Moving On
This is my first fan fiction yay! Please comment after reading I really want feedback that will help me with my writing :-D. Okay...I did not make up these characters, they are not mine they are from the musical Rent by the genius writer Jonathan Larson. Just to get that over with. This is based off of rent, and somewhat inspired by "The Lovely Bones". It is in Mimi's point of view. It takes place about two years after we last saw them. Okay here it goes!
I knew it was coming. Nothing lasts forever. I was lucky once when Roger's love brought me back to him the first time, but I knew it couldn't happen again because nothing is eternal, and it never will be. When I was at the hospital in my last few moments I spent with Roger, he was in tears begging me not to leave as if I had any control over it. Why did he have to do that? Wouldn't it have been easier if we had laughed our way goodbye? To let our last memory be a fond one? No...it was too hard for him, so we had to part in sadness because there was no way out. When my soul first left my body it was nothing like the last time. I hovered for a moment and could see Roger clinging to my lifeless body. Then in an instant I felt a rush of wind, and the lights were so bright I couldn't see a thing. I felt like I was running...but my legs weren't moving. Then all I remember is winding up in the park here in the "in-between". A place that I would learn to be between heaven an earth...where the dead stay until they move on from their past. At first I thought it was heaven. Everything that I had pictured it to be...a beautiful park, with a large lake. The air smelled like nectarines, and the sky was calm and gray. Then I saw next to me many apartments, with murals painted all over them. Artists were freely painting pictures of seagulls on oceans, moonlit skies, just about anything that came to mind. Then I went down a sidewalk leading out of the park. I looked down at Earth to see Roger walking out of the room, and when he fell down to his knees as the group huddled around to support each other, all I could think was..."I am never going to be with them again...I will never feel Roger's arms around me...I will never feel the warmth and protection of my good friends again..." I was too much in awe of myself to cry...I just sat there, in the dirt and stared off into nothingness. Too drained of spirit to feel anything.
I felt a thin familiar hand on my shoulder then, and turned around to see Angel. "Oh honey, follow me..." and so, being trusting to her I followed never making a sound. I was too dazed to say anything...when ever I wanted to speak no words came to me. She sat me down on a bench and gave me that 'I am ready to talk now, are you ready to listen?'- kind of face. The first words I said in that "in between" place, were "Angel...Angel, this is heaven?". Angel started to softly laugh to herself, and gave me a tight hug. "This isn't heaven girl...this is where you'll stay till your ready to move on, but we don't need to talk about that now. Have you shown yourself around? What is it like here for you?". This startled me, since it was obvious that we were in the middle of a beautiful landscape with loving couples on every 't she tell for herself? "What do you mean? Can't you see what's around us?" Angel replied"Everyone wants something different...you see something here that's different than what I saw." --"Oh...well there's a park with a lake...and apartments, lots of them." --"So do you think you can find your way around here now?" she asked. "I'll manage...but won't you be here with me?" a short silence-- "I have moved on...I have to go back to heaven." there was a longer silence after this, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. I was scared...I didn't know what was happening. Everything happened so fast that I hadn't had much time to take it in. After Angel left I realized that I could still watch my loved ones from up here...sometimes I would yell at them, or laugh with them, or cry with them...but I still had that empty achy feeling in the pit of my stomach that knew that it was wrong. You see, every moment that I stayed with them...was a moment that they still stayed with me. It was Roger...he was the last person that I had touched before I left and as so, he wouldn't be able to move on until I had. That was what hurt me so bad. That although I could still watch them throughout the day anytime I wanted...I had to see the most awful thing you could ever imagine. I had to see Roger in a state of depression...and I wasn't able to comfort him. But I couldn't let him go..."I couldn't do it! Never!" I thought. "Leave him behind? To never see him again?" That's all I could think of...that word "never.". I wanted to run to him and hold his head up and tell him that everything was going to be ok. One night he came home, laid on the couch slid off and curled into a little ball on the floor. It was a moment of weakness where every single thing that he had to hold in that day came out at once...and now a days that was too much to handle. I knew he wanted to die...but somehow I think he knew...I think he knew that I was watching him, and this is what kept him from doing the awful deed of taking his own life. He knew that in my watch he couldn't do it. So at least I felt that my being here was good for at least one thing...to keep Roger alive. This was also a dilemma though, since I knew that if I moved on...he would too, and maybe he could find his own will to survive. So at the same time my presence was hurting him. It's funny how one situation can be interpreted so many ways.
I ended up finding a wonderful little apartment that was next to a guy named Louis. He like myself, could see the apartments with the murals all over them...although his murals were painted all of beach houses. He never really did explain that to me. We would spend hours every night talking about our lives now that we were in the 'in-between'. He told me that he'd died in a bank robbery shoot out. I guess that I was lucky to have known what was coming...where as Louis thought he had his whole life ahead of him. I told him all about Roger, Mark, Angel, Maureen, and everyone. I never did tell him of the time I'd died before...just never found the time right I guess. Then one day all of the sudden he was gone...no where to be found. I never really asked anyone what happened...I just figured that he had moved on, as I could not. I envied him then...I wanted to be able to let go....I wanted it more than anything else...to not feel the desire to be back in that world that I had once been a part of. I knew it wasn't possible to go back...but somehow I just couldn't let the hope die I guess, and I needed to stay with them.
The seasons changed and the trees in my park turned a beautiful shade of orange and red. Many people came and went, some faster than others. Some people stayed there to watch their loved ones, like me. Then came the winter and my park was decked out in the best of Christmas decorations one could buy, with a large Christmas tree right in the center. People sang carols, but only the upbeat ones like "Jingle Bells", and "Deck the Halls". Although it was meant to be a warm and merry holiday, I couldn't feel merry without Roger by my side...let alone join in the Christmas spirit. I spent most of the holiday season sitting in that special spot where I could stare down and visit my friends. Some nights I wouldn't leave that spot and would wake up in the morning achy from sleeping on the damp ground.
Then it came...the day that I would forever regret. It was Christmas day and Roger had been pressuring Mark into leaving him alone. He cried to me, and called to me, and my heart shattered to pieces. How could I do this to him? Leave him with this emptiness for so long? He stared into the ceiling of his bathroom calling straight up to me. "Where are you when I need you now, huh Mimi? Where? Are you even there? Your not! You aren't! You left me here to die! You couldn't let me feel this pain if you were there! So why should I stay huh? I need to find you! I need it!" I wanted to call to him and tell him I was here. "I am here!" I went into a panic...he was going to do something awful...please don't...please know that I am here! As he reached for a razor on his bathroom counter he was shaking...and then suddenly a miracle happened. Mark walked in to check on him. "Roge? Roge are you okay? I heard screaming...Roge! No! You can't do this to yourself!" There's a short silence as Mark lowers down to Rogers level, grabs the hand with the razor, and stares him dead in the eye. "Would Mimi want it?" All Roger could do was whimper a small "No...no she wouldn't." With that Mark whisked him off to a clinic.
To this day I wonder what would have happened if Mark hadn't walked in. Would Roger have joined me here? No....no I shouldn't even think of it. Roger needs to live for both of our sakes...to carry on for me where I left off. He needs to stay there for his own friends and loved they stand another heart break?
That was the day I moved on. It was sort of sudden...I felt a calm come over me. I knew it was time, and that I loved him too much to stay with him. So my soul lifted to heaven...the same way it had come to the 'in-between'. I thought I was going somewhere...another place like where I had lived for many months. I was wrong. I felt my soul reach far apart and release into the people I love. One by one I felt part of myself fill the emptiness in their heart. The last was Roger, and I knew that at last he was free, and so was I.