Sanibel Scribbles by Christine Lemmon Read Free Book Online Page B

blue eyes.
    “ Hola , Vicki. I’ve got a Heavenly secret to share with you. Dreams not fulfilled on earth can still be fulfilled,” echoed her friend, and then, in an instant, as if someone shook the Etch-A-Sketch, she vanished.
    Vicki sat up in bed, staring at the foot of her bed like a magician staring confidently at her magic hat, awaiting the reappearance of a rabbit. “Rebecca,” she called out. “Please come back. Don’t go. I heard what you said, but tell me more. I need to hear more. I’m scared. My grandma died, and now you. Does death really strike in threes? Who next? Could it be me?”
    She waited and listened, realizing no magic word would make Rebecca reappear. As much as she did or didn’t believe in what she had just seen,she still felt thrilled to have had the perceived, and perhaps real, experience of seeing her friend moving and talking once more. She felt honored and wanted to memorize everything she had heard and seen. How could it be? Had Rebecca really visited her there in the room? Had she crossed the life-death barrier just to deliver that message?
    She soon wanted to fall asleep so she tried talking to her arms and legs, urging them to relax, but there is nothing more boring than talking to a body part, which is probably why the activity puts a person to sleep in the first place. After a horribly dull conversation with her toes, she gave up. There is a time for everything, or there should be, so Vicki declared night her time to mourn.
    Her mourning began the next night. As she lay in bed at eleven forty-five, she envisioned herself and Rebecca finishing up their list of goals on the paper tablecloth at Till Midnight. Still awake at midnight, she analyzed age, and how so many things had gone unfinished in Rebecca’s life. At one o’clock, she resented heart attacks for sneaking in and robbing her friend and her grandmother of life, while they slept. She felt angry at death, the disgruntled gunman randomly opening fire.
    No, death chose Rebecca, and it chose Grandma. They must have been carefully selected for some holy reason. What is it the very devout say? It must have been their time . And just as there is a time to be born and a time to die, Vicki decided there was a time to climb out of bed, and to forget about falling asleep.
    At two o’clock, the irony of life haunted Vicki. Half of life is spent looking forward, counting down to holidays, vacations, and weekends, while the other half is spent pondering backward. But if she didn’t let herself reminisce, things she once loved would die. At three o’clock, she promised herself that from this day forward she would start living for the moment. At four o’clock, she cried for Rebecca’s family and their lost time together.
    She tried counting sheep but instead turned to counting the number of antacid tablets she had given Rebecca. It must have amounted to a full bottle within a one-month span. She felt psychic as she watched each orange-glowing second tick by. I knew it would turn 4:46 at that exact second , I knew it! I knew it would turn 4:47 when it did!
    After getting a tension headache, she covered the clock with a shirt. She envied others on the island for sleeping soundly. Why couldn’t she, too, fall asleep? Why wouldn’t she? She felt alone, lonesome in a world of sleeping people. She focused on her breathing, and then suddenly it changed. Perhaps it changed because she now thought about her every breath. She skipped a breath and her breaths sped up. She tried to slow them down again, and felt in need of an extra breath but couldn’t catch one. As the hours passed, Vicki was becoming preoccupied with her own breathing and her own death. She felt a lack of air, as she had in the car on the way home from the airport. She didn’t know why she couldn’t catch her breath, or why she was now hyperventilating.
    She quietly got out of bed and, still wearing her nightgown, walked out the front door of the condominium. She walked