Awake

“Did you hear the good news?  Auntie Josephine says that mommy died last night?”  The little boy named Lexington excitedly asks his older sister Loren, as he sits on the polished wood floor playing with a new iron man action figure toy.

Loren shrugs her bony shoulders covered in long blondish-brown curls, “Good news indeed.  Uncle Taylor said she drowned.”

“What’s drowned mean?” Lexington asks, focused on making iron man bend backwards.

“It just means you die,” Loren sighs.  Staring at the ceiling, she is a stunningly gorgeous miniature version of her mother.

“Does it hurt when you die?”  Lexington’s tiny voice whispers conspiratorially.

“I hope it did for her.”

~~~

“I AM NOT DEAD!  I’M NOT BLOODY DEAD! Do you hear me?!”  Lisette Lee Reynolds shrieks and curses, thrashing her frail loosely chained body on the country-king size bed like a wicked marionette.  Her declarations can’t be heard by anyone other than one man as he sits quietly in the corner of the darkened bedroom.

~~~

The Grand Ma-ma’s gray eyes eerily pop open for the first time in 90 days.  90 days of astral-traveling has left her physical body in a slightly weakened state.  If it weren’t for the IV administered by Dr. Cohen it is likely she would not have survived the incredibly lengthened degree of bodily separation.

“Mother?”  Lourdes whispers, jumping out of the bedside chair she’s been sleeping in off and on for days. “Oh God, Mother! You’re awake!  Can you hear me?!  I have to call Dr. Cohen!”

The Grand Ma-ma grabs her youngest daughter’s wrist, holding it in a vise-like grip, pulling Lourdes down towards her.  “I’ve found Lisette and she is alive.  Assemble your best team.  We haven’t much time.”