Peaceful Dreams
By Melnoi
Peaceful Dreams
Melanie Demetrick
“Go”.
I can still hear Bryan.
“I think Calibri should roll for me”.
“No, this is a boy game”.
We had been playing Space Adventures for hours with Calibri watching patiently on the side for a turn.
“But you made her sad. Now she will never like you”.
Bryan thinks it over. I knew he had his eye on Calibri. He said he didn’t like girls but now that I recall, he looked truly horrified he had upset Calibri, the prettiest girl in the first grade.
“Awe fine then, here”.
Calibri’s eyes widen from her place beside me in the grass and she takes the dice and gently rolls me a one, landing on the Vortex of Doom space. The price I had paid for letting a girl play. Bryan laughs. I turn to Calibri and nod acceptingly. Boy did I look pathetic defending a girl. Calibri looks wounded at the sound of Bryan’s endless snickering.
“Of course! Of course she makes you land on the Vortex of Doom!”
Bryan seems to think that nothing could be funnier than this. Another girl loudly announced her disgust for the board game. I noticed her familiar white shoes by the ground. I looked up. She was clearly defiant.
“Let’s leave. Boys are jealous of our beautifulness and your bunny.”
She grabbed Calibri and turned around with her nose in the air.
I had only now noticed the purple stuffed rabbit being dragged behind Calibri.
Allison obviously had not changed a bit. Another kid comes along with a stupid grin on his face. He smacks Allison on the head with a cardboard tube and she screams and runs after him. Bryan thought this was hilarious.
“Danny run or she will truly kill you!”
Up Bryan gets and chases Calibri threatening to get mud on her dress. I however seem to just be sitting there. Kill him, I think. Kill him now! My six year old body in my daydream doesn’t respond to my interrupting commentary either than to smile and join in on the chase. Total chaos. But it is nothing compared to the chaos of last night. I find it weird that time will never stop. No matter how much time passes from when I die, the world will go on forever. It is kind of an unsettling thought. I hope I can remember more before last night. I still have time. I’m not ready yet.
I can see Calibri with Bryan when we are teenagers. Of course. He was the coolest one out of us all. He knew all the older kids. He was the one that was always invited to parties.
“A, B, C, and D are all together in the alphabet. S is at the bottom!” He would tease me when I was younger. Calibri wanted someone who could protect her. From what? I was never really sure. Allison made a big show of how she hated how Calibri used Bryan to be some sort of bodyguard. Calibri never really noticed me running around in the background making sure she was safe.
“Great”, I remember thinking.
“I’m a creeper”. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her as she was the most innocent and optimistic person I knew, and I had a secret and resilient love for her. Bryan was quite the opposite.
She never realized however, how Bryan really treated her. I never really talked to him anymore. He had no job. He seemed like he was trying to change Calibri to become distant; drifting away like a candle in the water. He wasn’t very polite or caring. You might say that he used her to get what he wanted. But still, she clung to him. It wasn’t until we were in our mid twenties that we ended it. The first time in my life I had ever seen Calibri truly broken was the night that Bryan hit her.
I was sitting at home watching television nervously. I had seen Bryan angry a few days before at her for not cleaning up their house for the crazy antics that had taken place the night before. He was upset and horrified that his fiancé would “disrespect” him in such a way. That’s right. They were getting married. I knew that she was home alone without Allison and Danny there with her. It sounds strange that Allison and Danny were needed to keep them from fighting. After all, they were getting married weren’t they? It didn’t seem right. I could feel my stomach sloshing around like one of those disgusting slurpee things. Wait a minute. I love those disgusting slurpee things. I was about to call Allison when the phone rang and I pounced on it waiting for good news.
“Sebastian?”
Calibri’s voice rang like an angel over the sound of the television. My stomach turned from sloshy to hard and lumpy. Millions of words raced through my mind. Say something! Anything!
“What happened?” I could barely get the words out. Her voice was so unfamiliar and shaky.
“I hate him.”
Her short words cut me like a sliver of ice and I had no idea what to say. My face grimaced as I searched for something comforting to say. There was a slight pause which felt like twenty minutes to me.
“Sure, I’ll sleep on the couch”, I said.
I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I managed to say something.
Where was Allison?
“Okay. I’ll be there in a half hour”, she said with a soft sigh.
I nodded. Seconds passed and I realized she couldn’t have seen my note of acceptance.
“Sure”.
I waited for her to hang up first. Then I ran to my room and quickly made my bed and put the toilet seat down in the bathroom. I shoved a whole bunch of my artist sketches away. I stopped to think. She has known you for her whole life. I don’t think she cares about your messiness. I had forgotten she wasn’t Allison.
About a half an hour later as promised, Calibri showed up at my door. I can remember how a big smile came to her face as I opened the door. She hugged me. A dread rose in my stomach. I didn’t buy any fruit! I know she loved fruit. A fire of rage burned inside me when I realized my insolence. I thought about running over to Allison’s house and taking all her fruit. I nodded. What a brilliant plan! I shook my head in disgust. This was a stupid plan. Fruit is not important. Maybe she doesn’t like fruit anymore. Plus, I recalled Allison and Danny had gone skiing for the weekend and were apparently out of service. This comes to show how much I was paying attention. How coincidental. Guys weren’t really made to do a best girlfriends job, but I tried my best. Calibri came in the house and I took off her coat.
“Do you have any fruit”? She opened my fridge and stared glumly at the near empty white box.
“Crap”.
I remember talking to her the entire night wishing that she would suddenly notice how drawn I was to her and suddenly long for me too. She stayed with me for the weekend until Allison got back. The best days of my life so far. I had missed the way she had patiently sat through movies and apologized for every single thing. Even the things that were my fault like bumping into her. She would always go to bed early and I could hear her sniffling in her room over the sound of the television. It truly broke my heart. I had nothing to say. What could I say? When Allison got back, the volcano erupted. Calibri was whisked away to her house and Danny came to stay with me. We never really talked to Bryan again after that.
Memories become too painful when I remember looking into Allison’s green eyes and reassuring her that everything will be fine with Calibri. I try to think of something else. Something less meaningful, but I can’t. Everything with her was meaningful. After all, she was my sister. It is getting very windy up here, but I am still not ready. I need to collect myself. Make sure I remember all the good things before I lose them.
“What color? What color?”
Allison frantically flew about the store throwing every dress she could find into Calibri’s face. After all, her job was to plan things, and this seemed like what she had been waiting her whole life for, never mind her own wedding.
“I think they should be purple. No, that soft blue. Then they would match your eyes and you would make Sebastian go crazy”.
I glance at Allison with a sheepish look. Leave it to a sister to make you look awkward. Allison always said what she was thinking.
“I am going to make this the best day of your life, just like mine because you deserve the best of the best and…”
Allison pauses to let out a girlish shriek of delight which made me jump. Calibri laughs at my reaction.
Guys should definitely not go bridesmaid dress shopping with their sister and fiancé.
“You planned for the 24th of August so that makes it precisely two months, 2 weeks, and four days away. Are you sure the flowers you are buying have proper care? Because I-“
Allison. The woman who never stops talking. Personally I like the shyer and quiet ones, such as Calibri, but I guess there is a perfect person out there for everyone. Danny was the greatest. He makes a perfect match for Allison. Allison makes the perfect sister. So protective and ready to jump to your side. Danny is in the corner of the store with that award-winning grin torturing Allison by pretending to tip over the rack that has the most expensive dress in the store. As Allison marches over to give him a piece of her mind, Calibri turns to me.
“Bluueeee eyess… ”
All my mind is thinking. I am scared I will forget what she looked like. Whenever I remember her, the first thing that comes to mind is her eyes.
More blurs in the memory. I can only remember the horrors of yesterday. They have seemed to block out my past memories. The only way to get past the events of last night is to accept it. I have one more story.
It was an after party. Calibri and I were married until the end of time and this literally made me feel like the happiest person in the world. I was aware however, unlike the other three, than Bryan was planning revenge on me. It didn’t seem to involve the others so I didn’t tell them. Biggest mistake of my life. We were drinking Calibri’s favourite red wine and talking about the future. I noticed a shadow upstairs in the kitchen. Bryan? How could it be?
“One second”, I said, and I walked up our marble stairs quietly up to the kitchen, leaving the Danny chattering away unsuspectingly and Allison showing Calibri how good her hair looked in the mirror at the bottom of the stairs or something like that.
I walked into the kitchen tensely, but there was nobody to be seen. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned around to see Allison, Calibri, and Danny all behind me.
“Need help?” Danny’s voice stood out strong and clear and pushed away my other thoughts.
“Its fine, I realized I didn’t need anything up here anyway.”
What was my plan if I saw Bryan? What was I going to do about it? Well I would think about that later. For right now, I was focusing on making sure he never gets in this house. I walked back downstairs with the others as Calibri went to get more wine. I go to lock the door. Danny slaps me on the back. I turned around and saw that same grin on his face.
“Who ever knew it Sebastian”? You finally got someone to marry you!”
“Very funny”.
I was not in the mood to be teased. Even though it was Danny’s job to be funny, it was not the time.
“Well if anyone is going to marry my best friend, I’m glad it was my big brother”, Allison smiles.
All this heart pouring was making me even more nervous. I couldn’t concentrate. Where was Calibri anyway? I followed the sounds in the kitchen. I had to tell her. Somehow, it might involve her too.
“Calibri”?
“Mhmm”?
She was concentrating on pouring.
“I need to tell you something”.
“Good news”?
I shook my head slowly.
“Let it wait until tomorrow morning okay? Let’s not wreck this day”. She smiles which automatically makes me smile. I keep thinking about what she said. Okay, I decided. I will tell everyone tomorrow morning. I turn around, and she is already downstairs and I am still sitting here with a stupid smile on my face. I can never forget this moment. It is tattooed in my brain forever.
Calibri was standing by the couch saying something with her glass in the air. A toast? Still, it doesn’t matter. She takes a small sip and then smiles up at me. The last one I see. She stands there for a moment. An awkwardly long moment. I look at her face and she seems dazed. Her blue eyes start to glaze over and she falls backwards on the couch. I remember my heart rate increasing and I start to breathe heavily. I jumped all the way over the railing, flying for a second, and landing with an enormous thump at the side.
Allison looks horrified and Danny is stunned beyond repair. I shook her repeatedly but all I could see was her eyes close forever and her smile become a peaceful puzzled look. Her hand dropped the wine glass on to the white carpet where it dripped and stained like blood.
Silence fills the house. Allison breaks it with a frantic scream.
“Danny, call the ambulance”.
Danny cannot move. Allison runs upstairs to do it herself. These moments to me feel like slow motion. Danny snaps out of it and runs after Allison.
“Hurry”, he cries.
Danny is not being funny. I knew I couldn’t do anything. I put my head down beside her and wailed. I sound like I am some sort of girl, but that is how it happened. I looked up to the ceiling and grimaced with my eyes tightly shut. I checked. No pulse. How could it be? I look away feeling like I was dead myself. I couldn’t bear look at her dead. I hear panicked screams of order upstairs from Allison. As I open my eyes after what seems like a half hour, I see him standing by the window. Bryan. With a stomach wrenching smile on his face. The fire inside of me is there again, but this time, I am not holding back. I kissed Calibri goodbye one last time. Ridden with loss and pure fury, I ran outside to meet him. No Bryan. I can’t find him. Then I looked through the window. Bryan is inside. He hid and went through the door I had left. He locked it. I can only watch with pure horror and rage as he twirls Calibri’s curly brown hair and walks around the living room looking at our pictures. I kicked the window and screamed, hoping anybody could hear me inside. I tried to run around the house to find any way to get inside, but it is useless. I can only watch and pray my sister and best friend are safe. I bite my lip with dread as I see Bryan spot Allison at the top of the stairs. He runs up beside her. Allison turned for Danny but found herself facing Bryan. The look on her face was of total surprise.
“Bryan”?
Bryan backhand slapped Allison across her cheek and she toppled over backwards down our stairs. I screamed and pressed my hands to the window and attempt to push it over with my fury. He killed Calibri. And now he is going to kill my friends. He hit my little sister. Bryan advanced slowly with his teeth bared like a cat playing with its mouse. Allison cried out and started to stand with her broken back when Bryan reached for her throat and held her up off her feet with his strong arms. Danny turned the corner with the phone when he saw Allison. Dropping the phone, Danny lunged down the stairs and across the room with fury in his brown eyes towards Bryan.
Rage mixed with panic forced him to attack Bryan by kicking him in the head from behind and jumping on him like a crazed animal. Bryan, momentarily letting go of Allison, who crumpled to the ground, went to reach for a gun in his pocket, but instead wheeled one arm like a club, and took Danny by complete surprise. Bryan hit Danny in the head and sent him soaring across the room into a mirror which shattered into dozens of pieces. Blood quickly pooled, and Danny never moved again. I gagged and shut my eyes to prevent from throwing up. I kicked the window repeatedly but it wouldn’t budge I wanted to crawl up to the top floor and check those windows, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away. Allison tried to crawl away, but Bryan made a reach for her throat again. My baby sister was dying and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t protect her. I swore repeatedly and jumped up and down on the pavement. I must have looked like an extremely upset two year old child. I screamed for help again. Allison struggled but Bryan’s hands were closed around her like an iron pipe. Her flailing and kicking, knocking over tables and picture frames, soon ceased as well as her hoarse screams of terror. Bryan let go of her as if she were a child’s doll. She fell to the ground with her green glassy eyes looking to the floor. We had the exact same eyes. I see my own lifeless eyes. Her dark brown hair had fallen out of her ponytail and was set peacefully on the floor where she lay on her back. Her chest no longer rose and fell with breath. My sister was dead. I watched next as Bryan looks at me with heartless eyes, puts his own gun to his head and pulls the trigger with an explosive bang. I swerve around, not knowing which way is up, and collapse onto the ground.
“Welcome to this beautiful Sunday morning. Police were called to the scene where four people were found dead and one passed out in a home last night at around twelve p.m. The murderer was determined to be Bryan Rotto, age twenty eight. The victims, Allison Corvaisa, age twenty seven, Daniel Porscho, age twenty seven, and Calibri Veleno, age twenty seven, were all found dead in a home on Peller Avenue late last night when the emergency responded to a call from Allison Corvaisa. The survivor, Sebastian Corvaisa is in the hospital being treated.
I then woke up to a room in which I am not familiar. I still remember the events of last night. I have nothing left. A nurse comes in and tells me to go back to sleep. I wait until she leaves. I get up and walk slowly to the door. No one sees me leave. I take the stairs up to the roof. This is where my endless story is being told. I think I am ready now. As ready as I will ever be. It is such a far way down.
“I will tell you in the morning guys. I promised. Wait for me”.
I close my eyes and take one last breath in. I start to tip over slightly thinking of that day back when we were all kids. I breathe out and let myself fall off the top of the hospital roof.
“We have an accident outside of the Saint James Hospital. Please send an ambulance immediately”.
“Identified as Sebastian Corsaiva. The survivor of the murder last night.”
When they found me, I was curled up in fetal position in the street at the bottom of the hospital. I had blood all around his head. However, my face was entirely different. There was a hint of a relaxed smile and my green eyes looked to the sky.
“Peaceful Dreams”, the officer said, and closed my eyes.
Indeed.
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