Playing a game of tag

Across the rocky dirt

The pebbles scattered in the

Field of children

Of all classes full of

Life and games

We run and run and

Run till we can’t so we

Hide to not be found

And to not be captured

Bound along the edge of plastic stones

Away far far away from the chasers

Tired sneakers pound the ground made

Of dirt and clay

A Breeze sways the trees and a

Cold snow showers over our warm

Friendship

Bye playground full of

My classmates and my

Dear

Friend.

There’s a chest in the attic that doesn’t have a lock and doesn’t need one, because nobody ever opens it. The chest is old and wooden and there are cobwebs stretched around its outsides like stakes holding a tent in place against the wind. To the left of the chest is an old lamp with no lightbulb and a few sets of old pictures, tucked away in boxes. Sometimes Maria will bring a flashlight with her up to the attic and shuffle through the pictures, just to look and remember. One day, she thinks, she’ll put them all into a giant photo album to be passed down through generations. For now, it’s hard to look for too long.

Maria doesn’t touch the chest because she believes there is nothing in it, so there isn’t. But one day, Maria leaves for a weekend shift and forgets that the stairway leading up to the attic hasn’t been pushed back into the ceiling and hidden away like it usually is.

She’s managed to raise a curious daughter.

Maria encourages any and all questions, because she knows that allowing fourteen-year-old Elena to be privy to every tiny detail about her father and about the war he never came back from is the best way to keep her from running off to find her own answers. Maria never lies, but she doesn’t say everything, either. Mostly because that would be far too complicated and far too much.

But then she leaves the stairway to the attic open.

There’s never been a rule against Elena going up there, she simply never has. But it’s Sunday and all of her homework is done and it is one of those rare, rainy Los Angeles days. And Mom left for work and Elena is bored. And the stairway is right there. So she climbs up, and she finds the boxes full of photos. She’s seen them all before, but only a few times when she’d asked for them.

“It’s not good to lose yourself to memories, mija,” her mother had explained. “We hold onto him because he deserves to be remembered and because we will always miss him, but we do not fall so far into the past that we forget that we are here without him now. That we have our own stories to continue writing.”

Elena shuffles through the pictures, listening to the steady drum of raindrops on the roof. She tucks a piece of dark hair behind her ear, nose twitching a little at the dust settling around her. If there were any ghosts in the attic, they would perhaps smile at how similar Maria and Elena look when they get lost within their thoughts. Elena bites her lip the way her mother does, settles her spine against the wooden chest, and lets herself picture what it felt like when Dad used to hold her.

It is Sunday and all of her homework is done and her mother is at work and outside the rain still falls, so Elena does not brush at the tears that slide down her cheeks as she stares at each picture. When she's done, she places the photos back into their boxes and slides them back beside the lamp without a lightbulb. And then she turns to look more closely at the chest she’d been leaning against, brushing away the cobwebs until she can see the small, metal nameplate on the front: Daniel A. Badilla.

She smoothes her fingers reverently across her father’s name, pondering. And then, with a wary breath, she opens the chest.

The air shimmers and bends, and Elena can see small, rippling waves forming in the dust in the space above the chest. The dustmites twirl around each other like sparks from a fire curling up into the wind, except they do not disappear into the air. Instead, they solidify and take shape, twisting and swirling as Elena watches, open-mouthed.

And then he is there, and he is more than a photograph.

Her father smiles at her, and Elena can feel new tears sliding down her cheeks before she even forms a coherent thought about what’s just happened. And it must be an illusion, a dream, a fevered wish she’s urged to life inside the confines of her own head. It’s a stupid instinct, but all Elena can think to do is pinch herself. Hard. She is halfway through gasping at the unexpected sharpness of her own fingernails when the sound of her father’s booming laughter stops her short. She blinks up at him, shaking her head, and his laughter fades to a small, sad smile that pulls at the corner of his right lip in just the way she remembers.

“Don’t hurt yourself, mija,” he says. For some reason, Elena thinks he should be wearing his uniform. Instead, he is in dark jeans and a faded Black Sabbath T-shirt that Elena knows is tucked away in the upper-right hand corner of her closet. Sometimes it still smells like him if she holds it close and breathes deep enough.

“Papá?” she whispers, afraid that the dustmotes will suddenly decide to scatter apart, leaving nothing but empty space. But the mirage of her father remains, and it nods. Elena blinks and pinches herself again, though she’s not sure she wants to awaken from this dream.

“It’s not possible…”

“You know better than to question what can be possible, mi amor,” her father says. He stands with a straight spine and wide shoulders, and to anyone else he might be intimidating. To Elena, he has always just been Dad. “What does your mother always say, eh?”

“Miracles are born from our faith in the miraculous,” Elena recites automatically, blushing when she sees the pride well up in her father’s eyes.

“That’s right,” he says. “My god, you’ve grown so big. Almost time for your quinceañera, no? You think your tía will run out of tears before the party ends?”

Elena snorts a little, remembering how hard her aunt had cried when her cousin Leo had finally learned to ride his bike without training wheels. Then she frowns. Tía’s eyes had been red for months and months after Dad’s funeral. Her father watches her expression carefully, reaching down to brush one of the tears from her eye. Elena feels only a whisper of his touch against her skin.

Suddenly, all Elena needs is to feel her father’s strong arms around her again. She reaches for him and he pulls her against his chest. He is not completely solid against her, his form shifting slightly beneath her fingers, but if she focuses enough, she can almost squeeze him tightly enough.

“Why is it so different?” she asks, feeling childish for asking. Of course it would be different.

Her father shrugs. “I do not know all the rules yet, mija. But I bet we can learn them together. How does that sound to you?”

Elena bites her lip the way her mother does, and the ghost in the attic does smile at the similarity. “You’ll be here? You’ll stay?” she asks.

“For as long as you need me, mija, I will stay,” her Dad promises. “But you cannot visit every day or even every week. If there are things to say, you wait until many pages have been filled, and then you can tell me all at once. Do you understand?”

Elena nods. “I understand.”

“Okay,” her father nods. “And understand this, too: you are not writing your story only for me. I will be glad to hear all about the beautiful life you create, but you must remember that you are writing it for yourself.”

Around them, the dust has begun to stir again, a breeze with no origin curling up from the floorboards and slithering around the form of Elena’s father.

“I love you, Dad. I’ll come see you soon,” Elena promises, her bottom lip quivering.

“Te amo, mi querida,” her father answers, even as he loses his shape, dissolving back into the chest in a short, tiny whoosh of air. When Elena's tears have finally stopped falling, she slowly closes the wooden chest engraved with her father’s name, walks back down the attic stairs, curls up in her bed and goes to sleep.

The next morning, Elena brings Maria up to the attic, tells her not to be afraid as she opens the chest and waits for the dust to swirl. But the air remains still, the floorboards silent. Her father does not come, and Maria does not understand what she was meant to see. Elena is too upset to tell her.

Years pass, and Elena visits her father as often as she can. Tears made from tiny specks of dust slide down his cheeks when she shows him her college diploma. On her wedding night, she insists to her new husband, Jacob, that it will be easiest to stop by her mother’s house for the extra toothbrush she’ll need on their honeymoon. There is a small coating of dust along the bottom of her wedding dress by the time she makes her way back outside and into the car. Jacob doesn’t notice, and Elena doesn’t care. She’d gotten her father-daughter dance.

Elena gets a marketing job and then a promotion, and she tells her father about it with wistful excitement. The job is in Atlanta, and she and Jacob are already packing. She promises to visit soon, that she will have stories to tell when she returns.

The fire that consumes her mother’s house four months later doesn’t leave much in its wake, but luckily Maria herself had already evacuated a few days earlier.

Elena’s first thousand thoughts are for her mother, grateful for her safety but mourning with her for all that she lost to the flames. Her next thousand thoughts are for the wooden chest in the attic, the one she knows will no longer be there. When the fire is finally contained three days later, Elena flies home to help her mother sort through whatever might remain. She insists that Jacob stay behind in Atlanta for his own newly-found job, but he takes the plane seat beside hers.

It takes a long time for Elena to end her mother’s embrace after they land, neither of them ready to see what is left standing after the fire. But Elena thinks of her father, of the now-lost pictures in the attic and the strength he always carried with him and insisted she had inside of her, too. She rolls her shoulders back, lifts her head, and leads the way.

Elena stands in the middle of the rubble, her chest aching. After hours of searching, they have managed to salvage almost nothing.

“Elena,” Jacob says, so softly it is almost a whisper. “We should go back to the hotel. We’ll come back tomorrow, okay?”

Elena shakes her head, tears welling up behind her eyes for what feels like the millionth time today. Jacob frowns and cants his head, directing Elena’s eyes over to Maria. Elena’s mother is perched on the singed remains of a coffee table in what used to be the living room. Her legs are crossed, her thin arms are covered in a layer of soot, and she is lost somewhere inside her head, staring through a matrix of support beams that used to be a wall. Elena turns back to her husband and nods in surrender, and Jacob begins making his way through the rubble to get to Maria. Elena can’t hear what Jacob says to her, but a moment later, he reaches out a hand to help her up, and she takes it.

Elena sighs and turns to take one, last look at the rubble. A glint of something on the ground catches her eye, and she bends down to retrieve it, her eyes once again filling with tears when she realizes what it is. She runs her fingers over the silver nameplate, smudging at the ash until her father’s name can be seen clearly. Behind her, Jacob is leading Maria back to the car.

“You promised,” Elena whispers to nobody but the smog-filled air, her lip quivering. “You promised that you would be here for as long as I needed you, Papá. And I will always need you.”

Around her feet, the air remains still.

It is another, long moment before she can force herself to move again, but she finally manages to make her way back to the car where Jacob and her mother are already waiting, her father’s nameplate gripped tight inside her palm. They drive back to the hotel together in silence, the air around them thick with smoke and grief. As they make their way to the elevator, Maria asks her daughter to come to her room before she goes to sleep.

“Only for a moment, mija,” her mother urges when she sees the exhaustion pulling at her daughter’s eyelids. Elena nods and follows her mother into her hotel room while Jacob opens the door to the one across from it.

Once inside her mother’s room, Elena sinks down onto the mattress. “What is it, mamá?” she asks. Maria holds up a finger. Un momento. She shuffles over to her suitcase in the corner of the room, returning a moment later with an enormous, blue book in her hands. She passes it off to her daughter.

“What is it?” Elena asks, something fluttering inside her chest as she presses her fingers into the thick spine.

“Open it,” her mother says, settling into the mattress beside her. Elena does.

She gasps, letting her fingers drift along the outline of her father’s face from where he smiles back at her from a familiar photograph. She turns the page, and then the next, allowing herself to get lost in the memories she’d thought were gone forever.

“When did you...?” Elena asks after a moment, turning to face her mother.

“The day after you left for Atlanta,” Maria answers. “One day, my grandchildren will need to know who their grandfather was. I had time to pack a small bag before I evacuated."

Elena huffs out a breath, letting her gaze drift back to the photo album. “Do you remember when I showed you that old chest in the attic all those years ago?” she asks. From the corner of her eye, her mother nods. “It was Dad. He was in there, somehow. It was some kind of illusion or magic. I visited all the time, told him about my life. And now he’s gone. He’s really gone, and I don’t know if I can stand it.”

Maria runs a hand through her daughter’s long hair. “Oh mija, he will never be gone. You know this.”

“But it’s not the same!” Elena shouts suddenly, flinging the photo album onto the floor. She rises from the bed, pacing furiously. “He was here. I could feel his arms around me!”

To Elena’s incredulity, her mother laughs. “You think you are the only one he came to see?” she asks, shaking her head.

Elena freezes. “What?” she asks.

Maria chuckles again, but it is weary and filled with sadness. “Oh Elena,” she coos. “Your father comes to me often. Asleep. Awake. In the middle of a long work shift. I can feel his fingers in my hair. I can see his lip curl around that devious, little smile of his. The ones we love always find ways of coming back to us.”

Elena shakes her head, begins pacing again. “No, you don’t understand. This was different.”

Maria sighs. She gets up from the bed, retrieves the discarded photo album. Elena watches guiltily as she returns it to her suitcase. “It has been a long day,” Maria says. “Get some rest.”

Elena nods, hugs her mother hard before she goes. In the hallway between her mother’s room and the one she shares with Jacob, Elena tries to collect herself. She breathes deeply, pulling her father’s nameplate from her pocket.

The air moves.

Elena’s breath catches, and for a moment she thinks she imagined it. But then something shifts below the surface of the hallway carpeting. The fibers of the carpet straighten and then break off from the ground, swirling out into the space in front of her, twisting around themselves until he appears as if he had always been there, as if he had never left. Elena gasps, any words she might’ve said stuttering to a stop before she can form them. Her father speaks first.

“Mija,” he says, smiling crookedly. “I thought you knew by now that it was never about that silly, wooden box.”

“Papá?” Elena whispers, choking on the words.

Her father smiles softly, reaching to brush away the fresh tears on her cheeks. “I am here, always,” he says, gesturing to encompass the space around them. “I am in the wind that curls around your hair. In the spaces between each breath you take. In the beating of your heart. I am everywhere you go, Elena, because you choose to take me with you.”

Elena curls her fingers more tightly around the nameplate, smiling through her tears. “As long as I need you?” she checks.

“As long as you need me,” he nods, holding her gaze.

“Okay,” Elena says.

“Okay,” answers the memory of her father.

The air shifts again, his form rippling and shimmering in front of her. The last of his visage fades back into the hotel carpeting. Elena smiles.

It's been three weeks two days since you've left.

I'm sick and my throat is thick and heavy from crying for you.

I keep glancing at your side of the bed and wondering I will always be this depressed.

I wonder if this child growing round beneath my breast, knows you're gone too.

I'm messed up, I can't raise this child without you.

This baby is a gift but what am I to say to a child with a father who's dead?

Am I supposed to lie and say you're in heaven instead?

Should I say the truth?

"Baby, your father is dead. He was shot twice in the head."

I am lost and I need you.

It's been three weeks and two days since you've left.

Three weeks and two days since I've slept.

It's been three weeks and two days and you're not coming back.

Three weeks and two days and I still don't know how to react.

“Is he dead yet?” Death mocked.

Life sat on the porch, staring at a man and his daughter playing on the garden.

“You’re too early.” Life answered, though it knew why Death was there. “Far too early.”

“Am I?”

They stared at the man, who’s smile turned into a broken expression of pain, with every muscle of his red face hardening. His hand grabbing his chest.

“What’s the fellow’s name?” Death asked.

“Mike Dunford.”

“Dunford? I thought it was Done-for…”

The scream of the scared girl interrupted the wordplay. There was something more painful in children’s screams. To be wise enough to know something is wrong, but unprepared to deal with it in any way.

“He’s not going to die.” Life assured. “The girl is going to call an ambulance and they’ll save him.”

“Are you certain?”

The man expressed pain with each breath “Call your mother.”

“Wait” Said Death “that’s going to take more time than if she called the ambulance. He’ll be dead by then.”

“The mother can explain the heart attack much faster… it’s the- it is the right choice.”

The girl walked to the front door, but at 4 years-old she was still too short and weak to open the door.

“He’s dead.” Death stood up as if there was a clear winner in this battle.

“Mike!” Said the neighbour, looking at Mike's face down on the grass.

She instinctively called an ambulance and took the little girl inside. She called more neighbours too, each spouting random wrong and right decisions of what to do with Mike while they waited for help.

“You seem bored,” said Life. “Can I entertain you?”

Death looked around and locked eyes on a web. Zap movements from its victim.

“You know,” said Death. “There’s another Life and Death, just like us, fighting for the fate of that fly.” Death looked at the crowd putting and taking pillows from Mike’s feet and head. “The moment Life loses hope, Death will take that fly. Are you still hopeful?” Life gave no response. “I can feel every cell that dies within him, it’s so fast. Can you feel it, too?”

“I can feel something else.” The ambulance arrived.

***

“Too many cells died for him to ever have a normal life.” Said Death. “It’s sad, but more importantly, it’s true. It’s reality.”

The man was taken to a room in the hospital with doctors rapidly moving from several corners to treat him.

“Why can’t you?” Yelled life. “Why can’t you just leave this one? Why not others who take lives, why can’t you be fair?!”

“I am.” There was a pause. “I don’t pick others precisely because I am fair. I am the only being, the only thing that is completely indiscriminate. But for you, the fact that I'm not biased towards your view is what makes me ‘unfair’”.

Life had no answer.

The wife of the man came in with cheeks red of fear and black from eyeliner, trembling hands and a dead breath of cigarettes.

“I still have hope.” Said Life.

The wife approached a doctor who left the operation room, who seemed in a worry to be somewhere else. “Is he going to be ok?” The wife asked.

“I can’t say.” And he left.

“That’s never good,” said Death. “That one was just too scared to say the truth. Lost hope yet?”

“No,” Life said, but it wasn’t completely true. When Death is nearby, the desire for the best outcome is greater than the actual belief of it. Thoughts of the worst fate come to mind, in the hopes that we’ll be prepared when it happens. But we never are.

***

“Do you still have hope?” Death asked. They were all around Mike, his wife was looking down at the bed, hopeless. "Do you?"

Life was staring down on the floor, covering its ears. It shook its head.

“I need to hear you say it.” Death said.

“I’m not…” There was a long pause.

“’I’m not what?” Death insisted.

Life looked up at Death. “I’m not quitting yet!”

The hand of the man moved, soon after the eyes opened, and the ritual of crying began amongst them, with ‘I love yous’ being shared between them.

Life looked at Death. They sensed each other’s respectful dislike for each other.

“Goodbye.” Said Life. “I hope not to see you for a long time.”

“You won today.” Said Death with a simile hiding disappointment. “But remember, your victory, unlike mine, is only temporary.”

That all too familiar feeling. The pain it evokes. The unobstructed loathing. A burning fire that cannot be quenched but through tears, and it will have its tears. It starts slowly, and grows stronger and stronger each time it comes to visit. That feeling of dread when I feel it coming like nothing I've ever known. The tears spring to my eyes as I try to escape. The heat of the blaze closing in on me, daring me to cry in front of everyone. But I can't. How could I let everyone see me cry, they'd think I was sad, and they'd be wrong. After all, who cries from anger? Seething, I flee the scene, lock myself away until the tidal wave of hate washes away. My face red and sore, my body tired and weary. I've survived this battle, but it'll be back. It always is.

"Will you stop messing up the damn bed?" Death yelled at her brother.

"What are you talking about? I haven't slept in weeks," Life replied, rolling his black eyes.

Death slammed him with a pillow and tossed it back on the bed. She was meticulously cleaning, always trying to get things clean for the next guest. Life was always against the bed and breakfast. He had to greet people and lead them through the corridors and open doors and watch them opt for a different one, and blame him for being lost. Death couldn't do it. She always scared the guests despite being the most gentle, definitely more gentle than her brother. She'd rock babies to sleep, and guide old people to their resting places. Life envied her.

"I don't understand why we have to do this. I mean, we are endlessly helping people to rooms and watching them leave again. I just want to quit sometimes."

Death dropped the pillow she was fluffing. "Quit? You can't quit! What if things get bad again! I mean, war happens every day. People will need a place to stay and nice faces to help them along."

"But Death, it's so tiring. I just want to relax for a while."

"We can never relax. That door is always revolving, and every person who comes in deserves to see someone nice to them, even if they are awful and treat us like trash."

"I wish I could be you. You're always working no matter what."

"And I wish I could be you. You're always happy to throw the towel in, even if you shouldn't."

Life sat on the edge of the bed, and Death wrapped her arms around him. As long as they had each other, things would run smoothly, and now they knew.

“Have thy tools ready and God will find thee work,” Pa yelled, as he removed his belt from his britches and walloped my hin’ end. “I’ve told you time and time ag’in that you that you has to git the tools clean after you uses ‘em.” Pa was a big ol’ giant of a feller and I cringed as he backhanded my mouth, causing a little trickle of blood to run down my chin.

“But Pa,” I said, “I was goin’ to clean ‘em but you was in town fer a spell so I stops choppin’ the wood, thinkin’ I gonna clean the axe after I goes to the ol’ swimmin’ hole with Bubba. It was so dang hot! I thought I’d scrub it afore you got back!”

“There aint’ no excuse for sloth,” snarled my Pa. “If you want to be ‘round here a little longer, you has best learn to min’ your manners and take care of yo work if you be wantin’ some vittles."

Well, I shore was hongry so I decides to do what he tells me until I be grown. I’se already eight so thas only ‘bout six more years. In this here country, tha’s considered ol’, fer sure.

I bides my time, doin’ mos’ all of the work, cleanin’ the tools and tryin’ to make ol’ Pa happy or at leas’ not stompin’ mad all the time.

But I’se angry inside, I kin feel it boilin’ aways. One day I decides I can’t take it no mo’ so I do what I has to do! But I clean the tools after, until they shines, not a speck of blood, jes like ol’ Pa always sez to do. I had my tools ready and God did find me work so hallelujah and Praise the Lord.

I want to touch your soft rain

love your smile, feel your heart

breathe fresh air of you

love you beyond reason

walk into you

with eyes

open.

Thick as thieves and twice as charming.

Bonnie and Clyde, without the dying,

Immortalized by wit and attraction.

Lessened by moments apart.

Regardless of distractions,

Never resting.

Lawless.