Balu

Balu

by

Jennifer Brian

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

World Castle Publishing, LLC

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright © 2023 Jennifer Brian

Smashwords Edition

Paperback ISBN: 9798891261006

eBook ISBN: 9798891261013

First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC, November 27, 2023

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Smashwords Licensing Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

Cover: Karen Fuller

Editor: Karen Fuller

CHAPTER ONE

Sitting in the cracked brown leather seat of a Cessna 185, I gazed through the frosted window. Before me was Denali National Park, my salvation. From its base, the vast expanse of colossal angular rocks lay dusted in feet of snow. I chuckled at the parallel, the rise, fall, and desolate void that was my life— an insurmountable mountain range of addiction, struggles, torn relationships, jail, and abuse. As we soared over the jutting skyscrapers of misery and death, I couldn’t help but feel at peace.

Beautiful, isn’t it, a polite, plump older woman sitting before me yelled over the roar of the engine and muffling headsets. I nodded and gave a faint smile, reveling in the symbolism. How life held the master remote and could, at will, mute or blast any volume of desperation, love, or pain. The worst part…no matter how softly you whispered or how loudly you screamed, there was no escape, no control. Life literally had us by the balls.

My fingertips grazed the week-old track marks beneath my secondhand parka. Sometimes, life’s screams were unbearable, chalkboard-scratching sounds, and all one could do to quell the noise was self-medication, and boy, was I good at that.

I let my head rest against the cool window and, for a faint second, wished my mother was here. Isabel, God rest her soul, lived life on full volume, much like me. She danced her way through life, bars, men, drugs, alcohol, jail, and poor decision after poor decision until it almost killed her. That was the curse of living life to the fullest. It left her little time for anyone else, including me.

Due to her many failed suicide attempts, Isabel had earned a month’s long sabbatical in the Glendale Psychiatric Hospital. The last day I saw her before leaving Oregon, her eyes were sunken, drained. Life in her had been muted, and seeing her behind that thick security glass, hopeless and bound, triggered something in me. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be like her. I wanted to be someone else. I stripped off the superficial barriers and breathed in the noise. The screams of my past failures, my inability to love, connect, the drugs, the lies, the stealing, the verbal and sexual abuse overwhelmed me.

I touched the place on my wrists where two deep scars remained. Pain couldn’t erase emotional pain. I should’ve known that, should’ve seen it coming, but I couldn’t, so I made a spontaneous decision and packed what little belongings I possessed and drove north to Alaska. My grandmother, Doris Felton, lived in Talkeetna. I had never met her. Isabel made sure of that.

Well folks, we’ll be landing shortly, so remember, wait until the plane comes to a complete stop. Then we’ll unload from the front to the back, Dave, our pilot, jubilantly voiced through the headset.

I glanced down at the sea of white. While I didn’t have much money to my name or anything else, really, I had saved up enough to get Herschel, my beater of a van, to Alaska. It was all Isabel could talk about growing up—her memories as a child, the cold, the wilderness, wildlife, the freshness of the air. How my grandfather, Albert, died attempting to summit the formidable Denali, which was one of the few memories that remained from my childhood.

In Isabel’s brief, sober stints, I would climb into her bed, rest my head on her bony shoulder, and listen to the grandiose tale of my grandfather’s expeditions. How, with a group of four, he summited the mighty Denali and how, on the descent, a storm of epic proportions swallowed him and his team alive. The search and rescue produced not even a body or sign of life. They had disappeared beneath the peak’s thick white carpet of snow.

Bump. Bump.

My eyes widened as the plane’s ski legs hit the solid glacier. I was on top of an impenetrable sheet of ice in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. Holy shit.

The plane came to a gradual halt at the far side of the glacier. Dave opened the door and lowered the stairs. Now, be careful going down. The stairs are quite steep and don’t venture too far. Feel free to ask me any questions, Dave beamed back at us as a proud teacher would.

My mouth dropped open as the frigid air and the beautiful scenery literally slapped me in the face. My feet shuffled of their own accord towards the grey behemoths, captivated by their splendor. Had anyone ever climbed them? Ever touched them? The travesties of life couldn’t drown you out here. It was too far, too quiet. You might as well have been on mars.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. As I filled my lungs with fresh air, I listened intently, and for the first time in my life, I felt a sense of clarity, a lightness.

Want me to take your picture? I turned, and the same rotund, rosy-cheeked woman smiled back at me. I wiped the tears from my eyes and stood.

I don’t really have a camera, I shrugged embarrassingly, Just this. I handed her my iPhone 4, which, in Apple’s eyes, was a prehistoric fossil.

This will do nicely, she smiled. I smiled back. This was what nice felt like.

I took a few steps back and feigned a grin. The polite woman took a few photos and then walked in my direction. Here, you can check them to see if they’re okay.

I grinned, I’m sure they’re great. I looked at her, and for a moment, I caught a familiar fog in her eyes. She had seen stuff, been through stuff. I glanced behind her and realized she was alone, too.

You want me to take your picture? I asked as if we were already kindred spirits.

She lit up, Yes, thank you!

She eagerly handed me her dense black camera. I gulped. Now, how do I work this?

You just look through this hole, and you press this button halfway down. It will focus, then push harder, and you will hear a click.

Okay, I mouthed hesitantly. I had no idea what I was doing.

The woman trotted backwards and smiled from ear to ear in her thick red down jacket that made her look more stop sign than human. I looked through the small window and pressed the button like she said. Click.

The woman held her hands high in the air like a starfish. Click.

She then turned to face the mountains behind us. Click.

She turned and pointed at the plane. I readjusted and got her and the plane in the shot. Click.

Thank you so much, she beamed.

It’s no problem, I smiled. The weight of the camera felt like an anchor holding me to earth. It felt smooth, comforting. Looking through that glass hole, capturing another person’s life, their struggles, their happiness, dampened the noise.

I actually liked it, reluctantly handing her the camera.

You should get one, but I have to warn you, it’s an addictive hobby.

As if I could ever afford one of those or ever become a photographer. Only rich kids who had two adoring parents, went to college, or had a good job could afford all of those things.

Maybe I will, I simply responded.

My name is Betty, she grinned.

I’m Raven.

Nice to meet you, Raven, she smiled warmly, as a mother would.

Nice to meet you, Betty.

We started walking slowly towards the plane, taking measured glances at the gray and black sharp masses before us.

It’s something, isn’t it? Betty muttered.

She had no idea, or maybe she did?

It is, I uttered. It’s so quiet, so peaceful.

I just got a divorce, she broke the tepid silence. I opened my mouth to speak, but words didn’t follow.

I looked at her kind brown eyes, the opposite of my mother’s black pits.

I’m a drug addict who recently failed at committing suicide, I said aloud, feeling lighter as the words escaped my lips.

Betty’s eyes never left mine, nor did they change. Her face remained rigid, unperturbed.

My husband was having an affair for eight years with my best friend. After our divorce three days ago, I bought this expensive camera and booked a flight to Alaska. I don’t know where I’m going to go from here or what I’m going to do next. I just know I couldn’t stay there.

My mom was committed to a psych facility in Portland for the fourth time, and I got in my van and drove north to visit a grandmother I’d never met. I used the last of my money to book this tour. I don’t know where I’m going to go next either or what I’ll do when I get there, but if I knew if I stayed, I would be dead.

Betty’s eyes finally left