The First Time
A short story, by CS Dunn ©2016
Senna clearly remembered her first death. She had known, even at eight years old, she was here because . . .
The summer sun scorched everything, even the shade crackled when people moved through it. Voices were soft, vacuous movement in the still of radiant heat from the hard ground, the concrete. Sweat dried on the skin, leaving white salt tracks clearly visible. Shirts and clothing were useless, stiff and scratchy, confining.
Even the big gum trees didn’t offer much protection; wilted leaves dropped to the ground, flattened out, dried to a crisp. Branches cracked, groaned.
It seemed everyone who lived in the region had come to the town pool. Adults sat on rugs or towels in the shade of the only big sail, set up near the snack shop to protect the products: ice-creams that melted so quickly only the quickest mouths got the lot; chocolates that drooled from their packaging; packets of chips that exploded when opened.
Teenagers took up their place at the opposite end of the fenced in pool area, well away from the prying eyes of adults. The normally squealing and screaming little kids sat quietly in the baby pool, tended by mothers who sat in the warm water next to them, not moving, not talking, just breathing slowly, slowly, waiting for the twilight.
With no one to take any notice of their antics, the tweenies tried out the big pool. The deep one.
That’s where Senna was: afraid to get out because hand-me-down bathers were saggy, and besides, the edge of the pool was too hot. Afraid of the water if she couldn’t touch the bottom. Afraid of the other kids who made fun of her for not being able to swim because everyone could swim – they learned in the farm dams, or in the classes with school, or down at the fishing shacks at Green Head. Senna didn’t. They didn’t have a dam, they didn’t travel to the coast, and they had no money for the lessons.
And she was afraid of her sister, charged with her care but who detested Senna. Well, Senna hated her, too.
Very afraid to let go of the edge of the pool.
But she did; she let go when it got too hot to hold on to, when she needed to cool down more than the hot water at the edge let her; she let herself drift out a bit, into the cooler, deeper water, and then lunged forward to grab the edge.
Her sister fluffed up for the boys, primped and preened while she chatted with her friends, the ones who passed cigarettes and towel-wrapped beer to each other, and watched the boys without obviously watching the boys. Eyelashes fluttered, cheeks reddened. The boys looked. Boys always looked.
Senna sneered at the antics; she let go again, let herself drift away, put her head backwards into the water to cool her burning head. Sunlight, heat – it would be sunburn tonight, blisters on her nose and then blisters on her bum for getting burned.
She lifted her head back up, looked. Too far – the edge was too far. Lunged forward – missed.
Her body sank, a slow descent into the cooler water as her legs and arms circled uselessly. Bobbed up until her nose was above the surface – she didn’t remember rising. Sank through the unresisting fluidity of stillness. Arms and legs stilled.
Her sister sat on the mound, clearly visible to Senna through the magnification of the clear water, but she faced the other way – drooling at the boys. A foot touched the bottom. pushed up, not hard enough. Didn’t get above the water. Sank down.
Sky through the ripples of water. Patterns. Colours. Sharp, bright.
Long wisps of white cloud washed in pale rainbow hues, in glows and pulses, a slow pounding rhythm that echoed the slap of water. Senna focused on the colours, the light that moved its way closer and closer. The edges of her sight faded until all she could see was the play of light at the end of a tunnel. Trees around her, big beautiful, dark, gently swaying, ancient trees. The trees had their own music, tinkling and flowing like water through the branches and leaves to land gently on the lower levels to make more music that joined and intertwined with more colours. Senna couldn’t see the trees, but she knew they were there, she felt them – their presence, their minds. She floated past them, or they flowed past her, but she moved through them like a whisper, didn’t touch the ground, floated gently, moved with the music and the colours, towards the light. Into the light.
Cool, comfortable. Calm, curious. She reached out to the light. It welcomed her, enfolded her in a feeling of love and smiles. Completeness. Home. Senna smiled, and reached for the sphere in the centre of light. There was nothing except the light, the brightest point at the centre. It was all around, but only in front. As solid as a ball, but moved like a laugh over a still lake. She reached again, touched the skin of the sphere, asked a question.
The answer was so simple she laughed “Of course,” she thought aloud. “How simple.” All the answers were here, and all the answers were one.
The gurgle of her laugh added to the music, and she leaned forward to put both hands on the sphere, into the sphere. It gave her comfort and courage. Love. It was all love.
Her head tilted backward as if pulled by the hair. “No,” she said. “No.” Her hands reached out to . . . the music stopped, movement stopped. A tight pull on her spine. She fought. No thoughts flicked into her mind.
“No. No. No. No. No.” The voice belonged to her, but not. It was hollow, discordant, distant.
Pain pulled her backwards. A tight pain between her shoulder blades, around her spine. A sharp knife pain in her head. A deep loss pain in her heart. Senna reached out to the light, asked to stay. The light answered. “This is not yet your time. There is a task.” A low hum reverberated through the air. “You will come to this portal twice more,” a low rumble, “if you complete the task to the proper conclusion. It is a requisite of the path that leads you to me.” A roar. “Only one path leads to here; the other paths lead to different,” a pause, “regions.”
Senna fought the pain, tried to push away whatever it was that pulled her backward, but she couldn’t turn around and her arms didn’t reach anything, didn’t touch anything. She kicked out, yelled and shouted and cried. “Let me go. I want to stay.” She slid into the now cold black tunnel. Tears poured from her eyes, hotter than the concrete, burned down her face; sobs racked her body. She was abandoned, alone, cold and broken. She let go. Screamed.
From one side, her sister leaned over her. One of the older teenage boys was leaning almost directly over her face. He rolled her onto her side and she felt hot water gush from her mouth. He was speaking to her, words were there, almost solid, but she couldn’t understand him. She didn’t want to. “Let me go.” She had wanted to stay.
“I hate you,” Senna said. She meant it. She wanted to go back. She would never forget what they had taken away from her. She struggled to her feet and walked away. Didn’t look back.
. . . She had something to do . . .The task was at hand. If she could achieve resolution, if she could complete the task to the requisite conclusion, it would kill her. She would die – again. Senna was ready – for her second death. Let it begin.
