Michael simply returned her stare. "Do you regret you came here?"
"I had no choice, don't you know that by now?"
A lonely tear slid down her soft cheek. He reached out and caught it, cherishing the sparkling drop, wishing with all his heart she'd ne...
Hours later, Lisa stared down at the lights glowing through the city's evening fog. Glowing stars had broken the velvet canvas above, and she was trapped between two layers of twinkling illuminations. This was how it must be like to swim between parallel worlds. Which one was real? Which one did she belong to? What if the answer was, neither, and she was trapped in some vacuum? Forever prevented from rejoining the mundane, fake world below, but also being eternally banned from the promising splendor above.
She had no idea how long she had driven around the bustling city, being pulled along in an automatic manner, not caring where the flow of cars transported her. Red light, green light.... Stop, go... The path of least resistance. The UFO in her mind had taken her up here. When she looked around she realized she was close to the Hollywood sign. It was a miracle she had not driven herself down a ravine, as she had absolutely no memory of how she got here. Self-preservation was a funny thing.
Her eyes fell onto the blinking light on her dashboard. How in the hell had it gotten that late? Was that the correct time? Shortly after midnight? Shit! The kids!
She had promised to check in before dinner. Her fingers feeling plastic and unreal, she started to look for her phone. Dammit! She never was able to find shit in that mess of a purse. Gripped by impatience, she dumped the contents out onto the seat. No phone. Another object caught her attention, and she held it up toward the faint streetlight. Of course... she didn't trust what she had heard from the horse's mouth. But for some reason, seeing this evidence had kicked everything into high gear.
The laughter startled her with its insane, almost hysterical tone. When scanning her surrounding convinced her she was all alone in the rubber cell of her car, she knew it had been her own sounds bubbling from some deep, odd place inside. At first, the fuse had been lit by the pure irony of the situation, before she realized some ancient, formerly declared extinct joy had broken out of the fossilized cage. Fear jetted through her veins. No, joy was forbidden. Hope was a futile endeavor- one she had recently sworn off. Well, shit, she never was successful in kicking those damn vices.
Still giggling, Lisa gazed up, her eyes focusing slowly as more and more stars revealed themselves. Who was out there? Was it chance that lit the balls of gas? Were they the playground for some omni-scientious, benevolent force as Michael believed, or was it all some giant joke played by the prepubescent brain of a powerful spirit regarding humanity through its magnifying glass, laughing his ass off as they scrambled about on the giant ant farm called Earth?
"Are you laughing yet, whoever is out there? Is it all a great joke? I hope this is fucking amusing to someone out there!"
Her voice echoed into the hills, answering itself, then throwing the question back into the universe.
"God never gives us more than we can bear, Lise. When I think I can't go on, I gotta remind myself of that. There is a plan and all I can do is follow the path."
Oh Michael, how does it feel to be so filled with faith?
She had pitied him for his childish notions, then envied him for the iron core holding him upright in times of despair and darkness.
"Now, now, little princess. Don't you worry. Just look up into the stars and open your heart. God will hear you and answer in his own time. Things are never as bad as they seem."
Daddy...
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