One of the privileges of running this little venture here is that it allows me to provide a space for our contributors to take clearly personal (and often painful things) and transform them into art. Perhaps people would not feel as comfortable to take such risks were it their own site or Substack. Or perhaps more courage is needed given that we are now blessed to have a decent reach online.
In any case, what I can tell you is that
has provided us with an a heartfelt and authentic piece here today. And those are always the best kind.Enjoy.
TJB.
Helen had no idea that her old nametag had been packed away in the basement for so many years, but as she removed it from a dusty box and traced the smooth edges with her wrinkled hands, a flood of memories took hold of her, compelling her to examine it more closely.
The tag was made of metal. Her name was embossed on the front in a smooth cursive font, and a sharp pin on the back allowed for it to be fixed to a garment. It wasn't just some throwaway piece of paper with marker scrawled upon it, but something more permanent, something meant to last a lifetime. A wearable signpost for a trail of seasons, smiles and scars. A handhold for those who might meet her, so they could know her by her name, a single word that described her unique voyage through a life of joy, sorrow and everything in between.
She traced each of the embossed letters with her calloused thumb, and as she did she felt a cool breeze ruffle the stiff basement air. But she was underground, so where could the breeze have come from? A gap in the foundation perhaps, or a hole in the floorboards overhead? The breeze intensified into a wind, and with it came a sound, a message, spoken in some timeless language she intrinsically knew without fully understanding.
"This moment is very important," it told her.
"You cannot miss this," it whispered.
"You should go outside."
An urgency overtook Helen, something unexplainably powerful. She climbed up the basement stairs, her old bones and the old house creaking in tandem. Then she walked out into the yard in her pink blouse and polka dot skirt, where the golden sun kissed her aged face. She stood there, holding her nametag, eyes closed, bathing in the rays of the fiery sun, wishing that the moment could last forever.
But the sky was assembling a gang of clouds into the makings of a storm, circling the sun with thick indigo lumps that looked like clusters of purple cauliflower. The wind picked up, a slice of lightning cut the sky in two and the clouds broke open like glass, pelting the earth with rain.
Instead of seeking shelter, a youthful glee inspired her to spin around and around in her pink blouse and polka dot skirt, letting the downpour wash over her. She could see faces in the clouds, people she once knew, and voices from her past echoed in the thunderclaps. Her memories began to wash away, so much so that as she spun and twisted in the deluge she began to forget who she was. Joys and sorrows washed off of her, collecting in muddy puddles in the soggy earth below.
When the storm finally passed, Helen was shocked to find that her nametag was blank, the letters which had spelled her name gone without a trace.
Who was she, she wondered. Where am I going, and where have I been? She looked down at her old hands, no longer knowing the source of the marks and scars upon then. She looked at the nametag, no longer knowing the name which had been on it. She looked out into the distance, past the endless rows of corn, searching for answers.
And that was when she saw it. There, off in the far distance, stood an old barn. Helen had never seen it before, but it looked like it had been there for ages. It looked warm and inviting, like someplace both familiar and mysterious at the same time. Then the wind picked up again, carrying the voice with it.
"Go", it said. And she did.
She walked into the sea of green stalks towards the barn in the distance, carrying her empty nametag and no memory of who she was, carving a path towards some unknown destiny in this old wooden barn on the horizon. As she walked and walked through the endlessness, her mind raced around like a mouse in a maze, trying solve the puzzle of who she was.
At last she reached the end of the sea of corn. She pushed aside the final stalks, parting them like a theater curtain, and stepped out into a shimmering field of green grass upon which the barn sat in the very center.
But she was not alone.
Hundreds, if not thousands, perhaps even millions of other women all stood waiting outside of the barn, fireflies swimming around them in the warm summer dusk. One by one they turned to look at her, a moving sea of pink blouses and polka dot skirts.
And each and every one of them looked exactly like her.
Helen's heart began to race and a cool sweat took hold of her. The other women just stood there looking at her, as if they had been expecting her for some time. A panic swelled in her heart, a pressure to do something or say something, but what? She was surrounded by herself, but she had no idea who she was. What would she say, given her newfound amnesia? And to whom? For a moment she just stood there in the grass, quivering in silence, her eyes darting through the mob of herself, desperately trying to reclaim some orientation or perspective, trying to find a rock to anchor herself to in this sea of impossibility.
Finally her nerves got the best of her, and she broke out from her trance into a frenzied desperation.
"I don't know who I am!" she cried out, running up the the nearest Helen. Their eyes locked, and Helen saw only a reflection of herself. She ran from one Helen to another, horrified, each one a perfect mirror of her. "I don't know...I don't know!!"
The others remained silent. She felt dizzy. The world around her began to spin like a merry go round, the sunset sky and the red barn and the green grass and the myriad of Helens all whipping and mixing around like a thick soup, her mind swimming in the middle of it.
"I can't..." she began, panic rattling her voice as she crashed into one of the other Helens. "I don't know..." she said, shaking her head, looking up into the eyes of the woman who held her upright. "I don't know…who I am…"
"Neither do we," the other Helen said.
Then came a loud soft thud, followed by a slow creaking sound. The barn door began to open, offering a portal to a warmth. One by one, the Helens began to go inside. The wind whispered in her ear again, urging her to do the same.
The barn seemed far bigger on the inside than the outer structure made it out to be. The infinite mass of Helens were somehow able to all fit inside, creating what appeared to be an endless crowd of pink blouses and polka dot skirts stretching as far as the eye could see.
"Oh, excuse me!" Helen said, accidentally bumping into one of the other Helens.
"Don't be silly, it's no bother at all!" the other one said. Helen stared at the woman intently, saying nothing. She searched her face and hands, looking for any signs of difference between herself and her doppelgänger, but found none. Was the other woman doing the same to her? The two stood there in an awkward exchange, until Helen attempted to push the conversation forward with a question.
"Do you...can you..." Helen began asking, stumbling through her words as she attempted to query the other, to see if she too had no knowledge of her past. But before she could finish her question, the lights began to dim, and an excited murmur swept through the crowd.
All throughout the barn, large film screens began to slowly drop from the rafters overhead, their motorized descents filling the air with a steady electric hum. A network of projectors flickered to life, filling the screens with the familiar image of grey and white numbers counting down from ten.
"What is this?" Helen asked the other. But the other just returned her puzzled gaze, no more aware of what was about to transpire than her.
Then the show began. All throughout the barn, the projectors began playing back the synchronized highlights and memories of the lives of all the various Helens on the massive screens. There was surgeon Helen, performing a delicate operation, followed by park ranger Helen, scouting a trail through dense woods. Singer Helen hitting high notes, astronaut Helen preparing for launch. Seven year old Helen riding a bike, thirty three year old Helen fighting a parking ticket. Real estate agent Helen, homeless Helen. Beauty pagent Helen, coffeeshop barista Helen, subatomic particle physicist Helen. Happy Helen, angry Helen, heartbroken Helen, everything in between Helen.
Quantum possibility matrix eskimo poker champion Helen.
As the various clips played, spotlights from above shone down on the particular Helen whose life was being showcased, isolating the star of the moment with a crisp cone of light. Then the nearby Helens who surrounded her all turned towards the illuminated one and applauded.
It was like watching some bizarre award ceremony for endless permutations of a lived life, a celebration of novelty and experience, a tribute to the mystery of human existence. The ceremony continued, iterating through the innumerable crowd one by one, without any pause or indication of finality. Helen began to wonder how many lives were in this barn, how many variations of a life were being celebrated here tonight. Was every Helen's life going to be showcased? Would they all get their moment in the spotlight?
Would she?
A cold doubt crawled into her heart. Who was she? Why was her life special, worth noticing, worth celebrating?
What had she done that was worth any sort of applause at all?
Helen looked down at her nametag again. Still empty. But then she noticed something truly bizarre - her hands were beginning to change color. At first she thought her skin was turning grey, perhaps an artifact from the light from the projectors bouncing around the geometry of the space she was in. But then she looked closer, and as another round of applause echoed all around her, Helen realized that she could see her surroundings through her skin. It was not just her hands, but the rest of her too - limbs, torso and all - which were slowly becoming transparent.
Helen was fading away. She gasped, desperation and terror flooding her heart, the coldness intensifying. She looked around, seeking an escape from where she was, some spot of solitude where she could take pause and figure out what was going on. She looked at herself again, her dress and blouse and skin and the barn all blending into each other now.
No, no, no.
None of this is right, she thought.
Home.
She needed to go home.
She needed to go home, even though she couldn't remember even the slightest detail about it.
She had to go home.
But where was home? Somewhere else, where she could be alone, where she could sort out who she was, where she could remember. Anyplace but here. She fought her way through the crowd with a mixture of physical effort and etheric gliding, her form now an inbetween of tangible body and invisible gust. Looking, looking, where was it, her only hope, where could it be? The exit, a portal to the outside, the only other world she could remember.
Where was it?
At last she saw it - the barn door, still open.
She ran to it, darting her way through and around the other Helens. Outside the grass was green and the sky was dark and the stars were shining. It was a place where no one else could bother her. She could go there and figure this all out. Everything would be alright if she just went outside.
So she stepped outside into the cool night air, but the very next moment she felt the wind once again. The same wind that had told her to go, to come here, to be a part of this thing that she would not want to miss, this nonsense which now threatened to completely disintegrate her. It had been wrong, so terribly, obviously wrong. It had led her astray, that cursed breeze, and now once again she felt it stronger than ever, only this time it was not just moving around her, ruffling her hair and blouse, but coarsing through her, as if it was touching her soul. As if it were part of her. And then she realized that it was.
She stopped dead in her tracks and listened.
"Wait," it said, speaking directly through her. Its word was absolute and she was powerless to resist it.
"Go back inside."
And so she did.
Helen stepped back inside the barn, into the strange ceremony. And as she looked up at the nearest movie screen, she saw the highlights of her life begin, a life that was unmistakably hers. Her pupils dilated like black holes, ocular sponges absorbing her entire lifetime as it reanimated itself before her.
She could remember everything now, her name, her parents, her loves and hates, every victory and every failure from start to finish, her whole entire life. Every second of every detail, a chronology of moments, both fleeting and eternal at the same time.
Then came a sharp clatter, like a dropped fork striking the ground. Her nametag had fallen to the floor, having passed through her waning grasp, but it didn't matter. She was a ghost now, barely visible at all. Her moment, both here and in the screen above, was drawing to a close, her time in this realm ending.
Applause surrounded her, crashing into her like ocean waves. The wind which had guided her here now infused her. She became it, and it became she. Together they soared off into the universe, leaving the barn and the corn and the green grassy field behind.
A cosmic wind, seeking out its next adventure.