By Arno Bohlmeijer
“The best stories should be
about the world of a child.”
G.F. Green
“Seen through grown eyes.”
Arno
His hair is long and thick, shining, and curly. But at school, some kids tease him, “You look like a girl! What about braids?”
At first Rick thought: who cares, tough guys have long hair with tails or buns. But after a bad night, he tells his parents, “I want a change. I’ll have my hair cut.”
At the salon he keeps his eyes closed. Most chunks of hair go neatly into a box. Looking in the mirror later, he hardly recognizes himself. He blows a loose hair away and smiles.
Back on his bike, his scalp feels the wind. Is it cold or nice and fresh?
He crosses the park. By the pond, there’s a white heron, so still, as if waiting for someone. Rick had better look in front of him, though, or else he’ll begin to sway and will end up in the lake or swerve into the geese that have gathered on the bike track.
Just ahead, two young people are sitting on a bench. He doesn’t know them, but something makes him stop. One of them, the girl, is bald.
The boy next to her watches Rick stop and calls out, “What are you gawking at, do you need binoculars?”
Rick goes numb. “Sorry?” he mumbles.
The boy chuckles, “Wanna see up close? She’s as bald as a soccer ball!”
Rick’s legs almost give way, and his bike falls on the grass.
“Never mind, man, I was joking,” the boy says.
“We often make jokes, clever or silly,” says the girl. “Sometimes that helps when we’re scared or angry. It’s the cancer in me, and people staring at me as if I’m a freak.” She pauses. “But you were not leering, were you? You stood there and looked at me square! Do you always smash your bike like that?”
“Sorry,” he mutters.
“No worries. I’m Vivi. And you?”
“Rick.”
“And my name is Lee,” the boy says.
Vivi wipes her forehead. “And this bitch is called leukemia. Cute name for a blood disease, right?”
Uneasy, Rick watches a gull fly overhead, shrieking when geese are given bread.
“Come and sit, Rick,” Vivi says.
As she doesn’t move to make space for him, he can’t but sit close, while she says, “You won’t get cancer from me. It’s not contagious.”
Rick tries to look at her in the eye. “Can you not get new blood?”
“Yes, a transfusion. And surgery.”
“Will you get better, then?”
“Maybe. It doesn’t always help for leukemia.”
“What if it won’t help?”
“Then I’ll die. It’s okay, I’m used to the shock that people feel when I say it like that.”
Rick swallows. “Aren’t you scared?”
“Well, I was so scared that I froze, as if my blood became ice. And when it melted, I was a waterfall.”
“Me too,” Lee says, “just a flood of tears.”
Rick thinks the wind is picking up. He looks at the oak tree, but its leaves are rustling gently.
“And then?” he asks.
Vivi reaches and catches a floating leaf. “I asked around, and I heard, learned, and felt all sorts of things. Now I know that death itself is nothing, I mean, literally, it’s nothing. What comes after, must be much bigger. Look, I’m like dead already, or have been, really, and yet you’re here with me. Now I know you. That’s how it will be later, on a larger scale – as large as life. After death it must all be new.”
“How can you tell?”
“Well, the blood and heart and brain die, but there’s no end to feeling, right? No limit, no end. Feeling is not even visible, not as such, so how can it die?!”
“Beats me,” Rick says.
“Exactly, I wouldn’t know either. It’s too good to be untrue, or to disappear. So, I’m curious to know what’s going to be new – for good. I feel ‘nearly new’ already, because I’ll know a heap more about what’s next.”
“You’ll just find out sooner than we will,” says Lee.
“Yeah, sorry,” Vivi says, “whenever I’ll be dead, I won’t miss people anymore, so for you it’s tougher, because you will be left behind.”
“Alright, Viv, when or if you’re first, I hope you’ll send us a message.”
The three of them ponder that for a moment, wondering what ‘message from heaven’ could be real? What kind of sign could it be?
“In any case,” Vivi says, “it will be something uplifting. And no coincidence. Or…” she ponders that point a bit more, “Sometimes a coincidence is so striking it’s more like a token.”
A man walks by, turning to stare at Vivi. When she waves at him, he hurries on.
“I can’t stand that,” she says. “It’s normal for people to look, we all do, but why not say Hi, shake hands, or smile, or cry, or even give a wink! Next time when somebody gawks at me, they’ll trip over your bike, Rick.”
“Oh no…” Rick stands up. “How long have I been here? My family must be worried about me.”
He makes for his bike but hesitates, turns around and asks Vivi, “Don’t you want a wig?”
“Sometimes, yeah,” she says, “but it can itch or tickle, or look phoney, so it needs to be cool.”
“Sure. Like a wicked Rick-wig, made from real hair?”
“Wow, that sounds blitz, especially for the outdoors. Nice and warm in winter. And I love dressing up!”
“Okay,” Rick says, “I’ll get you one. Bye!”
“Good,” Vivi says, “I’ll book this bench for ever. But when the beech tree turns all yellow-goldish-orange, overnight, I’ll be somewhere else, or everywhere.”
After a second, Rick says, “I’ll remember, so you’ll be with me too.”
“Yes, please. And if a tree stays yellow-goldish-orange, then you’ll need glasses.”
“Terrific,” Lee calls out, “mysterious and beautiful! We won’t get glasses but leave it that way.”
With a smile, Rick picks up his bike, rides and waves, almost losing his balance.
“Hey, stay on your feet, or wheels,” Vivi says. “And mind that goose! Tonight, go to sleep late and watch the moon; it’s new too.”
The end,
or is it?
Arno Bohlmeijer is the winner of a PEN America Grant 2021, a novelist and poet, writing in English and Dutch, published in six countries (US: Houghton Mifflin) in two dozen renowned journals and reviews, 2019 – 2023, and in Universal Oneness: Anthology of Magnum Opus Poems from around the World, 2019.