Going Lucid
Authors: Holly Dae
Going Lucid
© 2013
Holly Dae
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International
and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of
this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system
without express written permission from the author.
This is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Heaven and Hell
“Your parents are concerned. They say you’ve
lost faith.”
Malakha
looked around, hoping to find something that might distract her. She didn’t;
nothing that would interest her enough so she could tune the priest out. The
room was small and only had two red leather chairs that matched the deep
burgundy walls and one of those tall plants with the big leaves that reminded
her of elephant ears.
There was a
window, but the glass was stained in the shape of the Virgin Mary. She didn’t
want to see that. Enough of that story was drilled into her. She sighed,
resigning herself to turning back to the priest her parents had requested of
the school to counsel her about her faith in God… or her lack of it rather.
Finally
resigning herself to talking to the priest, she said, “Can’t lose something you
never had.”
He
ignored her and continued, “They tell me you don’t believe in God or heaven or
hell or that Christ came and died for our sins. Why is that Malakha?”
“I
don’t disbelieve in God or heaven or hell. I just don’t think God’s waiting for
me to die in a kingdom in the clouds called heaven. I also don’t believe the
devil is waiting in hell for the ones God doesn’t want.”
“Then
what do you believe in?”
Malakha
wasn’t exactly sure. That’s why her parents sent her here. That’s what the
priest was supposed to be helping her figure out. If he had to ask, what good
was the help he had to offer? Her mind drifted as she tried to think of an
answer, to a piano solo whose tune was stuck in her head. She couldn’t remember
the name of it or the composer and began singing it in her head over and over.
Maybe it would come to her.
“Malakha?”
She
blinked, remembering she was supposed to be coming up with an answer to his
earlier question. Malakha sighed. Well if he wanted the answer…
“I
believe that if God really is waiting for me in heaven after I die, then he’s a
cruel god to make us suffer to his whims on earth, only to get tired of us and
let us die and as compensation let us live forever in a so-called paradise in
the sky. Sounds kind of boring eventually,” Malakha said dryly and then looked
at the priest dead in the eye, daring him to tell her she was mistaken.
“Oh,”
was the priest’s reply.
Malakha
glared at him. She wasn’t sure whether or not she preferred him trying to shove
proofs of God and his unconditional love for her down her throat or him pretending
he might agree with her.
She hated being
patronized.
“I
believe heaven and hell co-exist together on earth,” she said suddenly,
surprising the priest. He hadn’t expected her to say that.
“Tell
me what you mean. Give me an example of this heaven.”
He
sounded cautious. Malakha was glad. He should be.
“That’s
easy,” Malakha said looking back at the stain-glassed window. “Heaven is being
happy with who you are, being allowed to find your own path, having everything
you need and being happy with it.”
“You
define happiness as having a lot of money?”
“No.
Celebrities have money and a lot of them commit suicide. Heaven is more complex
than that. Heaven is peace.”
“And hell?”
Malakha
glanced at the clock. Her hour was up.
Then she
looked back at the priest and narrowed her eyes while saying, “Sitting in this
stupid room talking to you like I’m some nutcase.”
******
Malakha
didn’t find what was so funny, but apparently her best friend thought it was
hilarious.
“Shut
up,” Malakha muttered, aware that the nuns might hear them talking through the
lecture. They always kept a close eye on her as it was. That meant no escaping
from this boring webcast viewing of the inauguration of the new pope.
The
girl stopped her laughing, cautiously eying the nun that had looked in her
direction and said, “You told him you were in hell as long as you were talking
to him?”
“That’s
not what I said.”
“You
may as well have.”
Malakha
rolled her eyes at her roommate, Sabrina, and turned her attention away from
the Caucasian girl to look back at the screen so the nuns would think she was
at least trying to pay attention.
“You
could at least try to pretend like you believe in something,” Sabrina
suggested. “You don’t have to really believe. You just have to satisfy your
parents so they bring you back home.”
“Why?
So I can be a hypocrite or something?”
Sabrina
scoffed. “For someone who doesn’t believe in God, she’s really concerned about
not being a hypocrite.”
“Not
being a hypocrite has nothing to do with God and religion. And I never said I
didn’t believe in God.”
“Then
what do you believe in?”
Malakha
didn’t have an answer, so she didn’t respond and only closed her eyes to
reflect on it. That’s why she had been sent to this stupid Catholic boarding school
way out in the middle of nowhere with the nearest town being an hour’s drive
away. Her parents were completely prepared for her to have some other belief,
some other type of faith. They would even foster it, but the problem was she
didn’t know what she believed in, and not being sure what God she believed in
or whether she had a God to believe in, to have faith in, was unacceptable.
Therefore
they sent her to a Catholic school where she could learn about religion and
faith in God, and the study and comparison and contrast of other religions,
where she could hopefully find her faith. So far, it had done nothing for her
except confuse her, especially with the new counseling her parents had
requested for her.
“Still,
you don’t have to give the priests so much trouble,” Sabrina said.
“The
priests are the biggest hypocrites I know…
Vows of celibacy.
Trust me, some of them aren’t celibate,” Malakha said. “I prefer the nuns.”
“You
can’t generalize all the priests like that.”
“I can.
I mean, I think it’s stupid. God can’t be that cruel, to give you something
like that for it to never be used in the name of being a saint or staying pure.
Trust me, I know some people who aren’t virgins that are more saintly than some
of these priests. It just seems damn well ridiculous, don’t you think?”
“I
think it’s ridiculous that you can’t get through your head not to swear,”
Sabrina said dryly.
“I’m
serious. What is it with the Catholics and sex, even when people are married?
What about not doing it keeps you pure?”
Sabrina
rolled her eyes. “Are you saying you want to have sex Malakha?”
Malakha
scoffed. “No. What I’m trying to do is get you to see how ridiculous some of
this is.”
“I
don’t think it is. I mean, sex is pretty nasty.” When Malakha raised her
eyebrows, Sabrina hastily added, “So I’ve heard.”
“Yeah,
but it’s something pretty natural. None of us would be here without it,”
Malakha muttered. “I find a lot of stuff about this pretty crazy.”
Sabrina
groaned. “You might, but there are some of us who actually want to try to be
good God fearing Catholics.”
“I have
no problem with that,” Malakha said, not at all deterred by her friend’s icy
tone. “I just find some of the rituals pointless and ridiculous.”
Sabrina
rolled her eyes. “No wonder everyone thinks there’s a problem with you. How do
you come up with this stuff?”
Malakha
shrugged. “Some people say it’s because I’m right brained, so analytical and
scientific that I find it hard to grasp concepts as abstract as religion. I
call it common sense.”
“Whatever,”
the redhead replied. “Now pay attention.”
“For what?
It’s boring. There’s a new pope.
Big whoop.”
When
Sabrina ignored her, Malakha sighed and said, “That’s it. I’m leaving.”
“What?”
Sabrina asked, almost too loudly.
“I’m
leaving. I’ll see you in our room.”
“Malakha!”
Sabrina explained. “This is mandatory, part of
our grade!”
“I
know.”
“And
what part of that don’t you understand?”
“The
part where it says I’m supposed to care,” Malakha replied as she stood up and
left the auditorium. The nuns wouldn’t question her. For all they knew, she was
going to the bathroom.
Since
everyone else was in the auditorium, the hallways were quiet and for that,
Malakha was grateful. Silence was something she dearly missed, at least in
regards to nuns, priests and teachers bossing her around. Normally the students
didn’t talk to her much in the hallways because she was a
known
rebel. She wasn’t the only girl around here that didn’t
believe in the Catholicism their parents had raised them in, but she was the
one that was much more vocal and open about it. Malakha wasn’t
faking
anything for anyone’s sake.
As she
started to walk back to her room, that classical melody popped in her head
again, the one whose name and composer she couldn’t think of. If only she could
play it instead of humming it in her head.
For the
umpteenth time, she began to miss her big burgundy grand piano. Her grandfather
bought it for her, said it would be nice to have a pianist in the family.
Luckily, Malakha was interested in playing the instrument, and though she had
quit her formal lessons long ago, that didn’t stop her from playing it. Malakha
would have given anything to back home, sitting at her piano. But she wasn’t,
hadn’t been since the day her parents sent her to this stupid boarding school.
“There
has to be a piano somewhere around here,” she muttered to herself.
Of
course there was if there was a choir.
Malakha
turned into a hall perpendicular to the one she was in instead of continuing
down the long hallway that would take her back to the dorms. Then she began
peeking into the rooms that she knew weren’t classrooms, finding more
classrooms, offices and a prayer room. She started to turn back, growing tired
of looking and then remembered that on extremely quiet days in the library, she
could hear the sounds of the choir practicing. So she went to the next floor,
where the largest room in the center served as the library. That meant one of
the surrounding rooms had to be the music room. She looked into the windows of
the doors first and figured the big room with nothing in it must be the music
room. A piano might be off to the side, but she couldn’t see that far in.
Malakha
went to open the door and groaned when she found it locked. She sighed, taking
out one of the hair pins that held her micro twists in its loose messy bun. It
took a while and her hair pin was ruined for it, but she eventually managed to
unlock the door.
She
went inside, careful to close the door behind her and then looked to the left
corner of the room where a piano sat. It was old, black, a little dusty and not
nearly as nice as the deep burgundy grand piano that was at home, but it would
do. Malakha sat at the piano, pressing the A key. Satisfied, she began to look
through the music books. Maybe it was Beethoven. As she searched through the book,
she found a piece.
“Moonlight
Sonata,” she said. She knew this song well. It was the first song her piano
teacher played for her and her mother liked Beethoven. But this wasn’t the
song. Maybe if she sung it out.
“La.”
Malakha
pressed a key and it echoed through the room. The note was close, but not the
right one. She started to press another key but stopped and let finger hovering
over the key instead as she noticed the goose bumps on her arm.
“Odd,”
she said. “It’s not that cold.”
She
ignored it, pressed another key and then clapped her hand in triumph. That was
the first note at least.
A lot more to go.
By the time
she had figured out the next ten notes, her goose bumps were still present as
well as the chill of a draft.
She
looked at the ceiling, searching for a vent and when she didn’t find one near
her, decided to attribute it to a crack in the seal of the window or something.
It was an old building and her mother complained about the same thing back at
home.
“From
the beginning,” Malakha said to herself and began to play the ten notes of the
song whose name she still didn’t know.
It
echoed through the room; more than echoed actually. She heard it play again.
“What
the hell?” she asked standing from the bench to look at the other piano in the
room, in the opposite corner. “Who’s there?”
Malakha
looked around the room.
“I know
someone’s here,” she said. There was no doubt about it.
She
sighed, resigning herself to search for whoever it was. There weren’t many
places to hide in the room. In fact, the only place to look was behind the
other piano.
Malakha
tiptoed to the other piano, grasping onto it to look behind it. She was
expecting to find something, a rat, a cat, someone playing a trick on her, but
there was nothing.
“Okay,”
she said slowly, turning around to look at both pianos.
She
heard it again, the same ten notes. But not only was no one at either piano,
the keys weren’t being pressed. She would have at least seen that.
In a
movie, like one she had recently seen about a demon that haunted a family, the
ones being haunted usually stuck around to investigate and figure out what was
going on. Malakha wasn’t that brave.
Wasting
no time, or even a second thought, she opened the door to the music room and
made her way out, only to be blocked by the choir director. She was a tall
Latina woman with an oval shaped face and that was about all Malakha knew about
her other than seeing her leading the choir on Sundays.
“Please
say you were playing a piano somewhere or a recording of a piano,” Malakha
said.