Blue Garden Stories

  I jolt awake in the middle of the night from a strange sound. Like wind chimes being struck by the wind on balconies. A mournful melody, as if hymning grief and loss. Several seconds pass before I orient myself to where it's coming from-right beside me, from my nightstand, specifically from the leather-bound notebook. Terrified, I snatch it quickly and throw it to the opposite corner of my room. There's no way something this supernatural is happening, I must be dreaming or losing my mind. It falls to the floor and opens in the middle. The melody stops as suddenly and unexpectedly as it began. I take a deep breath... it was probably just my imagination, after all the mind gets confused between sleep and waking, whatever dream it was has passed. I lie back down and look at the notebook from a distance. The light of the full moon breaks through the clouds and illuminates my entire room. Along with it, the corner where the notebook lies. The moment it's touched by the silvery...

  It is my fate to answer phones bearing tragic news. My father is gone, and I am alone in the house to manage yet another loss. My aunt died in her sleep, sedated by an overdose of medication beyond what she normally took. Had she hidden pills somewhere, had she found them? No one knows. The point is that her heart stopped beating at dawn on Sunday, one day after the last time I saw her and we embraced for the final time. I sit at my desk with my palm pressed against my forehead. I want to cry but I cannot. I must not cry. Perhaps I should be glad. Perhaps it was a release for my aunt, perhaps not. Perhaps that choice seemed right to her in that moment, to empty her body of every trace of existence and leave us with our memories, good and bad. Hours pass, and noon finds me curled in fetal position in bed, clutching my pillows. I have not moved all morning, half-asleep and half-awake. At moments I feel my mind growing numb, as if it wants to sedate me from this grim reality. As if ...

  "And where had I left off?"  Aunt Miriam chuckles at my tendency to get lost in the middle of our conversations. I smile back at her somewhat apologetically. I'm glad we found her in good spirits today. Her mythomania combined with schizophrenia torment her often, either together or separately, and I sometimes wonder about the strength she has to stand and fight every day with these two lurking at the edge of her mind. My father is obviously waiting outside in the car. Although he brought me inside and greeted her, he always leaves us alone to talk. Guards are around us, and the space where we sit is something like a "living room" for the patients and their visitors. A light lilac color fills the walls with certain paintings decorating spots on them. Like a tree with apples on it, or even a child figure on a seesaw. I smell the lunch being prepared for the patients and my ear catches that soon we'll need to leave so they can calm down and eat in peace. Aun...

  "Lumi! Good morning! Are you awake?" My father's voice, somewhat heavy from morning cigarettes, reached me from the distant kitchen, through the wooden door of my room, and finally to my ears. My half-awake brain recognized it as a familiar and routine sound sequence, and my eyes opened as if they had received a sudden command. I don't like waking up in the morning, not specifically my father's call, but in general. I like traveling to the world of dreams and creating my own stories and characters. The only thing that perhaps matters is that as soon as I get up, I record in my notebook what I dreamed that night. That's what I'll do now. I throw off the blanket and sit up in bed while stretching my body, stiff from hours of sleep. I don't want to go to the kitchen yet. My father is usually irritated by the morning news he watches, and I don't want to be there for the curses he throws at the television first thing in the morning. Though he certainl...