“This will get us there, you’re sure?” Avery asked the Captain. Her hands shook and sweat beaded on her forehead.
” Yes Madam, as I’ve told the other passengers, who are equally as persistent, this will take us to the first step.”
“The Stairway to Heaven? I can’t believe it. It’s for real, isn’t it?”
“Well, Madam Avery, that’s what you paid all your money for. This is the only ship that can take you there. We’ll arrive shortly. Ask a flight attendant to give you some pills to calm you down. Soon, you’ll never need medicine again.”
“But, what’s at the top of the Stairway? Streets filled with glitteringgold? No more crying and no more pain?”
“When we’re there you’ll know. Have faith, Madam.”
Avery looking pale and feeling dehydrated suddenly fainted. The whole idea of reaching Heaven by space ship seemed unimaginable.
When she woke up she was lying on a soft bed. There was a gate formed of pure gold and silver. Two regal guards stood nearby.
“You there, both of you, where is this? I was supposed to be in Heaven I paid a great deal of money to get there, ” Avery said.
The guards chuckled, “Madam Avery, don’t you know the Stairway and Heaven itself cannot be bought by humans.”
“But what am I doing here?”
“Quiet now. You’re in processing, they’re trying to decide about you,” one guard said.
“Decide what?”
“If somewhere deep inside you know Heaven was purchased for you long ago. If you know who bought it,” the second guard replied.
Avery stomped her foot, “I deserve what’s coming to me.”
The first guard shook his heads,” Wherever you end up, Madam Avery, you can be sure of that.”
Thanks to Scribblers Dip of MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie for hosting this week’s Sunday Prompt. P.S, for the purposes of this poem a falcon has cleverly transformed herself into a hawk.
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Credit: Scribblers Dip – Collage, Quote – Oscar Wilde
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The lights assault my eyes, as they blur past me. Vegas is a beautiful city at night. I had had a table with my friends at the club with bottle service. Slowly, I remember us drinking the vodka shot by shot until the girls had enough.
“Were done, I’m already too drunk. I want to be able to shop tomorrow afternoon,” Megan said and her friend Kelly nodded in agreement.
The other guys and I laughed and jeered, egging the girls on to do one more shot. They refused and went off to dance. After an hour or so passed, I saw them leave the club, removing their heels on the way.
I noticed my good friend Ryan had passed-out on the cushioned bench around the table, parallel to me. I continued drinking, sipping my vodka shots, determined to finish the little vodka left in the bottom of the bottle. It was expensive after all to get bottle service.
A concerned bouncer who had been watching me with deep dark eyes, set two glasses of water down in front of me. “Sir, you need to drink both these glasses,” he said.
“Umm, no. I want more vodka. I’ll pay for another bottle,” I slurred.
The bouncer shook his head, “You need to drink these glasses now sir. I don’t want you to get alcohol poisoning and die in my club.”
I sighed grabbing both glasses, I downed them one at a time.”Gees, I was thirsty,” I told the bouncer.
“I’m calling you and your friend a cab at the back door entrance,” he said nodding at Ryan. ” I don’t have to, I could just throw you out. But, I get this feeling you’re running from something, trying to drink it away. So tonight, I’ll be nice,” the bouncer said. “I get it man, but you’re a grown-up and even in Vegas, you have to have limits.”
Another bouncer came to aid the first bouncer, guide us out to the cab. I leaned on the first bouncer’s shoulder and the other guy half-carried Ryan out the door.
The cab driver looked nervous, “I don’t want anyone throwing-up in here,” he announced. But the bouncers ignored him.
“Where is your hotel?” The first bouncer asked me.
I had to think a moment, everything was such a blur and it was difficult to think. I was so tired and mad at her. Why’d she cheat on me after ten-years marriage? Why’d she leave me for him?
“Um, we’re at Caesars,” I stammered, then reached into my pocket, pulling out a wad of bills; I tried my best to count out $100.00 exactly. I gave it the cab driver. He nodded, “okay where too?” The bouncers shut the cab doors and the driver took off down the Las Vegas strip.
The lights of Las Vegas were beautiful, brilliant, and blurred. But they also made me nauseous. I closed my heavy lids, and opened them as I tried not to sleep. But I couldn’t stop myself and I fell asleep quickly.
——
Ryan was shaking me. “Come on Blaine, wake up. You’re 6’4″ and two-hundred-some pounds, I can’t lift you alone. You need to help me.”
I blinked in the bright lights at the entrance to Caesars guest reception. It would take us forever to find our rooms because the hotel was so huge and neither of us were well enough to remember where our room was specifically.
Ryan’s hands shook and his face was pale white. He ran and threw-up in a garbage can. He apologized five-minutes later to a man near by helping guests at the front entrance and gave him a twenty, and thinking this man would have to clean the garbage can up.
I was slowly, stepping out of the car, but my legs nearly collapsed and I groaned in frustration. I reached into my wallet and pulled out eighty-dollars. I could count money now at least, though my head felt like someone was hammering my temples.
“Here,” I said to a couple of men upfront working for Caesars. I gave them my cash and asked,”Help us back to my room, please.”
Two silent men grabbed the cash splitting it and they smiled at me now. “Of course sir, do you have your keycard?” I nodded, pulling it out of my pocket. I gave it to the men and they called for two other men, one whom I leaned heavily against as we made an endless journey to my room. Sometime in there, I fell asleep.
——
It was 3:00 pm when I awoke in my hotel room. Immediately, I went and threw-up in the bathroom several times before I felt better. I took a shower and washed away the smoke and putrid smell of vodka and vomit. I called room service to put some food in my stomach and help me recover. I ordered some French toast, coffee, and orange juice –two orders –one for Ryan as well, when he awoke.
I saw him lying on the bed and I tried to shake him awake. I thought he only needed more sleep. He wasn’t a big guy, so perhaps the vodka hit him harder than me.
A day later, Ryan still wasn’t up and I asked my friends what we should do.
“Well, sometimes you really need to sleep it off. We’re not so young anymore, hangovers can last two-days. He’s breathing so he must be fine,” Kyle reasoned and my other friend Maison seemed to agree. We went down to the casino to play poker.
On the third day we asked reception to call a doctor for us. It was expensive but my friends and I were worried about Ryan. He was cold and his chest barely moved, his breathing was so shallow.
The Doctor was tense upon inspecting Ryan three-hours later. “I’m sorry gentlemen, your friend died earlier this morning, about the time I was called to your room. If only you’d called sooner and emphasized how badly he was doing,” the Doctor chided.
“Ryan had alcohol poisoning so badly he went into a coma. He has no heart beat and isn’t breathing as you indicated earlier. It’s tragic but I guess you’ll understand me now when I say, watch your alcoholic intake; in Vegas especially.”
I started to cry in front of the Doctor and my friends. I didn’t know how I could tell Ryan’s family he’d passed on. He’d been the one who said we needed a boys trip to help me get out the funk of my wife cheating and divorcing me.
I remember him saying, “Blaine you need to get out and have some fun. Come to Las Vegas with me and the guys. Forget about your problems for a while. I’ll forget about mine too,” he said. He never told me what his problems were and I never asked, I thought regretfully.
Now my good friend Ryan was gone. I closed my eyes imagining lights blurring past me. It wasn’t only how I felt when I was drunk. It was how I felt all the time these days. As if I had no control as all the pretty lights rushed by.
When I did have time, I made the wrong choices. The lights were my escape, but I needed to pay attention now, to move on in my life as Ryan would have wanted. I couldn’t drink the pain away.
1. “What we remember is probably fiction anyways.” – Beryl Bainbridge
2. “It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.” – Jonathen Safran Foer
3. ” Sure you have a couple of scars, and a couple of bad memories, but then again, all great heros do.”- Ltn
4. ” Never be ashamed of a scar. It simply means you were stronger then whatever tried to hurt you.” – Unknown
5. “Everyone has a chapter, they don’t read outloud.” – WordPorn
6. “Don’t judge someone just because they sin differently then you.” – Unknown
7. ” Some doors are meant to be closed, and when you try to re-open them, you remember why they were closed in the first place.” – Life Quotes
8. “I’m a writer. If I’m staring at you, I’m not being rude. I’m trying to decide if you need to go into a book. If you’re a snot, I maybe deciding on how to kill you.” – Someecards
9. ” What Christian’s call answered prayer, skeptics call coincidence. Whatever it’s called, the more Christian’s pray, the more it happens.” – Ranal Currie
10. ” The only things you can take with you when you leave this world, are the things you’ve packed inside your heart.” – Susan Gale
If were to choose the way we go, do we decide on a whim or a calculated thought?
Do we think in rays of colours and decisions weighed upon indecisions of the past? Do we lay out a plan with direction, not leave anything to chance?
I think I prefer to say ‘ Come what may,’ and handle the onslaught of the future when I am hurdling forward on the the road of life; having planned some things, I’d like to leave a bit to chance.
To swallow my doubts, and insecurities. To ride on the edge provided that I have a safety net. Or slip over the ledge and fly in the bluest sky, you’ve ever seen.
I think that there is risk in life and you can decide all you like but if you don’t put your feet in the ocean and stand your ground as the waves crash in, you’re missing something, a piece of mystery.
It’s important to think, to weigh the scales that we must, to concretely choose to make a move, or to let the world turn around another day without interference.
We can’t control everything, we can ask all the questions and have all the answers, but if you don’t swim in the waves and look into the whirlpool, you lose; there is a special knowledge revealed there.
So squirm in delight in the first sunlight. And decide what you must when you must choose. But leave room for whimsy and a touch of moonlight.
Mandibelle16 
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