The Grey, Green Dream

The End

Her face was wet and swollen, but she smiled through the pain and discomfort. Like a victim escaping the scene, she leaped forward, fell, stood, and fell again. Her legs wouldn’t carry her.

     Mary knew her body wasn’t getting enough oxygen. She could feel a new thick feeling in her limbs; it was beginning to spread to her lower back and shoulders. She dropped to the floor and did her best to crawl to the stairs, the stairway to heaven.

     She started off on her knees, using the railing to pull herself up, and she managed to make it to the second landing. Her lungs and body forced her to rest. She prayed that she wouldn’t die right there; she had it in her to make it back to her room. Though a part of her told her she could, and would make it, she began to lose hope. She started some mental goodbyes, thought of times past. If she thought of the memory hard enough, she could see it, could live in it while she drifted away. She could be there with her baby in her mind forever.

     As she edged closer to the second sets of stairs past the landing she lay on, she thought back to the day she welcomed Leona to the world. The pain, the relief, the pushing, the grunting, the blood and fluids gushing out and down her legs. Then the moment when her baby’s head emerged from between her legs, a life that she made within her and now pushed out. The final hard push, the greatest relief and ectasy. The seconds she didn’t hear her baby crying was the longest few seconds of her life. But then, the crying, the sweet, shrill, shocked sound. Looking into her face, feeling her skin, examining every inch of the new life she created. Her nose. Her hair. Her toe nails.

     The first step was behind her. Her knees would not support her upper body, and she had to drag herself, like a cripple, up the stairs. Her elbows were raw with carpet burn by the fifth step. She still couldn’t see the landing, but she was almost there. All she could see was carpet and bits of tracked in dirt and muck. She continued her slow ascent up the stairs. Three steps from the top, she coughed, and a large moldy blob landed on the step in front of her. The smell was putrid, like decay. Her insides were burning, boiling. Her body, and all of the parts that allowed her movement and life were closing down, sucking what little bit of oxygen remained in her veins.

     Her heart pumped slower. She had to take her time, couldn’t exert so much energy. But, how was she to get up the stairs without exerting energy? There was no other choice but to keep moving, slow the breathing, and get there. She thought of the women who did amazing things to save their children, and for a minute believed she had it in her to do to the same.

     Mary pulled herself up another step, listening to her breathing. She focused on the breaths, listened to her heart slowly pumping the thick sludge through her arteries. Everything was quiet. The shadows on the outside of her vision moved in closer to the center.

     Silence. Slow pump—ba-bump… ba-baump… ba… bump… ba… … … bump. Silence. She wondered if she should be hearing her baby; maybe Leona was on the other side of the hall. If she was all the way on the other side of the hotel, how could she get to her?

     Exasperated, she let a roar out of her mouth. More thick fuzzy gobs splattered from her mouth. She wiped the drippings from her chin, and pulled herself up the last step. She looked at the carpet below her nose. She looked at the carpet beyond her. One of the doors was Marne’s room. Behind one of the doors was her baby. Yes, she was alive, Mary told herself.

     Her legs dragged behind her like fleshy stumps and she moved through the doorway. This hallway was as dark as the one below, looked the same, save for the lack of blood on the walls.

     What was Marne’s room number? Panic spread through her body, leaving a tingling in her toes and legs, and she almost lost consciousness. She laid her head onto the carpet, burying her nose into the Berber and reached her hand into her jeans pocket. The plastic card advertised the lobby restaurant; she flipped it over and read 821. Marne’s room was right next to hers—823.

     Where was she, though? Was she on the landing that was closer to 900 0r 800? Since her legs were no longer taking commands, she pushed hard with her elbows, winced, and flipped herself over. Lying on her back, she pulled herself through the doorway, and looked up at the little sign. It read, “800-820.” Her room would be right around the corner of this hall. Flipping herself around again, she started down the hall.

     Every foot she pulled herself along the dusty floor she had to take a break. She filled the hall with quiet lamentations and weeping. She wanted desperately to call for her sister and for her baby. Her only hope lied in the fact that they were still alive, and that they would hear her yelling for them. But, she couldn’t risk it. If they heard her, she knew the beasts would make it to her before she made it to the room, and she didn’t want them to find her, her sister, and her baby in the middle of the unprotected hallway. She was too weak to fight them.

     With each door that she passed, she rejoiced to herself. Keep going. Keep going. Take a break. Keep going.  Never had she struggled so hard to move her body in all of her life. Her arms were raw from pulling; she couldn’t feel her legs anymore.

     Then, there was blackness.

     Through the grey haze in the hallway, Mary looked around. She wondered what she was doing on the floor, wondered where everyone was, wondered why she couldn’t breathe that well. She lifted her head, and it fell into a jelly-like warm pile. Her eyelids fluttered, and she forced them to open. She waited for her eyes to focus, but they wouldn’t. Everything was a blur. The green junk on the floor was a blur.

     What was she doing in the hallway? Where was Marne? Had she been this sick before, at the race?

     “Help, someone,” she called into the hallway. “Help.” Her voice was barely audible. She gurgled and spit the gunk from her mouth, blew it from her nostrils. How did she get so sick?

     With a fresh wave of forgetfulness, she pulled herself through the hallway. She was pointed this way for a reason, she would keep going.

     About five feet from the end of the hallway, she heard a loud thud, thud, thud behind her. Someone was coming up the stairs. She asked herself what was wrong with the person to make that noise? They must be carrying something, maybe dragging a large suitcase.

     “Help,” she called. No sound came from her mouth, only a sick gurgling.