Heaven's Equilibrium

I left early that night. The last words he said to me were, “I’ll see you tomorrow baby, in our favorite spot, where the light stretches down from heaven.” In Gluska Forest.

This was the first promise he ever broke.

Sequoia swayed in her rocking chair with a swollen belly by her bedroom window. Night had settled in, a navy sky with slits of starlight, crickets chirping through open windows, and kisses of the crisp air from Spring’s final frost. Sequoia stared at the moon as she rocked, admiring its waning shape, and smiled softly thinking that the moon was pregnant too. Sequoia’s palm circled her belly, and she hummed to Trace Adkins, to the sound of Every Light in the House, playing on the radio one room over.

A jasmine candle flickered on the windowsill in front of her. The candlelight twitched awkwardly, as if trying to escape. The wick inciting at curt moments, each abrupt flick caused screeching radio feedback, each time reality seemed to stretch, growing thin and taught.

Sequoia watched the candle play its tricks as the stagnant air seemed to crack and fold around her, her own hum began to echo off pitch in her ear.

She felt her baby’s feet beginning to kick. The candle wick elongated, and a chunk of it flew off onto her lap. Sequoia cursed under her breath, then blew out the candle—reality returned to its proper aspect ratio, the radio revived, and the crickets once again began to sing. Sequoia exhaled.

Winter was desperately long this year. Since Mateo’s death one year ago, Sequoia’s heart didn’t just shatter, but her reality too. She began hearing things. Him. Whispers within nerves, words carried to the heart, they seemed so real. Her psychiatrist insisted that she remain in complete darkness at night to help minimize hallucinations from the tricks of light. She despised darkness. She despised how the sun hid from her. Mateo used to say he’d make the sun rise at her request, so as she swayed with the company of distant starlight, she prayed to him. For their baby. It was his—despite what her psychiatrist said about impossibility, that he had been dead far too long, that it was okay to admit to being a slut at a young age.

When humming and thinking too many thoughts grew exhausting, Sequoia retired to her bed. She shut her eyes and saw sunlight snaking through evergreens and turquoise roses. The light fell onto two baby girls lying nude and jovial on a grass patch. Her dream world grew dimmer, until it was night, until the babies were only faintly lit by moonlight and the turquoise petals were wilted, decayed. One baby’s forehead extended upward, pupils too, then they filled with black tar. Its mouth grew wide and lopsided, teeth pushed and protruded at crooked angles, and it consumed the innocent one.

Sequoia shot awake. Her breathing was labored, her body sweaty, hair matted to her cheeks. She took a deep breath, nestled back into bed, and pretended to sleep with her eyes open. The world was darker than the images in her head—the nothingness of sleepless nights seemed easier than the sting of bad dreams.

At three am, the doorbell sounded. Sequoia had been unable to sleep, so the mysterious visitor was a welcomed relief. As she approached the front door, she flicked on the porch light. It was then that she saw his figure. Mateo’s. At first it was normal, five foot nine something, average build, dark hair—but as the porch light remained on above him he seemed to stretch towards it. His shadow elongating, thinning, growing taller behind the obscure window panes. The crickets chirped in tones sharper than before, tinnitus surrounded Sequoia as the figure began to wrap around the porch ceiling, trying to steal all the light. Sequoia felt dizzy, she gripped a nearby chair to steady herself, but struggled to remain upright as the doorbell began to ring relentlessly on repeat, as if a child were ringing it, desperate.

Sequoia fell to the floor and covered her ears, shut her eyes and began to whisper prayers to her Lord. Her whispers turned to shouts and eventually she was begging for the ringing in her ears to stop. The crickets were now a pitch that stung the eardrum, and when she opened her eyes she saw that the shadow was banging on the window pane. Then she heard footsteps, pattering down the staircase, quick in thick slippers.

Sequoia’s mother quickly ran to the light switch and shut off the porch light. In an instant, the crickets returned to normal, the air and breeze softened, and all the ringing stopped. Sequoia took a deep breath and let her mother help her to her feet.

As Sequoia’s mother escorted her back to her bedroom, her mother whispered, “You know better than this.”

“I know, Mamma.”

“Then why do you keep turning on the light?” Her mother said.

“It always looks like him. Each time more than the last,” Sequoia said softly.

Her mother sighed deeply. She knew there were no words that could mend Sequoia’s longing for Mateo. And despite what the psychiatrist suggested, her mother knew Sequoia did not need more medications, no alternative medicine or experimental therapy. She knew Sequoia was of sound mind, she had seen the love, the light, that Mateo left behind. But she had not realized the horror that would accompany such a gift.

The following night, her mother dozed off early on. So there was no radio, no candlelight, quite blatantly nothing but crickets. Sequoia hummed a three note sequence as she swayed in her chair and practiced feeling nothing. Since Mateo died, apathy became her vice. At his funeral, she shed no tears though she tried. She felt like she should, like she should grieve forever. But when grieving is daily it becomes a chore opposed to sorrow. Emotion became a ghost, something to believe in and something to not.

It was best not to feel at night.

But in the mornings, when sunlight blessed her porch from the East, she’d grab her notebook and coffee and spend time with the sun writing vigorously of the emotions she so devotedly held back. She’d set her notebook on her swollen stomach and write until her wrist ached.

How do I explain to anyone else that it is only you. At night my reality is consumed by your face, your laughter, the words you used to sing to me, the rhymes you used to craft—you said you read the dictionary each night so you’d have enough vocabulary to love me right. How I am supposed to be loved, you said.

How do I explain that the world folds in on itself, that reality bends, it arcs, you are a contortionist amongst the scribbles in my head. How do I explain that no else will bring me any happiness if happiness is what we are supposed to be after. Each night I think of our forest, the lush hours spent wrapped in your sound, your rasp, your husk.

How do I explain what I have seen of you and come to love so dear? The frantic handwriting within your notebooks, the wealth in your pupils, your soft words, and the worlds you spun for me were softer than this one. Softer than you seemed. When I come home, and shut off the lights, when each night is darker than the last, shapes of you form in the nothingness. Because blackness holds all the colors, all the world, all of you. Sometimes I light a candle when I am feeling sinful—just so the false light can mimic you. Pretending feels so real. Sometimes it feels like all I do.

Gluska Forest was the lushest greenery within 20 minutes from Sequoia’s hometown. Rumors say that the forest is cursed. People say they hear the screams of those shut out of heaven, they say gravity holds more pressure there, some say it’s been scientifically proven. Sequoia and Mateo never felt any of that. Sequoia always felt that Gluska, with its pure river flowing through and sap scent, had air that embraced you the way only God could. Yes, it felt heavy with otherworldliness, but it was welcoming.

The sunlight there moved in odd ways, the damp moss evaporating near the riverbed distorted the air near the floor, it seemed to steam in technicolor light. And light here was sensitive to soundwaves.

On July 17th, about a month before the crash, Mateo brought Sequoia to Gluska cove for a picnic. He laid out a colorful serape for them to sit, then he settled his guitar on his lap. He played with a turquoise sliver as his guitar chip—a trick he learned from his older sister. He lived at home with his three sisters, one older, two younger, and his grandma. His parents were still down in Mexico, and Mateo always talked about being able to provide for his whole family, so one day they could all live together. It was always his aspiration to love more than being loved.

That day he sang Sequoia a love song, Heaven is the Sound of Sequoia. She remembered reality bending as he strummed, how the air became iridescent like the inside of a bubble, how his mouth moved lavishly.

I wish to know your sound, your favorite color.

The honey hues of pondered hope, the bronze

abrasions you hold close. I wish to know the

clementine sins of conversation, the copper

seesaws of your youth, how brunette spiders weave

tunes in the shade of you, webs of golden brown.

I wish to know how Sequoia sounds.

I'll wish to know you when I’m crawling,

I'll wish to know you on the sun,

I’ll wish to know you when He pulls me up,

invites me in, releases me from all my sins.

I’ll tell Him thanks, but I got other business,

I got to crawl on back to you. You’ll see my

light stretch like a web, you’ll feel my tune

on freckled bruises, it's my midsummer blues.

Don’t ponder why God took me now,

just know that Heaven holds no bounds.