Blood Oranges

Elizabeth awoke with a start, sitting straight up in the bed. She slowly looked around the dark room and attempted to get her bearings. She could find nothing amiss and could not understand what had awoken her. She got up from the bed and continued her search of the room. She could find nothing amiss.

She layed back down on the bed and tried to calm her racing heart. Her breathing was still quick and ragged. She could not shake the feeling that something was just not right and no matter how hard she tried she could not calm herself.

After tossing and turning for what felt like hours, she finally decided that the sleep she desperately craved just wasn't in the cards for her tonight.

She got up and walked towards the bedroom door, yet with each step she took the door moved further and further from her reach. In a stupor she turned back towards the bed and it looked as though it were at the end of a long, narrow hallway.

Suddenly she felt hands on her shoulders from behind. She craned her neck trying desperately to see who was holding her, but the hands only gripped harder and began to spin her round and round. Faster and faster she turned, her began reeling, but she could release the grip.

"Who are you?" She asked. The only reply was the continual spinning.

"What do you want." No reply.

"STOP!" she screamed.

Elizabeth sat straight up in bed, panting covered with cold, clammy sweat. She sprang from the bed and ran to the bedroom door, grabbing the handle and jerking in open. She ran down the short hallway leading to her living room. She stopped behind her ratty couch and placed her shaking hands on the back of it. She hung her head, her mind was swimming, her pulse racing. She concentrated on her breathing, just as she had been taught in the lamaze class she and her husband Jack had been attending.

After a few moments, the breathing techniques began to work. She could feel her whole body calming. She walked around the couch and sat down. She could feel the baby kicking vigorously. She began making slow circles on her very pregnant belly.

"Calm down little one, it was only a dream."

She felt the baby slow and then lie still. She looked out the large bay window in the living room.

"Still dark, Daddy should be home soon." She said and the baby seemed to respond, because she could feel him shifting.

She leaned back on the couch and tried to make sense of the strange dream, but all the images were fuzzy and she couldn't recall a single detail or why it had frightened her so much.

Still feeling uneasy, she decided that sleep was something that she did not want to attempt. She picked up the remote from the rickety coffee table and flipped the television on.

"Well not much to pick from, but that's what you get with basic cable." She aloud to the room, talking seemed to help calm her more, as if she could pretend she wasn't alone in the house.

She awoke with sunlight falling across her face. She stretched lazily and raised up to look at the clock and discovers she is in a room she's never seen before.

She quickly jumps up and looks down where she was laying. It was a beautiful ornate bed very low to the floor. The bed looked as if it were carved from diamonds and catches the light beautifully sending colors dancing across the room.

She slowly surveys the room and although frighted to be in unknown surroundings, she cannot help but be impressed by the exquisite surroundings.

The walls themselves look to be made of gold with precious gems and pearls inlaid into it in intricate patterns. She looks up and finds that there is no ceiling and the sky instead of being blue is the most lovely shade of turquoise. She turned slowly around and directly behind her the wall was missing. In its place there were large columns, made of what appeared to be sapphires. She walked toward the opening and looked out.

Outside she could see a beach of sand so white it looked like flour. She walked down for a closer inspection and found it was as soft as silk. The water that met the shore brought to mind windex, it was the most unusual blue. All around her she was surrounded by beauty she had never dared to dream.

She sat down slowly on the sand and reached down to touch her stomach and found it completely flat. Panic rose inside her. She heard laughter coming from up the beach, but when she turned to look saw nothing.

She then felt a small hand on her bicep, she turned jumping and was amazed. There before her was the lovliest child she could ever remember seeing. The little boy appeared to be around three and had large blue eyes that seemed to take up more that half his face. He had sandy blonde hair that stopped right above his shoulders, it was streaked like he had spent too much time in the sun. His skin was a coppery brown. He was smiling at her with a lopsided grin.

"You slept for a long time." He said in a sweet, angelic voice.

"What do you mean? Where are We?" Elizabeth asked feeling a strange calmness wash over her.

The boy let out a squeal of delight. "We're home mommy."

The man stood looking down at the gurney, the women who lay before him was still as beautiful now as she had been when he had met her over fifteen years ago.

"That's her, that's my wife Elizabeth." He replied with strain obvious in his voice.

The investigator explained what had happened. It seemed a drunk driver had struck her car from the side after running a stop sign causing her car to spin out of control. They believed that she and the baby were killed instantly.

"Do you have any idea where she would have been going so late, Mr. Lawrence?" The investigator asked.

"Yes, I found a note when I got home from work this morning. It said she was going to the all night grocery to pick up some blood oranges. She had been craving them constantly after she became pregnant."