Hello there. Italic means a memory or flashback therefore it is written in past tense. I hope isn't too confusing or boring...
Warning: Blasphemy ahead, and there will be no recantation. This is a work of fiction and I mean no offense.
Chapter one: Helena
She fixes her eyes in the passing clouds, still drunk despite the rush. Her mind slowly coming back to earth. This attempt to forget proved to be a failure. She lights a cigarette and gives up letting the memories surround her until she is drowning in them.
She was at school, in history class not really hearing what the teacher was saying, when someone knocked the door. The man who entered the classroom said something to the teacher in a whisper, leaving afterward. "Abadeer, you're requested at the principals office" said the teacher in a more sad than hostile tone of voice, which was weird to Marceline.
I had done nothing today thought Marceline while heading to the principals office. That damn bastard just enjoy sending me to detention for nothing. She knocked at principals door opening immediately. She dropped herself on the chair glaring at the principal, containing herself from making an obscene gesture. The principal stared back as if trying to find the proper words. There was silence for some seconds and then Marceline couldn't take it anymore.
"Look sire, I have done nothing to be here in first place." She said in a defensive tone. " I don't know what are you thinking but I really had done my best this last year to keep myself out of trouble and there's like just six months before graduation. Couldn't just let pass whatever I had done this time?"
"Marceline..." interrupted the principal, however Marceline omitted him and continued talking releasing all her frustration of what she thought was being punished again for something so stupid she couldn't even remember.
"Let me be just this time, I assure you wont see my face ever again. I don't want my mother scorn me again for something stupid, I don't wanna give her more problems. You see, she had been quite sick these days and..."
"MARCELINE!" said the principal in a louder voice than he had intended. She shut up, anger building inside her at the way the principal had yelled. She was about to explode in rambling again when the principal continued in a much softer voice.
"We have received a call from the hospital..." In an instant the anger disappeared being replaced by a cold feeling starting in her throat and ending in the bottom of her stomach as if she had swallowed ice. She couldn't feel the rest of her body that was now dead weight in the chair.
"When?" she said in a very low voice, trying to keep herself together, not wanting to make assumptions until she got all the information.
"Just a minutes ago. She had a crisis and was brought at the hospital... The doctors did all they could... unfortunately..." The man kept talking but Marceline wasn't hearing anymore.
This couldn't be true, she was perfectly fine this morning she thought. She was in a shock state that lasted an eternity until she interrupted him.
"No..." she said in a whisper. Watching right in the eye of the principal's looking for a lie or a joke she didn't find.
"I'm sorry Marceline. If there's something we..."
"No way, There's no fucking way!" She was screaming now. All the fear transformed in anger. She stormed out of the office, tears forming in a mix of feelings.
Sadness, emptiness, loneliness, fear, anger. She ran without a destination, she didn't want to go to the hospital, she didn't know what would she do at the sight of her dead mother. She didn't want to go home either, she wanted the world to disappear, to shut her eyes so tight she could never open them again. She needed to calm down to digest the facts. The sun was falling down, and ironically she ended at the cemetery, but it was a lonely and calm place where she could think.
She sat by a tomb, lighted a cigarette, inhaling profoundly while suppressing her silent sobs. Her eyes where sore from crying. She knew this could happen, however she wasn't prepared, she would had never been. Now she was alone, afraid and angry.
Her mother was her only family. Eighteen years ago her parents had emigrated to avoid the armed civil conflict in their mother land. Once in this new country her father had died before she was even born, leaving her mother alone and pregnant. As single mother life turned difficult, she had two work to pay the bills and take care of Marceline at the same time.
Marceline proved to be a shy kid, very antisocial indeed. When she was on school it was evident that her ineptitude to relate with others would brought her problems. She was a wild animal with just two kind of responses: fighting or running, she had preference for the first. Once in school when she was seven she was caught in a fight. She got expelled for a few days, nothing serious really, until she realized it meant a problem for her mother. There was no one who could take care of her, and her mother refused to leave her alone at home in such a problematic neighborhood. So she sometimes hired a babysitter, which was too expensive to afford with her miserably salary or she brought her to work which was as well a pain in the ass for her boss complained for children presence in the factory. After that first time Marceline never picked up a fight again, but it never meant she wasn't molested, she just swallow her rage and did nothing waiting for the others to become bored of bullying her. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. When she was in high school she did not have any friends, and did her best to keep good grades and keep away from problems for her mother's sake.
Knowing that her only family, her own mother, the only person who really cared for her, had just died, proved the world to be a shitty unfair and ugly place. There she stood, at the grave yard, she smoked her cigarettes, until there were none. Finally she fell asleep.
After the day she slept in the cemetery, she arranged all things to set her mother funeral: from the morgue papers who needed to be signed to the arrangement of the funerary service. She was feeling like shit, but remembered the words her mother told her once: "Don't stop if I fall and don't look back". Fortunately her mother had a life insurance policy that covered the funeral bill and gave Marceline a monthly payment until she turned eighteen. Even after death she cared for Marceline.
The day of the funeral was a cloudy day, there were not too much people present, excluding Marceline just the neighbors and friends from work were there. The father said the mass and talked about the mysterious designs that god had for our lives. How he would never put a cross too much heavy over our shoulders and giving the comforting idea that the ones who were no longer with us were enjoying the grace of god. "Just give me what I need. Give me a reason to believe" Marceline whispered to herself, that was just too unfair to be a god's design. "There's no way there's a god in heaven, and if there is he is a motherfucker...". "Girl you shouldn't say those things" said the lady beside her "You wouldn't want to receive god's punishment" she added concerned for Marceline's eternal soul. "Well I think I'm gonna burn in hell: everybody burn the house right down..." She thought.
When he finished the mass, the funeral started, once in the graveyard the father invited Marceline to say some words in her mother's memory. She stayed still for a while, then she made up her mind and walked. When she reached the coffin she looked down at her mother, and everyone else disappeared from her mind. She wanted to talk to her since she couldn't say goodbye, and she thought at that moment that words were not enough, so she closed her eyes and sang.
Can you hear me?
Are you near me?
Can we pretend
to leave? and then
we'll meet again
when both our cars collide
What's the worst that I can say?
Things are better if I stay
So long and good night,
So long and good night.
When the funeral concluded. She stayed the last, looking at the gravestone that read "Beloved mother".
"The funeral was just to days ago" she says to herself "and I feel like a week already had passed..." The end of the cigarette burns, emitting an awful stench. She stands up from the dirty floor, throwing away the stub and suddenly a cold feeling takes her whole body. Her hands and cheeks are swarming and she is sweating. The liquid on her stomach turns hot and struggles to get out. In an involuntary reflex she throws up a mix of bile beer and cheap whiskey. She is still trying to catch her breath when a second retch comes but this time she throws almost nothing. She spits repeatedly trying to get rid of the sour on her mouth. After a few minutes she is better and heads for her empty home. She feels her throat burning as a reminder that she is still alive.
