New Beginnings — Short Story — Fiction

If I Could Be — PART 3

by Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi

Time seems irrelevant. Everything is still. She does not know what time is. Nor do the people around her. She does not even know why she is here. Those who remembered her would say she was unique. Questions surround her entity. Why is she in a red dress and why is she dancing on the open road? Isn’t she cold in the rain?

Isn’t she cold in the wind? Is she safe? She noticed that her umbrella is flying away. Today is the day when she will change her future. The past will have to go away, locked in a safe box. She will not be able to go there and think about it anymore. It has been a long time. Today she feels free. She is standing in the middle of the road. It does not matter where she goes from here, things can only be better. Finally. It has been many years since she felt so good. Today, she feels the wind blowing, sees the birds flying, and hears the raindrops. Her surrounding creates sudden enjoyment. Can this be true? — she asks herself. Can she really be free? It seems impossible. It has been so many years since she was taken from her home, she does not even know if anyone is still there. Moments go by, she forgets what a home is. She does not know if anyone had looked for her. She was not sure, the thought has come and gone. She remembers less and less with time going by. She is young. How old exactly, no one knows. Age is irrelevant currently. She is beautiful. Feelings of pain from the past and joy create a surrounding conflict inside her thoughts. Could she start over? She has nothing. Her only possession is her spirits that had never left her. She always felt hope no matter what had happened to her. Not like she remembers. She can’t.

Headlights in the distance. She does not see them, nor do they see her. The car flew by, no one blinks an eye, they cannot see her. No one can. She does not know yet, that car and people in the car will be her future. She had been dancing in a rain for a long, long time. She had not been ready yet to move on to her next life.

The past had been too painful to forget, the future too uncertain to start. Moments go by, she hears the rain dropping. Today seems different, today might be the day when she is ready. She finally had truly forgotten her past and enjoys the present. Things still seem as real to her when she was alive. She is now stuck between the places of living and dead. All she can live for is the moment. That is all she knows. She does not know her name, who she loved and who she hated, and it is better this way. Her past was different, she is better off not remembering. She had encountered too much in the past. What will the future hold for her? Does she have one? Can she get a better life? Is there hope?

What will come next? She could stay in this moment forever if she chooses, just enjoy the wind, the rain, and the moments of living between worlds. She could also decide that she wants more and wants to experience life again. Being born, being loved, cared for. What will she do? She feels all her molecules as being part of the rain and the wind, she feels that she is the wind. She had always loved the wind. She can feel and move between the elements with an elegant leap. There are others like her, she cannot see them, they cannot see her, but they do feel each other’s presence. Somehow, they are connected to each other and everything living. Moments go by. These moments are not really just moments, time works different where she is now. It can be years, decades in the world surrounding her.

Here it comes, that feeling again; she cannot describe it, and it is gone. There was just a moment of longing, wanting something more; something different. Hours go by, then days, then years, she is still on the road, in her red dress, dancing, feeling the wind, waiting. Then there is a switch, she does not know how it happened, it just happened, there was a perfect match, a couple who had been wanting a child for so long got pregnant. They had been waiting for her and she had been waiting for them. Of course, she does not understand this, just feels the switch, she is not out in the rain anymore, she is not feeling the wind, she feels cells dividing and warmth. It feels good. She feels safe. She feels that she is a part of something again. The hope for the new road begins.

Now her story starts again. The happy couple find out soon enough that they are awaiting a little girl. Her mom wears a red dress mostly throughout her pregnancy. She does not know why, red just all of a sudden felt good, like her baby liked it. Her family name will be Little. Mom just loved the smell of roses throughout her pregnancy, there was always a rose at the house. They did not always know how the flowers got there; they were just there. People stopping by just seemed to show up with red flowers. This was the happiest nine months of her parents’ life. They had been waiting for her for a long time. They named her Little Rose. She could not wait to get out and experience the world again. Feel the wind again, feel the rain again and dance. She did not remember much, but remembered a red dress, dancing, and her favorite elements.

On the way from the hospital, as they drove by the familiar road, Little Rose got very quiet, her eyes wide open like she had seen or felt something. This would happen every time they passed a certain point on the same road as they were going home to their village. She could never explain the feeling, as she got older the feeling got stronger. She always felt she needed to get out of the car and dance in the rain. Her mom told her it was the spot where she had first felt her move, where she first thought she might be pregnant. It always made her wonder what it is in that spot that makes her stop and want to dance. Little did she know that she had been dancing in that spot for centuries.

No one know that a different world, in a different time, that is where Little Rose had lived before. It was not simple; it was very different. The only way to keep memories, any memories, from past lives is if she was very brave and helped others. She had to be very significant. She was. The spot where the wind had always blows, and the rain seemed to touch down often was the spot where she become a hero. That spot will always have a strong hold for her and the people around her. It was a very important day for a lot of people, during that time. She was their leader. She told them to go, told them to be safe, told them to be brave, not to come after her. New times were coming. She had always known from the beginning that she could save her people if she stays behind. They know her, her people are at risk if they stay. Even though they were far away, she had felt their prayers and spirits with her.

When it was safe, her people come back, they raised a memorial for her. Her spirits had remained. Her people had prayed for her return, had prayed for a great life for her, prayed for hope. Red flowers seemed to grow on the field in the valley where she was lived before. No one know how they got there, there were no flowers anywhere else.

She had to wait for a long time. It had to be safe. All those prayers, all those hopes, had been forgotten by generations, but they kept her spirit alive until it was time. Little Rose was a happy child. Never caused any problems, always was free spirited and loving to all. She loved to watch the wind and the rain, loved dance, and she always wore a red dress. Sometimes she had moments when she felt the presence of others, but she could not really tell who they were and how she knows them. Rose was smart, loving and soon become a leader in the new world and people around her trusted and loved her. All in her group, people close to her seemed to feel that they knew her, that they had known her before. She had felt the same. What they did not know is that when their leader was reborn, it was time for them to come back as well. It did not seem to matter which part of the world they were born in, they gravitated toward the small village where she was.

Even when she was little, red flowers seemed to grow in the garden where she lived. Her parents were puzzled, they had never planted them. She did not like wearing shoes. Every chance she got she took her shoes off.

The village seemed to grow quickly since Rose was born, by the time she was a young adult it has quadrupled in its size and people kept coming. People did not know why, it just felt right, just the place to be. Years went by, Rose become a natural leader in the village, and everyone loved and respected her. Rose seemed to know things, when it is safe to be out, when the rain will come, how strong the wind will be. She had never left the village for long. When she drove by a certain spot on the road leaving the village, she had to stop, dance in the rain then continue her journey. One of these times someone was there, someone she knew from the past although they have never met in this life. He saw her dance. He knows her, he knows her in his bones, he had known her before he had ever seen her, he had dreams about her dancing on the road, waiting for him.

He was the one she thought, the one I have been waiting for. She was the one, I have been seeing in my dreams. Finally, they have met, they have met again. This time centuries later, maybe, just maybe they could be happy, and their child could be born. It has been a long time, but Little Rose finally was able to live a fully happy life. She became a mother, a leader, a wife. She was loved, she was cared for and she loved and cared for others.

Centuries go by again and again. People come and go. The wind keeps blowing, the rain keeps raining. Water collecting, flowers are growing. A long time after Rose and her family were gone and the village had disappeared, the roads were covered, most life on earth had become close to non -existent.

Somehow, in some way, that valley where the village was still grass covered and remained the only area where the red flowers kept growing. The flowers lived for the day, opened, and closed every day. The flowers loved the rain, danced in the wind, and never wore any shoes. The wind just kept blowing, the flowers kept dancing. The air was filled with hope. Few people were left on earth by his time. Food was scarce, water was scarce, but some had found their way to this valley. The ones there just felt they will be safe, they will be cared and provided for. The flowers showed hope, the rain showed the future. They felt at peace. From time to time, they had felt others were there protecting them, but they could not see them or know who they were. Sometimes looking down at the field it seemed like a young woman is dancing on a road in a red dress.

GK — 2019–2020. Edited March 2021

Free Audio Files for the book can be found here

Previous chapter Part 2

Originally published in: If I Could Be Poetry and Short story book. Creative art and pictures by children, youth, family, and friends.

DANCING ELEPHANTS PRESS

Copyright @ 2021. 1st addition.

By Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi

Edited by Erika Halloran

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