Paint The Town Red

How is it possible that only three minutes went by while Amala travelled through miles and millennia in worlds unmade? Unmade? Only because the images in her mind did not exist in the world. But she would make them exist. She planned to build them from strings of light, whispers of primordial matter, blocks of cosmic energy and shavings from exotic particles. But could she?

Since being a child she had dreams in both the night and the day. Those from the dark hours she left aside. They were like old people that had no power over her. These from the daylight hours she recorded in a big notebook vowing to release them into the many universes when the time was right.

Then she got cancer.

It started in her lungs and moved to her kidneys before she suspected it was even there and well before the doctors found it for sure and told her what she had to do if she wanted to live. She wanted to live.

Imagine for yourself what you would do to get your health back. Think of the places you would take your mind and body if someone in authority that you trusted told you that a cure lived there. That’s where she went, and then she travelled a little further.

Oh, I’m not saying that she made devilish deals but believe me, she came close. Then she came back to the world without a mark on her skin nor a scar on the in. Did I mention that she was thirteen? And a dreamer? Always the dreamer.

“Grandmammar, I don’t want my hair. How much can we sell it for in the market?”

“Grandmammar, I’m going to give up smoking and drinking, will you have my back?”

“Grandmammar, I’m …”

“Hush, child, go to sleep. I’ll sing you a song while you drift down the river to Nod.”

“Okay, Grandmammar.”

“Grandmammar?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Will we paint the town red when this is done?”

“Sure.”

Years later, when Amala had become a cat and her big, old notebook of dreams had become oak from acorn, we came together to remember her. We shaved our heads. We left Hennessey and Marlboro in the dust. We danced until the sun rose and then, after we’d stared in awe at this splendid, freshly-born orb, all the world burned around us and we were all consumed.

Or so it seemed a the time.