Hearse
“Are you gonna keep doing that?” Harper barked, finally showing some emotion. Doreen didn’t reply;She was still a little off in her own world continuing to tap. “Dori?” Harper asked calmly. Doreen could be spacey at times,but not at a moment like this. “Doreen!” she snapped. Doreen finally paid attention, “What? What’s wrong?”. “You… you were tapping. And then you just spaced off again. I need you here,Dori, like actually here”. “What are you talking about? I am here, I’m just a little caught up in my thoughts. Maybe you could feel something for once. God, you’re like a robot who doesn’t feel anything!”. Another bit of silence ensued. Doreen went back to tapping. She felt it was helping her breathe and keeping her from bawling her eyes out for days on end. “I’m not a robot!” Harper spat, slapping her hands down onto her thigh. She sighed heavily,hoping to calm herself down, but she only felt anger. “I do have feelings”. “What feelings? Anger? That’s probably the reason we’re in this mess—” “We don’t know that, we don’t know why, or even how. Maybe if you were truly present we would not be sitting here waiting in this parlor...” Harper trailed off, tears finally falling down her cheeks. “You can’t just blame it all on me, ” she sobbed. Again, another silence fell over them. The couple sat on a sturdy blue plastic bench. Close enough that their thighs were touching, but the two women were still far apart. One of them, the older-looking one, wore a black blazer that was tailored to fit just right and high heels that made the already tall woman tower over her peers. Pinned to her shirt was a name tag that read Harper. She had frown lines around her mouth, the sort of lines one could only receive if you had been scowling all your life. Overall, she remained composed while sitting here waiting for the end of her life. Her counterpart, Doreen was quite the opposite; her hair was unkempt and her clothes looked slept in. Tears formed in her eyes that she would wipe away before they could travel down her pale cheeks. The younger woman looked as if she might be sick, or as if saying goodbye would send her into shock. She made a sweep of the room, stopping at the door expecting someone to walk through, and when no one did, she started tapping her fingers against the plastic bench. The older woman grimaced at the sound of the constant tap, tap, tapping. “Didn’t you hear me earlier?” Harper questioned. “Sorry,” the tapping slowed down,almost as if Doreen might stop, but instead she just tapped her leg slow and soft. The silence was almost worse than their arguing. Harper sighed heavily and looked around the room, stopping at the clock. What seemed to be an hour of waiting and talking was really only ten minutes. It wasn’t time for the committal, but Doreen hated to be late, and Harper took her time with everything so they left their house fifteen minutes early to ensure there would be no complications. And there weren’t. The car-ride over was filled with the same unbearable silence that was going on now. They hadn’t even turned the radio on. “If you hadn’t pushed him to be perfect, we wouldn't be here. I-I wouldn’t be spending his college money to rent a hearse,” Doreen screamed as the pallbearers’s office door creaked open. Harper looked at her shoes. Embarrassed by what her wife had just said screamed, she stood up from the bench. She looked back at Doreen, whose face was a light red, and she offered her hand. The doors to the funeral home opened, springing to life as Harper pressed the silver button to get in, her hands full. Doreen was a few steps behind carrying nothing, her hands-free. Now they were running behind, but they walked in silence to where the celebration of life was held. The walls were a sea green with a complimenting carpet that covered the long hallways and the chapel. The women walked close to each other, Doreen still a few steps behind. Doreen was a shorter woman compared to her wife, but she still kept up on their walk to the chapel. No one else was there. Harper’s legs were reaching farther past the pews leaving Doreen behind now. She grabbed the photo of their son off the easel hurrying as she snatched the rest of their things. “You know, I’m sure the hearse and the rest of the cars will follow. We can slow down, take our time, get there when it’s okay. When you’re okay. Harper?”. There was no response. Since the meeting, Harper had been eerily quiet. Normally there was yelling, but today nothing. Just as fast as Harper had come in, she was out the doors. Doreen trailing behind her. “Please, just please talk to me”. Harper’s head turned around, as if she was ready to talk but then her head quickly turned right back and headed for their car. Their car. Doreen didn’t bother trying to help her. She instead went straight for the Hearse. Unfortunately, there was only one seat, and Doreen was going to take the spot. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Harper’s face was red. “Getting into the hearse. There isn’t room for both of us”. “I—“ she stopped for a minute. “Fine, you go in there, but there is no us. Not anymore”. Harper stormed off. Doreen slammed the hearse door as she got in.
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1. The Discovery
I didn’t intend to discover a portal that led me into this crazy world. As I should have mentioned at the beginning, I’m Andrew. I was a kid in Baltimore, and I lived a pretty comfortable life. I had good parents, a good home, and good siblings (okay, maybe that last one was a bit of a stretch). Anyways, I had just visited Utah, and saw the Great Salt Lake. I had a lot of fun, and I definitely want to go back. But you didn’t come here to listen to me about my life. I mean, you did, but not that aspect. Anyways, I had just returned home from vacation, went back to school, and was playing some games. Suddenly, I got this email from a friend of mine, who I knew well. The only interesting thing was that there was no subject, and seemingly no attachment, either. I decided to take a look at it, because I hate leaving emails unread. I looked inside, there was nothing. No text, no attachments. I deleted it, and just went on with my normal life. I did not realize how important it was. What I did realize, however, was that something had happened sometime after that. The next day, weird things kept appearing and disappearing. I literally saw a planet in the atmosphere! At least, when it’s night. It doesn’t make any sense. Part of me was inclined to think that I had slammed my head into something hard, but it didn’t really make sense. I mean, I would have had to bang my head really hard in order for something like this to happen. I became even more sure that it wasn’t the head-slam (really, I was such a restless sleeper, that I found bruises that I never remembered getting) that caused this, when I found that this had never happened in Earth’s history before. It didn’t make sense to me. The other part of me thought that there was something of greater importance at work. Greater than just hitting my head on the wall.As if I needed more proof that it wasn’t that, I also knew that if it were that, then I was the least likely one to be singled out by aliens. As you can see, neither of these explanations were satisfactory. But I couldn’t think of anything else. I was healthy, and I always had a healthy intake of water. It was also good water. There was really no explanation that made sense to me. I never bothered to tell anyone about this. I didn’t want to seem different to my friends, and I had no desire to end up in a hospital because my parents thought there was some dangerous medical condition. I didn’t get what was wrong, and I was less than willing to tell everyone about it. If you were in my shoes, you would see why I did this. Even so, I kept seeing robots speed past me, or explosions in the sky that I could not explain. And no one else saw them. I even had this dream that the Earth was breaking apart, and there were space chunks that I didn’t recognize, as they weren’t from a planet or an asteroid. I had no idea what the purpose of those rocks were for. I remembered it perfectly, too. I still don’t get why. In any case, it was a week after that when my head started hurting. I decided to go for a walk, hoping it would clear my mind. I didn’t find peace there, but I did find something else. I saw something round, but flat. It was basically a circle. It also had this weird purple swirly thing that went to the middle. When I thought of that type of thing, I thought of a blue/orange oval that came from a gun. This was something else entirely. Turns out, It was a genuine portal. I have black curly hair. My mom is Filipina, and my dad is black. I grew up in South Carolina where none of the girls looked like me. I hated my hair up until I was 12. Two weeks after my birthday, my family moved to Georgia. HUGE difference. There were black kids at my school. There were black GIRLS at my school. Unfortunately, those girls didn’t have curly hair like me. Their hair was either heat damaged, or they kept it in braids because curly hair is “annoying” and “too much work.” So I was back at being the girl that got asked if her hair was real. Or if she wore a wig.
Two years later, we moved to Virginia, Northern Virginia (NOVA) to be exact. The girls here? Oh yeah, they definitely look like me. I’ve seen girls with their natural curls so long that it curtains over their bookbag. I’ve seen a girl who wears her brown curls entirely naturally. She has a gorgeous, big afro with the prettiest curls I’ve ever seen. I don’t have to be the odd one out anymore. I don’t have to feel alone when I talk about the struggles of curly hair. There are people that can finally relate to me now. Nobody thinks I’m different. Black lives matter. I'm sure you've heard it. I'm tired of watching the news every night just to find out another black woman or man was shot and killed by a police officer. Breonna Taylor didn't have to die, or George Floyd, or Jacob Blake, or ANY African American whose death lies in the hands of a police officer. I should not be seen just as black. I should not be scared. I should not have to worry about not being able to get a job. I should not fear that my little brother will be stopped by a police officer. I should not hear stories about black Americans getting shot and killed by an officer. I should not fear ANYTHING because I am black. The protests won’t stop until there’s change. The peaceful, effective protests won’t stop. People that are looting, and breaking glass, and causing chaos are NOT protestors. Protestors are the people spending hours of the day marching down the streets. Making signs and risking their lives. They know the dangers of protesting, especially with COVID-19. But they also know that if there are no actions, if there are no protests: there will be no change. The NBA will continue to wear jerseys that say “BLM” and “Equality” on their jerseys. They will continue to cancel games so that they themselves can protest. The NFL players will continue to kneel. They’re not doing this for themselves. They are doing this for their family, for their ancestors that fought hard for change. One day, I was talking to a friend. We were talking about race, and it was crazy to me because we were two high schoolers talking about something that actually mattered. Something they said to me stuck: “Before gender, race, or religion, we are human. Does a 15 year old really need to tell you that?” They’re right. They are completely right. A 15-year-old kid shouldn’t have to tell people that all people are equal. That we are all the same no matter what. But a 15 year old kid is telling you that. I know that people are saying “All Lives Matter.” Yes, you are right, I want you to know that. But I also want you to know that ALL lives CAN'T matter unless BLACK lives matter too. That's what I want you to know. That's what I want everyone to know. I want you to know that our lives matter TOO. That means that we deserve to be treated the SAME. |
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March 2021
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