brown

A little baby, dark brown. The color and depth of handmade clay pots, filled with all the love that choosing to create garners. And still the baby huddled in a corner, crying inconsolably, holding themself. As if the break of death can be staved off with the little hands of a tiny heart.

But just like when a lovingly handmade pot breaks, their creator came to see what happened. A tall weathered darker and older woman crouched near them.

“Oh baby,” her hands, smooth now, carefully shifted their tiny pot onto their chest, “what’s wrong sweetheart?” Hortenzia, her mom, delicately switched their positions. She pulled her baby close to her, cradling them, and sat on the corner. The candles on the floor, not only lighting an altar. An old man with a hooked nose, regal, full eyebrows and a downturned mouth, surrounded by the suns flowers, marigolds, sleeping twin xolos, and bountiful candles light coloring their skin in warmth- an orange adobe, the suns hugging gold, a brown so rich generations knew no poverty-, and casting her shadow long against the wall. 

A quiet seconds passed by, the mother tenderly holding their shaking love, and the love taking all the time they needed. And all the time was given to them. Slowly they breathed, their head stuffy, their eyes puffy, but slowly they breathed better.

“...grandpa died,” they hiccupped, small fists held on to their mom, Hortenzia breathed deep, deep, “you said, he’s gone...” She hiccuped. “And he's not, he's never coming back, and,” her little eyes drowned again, like fish against netting, ready to burst. And one by one, the fish dropped to freedom, and she hid her face again.

The mom held her tighter. She knew the pain, understood the ache, she’d be a liar to say she was doing better. That the shaking of the crafted heart in her arms didn’t reflect the one in her ribs. Her own fragility was shaking. Her only living parent is gone now. A gift to him, to be reunited with his own twin star, her mother. But skies, it hurt to be left behind, it burned to have no one to be held by, or kiss her wet cheeks. And because she knew this pain, she knew the love to give.

Hortenzia caressed her head, she didn’t force her head up, to stop crying it’ll be better. She put her hand to her daughter's wet cheek, and kissed the top of her head, her lips to her crown. They breathed together. And fishes freed from their lashes down to the ocean. A freedom in a loss. No matter the intentions, or the love, perfection is not guaranteed… and sometimes people lie to make cracks less visible.

With a raspy voice she spoke again, head raised. “He’s not gone.”

Del Angel shifted, her vision soft from her puffiness, and the candle light. A shimmer in the light of the candles covering everything it could touch. She was confused.

“Your grandpa.. He’s not gone.” 

With every word, Hortenzia breathed easier, her voice clearer. 

Grandpa wasn’t dead, he was just somewhere very far. No, we can’t go there, he’s… in the sky. No, not the clouds, a planet. A safe planet that helped him walk, soothed his bones, grandpa was happy, and alive.

“He’s,” she breathed and tucked a hair behind her daughter’s ear, she almost believed herself. “He’s just very far away.”

A lot of things happen when we grow up. We don't look at the stars, we don’t watch cartoons, and we forget we’re pots too, and when we lie to cover another’s cracks we don’t remember the ones we have, and we don’t remember we can also break even more. Sometimes the lies are just for us.

Del Angel dreamed of pink, pink skies, pink planets, pink skin, elongated bodies. 

Aliens.

Her dreams weren’t angels, with the skin of stars, ready to burst eyes and tighten hearts. She dreamed of things farther away than the skies and clouds, nearer the floating dead stars, and scattered freckles of magenta, and pearl decorating the black blanket of space, she imagined planets and their inhabitants. The truths they’d hold, and the old faces she’d see.

On that day Del Angel would go to space.

She’d face space by herself, now old and gray, there was little to hold her back. In her forty-nine years she’d lived as she could.

With a stream of kindness, and pebbles of anger and disappointments, she ran her course as strong as ever. And now on her fiftieth birthday, she wanted to be selfish. Her mother was long gone, like her father, and her parents parents, and her old twin dogs, deep in earth coming to one with who we are, dirt.

In all her years, in her still gnawed the possibility of old faces, taken to space.

Times weren’t like when she was a child. She’d grown and seen other children grow even farther. There was no jealousy, just wonder. She watched clay just like her, mold into pots, and stretch. Farther than a handle, open to the wonders, turning into long graceful vases.

In so many years the world had evolved. Space was achievable, transactional. And something she could dive into.

In so many years, so many decades, Del Angel still remembered her mothers words.

Her grandfather wasn’t dead, aliens took them.

There was nobody to his name, just an empty casket, and forgotten alters. But if she could see him. If she could talk to him, and in that moment live what she’d missed. 

That’s why there's no body, honey I'm so sorry, she’d wiped her face, hugging her close. Who they are, their memories and hearts, they live in the skies. Farther than what we can see, so deep into space, the planet's gravity won’t let them go.

And as time progressed, as technology continued, and children turned into adults who learned more, space travel was possible. There were the commercial destinations, the adventurers destinations, and planets so unknown only those with an idea dared to strive into the unknown.

And that’s what Del Angel would do.

She was no mother, an aunt, a sister, a teacher, she birthed no one but had all the love only a creator's heart could have. And with a pot in her chest, crafted by her family’s love, she could bring her grandfather back.

She imagined he’d be old, she imagined he’d cry when he realized his children were away with their mother. And he was alone.

She imagined she had the gold to patch his cracks.

Del Angel’s sister watched her pack her suitcase. She smiled, and waved her away.

Watching her old pick-up truck sputter away. Felicitas rocked a little boy, lulling him to sleep, and sighed. 

“Del always was more like our mom.”

“I don’t think it's healthy,” her wife pulled by, taking the baby into her own arms, “we really shouldn’t be allowing this.”

“She believed herself too much,” Felicitas went on. Finally she turned from the kitchen window, the sun high enough the light softened from mellow yellow into an orange that reminded her of kind hugs, and warm skin keeping her close.

“It’s what she needs Marino, we all process grief differently.”

“Yes, but yall’s grandfather… he died,” Marino explained slowly, “decades ago.”

“You know she didn’t cry when our mom died… or when our dad died, our aunts, or great aunts.. I think. She needs him to bring them back.”

“But he’s gone, he’s never,” Rino paused, grasping for words, and tones that wouldn’t hurt anyone, “they're all dead Felli.”

“I know.”

“When she goes up there, and there’s nobody there. She’s going to hurt. So much.”

“Yeah.. it’s,” Felicitas hugged herself, and breathed. Sunlight warmed her back, comforting her the way a warm palm drawing circles might, “going to make her face something she’s completely unprepared for. Something she needs to say goodbye to Rino.”

Felicitas smiled, her eyes shining like glass, tears rounding over them like fishbowls. “This isn’t a search and rescue trip, baby. My sister is finally saying goodbye to our dead.”

She’d made it, she was here. A different planet, it was supposed to be everything she needed.

It was so beautiful. Everything shimmer felt like warm water to her joints. She was in so much love, comfort, ease. Nothing bad could happen here, everything was perfect. But standing on a hill, looking a piece of space in the eye, it felt like sludge over her. Slow and treacle like, it suffocated her and held her in place. It was killing her.

The sky in front of her was made of streaks of pleasant colors, blending to mimic the colors in galaxies, it’s shape everchanging. Solidified gusts of wind, floating hearts, all the wonders and beauty space ever saw.

Until she asked for what she came for.

The sky lied to her.

It refused to answer her. So she called them a liar.

And they stared. Quiet, sobering. Horrifying.

And Del Angel crumbled.

“I’ve been saving for so long. I was told, I was told he’d be here. And- and I’d find him, and I’d, we’d talk. I’d tell him about mom, he’d tell me about her, about my dad, how they met, he’d tell me everything and what do you mean he’s not here?” Del Angel rambled, confused.

“I am no god, I see no one but everything from here. But I can explain simple things to you, like death.”

And he told her the truth. Not without kindness, but not full of delicateness.

Humans are indefinable, no being of complex consciousness can be pinned to one thing. There is no ending, but death. And this is a blessing. To be everything in oneself, ever changing, without end in sight, until you are gone. You are forever. The miracle of having no definition is a precious thing- understand this. You can be whatever you want, because there is no prior you, who you decide to be in the coming time, is who you are, and when you leave that behind it is just a time you had, but now you are a layer more than that. And then you are gone.

“Your mother.” the clouds morphed into a face, the clouds darkened in shadows, a chin, eyes, nose, a face the color of crushed pearls, wet sky, and dried rose looked at her, “she is gone Del Angel.”

Del Angel froze. Even with the relief of her bones, the joints eased by gravity, and a different reality than Earth, Del hunched into herself. Her eyes grew huge, holding in them all the sky, it’s swirling tails, the floating clouds, separated by the wind. Everything she couldn’t see, the fish in her eyes threatening to escape their eyelashes.

When she spoke, she spoke smaller, her throat tight, hurting her. Her heart hurt too. Everything hurt. 

“I know,” her throat was so tight her voice came high and in whines. A child acting dumb. “I didn't come for her. I came for my grandpa.”

She drew her lips in, a realization drawing in her mind. She didn’t, she didn’t come here, all this way, all this money, all these years, to see her mom. No. It was her grandfather, to talk to him, and see him. See his nose, a reflection of her mothers. His hands, how they wrinkled when they held her hand, like when she was twenty, like how her mothers looked, right before it gave away with no more power in her to smile.

She came here for her grandpa, to see him. Not, not to bring the dead back. Because you can’t bring the dead back.

“No,” the skies spoke, “the dead are gone, Angel. This is a passage of selves we have to accept, I’m sorry child.”

“And, they’re gone. They’re all gone, and my mom is gone, and she, I can’t bring her back, she’s not in the skies, on this planet. My grandpa.” Her hands rose to her face, open palms pressing over her eyes, trying to keep it in. She’d never had to do this. Cry for the dead because she held on.

Someone out here continued. The skies, with their mysteries, held someone that could bring them all back. Each move, each angle of their body a root of everyone she needs to bring back. In her grandfather Del Angel needed him to be everything she needed to see again.

Because she knew they could be back, a sob escaped her, if her grandpa was here there was still a sliver of a chance that her mom could live on. It’s been so long, she couldn’t remember her voice, how warm she used to be. But her grandpa, if he was alive, she’d be alive. He’d continue her. And Del Angel would outsmart the cracks everyone seemed to fill with gold. She’d be the one with no gold, but that’s okay. Because then she’d have no cracks.

But this, the truth that space held. 

Del Angel crumbled in herself.

‘They can be.’

Her eyes screwed tight, drops of honey, as fat as goldfish slipped down her cheeks, her tears. Even in space that was better, and just as different from Earth. The break inside her heart cracked into the tiniest pieces; all the gold in the world wouldn’t be able to stick them back together.

‘If you want them to be with us, the skies and the wings and space, they can be you just have to look up. They’ll always be where you want them to be.’

“No,” she hiccuped, “if, if they’re dead, if they are really d-dead, there is no way of comi-” she broke off. Not in quiet sobs, in large scratched hiccups, the amber-honey leaving shiny tracks on her skin. Del Angel cried the way little children do, loud and if you had compassion for the smaller, it made you want to gather them and soothe them.

And the skies did. The swirling iridescent pileus clouds twirled their pastel self, the soft blends of blue and pink, and yellow, shifting, creating new colors and wonders in front of her, bent to gather her.

The little thing, she reminded them of pots. They were for the skies, never Earth, much less the dirt and what it could be. But they knew, they knew with skill and water, dirt could be a glorious thing. It could hold everybody, it could hold water, it could survive lives. And looking down. The small pot, shivering, and loud, with nobody to hold them. They could break.

With makeshift arms, soft as clouds, strong as space, they held her, cocooned and safe, with nothing to say, they swayed. A song drawing from their moves, trumpets lazy and loving, a piano magical and supporting, all coming together to give her a dream away from pain.

Del Angel hid their face away, too tired from continuing, she allowed the clouds to mother her. One last mother before she accepted… before she faced reality.

Drifting away the last sounds she heard encouraged her a dreamscape, a memory to see that once was true.

When she finally opened her eyes, Del Angel was on the ground under a tree of sweet. She didn't know how she knew but she did. The tree was sweet, it held all the good memories she had. And if she wanted to, she could bite a fruit. She could stay there and forever eat the fruit. But again. She knew without knowing why, but it was time to go.

It was time to go back home. Her head felt like it was stuffed cotton balls. Not dry or raspy, just full and if she was picked at she'd pull apart so easily.

Slowly, but surely, alone but more complete than when she stepped towards the sky, Del Angel approached her small spacecraft. Steadily readying it for autopilot, back to Earth, she lifted off.

She looked through the window of the little shuttle. Drifting away in a seemingly pathless space, she looked back at the planet, with its cotton clouds, its inhabitants continuing with their lives. And she didn’t get it. Didn’t understand how everyone could be left behind and still continue. Waking up, going around their day, and in their mind laid the truth of existence. The inevitable abandonment that came with loving. 

And still, she knew, living in the shadows was something she couldn’t do. She couldn’t close herself off and never love, never allow others to bring happiness into her life, to create happiness with others. Breathing in Del Angel turned her back to the planet, and faced Earth. In the large kidney shaped window, Earth laid in front of her, its misshapen round body. A familiar blue and green, coexisting together to house complexities beyond her years. And still, because of her undefinable nothing and everything. She’d add to this blanket of contradictions.

Sitting in front of the chair Del Angel felt something wash over her. She didn’t know what it was. But she knew things would be okay. Everyone she loved had survived a pain like this, and wasn’t she the strength of everyone she loves and loved. She’d be okay.

When we love the last act we do as lovers isn’t the loss of being abandoned, it's the brave act of letting go.