In The Place Between - Part Three

It was May of 1965. Yes, some time had defiantly passed since I had arrived. I could hardly remember when I came there, but I knew the date was in the 1940's. I knew that for sure. I remembered it because I liked fours. They were even. It had stood out to me, if I try really hard, maybe I could remember the date. I tried and tried but could not. There was so much I could not remember. I could not remember what my parents looked like, well maybe, just vaguely. I could remember my mother's hand, her ring, it was a bright diamond, sparkling in the sun. I would sometimes remember my father's pipe and the smell of its tobacco, but not his face, not her face. Why? That began to hurt me so I stopped thinking about it.

As the time seemed to wear on I notice Magda walk more slowly, and glance in my direction. Sometimes she looked like she was looking for something. All this time it was only her that I could see. Were there more people on this road, were there cars? Why did I not see them? One day I noticed the fence was not there anymore. Then I noticed the train platform was gone, the tracks were there, but no trains. Then I noticed the shower signs were gone and well, it all looked almost empty, as if nothing was there any longer.

Soon Magda no longer walked this route. She road a bicycle. I had one of those once. I wanted to stand in the street, to take a ride on it, but I did not exist. Well, not to her. Magda soon looked very different. She looked like my Aunt Mitzi and Aunt Mitzi was beautiful. She was like an actress, she was so pretty. I remembered Aunt Mitzi! Suddenly I was lost in my memories for a moment and did not see Magda fall off her bike. As I approached her, not crossing where the fence once was, I could see she was choking on something. I ran to her and tried to slap her on the back, it did nothing; I could not actually touch her. Then I tried to reach into her mouth and pull out whatever was stuck in there. Soon she struggled no more. Her eyes met mine and they seemed to show a look of recognition and I felt somehow I knew her. I tried again to help her and somehow I was able to dislodge the piece of orange hard candy in her mouth. I don't know how it happened. It just did.

Magda was able to stand up and her legs were bruised and she looked disheveled. She righted her bike and I just stood there.  She was not looking at me but said, “Oh, thank you, I was about to choke to death on that piece of candy, when I hit that bump and I fell off my bike, I had been sucking on it and it got stuck in my throat!” She looked up and our eyes met and then I did not know what to do. She blinked her eyes and I was across the field, far away and she could not see me, and I looked at her from a distance. What had just happened? I think she saw me and I think I helped her, but how? After all this time, I had someone else with me here? How? Magda got back on her bike, it wobbled a little down the road, but she made her way, just as she had done every other time, down that same path by the road, near the fence that was no more.

One day she came back, it seemed like a long time, her bike was fixed and she brought flowers. She stopped where she had fallen off the bike and she looked over to where I was. She placed the flowers onto the ground. I looked down and they were suddenly at my feet. They were white roses and I felt they were beautiful. As she stood up, our eyes met again. She looked at me and I at her, and wondered what we were doing. It seemed that we were around the same age, she was older, but I felt much older. I was still a kid, she was like an adult. I would never be her age, I thought.

After a time she spoke to me. She said, “ I don't know who you are. I am not sure you are really there. I think I can see you. You look like a little girl I should know. I think you helped me last month when I fell off my bike and I was choking.” I looked shocked. I did not know what to think or say, I had been invisible for so long. No one knew anything about me.

“ I used to walk this way from my house to my grandmothers when I was little, then I used to walk this way to school. I think we saw each other once or twice. I came to bring you these flowers to day, to thank you for helping me.”

“I do not know if you can hear me, or if you can talk to me. Some people do not believe in people like you, you know, spirits, ghosts or whatever you are. I do. I know you are here because of what happened here.” I could not speak. I did not feel I could. I was shocked. No one had said much of anything to me when I got here and then, well really, no one but my friends who are all long gone now.

She picked up one of the roses and handed it to me. I put my hand out and for a moment in time, it seemed that I could hold onto it and for Magda, it was suspended in air. She gasped, and it fell to the ground.

“ I see you are here, you are listening to me. You have helped me, how can I help you? Shall I bring a priest or something? What can I do?”

I wanted to tell her to tell my parents where I am; to help me go where the other kids went, but it seemed like a cement wall, something so thick could not be penetrated with mere words, from my long silent throat. I told her in my mind that I did not know what she could do and what there was for me. I told her all my friends who had been here disappeared, little by little and I was only left it seemed.

She looked at me strangely. Suddenly she said, “ I think I just heard you speak to me. I think you told me that all of your friends who had been here disappeared and now it is only you. Is that right?”

I moved one of the flowers on the ground. She had understood me. Why could she hear me, when I could not even hear myself?

The white roses which I saw in this dream seemed very real. Just as I saw them, I had no real idea what they symbolized, except that they were popular with wedding bouquets. They are also symbolic of purity, innocence,sympathy, spirituality, honor, reverence, remembrance, heavenliness, spiritual love and respect. I could see why Magda would try and give them to the ghost girl. 

The story will conclude in the next segment with how the girl came to be in the place she was and who Magda really might be to her. 

 Copyright 2011 by SheilaTGTG55