The Meeting Place

A story I wrote called Arman is Not Well will be included in a 2025 Anthology published by Phoenix Oasis Press (more to come on that), but I thought this would be a good time to post the story they published in their 2023 Anthology, Beyond Boundaries: Tales of Transcendance (available on Amazon Beyond Boundaries: Tales of Transcendence: POP, Phoenix Oasis Press LLC: 9798392916344: Amazon.com: Books )

We have all experienced some kind of trauma in our lives. I hope Olivia's journey of recovery helps heal something that needs healing. I know it was cathartic for me to write!

~~~~~

The first time I came to the meeting place I was on the wrong train. I might have noticed sooner had I not been distracted by the giant Birdman pacing up and down the coach. Nearly seven feet tall, he had a smooth crown, darting wide-set eyes, and an elongated curved beak. He was casually dressed in a long camel-colored trench and distressed brown Oxfords.

He chirped and cawed as he paced, never once making direct eye contact. I pulled my shawl over my head and pretended to sleep. The next thing I knew, I awoke alone at the end of the line and had to disembark.

The platform was quiet with no signs indicating at what station  I’d arrived. Surely, there is a ticket booth, I thought, as I walked up the only staircase.

I came to a hall with a giant tree growing in its center. It was of a sort I had never seen. The trunk was wide enough to carve a tunnel and drive a car right through it. Thick branches sprouted, near enough to the ground that if I were so inclined, I could have climbed onto them and then up, up, up! My eyes rose to the tip top of the canopy. It had to be a hundred feet at least. The leaves were thick and glossy and as big as my head. There was no roof to impede its growth.

“Hello!” I shouted.

The branches above me rustled, but apart from that, only stillness. And then, a woman spoke.

“No need to shout.”

I spun towards the voice and forgot to breathe as I saw the mirror of my own ruined face walking towards me.

We were alike, but not. She was more slender than I, her arms scarred with blackened patches of skin, where mine were a mottled montage of pinks and whites. Her face was molten flesh, arrested in time, as mine had once been. One eye was drawn downward, like a funhouse reflection. Where I wore my hair loose, covering the reconstructed puzzle of my face, hers was drawn back severely, her chin jutting proudly. But she was, unmistakably, the sister of my youth, now an adult.

“Ava,” I whispered.

“Hello, Olivia. I wondered when you would come.”

“Where are we?”

“This place? I’m not really sure. It’s just referred to as the meeting place.”

I wanted to embrace her, but she seemed too distant to chance rejection.

“Ava?  Are we dead?”

“Dead? I am dead, but you are very much alive, sister. And I have been waiting a long time to meet you in this place.”

There was a bench beneath the canopy of the great tree. She walked over and sat, and then motioned for me to sit next to her. Knowing nowhere else to begin but at the beginning, I asked, “Do you remember dying?” My heart thumped unsteadily when she finally answered.

“I do. I died in the fire.”

I waited for her to continue, but she was silent.

“How did it feel? To die?”

“Ah. I remember the fact of it, but not the feel of it. I remember the door of the shed closing behind us and the sound of the padlock falling heavily against the wood as he locked it. There was a chemical smell and I remember how the smoke came for us first, seeping through the edges around the doors and windows, how the wood grew hot to the touch and began to flicker as the fire began to consume it. I remember the screaming—mine and yours. I remember we dropped to the ground like we were taught, crawling towards the window that was too high for either of us to reach.

I nodded silently, emotion clogging my throat.

“But I do not remember the touch of flame against my skin,” she continued. “I have no recollection of pain. Perhaps I was already dead.”

She looked at me then. “How did it feel? To live?”

“It was torture,” I said, flatly. “The treatment was worse than the flames. I wasn’t allowed to look in mirrors, but I could see it every time someone turned away from me. I was monstrous.” I turned to look at her. “Mother was like a ghost. And even though I knew what he had done, I missed Father. I missed who I thought he was. But most of all, I missed you, sister. I cried so many tears for you.”

“Oh, Olivia,” she said, shaking her head. “There is such evil in the world of the living, but love creates a bond that endures past death. What else could have brought you to this place?”

“Sometimes, I wish the fire had taken us both. Why didn’t it?”

“I don’t have answers like that, Olivia, but I do not wish this.”

“You don’t miss me?”

“I miss you. Always. But…don’t refuse the gift I was denied.”

Olivia wiped a hand across her damp eyes and muttered, “Some gift.”

“Yes, Olivia. A GIFT.” She stood then, arms open to the hint of sky through the trees. “If I had lived, I would try to find happiness every day of that life. I would insist on laughter. I would demand joy!”

She spun then, twirling slowly and gracefully, like a ballerina atop a music box. Olivia was dazzled as her sister shed her muted demeanor and danced lightly to a song that was heard only in her head. But as quickly as that, she sank to the floor beneath the tree.

“Ava!”

I ran to her then, wanting to take her in my arms, but when I reached for her, she was like water through a sieve—like quicksilver, flowing and shifting and remaking herself, impossible to grasp.

“Do you see, Olivia? I am ephemera. You are flesh and bone. You contain all the possibilities that ever were. I wish this for you.”

Just then, a bird with caramel feathers flew from the tree, circling it with purpose. “I have to go,” Ava said. “But I will see you again.”

“When?  We have so much to say.”

“Do we?” she asked, rising. “This is our meeting place, Olivia. When you need me, you will find yourself here.” Then, catching my gaze and holding it, she said, “Promise me. Promise me you will really live.” I nodded, reluctantly, and then she was gone, disappearing around the tree.

The bird swooped above my head and then down the stairs to the platform. The doors of the car were open, and I walked on and took a seat. As the train pulled out, I buried my face in my hands and wept.

*

The second time I visited the meeting place was on the day I buried my mother. Her graveside service was small: no more than a handful of people, strangers to me that she called friends. The smell of fresh dirt and white roses was almost suffocating.

I was driving home when I saw the Birdman sitting at a cafe, reading the Wall Street Journal. It had been fifteen years since that first visit. I had begun to think it a dream. I’d returned to the train station many times to try to find my way back, with no success. Perhaps he could lead me there?

I parked quickly and followed him when he stood and strode into an alley of shops. He stopped at an unmarked door, then opened it and walked through. I walked up to the door and put my ear against it. Hearing nothing, I knocked twice, then tested the handle. It turned easily, so I stepped inside.

I recognized the tree immediately, but today, it was filled with the chatter of hundreds of birds.

“You’re back.”

I turned to see my sister walking out from behind the tree, as a rainbow of birds flew chaotically above. There was no sign of the Birdman.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Where is who?”  She sat on the bench, shooing a bird from beside her as I approached. I sat next to her and closed my eyes, emotionally wrung out.

“Mother is dead,” I said.

“How does that make you feel?”

I paused, in the way one does when you want to say the thing that you shouldn’t say out loud. In the end, I chose honesty.

“Relieved.”

When she said nothing, I searched for words to explain. “She was broken, Ava. After.”

“Did you blame her?”

“I was six. I didn’t understand the concept of blame. But I have children of my own now, and the responsibility to protect them consumes me. I have thought, at times, why didn’t she stop him? How did she not know he was dangerous? But I know that’s unfair. She was a victim too.”

“So why relieved?”

I thought about my answer for a moment. “Because I can’t carry her brokenness when I have so much of my own.”

My head dropped back, and I stared up at the tree and the swirling array of jeweled feathers: Reds and greens and onyx black wings. “Why am I back here, Ava?”

“You are where you need to be at the moment.”

“But why now?”

She began to hum. I knew that tune. I joined in, and we hummed together. Then we were silent.

“Sister,” she said. “We were born in each other’s arms. Our hearts beat together to the song that soothed us in the womb, even if we never heard it again in life, or in death. Where else would you be today?”

I could taste the salt of my tears. I let them fall.

“You’re not broken, Olivia. You’re healing.”

“Same thing,” I sniffed.

“Not even close. Tell me about your children.”

We talked for hours about my fatherless children and the challenges of parenting alone. She, of all people, would understand my choice. “I wanted to love him, but…” She nodded as I told her about Marc. “He wanted to move in, but I couldn’t sleep with him in the house. It’s not his fault. It was me,” and, “he tried, and then he stopped trying,” and, “I told him they weren’t his.”

She listened without interruption, and then finally asked, “Are the children happy?”

 “The children are safe,” I responded, as if this answered her question.

“Are you happy?”

I nodded, unable to force words past frozen vocal cords. I was better. I was. My scars were mostly hidden now. I had work that paid the bills and children that were the center of my world. Wasn’t that happiness?

I felt her eyes on me, her gaze warm and inviting of confidences. “I’m happy,” I said, finally. “Sometimes.”

“And other times?

“And other times is just life, Ava. We don’t get to be happy all the time.”

“I see,” she said.

We talked more. I told her stories about mom and about growing up, carefully skirting anything too sad. In time, a great brown bird flew from the tree, squawking excitedly.

“Is that—”

“It is,” she laughed.

“You have to go?”

“It is time,” she said.

As she walked away, the bird landed in front of a door with a strange marking.

I sized him up, then smiled faintly. “Maybe not so long next time?”

He stared at me with his piercing bird’s eye, then with a loud squawk, he took flight, and I walked through the door.

*

The third time I saw the Birdman, I followed him onto an elevator. As we moved ever higher, I asked him, “Who are you?” His head tilted as if considering a response, but he simply lifted his hand, with its long, curved nails, and smoothed the crest of his head.

I followed him off the elevator into the meeting place, where my sister was already waiting. Another fifteen years had passed, and the meeting place was all but unrecognizable, except for the tree. Ava sat on a blanket laid on new grass, surrounded by lush foliage and flowers. It was Eden.

She was feeding a large black crow from her hand. As I approached, it squawked, “Sister!” and flew up into the tree.

“Friend of yours? I asked as I took a seat near her.

“A companion,” she smiled.

“Why birds?  Why the creepy birdman?” She waved her hand as if to dismiss the question and I stopped her. “Don’t deflect! I want to understand.”

Sighing, she said, “He is a conductor.”

“He never speaks.”

“He does. Sometimes.”

A shiver skated across my skin.

“He brings death?”

“Death comes to all, Olivia, in its time. But he also brings life.” She sat forward then, staring at me. “What humans long for most is eternity: renewal, transformation, rebirth.” She relaxed then. “Do you never wish to start over?”

I thought about the story of my life, beginning with the fire, which would mark me in ways I could not have imagined: the pain and shame from scars that were hidden but not healed; the inability to connect; the children, grown distant under the burden of trauma that wasn’t theirs to bear.

My children. A son, whose natural exuberance frightened me, and a daughter, fearful and cautious, like her mother. I’d so wanted to be the parent I’d wished I had. But I had no idea how to be that mother. I loved them too fiercely and I didn’t love myself enough to bear the gift of failure. By the time I understood my mistakes, the damage was already done.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I have wished to start over.”

She sat silent and composed as I rubbed my hands over my tired eyes.

“I can’t fix this.”

“Fix what?” she asked.

“My family. Are all parents doomed to ruin their children?”

“You aren’t ruined, Olivia. They aren’t ruined.”

Tears spilled from my eyes to the ground beneath, and to my amazement, a vine grew where they fell, sprouting flowers in colors I had never seen. They spread over me like a blanket, and their fragrance soothed me.

“Where there is life, there is hope, Olivia. Don’t give up.”

I nodded, breathing deeply, and began digging for that well of hope.

*

The last time I saw the Birdman, he spoke to me. He entered my room in the hospice, my daughter at one side, holding my hand, and my son at the other, humming a familiar tune; one that had soothed me before I was born. There was sadness there, but in the end, there was peace. Sometimes, starting over begins at the place where you fell.

“Are you ready, Olivia?” he asked from the doorway. I smiled and nodded.

And this time, there were no trains or doors or elevators. This time, we flew.