Remember The Moon

by Carter, Abigail;

  Calder was curled up on the couch watching TV when the doorbell rang. I had hired Chloe, a babysitter, to take care of him while I went to my grief support group. She was new, but came highly recommended from Molly, one of the women in the group. Chloe was college-aged with long dark hair and eyelashes, and a tattoo that bloomed from her collar bone, just under a black tank top.

  “Hi, Mrs. Cavor. I hope I’m not too late. Your place is a little tricky to find.”

  “No, no. Come on in, Chloe. Thanks for coming. This is Calder.”

  By now, Calder was sitting up on the couch looking worried, but not saying anything.

  “Calder, do you want to come over and say hi to Chloe?”

  “Hi,” he said quietly.

  I showed Chloe around the kitchen and left her to get acquainted with Calder while I went upstairs to grab a sweater, but when I turned to come back down, Calder was at the top of the stairs with tears in his eyes.

  “Oh no, Calder. Not again. I just have to go out for a little while.”

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  Calder came and wrapped his arms tightly around my waist.

  “I know Cald, but I won’t be gone for long and Chloe seems really nice. Did you know she’s a singer in a band? Maybe you could show her your drums. I bet she’d be interested. Let’s go downstairs now and ask–”

  “No, Mama! Please don’t leave me.”

  I picked Calder up and he buried his wet face into my neck, and I started walking down the stairs, staggering a little under his ever-increasing weight.

  “Calder is just a little sad that I’m going out,” I said to Chloe when we reached the bottom. “But he’s a drummer and I know you’re a singer, and I thought maybe he’d like to show you his drum set.”

  To Chloe’s credit, she immediately picked up what I was angling for.

  “Hey Calder,” she said to him, touching his hair as his head still rested on my shoulder. “I’d love to see your drum set.”

  Calder picked up his head and wiped his tears a little with his sleeve. “Mama, please don’t go!”

  I set Calder down, but he immediately grabbed me and held my t-shirt in a vice grip hold.

  “Please let go, Calder. I need to go now.”

  “Hey, Calder, will you show me your room?” Chloe’s voice was upbeat, but I could tell from her face that this was a little more than she had bargained for. She stooped down to squat near him, held his hand and gave me a nod.

  I yanked Calder’s fingers from my t-shirt and grabbed my purse from the bench near the front door, slipped on a pair of sandals and waved as I scrambled out the door.

  “Be good, Cald–”

  “Mama! Noooo! Don’t leave!”

  I slammed the door behind me and scurried to the car. I got in, buckled up, and burst into tears. I felt like the worst mother in the world. After a few minutes I pulled a tissue from the compartment between the seats, a new hiding spot for the ever-necessary tissues, and dabbed my eyes. I was thankful that I would soon be at Molly’s house and would be greeted by large glass of Chardonnay. A crow flew into view and landed on the roof of the garage. It stared directly down into the car, at me, with a look that was either judgmental or sympathetic, I couldn’t tell which.

  “What are you looking at? Dumb crow. What do you know?”

  I started the car and reversed.

  God I wish you were here, Jay. I have to assume Calder’s behavior is because of your loss, but maybe there’s something else, something more serious. I don’t know if I can do this. I feel like I’m breaking. I want to crawl into bed and never wake up. I want to cry and never stop. I want to scream or hit something. All this emotion has nowhere to go.

  Could you give me a sign right now? Flicker the lights or something. Just tell me I’m doing the right thing.

  Speaking of signs, I keep seeing crows and thinking of you. Is that weird? They seem to follow me, which is both comforting and slightly creepy. I hope it’s you. I keep imagining myself walking up to them and having a conversation with them. See? I’m a nutcase. And since I can’t go talking to crows in public, I’m thinking of seeing a psychic. I wonder if you’d come? I fear the emotional toll the reading might take on my state of mind. I’m still feeling pretty fragile and a reading might be really emotional. Do you think it will be positive or sad? What if it leaves me feeling even more empty and alone? What if a reading sets me back on the road of grieving by trying to connect with you again? What if the woman is a quack? Oh God. I think I’m going crazy. Maybe I’d be better off talking to crows.

  I love you, Maya

  Chapter Eleven

  TONAL EDUCATION

  My father morphs himself into my landscape, sitting on the black leather couch opposite me. In close-up detail I notice the stubble on his cheeks, a tousle of hair, that damned Rolling Stone’s t-shirt, and smooth, unblemished hands. I’m unsure why I can still make out the human characteristics of people in this realm. I sense it is because I need these reminders of the living world during my infantile spirit stage, but they are beginning to seem unnecessary. Right now, though, I am glad.

  My father is young and old at once. He could be in his twenties or his eighties. Both youthful and wise. His aura pulses emerald, a level well beyond my own pale yellow. I discovered the existence of levels at the Crystal Palace, as it’s commonly called, a kind of port of entry for those transitioning from human to spirit form. From within the Palace’s dome, it’s possible to see the array of ordered color that signifies the varying levels of spiritual beings. The spectrum begins with pink for babies, progressing through yellow, orange, purple, royal blue, green, grey, light blue, and finally, white. Each level is seen clearly through the rest, like gazing into a glass prism, but one that takes up an entire sky-scape like a multicolored Aurora Borealis whose clarity and depth makes it seem possible to see the entire universe at once.

  Most people seem content to remain within the royal blue spectrum, the way most people on Earth are content with achieving an undergraduate degree. Newly transitioning souls usually come into their afterlife at the yellow level, but most progress quickly from there. A few go on to get their master’s and fewer still get their doctorate. Apparently my dad had been busy up here and managed to get his doctorate in spiritual achievement, which impresses the hell out of me.

  Apparently, I had become his apprenticeship project, as part of his spiritual doctoral thesis.

  They decided to assign me to you, J.J., since relating to your own kin is a little easier for newly dead spirits. It’s helpful to have a guide you feel comfortable with.

  His first project was to teach me to “cycle up” my thought patterns, as I was still emitting at a frequency more in tune with Earth-bound entities. This was common with the newly dead and was the reason that as spirits we’re more adept at contacting our loved ones on Earth in the first few months and years after we die. As we learn to cycle up, it becomes harder and harder to align the electrical thought processes with those of people on Earth.

  We will try an exercise now, Jay.

  OK. My dad’s thoughts gave me a sense of warmth and well-being, a sense of being protected.

  I’m going to hum and I want you to match the tone of my hum with your own.

  All right. I’ll give it a try. But why are we doing this?

  As you master the ability to convert your thought processes to a series of high frequency tones, more of the voices around you will become audible to you. They will be your guides. Right now, you are not properly attuned to hear them.

  You make me sound like an out of tune guitar.

  Good analogy! You are exactly that, J.J.

  Great. Thanks, Dad. I sensed his smile. And then I heard a tone, not unlike the om sound I used to hear coming from the lunch-time yoga session that some of the people from work did in the common room. I imagined mysel
f opening my mouth to make the sound, but nothing happened.

  Imagine it coming from deep within your throat rather than from your mouth. Then move the sound up through your throat to the top of your head until it comes out the crown.

  I did as my dad suggested, but my memory-body struggled with the effort.

  Concentrate. Rely less on your body memory and more on your mind.

  OK. I tried again. This time when I heard his tone, I imagined myself singing with my mouth closed, singing into my eyes, into the top of my head, until finally I heard the most ethereal sound I have ever heard – a high-pitched operatic hum that, had I been in a body, would have brought me to tears. I realized this was not a new sound, but one I had emitted before. Long ago. In another lifetime. A life before the lifetime of Jay. I sputtered into silence.

  Nice! Really nice, J.J.!

  God. Wow. OK. Something just came back to me. I remembered something... like I’ve been here before... That was really weird.

  Good, Jay. That tone is your entry back into this world. You have been here many times. As you practice your tone, memories of other lifetimes on Earth will come back to you. They won’t always make sense. Just relax into them. Let them take you where they will. It’s not your job to make sense of everything. It’s your job right now to receive.

  I can do that. I think.

  Let’s try it again.

  This time it was easier to access the tone. I used less body memory and could move the sound out of the top of my being – no longer my head – much more quickly. My first impulse was to weep again; so intense was the sense of finding something beloved that had been lost, but was now found. How could I have forgotten this place? When had I forgotten?

  My childhood hands rested on the blue gingham tablecloth of my grandmother’s dining room table. The swirly handled silver spoon leaned against the rim of the cut crystal glass bowl that had, just moments before, contained my grandmother’s homemade applesauce, heavy with cinnamon, her favorite spice. I imagined tiny apple worms squirming around in my stomach, as my grandmother always liked to joke that she may have left a worm or two in the sauce, “for protein”. I rested my hands on the table because I felt unsteady, as if my legs had disappeared and I had nothing rooting me to the ground. I worried that I might float away. My dad, in his ‘70s style mullet, wore his lumberjack jacket at the table and argued with his father over someone called Nixon.

  I heard unfamiliar voices laughing down the hall and I knew without looking that I would see a group of people gathered in the living room wearing old-fashioned clothes, clothes from the ‘20s or ‘30s. These people lived in the house long before my grandparents. I wanted to walk down the hallway and step into the living room so I could see them, but I couldn’t move, seemingly glued to my spot. Instead I travelled within my mind to the door of the living room, but seemed unable to enter. I still couldn’t see the old-fashioned people. I could flip myself between the present with my hands resting on the table in front of my applesauce bowl and that time long before, with those unfamiliar people I couldn’t see yet knew were there. Behind the memory, a tiny hum, the kind that sometimes came into my ears without warning and then disappeared just as mysteriously. I wondered how I could slip through time, flitting back and forth between present and past and if I could always do this, or if it was possible to do this in other places besides my grandmother’s gingham-clad dining room table.

  Maybe the apple worms were hallucinogenic.

  It wasn’t the worms.

  I smiled at my dad’s thought. I guess it wasn’t. I don’t remember ever being able to do that again.

  It’s quite common in children. And the tinnitus, the ringing in your ears, is a reminder of this world.

  I used to get it all the time as a kid.

  And if you’d lived into old age, you would have had a recurrence of that. It acts as a tiny thread of memory, linking you back to this place. As children, we are closer to the memory of “home” and as we age, we again draw near enough to remember the place we will soon return to.

  I remember reading of people who were terribly plagued by tinnitus.

  Yes. It is a method we use in this plane to link the living back during times in their lives when they need to be reminded.

  From what I read, it’s a pretty annoying reminder.

  Like all bodily ailments. All are reminders.

  Reminders of what?

  Ailments force us to remember our humanness, our lack of invincibility. Ailments come at a time when our minds and bodies are out of alignment. They remind us of what lies beneath the surface of who we are in our bodies.

  And who are we?

  In the Buddhist tradition, there is a story of an ancient Buddhist village that was about to be invaded. Afraid that their pure gold statue of Buddha sitting in the main square would be plundered, the townspeople covered it in mud. When the town was invaded, the invaders never took a second glance at the mud covered statue. The invasion lasted years and eventually anyone who remembered the gold statue died off. Finally, hundreds of years later, a young man prayed near the statue and noticed a tiny fleck of gold showing beneath the statue’s mud coated surface and the pure gold statue was rediscovered. In myth, each one of us is that gold statue, covered in the muck and detritus of our everyday lives. Often in the business of going about our lives, we forget who we really are beneath all the masks and walls we build around us. But the reality is that we are pure gold.

  I suppose as Jay I am still encased in mud.

  Yes. Somewhat. But you’ve had glimpses. More than most because of your glimpses of me. Because of the effect my death had in your life. Did I? I don’t remember.

  You chose not to.

  Why would I choose not to?

  I’m not sure. Anger?

  I wasn’t angry.

  No?

  “Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Jaa-ay, happy birthday to you...” Our table was surrounded by the entire wait staff of Lime Ricky’s and I was pretty certain my face was the color of the cherry red aprons they were all wearing. The “cake” was one of Lime Ricky’s famous key lime pies, to which I was addicted, and covered in sixteen candles. My mom clapped, pleased with her little surprise.

  “Come on, Jay! Blow out your candles and make a wish!” I wasn’t sure if she knew what I wished for every year, though I imagined she suspected. I imagined my dad sitting next to me now, slapping me on the back. Fuck. Where the hell are you Dad?

  I’m here.

  No you’re not. You left, remember? You’re fucking dead.

  Jay, I’m with you always.

  I’m sick of that pansy ‘you’re in my heart’ shit. You’re not here. You’re not in my heart. You’re not anywhere, asshole.

  I hated birthdays. And this was the worst. Being sung happy birthday to by a bunch of prissy waiters at Lime Ricky’s. Christ. I wanted to frisbee the pie across the room, punch the stupid singing, grinning waiters, and run. Get drunk. Smoke some weed. I gritted my teeth, which made my jaw ache its familiar ache. For months I’d been waking up with excruciating headaches, similar to the one that was now in full frontal lobe attack mode. I rubbed my temples.

  “Jay? Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, Mom, fine. Just don’t have a wish.”

  “I’m sure there’s something you want, sweetheart.” I looked at her. She thought she knew what I wanted. I want my dad. But not this year. What the hell has he ever done for me? I blew. Hard.

  I want a new dad.

  Jay, you’re killing me.

  No, Dad. You did that all by yourself. I don’t need your ghost voice in my head anymore either, thanks. I’ve got this.

  As you wish, son. As you wish.

  I felt my dad’s mindful gaze upon me.

>   I continued to help you, though you were often closed to my guidance.

  You were guiding me? How?

  Yes. I gave you signs to show you the way.

  Like?

  Like getting Maya to bend down that day in Pompeii to feel the ruts in the road.

  You did that?

  Yes.

  Why?

  Because you and Maya were supposed to meet at that time.

  Says who?

  It’s what you and Maya planned, Jay. Before you came into your lives as Jay and Maya.

  We planned our lives together?

  Yes, Jay. Try accessing your tone and you will see.

  I settled into my tone. Shadowy images shimmered before me. One nondescript form I recognized as Maya, another as Calder. We stood before a group of entities, each positioned in front of what appeared to be thin plates of glass. Each pane acted as a portable viewing device with movie-like scenes playing in triple speed. The panes were suspended, hovering, but could also be merged together so the scenes would alter, adding new characters into the scene or removing them. Another pane seemed to alter the locations of the merged vignettes or the atmospheric conditions of the day. Eventually, we were watching as I stumbled over Maya that day in Pompeii. Her form turned to me and laughed.

  Perfect! Maya's voice startled me. This is right, Jay, don’t you think? I’m glad we’ll be together again.

  I felt myself wavering – a light about to flicker out. I needed to rest.

  I suggest a period now of stasis.

  You sound like HAL from 2001.

  Funny, Jay. We talked about this last time, remember?

  Oh. Right. Woo-woo meditation for dead guys.

  Ratchet down your thoughts now, Jay. Think of darkness. Think of floating. Think of sleep. Remember this is akin to sleeping in human form. You need to put your thought process function to sleep. Like a computer.

  See? You are HAL.

  I began the process of cycling down that my dad had taught me. Not through tones like cycling up, but in conjuring an ebony darkness, an underwater silence, a monotonous rain. Sleep in the afterlife.