Almost Heaven 6

Chapter Eight

Try to imagine a vast vineyard. Try to imagine it with tall grass colored cliffs to the left and right. Try to look beyond the nice house nestled and protected by various forms of tall trees. Try to now picture a cluster of smaller yet quaint homes decorated along the lower tiers of the cliffs. Hear with your invisible extra set of ears the faint sounds of children playing and adults arguing scores of sports discs they found in their prospective attics. Picture this little slice of heaven, try to imagine the rest of world neglected, dusted, littered with stages of decay so accurate that you feel as if maybe you stepped into someone’s waking nightmare.

This is the balance.

This is what Carmen killed for, what my family died for, what Helena ran from to get to. This is what my brother (and I know he’s my brother (I can just feel It.) does this aimless rebellion thing for. This is what I walk. This is where I have to carve my identity out of. These are the facts, the factors. This is the necessity, life feeding on life……

Some random moment time.

Helena and I in a sweaty tangle. Not thinking about “her.” Lying in bed maybe some odd months ago, before Carmen’s S.O.S. In her bed, warmed by her skin and sweet kisses thinking….almost. Almost perfect. Really believing it you know? She has all that silken hair and some of it brushes my shoulder when she kisses me.

In this random moment. Helena says that she loves me. That she has in fact fallen for me.

I was the leader because I thought fast and saved people and made contact with the islands and I found and caught lobsters for turkey day and a slew of other reasons. This did it for her. She was climbing the mountain with me. That was supposed to be for me. She was running around with me. That was for her, we where inseparable and then she ruined it all by letting it all slip.