathered up her remaining strength and stood on trembling legs, her eyes still focused on the sliding glass door. It stood rigid, waiting for her. The pictures on the wall shattered and melted on the floor. The coffee table splintered and reformed, splintered and reformed. She picked up one foot and placed it in front of her. Then the other. Then the other. Her feet felt like they had been sitting in buckets of ice water. Now she walked on a hot stove. The room wobbled around her, but she no longer noticed. The cups on the table swayed and rattled and began to melt, creating a puddle of red on the slithering floor, but she no longer cared. The House of Wax beings that sounded somewhat like Audrey and Michael still argued somewhere in the house, their voices adding to the wub-bwaah, the jaaaang,  the boom baboom-baboom-baboom that pressed down on her head, the way the upper floors of a skyscraper pressed down on the first in a town far away. Hannah ignored all this. Instead, she focused on the sliding glass door that led to the voice. It was her beacon in the murky red darkness. It was her Savior.  

Hannah, my child.

As the sliding glass door grew closer, Hannah began to make out tall, cylindrical shapes in the darkness. Giants they were-- Hannah was sure of it. They towered over the house and swayed with the wind.

She’s coming! She’s found us! the tall brown giants whispered and moaned to each other. Even through the glass, above the noise of the party, Hannah could hear them as clear and loud as a mother’s call to her lost child. With one trembling hand, Hannah reached out to touch the door. The glass shook, bulged, shattered into an uncountable amount of pieces, each shining in the fuzzy yellow light like broken bottles in the middle of a street in a town far away.

Find me, my child. Find your home.

She stepped through the opening in the wall, allowing the noise of the party to fold and ripple behind her. A light breeze touched her forehead and cheeks, wiping the grime and sweat from her face. Before her, bushes and grass scampered along the ground, chasing each other around the brown-skinned and green-haired giants as they bent and waved and surged and danced in the wind. The sky glistened with drops of light.   

Almost without realizing it, Hannah stepped forward and immersed herself in this cosmic dance, leaving the chaos of the ordered world farther, farther behind with each step. The giants welcomed her, danced with her, pushed her along deeper and deeper into their realm. Suddenly, through the thick growth of bushes and trees, Hannah could see the source of the soothing voice that beckoned her out of the house. It was an old giant being with light green hair and thick, rippling, black skin. Her hair fell over her face and body, swaying in the wind. The woman smiled.

Don’t fear, child, the old woman cooed. There there, my child, my little girl. My pet.  Hannah waded into the thick foliage, swimming with it as the leaves and twigs floated by. Her eyes fixed on the swooping and swaying woman. Fat, green hands caressed her bare skin, clawed at her clothes, reached up to pull her down.  The old woman beckoned her.

No, no more tears, my baby. No more.

Hannah pressed forward, ignoring the strange brown fingers that scratched and poked at her face. Finally, she stood before the old woman who wept dry tears and smiled without expression. Tears raced like runaway trains down Hannah’s own face, leaving dark tracks along her cheeks.The woman’s deep black skin rippled and cracked. She danced in the wind, her feather-light hair dangling over Hannah, stroking her head, comforting her, wiping the tracks from her face.

Take my hands, child.

Hannah reached out with both hands and felt the woman’s wooden skin.  It buzzed and hummed under her flesh. Through her tear-blurred eyes, she saw her hands grow darker and older and somehow more stiff. They had become the wood of a weeping willow, the flesh of the woman before her. Hannah reached further, wrapping her darkening, wrinkling arms around the old woman’s body. She pressed her face to the woman’s skin and felt herself sink into the deep black bark.   

There there, child. There, there.  

She smiled with the tree. Then she began to laugh a light, twinkling laugh.