Hopey and Toasty
Amy’s ears are cold.
Red stains the inner curl of white that protrudes from the side of her head like a smooth sea shell or the soft petal of a Cajun Sunrise rose. Framed by a dirty, lank mass of blonde, I can only see her generous cheek and a small bit of nose. The rest of her head is buried in Bob Marley’s dread locks on the front of my skirt. Silent, dry sighs heave through her body, her shoulders expanding and shrinking against the thigh of mine she is resting on.
I bring my fingers up to my lips quietly, reaching far back into my throat to find the softest, heaviest air to catch in my finger tips, trapping the warmth with my hand and spreading it through Amy’s hair. Her pale face responds and she rotates her body so it looks directly into mine, her little lips quivering.
Where are they taking me, she asks.
I honestly don’t know. I break eye contact with her, adjusting my vision to the two aging bodies festering in the seats in front of us. One male and one female, the masculine form’s wrinkled hands control a steering wheel, while the feminine one thumbs through the Bible, periodically stopping and reading a bit but never really finding the words in there that she wants to say. Tapping on the back of her head, I ask her where we are going.
White and green swirls past the windows, a landscape of thawing earth.
The woman doesn’t respond. Frustration mounting, I pull on the man’s ear and repeat the question.
He ignores me. His hands tighten on the steering wheel.
You could travel from corner to corner in Babilu and never find the rest of the world. There is only one small entrance, a tiny wooden door strangled by ivy in the far reaches of my father’s kingdom. I found it one day as a child, looking for a place to hide when playing an intensive game of hide and seek with my governess’s daughter. Trembling with excitement behind a wall of green, I suddenly found that which I was resting against gone, and in its place, a set of small hands much like my own. Startled, I cried out and jumped back into the open, staring at the eyes that emerged from under the leaves. Several seconds later the girl who I was playing with pounced on me, crying out that she found me and now it was my turn to seek. She ran off to hide.
I didn’t run after her. Pulling the leaves away, I regarded the figure before me. White dust had settled on her thick clothes and bulky hat, and while she was mostly covered, I could see a set of rosy cheeks and gray eyes poking out from her clothes. A small eruption of blonde hair spilled onto her shoulders.
“Wow,” We muttered together, flabbergasted. She let out a small shriek at the synchronicity but I laughed, wondering what other surprises lay behind the ivy wall. I had never seen anyone so pale before. Pushing her aside (rather roughly, admittedly), I threw my weight upon the wood of the door, fighting desperately to open it.
It wouldn’t budge.
After several minutes of trying, I sunk to the ground, defeated. The girl merely looked at me. Narrowing my eyes I got up and snatched her hat away, examining the cold white dust on it, marveling as it melted into water in my hand. Smiling, I looked up at her.
“If I put you in my hand, will you melt too?”
“I don’t know,” she squeaked.
“Well,” I said, returning the hat to her, “You can call me May. Who are you?”
There was a long pause before she spoke. “Amy.”
Amy was unlike anyone I had ever met. Physically, she was pale and plump, while the human inhabitants of my kingdom were thin and dark. Babilu is a sunny place, always warm, always pleasant. My people swim happily through the tall grasses and forests, brown shoulders gleaming in the sunlight.
Amy’s people do not.
When I first met her, she gave me the key to the ivy door, a small, wooden thing. I wasn’t sure how she got it but I don’t think I cared much - my curiosity was entirely too great. Opening up the door proved difficult for me - nothing in Babilu was ever locked; no one needed secrets, no one needed protection. Amy had left me by the time I wanted to open the door, through the door, and I wanted to see her so desperately I decided to use the key.
The door swung, creaking, away from me, opening up into a dismally cold hallway. Stepping from the warm arms of Babilu my footsteps rung lonely in the passage, bouncing off the silver walls and bounding towards an opening at the end. Walking towards the opening, I stopped abruptly, as did the hallway, but nothing continued beyond it - it was an unfinished thought in and of itself, like someone had built a hallway to nothing. Lowering myself to sit, I dangled my feet over the edge, swinging them through the cool air.
“Amy,” I called, “Are you in here?”
It was silent for a very long time, but I waited. Then -
“May,” There was a smile in her voice, though I could not see her, I could feel her presence in the receding emptiness in front of me. Suddenly before me swum visions, of many people, all strangely pale and alien as Amy herself, though none as special as she. Smiling, I looked out towards the direction of her voice. “Amy, my love, what is this you’re showing me?”