The Staircase
by Atonia
“Aaaa-up!” Cassandra Whitfield jarred awake by some unknown cause roused in her seat; the seat that was becoming more uncomfortable day by day. There had been a tremendous crash but looking around she could see nothing that would have accounted for the jolt she was sure she’d felt.
She rose from her seat and stretched looking toward the white where no one would appear when she knocked and banged on the huge door. White because it was…everything was startlingly white and she squinted toward the door giving it a last kick she went to the top of the stairs and peered down though the white swirling mist and down through the blue swirling mist the steps appeared
“Hallo…Hallooo,” she called down the stairway. All was quiet. “Eh,” she grumbled and took a few tentative steps downward. For all the time she’d been sitting there on the uncomfortable seat she’d never once thought about going back down the huge stairway she’d struggled up a mere two days ago.
“Hallo,” She called again, “is anybody there? Speak up why don’t ya?” Another few steps and she was committed now. Curiosity was driving her downward with each step.
He raised his head from the steering wheel and shook it a few times. “Where the hell?” But it wasn’t…at least not yet.
The car seemed to be sitting at a precariously strange angle and he struggled with the door until it swung open and spilled him out onto…not quite grass…not pavement…not anything he thought he might walk upon.
The young man crouched low and looked around ready for whatever might come at him. But nothing came at him. There was…nothing. Nothing but swirling blues and grays and a fine white mist and yet it was solid enough to hold his weight.
Slowly he rose and moved around the car to see if he might be able to extricate it from its present position. He pushed and pulled and then he remembered something. He was out of gas…well no wonder it wouldn’t move. He got back behind the wheel and tried to start the motor but it was completely silent. Not even an out of gas sound. In fact there was a complete absence of sound. Silence. Out of gas…but where had he been…where was he now?”
He got out of the car again and leaned against the door feeling for a cigarette in his pocket, he lit one and watched the smoke disappear into more smoke. At least that’s what it looked like to him. His memory was sketchy not letting him know where he’d been going when he wrecked the car. He glanced around, it was wrecked all right the front end…right front fender all gone in a crush of metal.
He finished his cigarette and walked a few paces from the car…nothing.
“Hello…anybody here?” Silence answered him.
Holding on to the banister and slowly, carefully placing each foot clad in ridiculously high wedged heeled boots she took the steps one by one.
“There better be something…I don’t like stairs. There better be something worth seeing at the bottom.” The swirling mist parted as she took each step showing her the next…guiding her, if you will.
The swirling mists parted as he moved about not exactly touching him but surrounding him. He reached out a hand into the mist and encountered something solid and he grabbed onto it. It was a banister a curving banister and now he could see the stairs. He hesitated at the bottom of the stairs; took a step up and then back down.
“I’m lost…I’m fuckin’ lost.” He hit the banister with his hand and turned around facing it again.
“Anybody up there? Hello?” He called out.
Again he stepped up going up two steps this time…then three. He could see nothing up the stairs. They appeared to disappear into the nothing that surrounded him.
The reverberation from his hand hitting the banister ran up the length and under Cassandra’s hand. She paused on the stairs. “I’m coming down…just wait a minute will ya?” she called out.
He’d gone up about a dozen steps when he thought he heard something…someone. He stopped but only the sound of his own breathing found its way to his ears. “Fuck this.” He said under his breath and went back down the stairs and sat on the bottom step. There was a little element of fear that was beginning to take hold. He didn’t know where it came from but he was afraid of something…wasn’t he? He rested his head in his hands running his fingers roughly though his hair.
Suddenly he sat up straight. He could feel something in the stairs and he stood up looking back at the step. What had it been? He looked up the stairway and saw a movement. Immediately he moved away from the stairs and back along the side where he could look up and see who was coming but he’d be concealed by the steps themselves. He hit his pockets…he hadn’t a weapon. Why had he looked for one? Was he in the habit of carrying?
It was a girl.
“Okay, I’m comin’ down.” Cassandra arrived at the fifth step from the bottom. “Who’s there?”
He straightened up from his crouch. Nothing to be afraid of…only a girl. “Me.”
She jumped and grabbed the banister with both hands. “Who’s…me?”
He stepped out to the bottom of the steps. “Me, Dana Dalton.”
She released the banister and stared at him. Good looking guy dressed in a suit and tie. She didn’t know many guys that dressed like that…in fact none. She shook her head a little dislodging a few more ringlets around her face, “Well, hellooo.”
“Who are you?” He asked.
“Cassandra Whitfield. Did you crash into something?”
“Ah, yeah…staircase.”
“That was it then.”
“What?”
“The crash, the bump that woke me up.”
“You were asleep…where?”
She motioned behind her. “Up there at the top.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s up there?”
“Nothing. A big door that won’t open and a hard seat…it’s all…white.”
“What do you mean it won’t open?” He looked her up and down and shook his head slightly. Plump…too plump for the sweater and skirt she was wearing and those boots…and that makeup…the hair the color of a new penny and all caught up on the top of her head in a tight band with its black ends swaying with her movements. She looked wild.
“I mean it…won’t…open. There’s no door knob…no lock it’s just…there. I banged on it and yelled at it and it ignores me. How did you crash?”
He stepped away from the bottom step and indicated with his hand.
She came down and looked at the car. “Oh what a shame. Nice ride…or it was. What happened…why did you crash?”
“Outta gas and I don’t know what happened. Guess I blacked out or something.”
“So you just got here?”
“Yeah. How long have you been here?”
“Two days. Two days of sittin’ on that hard bench waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“I dunno…for the door to open I guess.”
“You ever been here before?”
“No, have you?”
“Nah. Tell you the truth; I ain’t sure where ‘here’ is. Have you had a look around?”
“At what? There was only the stairs when I got here so I went up. It’s a long way up there too.”
He made a sound, “You walked up the stairs in those?”
She looked down at her boots, “Yeah, so, what’s wrong with ‘em?”
He shook his head and looked away.
“I paid $625.00 for these boots.”
“You were robbed.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, you too.” He spat back.
Walking away from her a few steps he turned back. “How far does it go…this?”
“How should I know I said I went up the stairs?”
“How did you get here, why did you come?”
‘You sure have a lot of questions. I don’t know and I don’t know. It’s not like I said, ‘I think I’ll go to Mistyland today.”
He went back to the staircase and sat down. “I don’t know how I got here either. I guess I drove but…” he turned and looked back toward his car.
Cassandra came over and plopped down beside of him. “Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking about this a little. I didn’t have nothing else to do, you know? So, I think…I think I’m dead.”
“You aren’t dead…I see you.” He touched her arm, “I feel you.”
“Watch it there, buddy. No touchy.”
“Don’t worry,” he said sarcastically.
“No, I don’t worry…a guy like you wouldn’t be interested in touching me anyway.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“Suit and tie guy.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“I dunno…you’re a…fancy guy.”
He laughed, “Nothing fancy about me. So, what do you do?”
“When I’m not dead? I worked somewhere…I don’t remember where.”
“Street corner?” He raised a brow.
“You’re a real smartass aren’t ya? I think I’d know that if I did but that don’t sound like anything I’d do. I don’t think I was a bad person, ya know?”
“I’m sorry, I apologize…it’s just you look really strange.”
“So, don’t look.”
“Hard not to, nothing else to look at but…smoke.”
“It ain’t smoke. Smoke burns my eyes.”
“How long does it take you to do your eyes up like that?”
“None of your business.”
“Why do you do it?”
“Because I want to…I like it. Somebody told me one time I looked like Amy Winehouse.”
“You don’t and her eye makeup doesn’t suit you.”
“You some kinda expert, Mister? What were you a makeup artist?”
“No…I don’t know what I was…what I am.”
“Dead.”
“You really think so, think this is it, hunh?”
“Where do you come from, Dana?”
He looked down at his dusty loafers, “I don’t remember.”
“Hey, the tags on your car.”
“Yeah.”
They both got up and went to look. “California.”
Dana got back in the car and looked in the glove compartment for the registration.
“Dana Dalton, 5507 Arcade Street, San Diego, California. Hey, I got an address now.”
She leaned over the car door. “Lucky you.”
“No…no I don’t think so. I wouldn’t be here if I was a lucky sonovabitch now would I?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I guess it depends on what kind of a life you had going.”
He leaned back on the car seat and looked at her. “What do you remember?”
She shook her head, “Nothing much.”
“You remember some stuff, though?”
“Bits and pieces.” She looked at her perfectly manicured nails painted dark blood red. He looked at them too and then back at her.
“You’re not a bad looking girl if you’d take off that makeup and buy some clothes that fit.”
“Oh, yeah, and I’m fat too. I know.” She moved away from the door.
“You aren’t fat. You’ve just got a shape…like a woman.”
“Why don’t you just shut up?”
“I can do that.”
“You know why I think we’re dead? I’ve been here two days and I’ve not been hungry one time or thirsty either. I get hungry a lot.”
“Do you want to be dead?”
“No, do you?”
He leaned his head back on the seat, “I don’t think it matters. I got a feeling it don’t matter to anybody.”
“That’s sad, you know?” She came back to the car. “You’re a nice looking guy surely somebody will miss you.”
“I don’t know who. It’s all a blank…like I never was at all.”
“Have you got a wallet?”
“Something you wanna buy here?” He felt around and found it in his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “Here, knock your socks off.”
She opened it and saw he had forty five dollars. “You ran out of gas and you got $45 here. That’s strange.”
“Maybe I didn’t notice.”
“You got a MasterCard, driver’s license…no pictures. Some old business cards.”
“Let me see them.” He looked at the cards, one for an auto repair shop and one for a dentist’s office. “Nah, nothing.”
“Let’s look in the trunk.”
“For what?”
“Clues as to who you are and why you’re here.”
“I tell you it doesn’t matter.” He got out of the car with the keys and opened the trunk. There was a bag in the trunk and he pulled it over and unzipped it.
“You were traveling…going somewhere.”
“I was leaving.”
“Ah, see…leaving. That’s different from going ain’t it?”
“Yeah, yeah I guess it is.” He felt around in the bag and his hand encountered something he didn’t pull out. He zipped up the bag and went to close the trunk. Whatever he was or whoever he was he owned a gun.
“Wait a minute, let’s dump it out and see what’s inside the bag.”
“Clothes…nothing but clothes. You wanna see my jockey’s?”
“Forget it.” She backed away. “I don’t want to see anything you got.”
“Sure you do.”
“Sure I don’t. I was just trying to help.”
“I don’t think there is any help for me, Cass.”
“Why did you call me that?”
“Because Cassandra is too long and complicated.”
“Cass,” She repeated.
He walked back toward the staircase. “I’m going up.”
“NO! I mean, no. Don’t go up there.”
“Why, you said there wasn’t anything there but a door?”
“That’s right…a door.”
“Maybe we can get it open and find out what the fuck is going on.”
“I’m…I’m not sure I want to now.”
“You did before; you tried to get it open.”
“Yeah, I know.” She shrugged, “Now…I don’t want to know what’s on the other side.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I don’t know…maybe you did.”
“Ha, right. What do you mean?”
“Do you really think…if I…ah forget it?”
“If you what, Cass?”
“If I did what you said, would you think I was…?”
“Yeah, I would. Be nice to see your face, ya know? Once you take off the mask.”
“I’m pretty boring.”
“You want boring? Look at me…a guy with no past, no future, I am nothing.”
“That’s not true you do have a past you just can’t remember it.”
“Same thing.”
“And there’s no way to know what’s in the future.”
“Here? Get real, Cass. We’re in limbo here waiting for the gates of heaven or hell to open. Maybe they’re tallying us up, eh? Or maybe this is all a dream.”
“If it’s a dream we’re having the same one. Maybe we can help each other. Before you came I wanted to get through that door and be done with it all. Now I don’t. Of course you may not feel the same way.”
“Feel the same way? What are you talking about here?”
“Forget it.”
“No…tell me.”
“You’re a nice guy, a bit of an asshole sometimes, but basically a nice guy. I’d like to know you. See I would never approach somebody like you and you’d never even speak to somebody like me. I look like a freak to you don’t I?”
“A little weird. Too weird for me.”
“But if I let my hair down.” She reached up and took the band from her hair and fluffed it around her shoulders. “And if I got rid of the eyeliner.” She smudged it with her finger.
“Oh, wait. You’re making it worse.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes getting most of it off. “You look like you’ve been on an all night drunk now.”
“Thanks a lot.” She took the handkerchief from him and spit on it trying to wipe it from under her eyes.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I don’t think you’re a freak, Cass.”
“I’m a mess. I’m really messed up. All I really want to do is pop some popcorn and watch a movie on TV and instead I get myself up like this and go out to the clubs. Not that I pick guys up or anything. It’s…just for the company, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“I was right the first time. You’d never look at me in life.”
“Don’t tell me what I would or would not do. You don’t know me and if you did you’d probably run.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know…something.”
“Right now neither of us has a past or a future. What if the rest of everything was just now here in this moment?”
“You make me nervous.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know…you say things like…I can’t. I’m going up and bang on the damn door until somebody opens it.”
“I won’t let you.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“Yes I can. I can. You mean something to me.”
“Don’t…don’t care for me.”
“It’s too late for that. What would you do if I ran up the stairs?”
“I’d go after you.”
“And then what?”
“Well…it would depend. If the doors were open I’d go through with you if they weren’t I’d haul you back down here. You think I want to be miserable by myself?”
She laughed. “No, I think you want to share your misery.”
“Damn right I do.”
“So, what are we going to do?”
“We have choices, did I miss something?”
“I think we do. I remember rain. It was raining and I was running. What do you remember?”
“Sun, hot…I had the top down on the car. Wind felt good on my face. I was driving too fast.”
“Was it raining two days ago?”
“I don’t remember…yes…no it was cloudy.”
“You were probably in San Diego. I was in a city…a big city with tall buildings.”
“You were running…in those boots?”
“Yeah,” she chuckled.
“Did you fall?”
She looked to the side for a minute and stretched her legs out in front of her looking at her boots. “I ran between two cars trying to get across the street. It was too late when I saw the van.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “Sounds bad.”
“I don’t know…well I’m here so I guess it was.”
“Were you in LA?”
“Yeah, I was…yeah it was lunch time and I was late getting back. I worked in a video store.”
“Are you just remembering this now?”
“Um hum.”
He closed his eyes for a minute. “I was on the freeway and something happened to the car…”
“Ran out of gas.”
“Yeah but I didn’t know it at first. Somebody came by me, nearly ran me off the road and I swerved a little…I hit the underpass. Hit the wall. I don’t know anything after that. I don’t’ know why I was going to LA.”
“But you were?”
“Yeah, I was. Guess I’ll never know why.”
“Let’s go back.”
“From dead? Ah…I’m not into haunting.”
“No…to life.”
“I wish we could.”
“I think we can if we want to bad enough.”
“Well, you go ahead, Cass.”
“You come too.”
“Yeah, sure I will.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“Hey, would I lie now? Go back if you can. Show me how it’s done.”
“You follow me, okay?”
“I’ll follow you lead.”
They stood up and Cassandra looked up the staircase with a little smile and began walking away from it. “Don’t forget to follow me. I need you in life, Dana.”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
He watched her walk away and disappear into the mist. Shuffling around for a moment he pulled out his pack of cigarettes and he had one left. He lit it and leaned on the stairway slowly smoking.
The light was absolutely blinding and she quickly closed her eyes again.
“Cassandra, it’s Mommy can you hear me? Cassandra?”
She was waiting for him thinking there would be some indication that he was going to follow. If not how would she ever find him again.
“D…duh…Da”
“Daddy had to go home for awhile, Mommy’s here, dear.”
He’d lied, he wasn’t going to follow her, damn him. She couldn’t let this happen. He was a real person who could see the real person behind her mask.
“Dana.”
“What was that, dear, can you say it again?”
If she screamed would he hear her? “ DANA-DANA-DANA-DANA-DANA-DANA…”
“I’m sorry could someone…please could someone…she’s- please someone?”
“Sorry, ma’am someone will be with you in just a minute, we’ve got stat next door.”
“DANA-DANA-DANA-DANA-DANA-DANA”
“Whatever is going on?”
“I don’t know she came to and started screaming – Dana.”
“Dana? That’s the man’s name in the next room. Do they know each other?”
“Not that I know of but then I don’t’ know all her friends…she doesn’t live at home anymore.”
“DANA DON”T YOU GO UP THERE- DANA- DANA- DANA”
“Miss Whitfield, please, Miss Whitfield.”
“I can’t get back, Dana; you have to come back here….DANA.”
“Nurse can’t you give her something?”
“Well I…I...she’s just come out of a coma Mrs. Whitfield. I’m going to call her doctor.”
I will scream until he hears me. I can’t lose him…I can’t. “DANA-DANA-DANA-“
“Are you her doctor? She won’t stop screaming I…I don’t know what…”
“Miss Whitfield? I’m Dana Dalton’s doctor…Miss Whitfield…he heard you.”