Happisad Memories

Chapter 5: One Week

She fell from the sky, or at least it felt like it, directly into the mouth of a giant mountain of fire. Her whole body melted in but she felt no pain. She heard a faint voice say, "Hello, please stop lighting," and then it vanished. When she fully dissolvedshe was transported to the "one week" happisad memories realm. She was in her living room in front of the TV. It was a couple of days after the death of her baby girl. She was sitting on the couch, sunglasses on because she had cried so much that her eyes were sensitive to the light. The air was humid and heavy because the air conditioner did not work well. She had a Wii controller in her hands.

"Still playing, I see," Her husband remarked as he opened the door of the living room with grocery bags.

"It keeps my mind off things. I can't have alcohol because of these stupid antibiotics and these painkillers get me dizzy."

"Did you beat the game yet?" he continued.

"Yeah, I actually beat the one game I could not beat when I was a kid", she replied, "I am a Mario expert now."

She remembered this like it was yesterday. She had pretty much ended up beating all five Mario games she owned. It felt great. It felt like she was in control and finally winning at something.

"Why did they make these games so easy," she asked, "at this rate I am going to have no game to play with very soon."

"You do realize these were built for kids, right?" Her husband replied laughing.

"Still, they could have..."

She was interrupted by a feeling she did not think she would have again or that she should have. All of a sudden, her belly had moved and she had felt a kick, as if her baby girl was still there, as if she was telling her to stop complaining about things like she had done in the past few months. Was it all a bad dream? Had the doctors made a mistake? Was she still alive? She put her hand on her belly and closed her eyes for a moment and she saw her child, smiling at her, extending her arms towards her as if asking for a hug, like she had imagined it for months. Tears of joy and sadness rolled down her cheeks, pushing through her closed eyes.

"What's wrong," her husband asked, interrupting her dreamlike bubble.

"I felt kicks," she replied, "maybe she is still alive."

"No, love," he replied, "she is gone."

"I still feel her," she added, "it feels like she is still there."

She remembered. She was experiencing phantom kicks. It was supposedly normal and very common, even though nobody could understand the science behind it.

"Maybe it is her way for her soul to say goodbye," she told her husband.

"Maybe," the husband responded, trying to be supportive, even though he did not think that what she was saying made any sense.

She had almost forgotten this. Why would she want to remember it? She had later told herself that it was probably her body playing tricks on her and not her baby girl saying goodbye. Her daughter would never say hello or goodbye because she was born and died in silence. She looked at her husband's eyes that were pretending to buy into her thoughts. Why was she brought back to this specific moment? Was it because it was the beginning of a series of many fights she would have with her husband? Was it to be reminded of the emotional strain this was? Was it because it was truly her daughter's goodbye? The Nalhak appeared on her husband's left shoulder and the happisad memory paused for a moment.

"The you is here because the you decided to be," it replied.

It was the little creature's scripted way of reminding her that she was the one choosing happisad memories to share and that nobody else had control over them. The little creature jumped off her husband's shoulder and floated carefully towards the couch where she was sitting with her legs on the side. It was the first week after delivery; she was still icing and could barely sit really. The happisad memories realm unfroze and her husband stepped away. She assumed he did not care about what she was talking about but he left the room and went to his garage to work on a project so that he would not break down. It was his way of coping with it all. He had promised himself that he would never fall apart as he had at the hospital. He needed to keep it together for them because he knew that she couldn't.