Half Light

New Beginnings

Have you ever disappeared into yourself? locked away all your thoughts, emotions, and just watched the rain run down the window? No focus on anything else...Total dissociation. Alina has felt that way far longer than she can remember. Probably some kind of psychological coping mechanism she developed as a child to deal with the life she was born into. That probably sounds crass, and there are plenty of people in the world given far worse. Let's face it, that in itself is coping. Telling yourself someone you will never know on the other side of the planet has to go without food, sleeping on filth, or developing infections from scrapes and bruises just for trying to survive the world around them.

There's always someone that will have it worse. Always. "What does that really do for me?" Alina silently pondered. Think about it, a trick of the mind trying to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Just another reminder that we are all as a species, self-indulgent. Depending on who you talk about that with, it can go either way. Some people are very good at waking up and putting on a happy face, as if it were just another magic Monday morning. Others have a hard time finding the energy to suspend a smirk on their faces. The Self-indulgent wear their intentions like jewels. Unforgiving, and flashing it towards anyone who looks their direction.

            You can be both. Much like Alina's mother, Nora. She is a free spirit. Always on the move, never still. Forever needing something to do with her hands. She is anxious, yet somehow simultaneously confident. At least that's how she has portrayed herself to be. Nora is always undecided, and that's specifically the reason they're leaving California. It's always anyone else's fault, besides Noras'. Alina fears that's what terrifies her the most. If it's all inevitable, she's going to turn out just like her.  Her eyes dilated, everything came to as she thought those words. She shivered. It was still raining, and the thunder echoed throughout the sky. Her mother would always say "God's up there bowling strikes, again." Alina smiled to herself. Nora isn't a bad person, and she's not a terrible mother. She's just lost. Everyone gets lost. She doesn't blame her for the things that have happened. You do something with your life for so long, and all of a sudden you have to start living differently. You get judged for doing things right one minute and wrong the next, according to the strangers of the world. Who could blame her? Not everyone can adapt well. Nora and Alina both share that trait, at least.

Their relationship is far from perfect, and most times hanging by a thread. Alina knows her mother doesn't understand who she is. But Nora is the mother she was assigned, and no one else can fill that space when she's gone. That Alina knows to be a fact, She went thorough it when her daddy disappeared. Mother and her many boyfriends taught that lesson. At the end of the day though, Nora loves Alina, and she knows that. Alina just hopes Nora knows how much she's loved by her. Alina and her mother have always been opposites of one another. Nora spitfire, and Alina, spit. Nora has the tiniest stature, she stands right at five feet, an inch smaller than Alina. She is as petite as the lamp post that used to illuminate their entire street in the blurred, ebony sky come nightfall. With the brightest blue eyes, as bright as the bulb that glowed most of those same nights. So rich in pigment they were almost grey. She wears the longest, thinnest frosted hair. It's cold to the touch when you hug her neck. Her nails always manicured, French tip. She smells of designer perfume with a hint of cigarette smoke. That probably sounds disgusting. But to Alina, that smells just like home. Wherever that is.

Alina thinks about her daddy all the time. He was a good man, honorable. A man who cared for nothing more than the ones he loved...and the occasional beer or two. His name was Argent. By everyone who knew him, he was Gent. People would assume he was always angry. He was a burly, scruffy man. Untamed mustache and all. Gent was a real Cowboy at heart. Never hung up his boots until he laid down for the night. A hardworking man, that didn't end up with half of what he deserved.
Unlike Nora, his build was broad, and stout. A vast exterior, his entire frame engrossed with ashy-brown scraggly hair, head to toe. His skin rough and patchy, permanently tanned by the sun. Although taller than Nora by a few inches, he as well as the rest of them, was vertically challenged. He had a way about him that at a glance would make you think his smile was placed upside down on his face. He was far from that description though, according to Alina and Nora. Alina knew him to be quite the goof, and as kind as a teddy. His hugs were bulky and stiff, almost like hugging a warm rock. To Alina those hugs were everything...and she would give anything to have just one more. Alina was twelve when he disappeared.

Alina and her mother are leaving California. Headed to West Virginia apparently, courtesy of Nora. To Alina it feels like they have been in the car for months because they have been driving for so long. Nora says they are headed to the town Alinas' daddy is from, where her and Gent first met. Alina thought silently that she should have known they were both from a little hick town. No one has a southern accent in California. Unless they're auditioning for a screenplay in L.A. No one she has ever met, at least. Nora is good at hiding hers, but she's always been quite the conformist. Her daddy was never afraid to be who he was. Sometimes he would talk so much, so fast, she had no idea what he was saying. She smiled anyways because she loved to hear him talk. She sometimes felt mesmerized by the sound of his voice, and his deep Mississippian accent. She hopes to never forget it. Humorous, she thought, how your heritage follows you wherever you may be in the world.
When her mother told her where they were finally going, a spark of serotonin shot through her stout chest. Alina stood at five foot, one inch. She wasn't as favored as her mother when it came to being petite in character. She favored her daddy in more ways than one.

She thought going to the town her daddy grew up in would bring her closer to him. Alina grew an apparent smile as she laid her head back on the headrest of their flat white, 2001 Chevy. She dozed off to the sound of the drizzling rain, and clashing thunder. Alina began to dream she was in a familiar house, but the scenes kept jumping too quickly for her to make any sort of sense of it. Then she saw him. Standing right there, boots and all. Her daddy was right there in front of her. "Hey, Boo." She heard his voice say. Right then all of her senses failed at once. All she could feel was her chest tighten as hard as a pickle jar, and the tears beginning to bead around her swollen eyes. She knew she was dreaming, because this had happened to her before. Total awareness of her state, she tried to warn him about his disappearance as if it would matter, knowing this wasn't real. Her mouth would not budge. As hard as she wanted to speak, not even a word would mutter through. Her lips felt meshed together, as she was fighting a silent battle in her mind. Fighting for the words that were trying so desperately to barricade through the inside of her pressed mouth. She could see the look in his watery, crystal eyes. As if they were both sharing the same emotion. He opened his mouth to speak again, and his Mississippi accent she wasn't sure she would ever hear again declared "I's gots to go." He shifted his head to the side as if he was looking at something else entirely, and uttered one last thing before Alinas' eyes slowly reopened. "Wake up."