Blue

Blue

Tyler Odeneal | Fiction

I miss you. The video plays over and over on MTV and BET and even the news and Momma keeps crying because Aaliyah died on her birthday. I was partying and then the DJ… Her voice trails off as she speaks, as if tasting death on her tongue. Grandma stands in the kitchen taking us in and I turn, burrow into Momma. Darkness surrounds, wraps us up like a cloak, like an enemy closing in, but the light of the TV fizzes, breaks through. It reaches us where we are, the light. Grants us this morsel of safety. We find rest on the living room floor. Bump, hazardously, into each other, careful and hands colliding as offerings of peace. Momma lies between us, turning toward Sister for a moment and I close my eyes, but Momma is wrapping Sister’s hair. I see it as a gift at Christmas.

DMX gives tribute and I think about his bark but here he speaks softly. Almost silent. A flash. My mother turns off the TV, the last image of Aaliyah’s face translucent, as if overtaking the darkness—it takes my mother first, presses, knocks her out. I peek over her shoulder and Sister is sleeping, too.

Grandma shifts in the kitchen. I cannot make her out fully, but she’s there. I watch as she floats toward us, lying on the floor in our living room, too afraid to rest upstairs where it happened. My eyes shoot open and Grandma hovers over me. Close. Even after she is gone, I feel her still.

In the day, when the sun grants us light, we dance through the hallways. Grandma stands at the end of the hall, looking as she did at her homegoing. Still. Light coming in filters through her. She grimaces mildly, eyes closed and then they are open and linked to me, pulling me forward. I grab Sister’s hand, and she takes mine as part of the dance. We shake our butts to music emanating from nowhere. Sister hums are you that somebody? And I see Aaliyah dancing along in our bathroom, hair covering one of her eyes. The singer moves her hair, this beauty. Smiles.

I hear Momma going on and on about a plane crash. See fire, smoke rising from the ground. Sometimes I cannot breathe. Sister’s eyes meet mine and they are glossy and wide but she is smiling and my heart bangs its fists against my chest. Exhale. I smile back.

At night there is a monster in my bedroom. He crawls out of the hallway, waits to strike. Tonight, though, Grandma hovers in my doorway. Momma wants me to sleep in my bedroom but I tell her that I cannot. She looks on with concern. The monster climbs the stairs at night, finds me relegated to the bedroom floor, family members that Momma took in like bears resting in my bed. The monster slithers next to me, grabs at my shorts, leaves its claw prints pressed against my neck. Outside of myself, I see Grandma when she was Grandma, reading the Good Book and listening to sermons about the end times on cassette tapes from her boombox and prostrate on the floor whispering to God and then face up as medics try to resuscitate.

In the morning, the monster has slithered away, morphed into distant relatives eating breakfast at the kitchen table. I cover the scars, see Grandma grimacing, translucent, whisper take this to your grave, light flowing in from the window in the hallway.

We want to play and Momma says we deserve play so we traverse the short path leading to the park across the street from where we live. A girl of Sister’s age goes missing when she walks to school, here and gone as if an autumn leaf. Momma watches intently from the porch. We are down slides and up swings, into darkness and meeting light in the air, laughing and laughing and we don’t even know why. We hum rock the boat, rock the boat and I watch as Aaliyah sways at the top of a hill.

When we return there are cars flying by like eagles swooping to prey. We see Momma but her head is down as if sleeping. A boy we know but don’t know crosses into the street. We’ve seen him in the park, alone at mornings, nights. Grandma hovers, stands guard. The sight of her halts me as I trek. I reach for Sister, our hands collide. The boy steps out into the street and a car darts as if sprinting in a race and the boy is on the pavement, blood like rivers rushing from his head. The car is gone, it never stops. And Momma screams and screams and screams. A baby! Everything drifts to darkness.

Momma watches a talk show and the guest speaks of releasing loved ones. She is psychic and her eyes are dark and so we believe her. Release them. Open the door and let them out. Tell them to get out.

Night falls and Grandma stands guard and I tremble and find my breath. In the morning I open the front door. The light hits me and everything settles and I release her. We’ll be okay. I wave my hand, a swelling in my throat. Get out. Get out. Get out.

Aaliyah drifts off, singing still. I see her sitting alone, slipped, sleep happened upon her, dreams a thing conjured, realized only of the self. A man follows her, an enemy closing in, so she runs and runs until she drifts into the air. She is floating high above. Darkness surrounds her, wraps her up like a cloak, but she is light. She floats higher and higher. Everything else drifts into the light.

art credit: "Awakening II" (2022) by Pawel Pacholec