Alaska | Painless

Chapter 1 (Revised)

It's me, again. I told you I would eventually rewrite the draft. I did! It's almost like starting over. Except I am not chaning the plot at all. Just the details. Oh and to check now. When the font is violet and bold. That's me.

Enjoy.

xoxoxoxoxo

Alaska-The Painless

By-Rodo Camelot

Cancer-(noun) A process in which cells of a certain region of the organism began to attack one and other.

That was, Gran's definition, her more specific one atleast. The phrase to describe it normally was "My boobs hate my bod Alaska"

It may have sounded funny, one of the lighter notes of my Grandmothers cancer of the breast.

It was hard to explain my relationship with Melinda Garnet. She was like a mother, and a best friend, sometimes a father. I never knew my Grandfather.

"Don't worry about him Alaska, he was a nut." She told me once, then she filled my head with how she met him at a friend's, how mych of an idiot she was in love with him, that they ran away, how she let him get her pregnant with my mother, then run away only to get hit by a truck. "How do you know he was hit by a truck?" I asked, "Newspaper, In fact, that was day your mother learned to speak...." she trailed off, as she pondered it.

At that moment, I believed in karma.

As I grew, the more I became obsessed with the woman. I missed my parents' anniversary to go on an outing with her. I'd paused before doing things and asked what she thought. I couldn't do anything without an "okay" from her.

I fell slowly in the abyss of stories she had couped inside her, believing everyone, no matter how bizarre. I learned about a "Anna", her best friend as a child and young adult. We discovered pictures of her as a young woman and this "Anna" everything felt warm and inviting around Gran. Her soft aged breathing, the embraces, the kisses that decorated my forehead. The beauty of age and mystery.

Till she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

That safe shell I had embedded myself into had shattered in bits, leaving me on the floor to be found. No more photos or dinners. Just IVs and doctors....IVs and doctors. A stark white room, and a small window.

No more outside. "Hey doc, when am I allowed outside with my little state?" she asked as he swabbed her arm and prepared it for the needle.

No answer, just a shoved and a wince. And he was gone.

I felt more and more uncomfortable when they came in, not answering questions, not worrying.

It scared me.

I laid there, imagining angels falling from the ceiling. My fingers enclosed on old ones. Gran was sleeping beside me. She had fallen asleep rather randomly in the middle of afternoon. Then her body shuddered and her eyes blew open, she gasped and leaned forward. "Gran?"

She looked over at me, and smiled, one of the saddest, pitiful ones I had ever seen. My heart cracked. "If I don't leave, I want to teach you something amazing and beautiful. Exotic and horrifying. Kay?" I nodded. Her eyes lowered to our hands, enclosed on each-other. Expressionless, "If and when I die, I want you continue a beautiful life Alaska. A kick my casket. I'll hear it from heaven. I'll know it's my baby. And I'll know you're ready." I gave a puzzled expression then nodded, she leaned back over and eased her eyes closed, "Alaska...."

I'd like to point out my name isn't Alaska, but Sara Partridge. Youngest daughter of Karen and John Partridge. My oldest sister is Mary-Jane, my middle is Beatrice. My Grandmother always wanted another girl. But instead was blessed with a boy, whom she named Leonard like his father.

Almost an exact week after that incident, she did.

Melinda Garnet died.

It never occurred to me that she could die.

No, she couldn't it was a prank. A sick joke.

But I realized it wasn't when her room was empty, ready for a new victim.

It intrigued me almost. How could someone disappear so fast? I'd talk to her yesterday, she was alive. She sounded alittle congested.

But still.

No, not my Gran.

It was September 17, 2007. That was the worse day of my life.

Period.

We buried her in a mahogany coffin. It was pretty, the plainest I could describe, because I wasn't really paying attention to what colour it was or what it looked like, only it's contents. My grandmother, her eyes were forced shut, her lips pursed into a relaxed complexion. Ruby-red lipstick was messily smeared over her aged lips. Blush covered her beautiful features as an aged woman. She looked nothing like my grandmother. I noted to ask in my will not to get doodled over with the funeral director's play-make-up.

I analyzed everyone in the room, there was alot elderly citizens, some I had met, some I had not. I searched the room for a woman named Anna. Maybe she had come to the home. To say good-bye to Gran! She probably had pictures and we could-

No, Al don't do this to yourself.

I paused as I came to the middle of the room, and looked down at my shoes. The flats I loved to wear daily. I felt ashamed of myself. Trying to replace my Grandmother with a another woman who was probably dead herself.

I pushed out of the way and regained my placed by her casket. Staring down, never uttering a word. My sister Beatrice came up beside me, "Al wanna go outside for a while? Just to get your mind off of Nana?" Beatrice wrapped her arms around me, I could smell the soft Chanel perfume she'd sprayed herself with that morning. Gran had given her that perfume, she only wore it on special occasions.

It touched me alittle.

I hugged my older sister back, and walked with her outside.

We found a small patch of grass by the gate the church. Beatrice and I sat down with our legs crossed. My sister stared at me, worry on her face. "Listen, I know."

"What."

She looked down to her purple and black blouse and black denim capris. "How close you guys were. I sometimes vouched for you to go over there on special occasions."

"I know" I replied remembering the time I missed Christmas dinner to go the iHop with Gran and her girlfriends for Christmas, and Beatrice telling our parents she thought it was unfair for us to not invite Gran and that I should go over there to accompany her. We both failed to mention the dinner.

"But you're going have to get used to being a family with us again."

I looked down at my dress, "I know."

"I know Mama and Daddy aren't great conversation starters, but it's not that bad to be a family."

I bit my lip, "I know."

"It's, kind of nice."

"I know."

"No you don't" she laughed.

I forced a smile, "I know."

She laughed again and placed her hand on my shoulder, "We all love you Al. Well, maybe not Mary-Jane."

I smiled again and said "I know."

She shrugged and got up, "I'll let you know when the service is starting."

"Kay."

I looked through the iron bars, I watched cars and people walk along. I stretched, closed my eyes and opened them again. I looked across the street to the sidewalk there. I saw a woman staring at the church. Her eyes traveled down onto me. She stared for a moment, as if I was a ghost, she laughed and winked at me then carried down the street.

I watched her walk down and around the corner.

And she was gone.

"Al! It's starting."

I stood up and ran to church.

My father and three other men carried her down the steps, I stood in front, clutching a bouquet of red roses.

As the pastor was spouting his blessings and other sayings, I cleverly walked forward from my place, my knees tapped the side the casket, I pulled my left leg back and then forth and slammed in it's side. The coffin jiggled and people jumped and murmured. My mother grabbed me and told me to less clumsy.

I nodded and apologized. I watched as they lowered her, and the crowd leaving after tossing their flowers in and giving condolences to my Mother. As a lady was leaving, she placed a pink rose on Gran's plot. When I was sure the woman was gone, I stomped the rose out and replaced it with a red one.

Gran hated the colour pink.

They covered the plot over. Padded it down and left. My family were the only one's who remained. I asked if I could be left alone for a while, so they all piled into the church.

I kicked off my flats and stripped away the thigh highs I was wearing, then sat down in front of the head-stone. I put my hands over smooth marble, letting the coolness ink into my skin. I breathed out and looked up at the blue-sky. "If you really want to break me, youre going to have to try harder than that." I looked back to the headstone. "He tried to separate us. And he did. I'm sorry Gran. I love you." I looked down to my legs curled under me, I watched tears drop down, and sink into the fabric.

I cried for only minutes before drying up.

Then I suddenly felt something crawl up my spine, I twitched and looked behind me. I could moaning, screaming, angry yells, crying, and sounds of skin ripping all at once. It got louder, and louder. Pain, Suffering, pain, suffering, pain, suffering, pain-

Then it stopped. I shot around looking for the source of the noise. Instead, I saw a woman.

She was tall, maybe 5'6. And pale, almost grey. Her eyes were a black, pitiless abyss. The hair was cut short and cropped to the back, she wore a scarlet red dress. I saw she was limping in her left leg, and that she had a bandage wrapped around her right arm. The poorly dressed wound hand bits of pink flesh peek through. She stared straight forward, not making a sound as she limped over to the plot next to my Grandmother's. She placed a black rose on it, then came forwards towards me, and Gran's plot.

In closer detail, I could see she was grey. That there was a silver necklace encircling her neck, it had bright silver roses, that somehow looked familiar. She passed me and placed a rose on Gran's plot. She stopped and stared, then turned to me and stared. Then made a sharp turn and went off the way she came.

As she left, the noises came back. I covered my ears and shuddered "Stop-It."

They stopped.

xoxoxo

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