Below the Clouds

She stepped out of the doors into the sunlight and for a moment had
to shade her eyes. It had been quite a time, the last eight months. The
sunlight felt warm on her skin and for the briefest of seconds felt
like hope should feel. It wasn't as if she hadn't felt the sunshine for
the last months, the difference was that this was the sunshine that was
unsupervised. No one would be lingering in the distance to make sure
she didn't stray too far or do something that she shouldn't.

She walked to the car that had been sitting there waiting for her since
the day she had checked into the decision she had made for herself.
Parked a few hundred yards away, she had been tempted so many times to
get back into it and leave. Now, it was there and she got inside the
familiar friend and the engine turned over easily. She eased out onto
the road and was amazed at how effortless it had been to resume her
life in those few seconds.

The drive home took about an hour and she was glad for the extension of
time. Rolling down the window, she let the air fill the inside of the
car and the smell was sweet and unencumbered. There was no schedule
now. There were no continuous education classes on the dire
consequences of ingesting chemicals into your body. There were no long
winded lectures about co-dependency, enabling, or thinking errors. It
was sunshine and clean air and rolling fields.

Thoughts crept in as she drove of the mistakes that she made and her
eyes fell on the inside of her arm, the tracks of her past still a
constant reminder. She thought maybe she'd get a tatoo to cover the
marks; something delicate and poignant, to remind her if she ever was
poised to revisit that place again. It felt like a million years had
passed since that last day and it didn't haunt her. It felt like a bad
dream that belonged to someone else now.

As she approached the city she knew that this was the final test. It
might be three or four days, but the apartment needed to be cleaned out
and then she'd leave. She knew that the faces would arrive to test the
waters and find out who she was now. It would be unavoidable. When she
walked out into the sunshine she knew she had the courage. As she got
closer to home, she knew that the sunshine would dim and the clouds
would find a way to swirl about her as they had before and somehow she
knew this time would be different.

The door slammed behind her and her feet found the path to her door as
if by some instinctual movement. Feeling butterflies dive bombing
inside her stomach, she put the key in the door and it swung open into
the past. Standing there in the place where her life ended eight months
before, she glimpsed the woman who lived there and it felt as if she
were standing on the set of a television show. Her things were there,
the ones that somehow survived without being sold for the next fix.
There wasn't much.

She went to her bureau and opened the top drawer. She took out a couple
of photo albums; the ones of her life that mattered, a few momentos
that she had managed to avoid destroying or forgetting about in her
more delusional moments, and her jewelry. It wasn't much. The smell of
the room was musty and dust had settled over everything in a thin film.
Slowly she walked through the rooms and inhaled. It was the smell of
her home that she recognized from years of living there. It brought
back memories.

Looking out at the view of the city, she caught herself being nostalgic
for a few minutes and then she turned back to look at the apartment
again. A tiny glimmer from a crack in the floor stared at her. As she
bent to examine it, she knew what it was and spent a longer than
necessary period of time gazing at the used needle.

She gathered up the few things that mattered and walked out the door.
There would be no need to tidy anything up. She hadn't needed any of it
for eight months and she had all she needed in her arms at that
moment.

The car moved out of town as if it were a seven forty seven, sailing
softly and without turmoil on the clouds. Turning on the radio she
found herself smiling at the thought of flying above the clouds. She
had no need for that now. She was ready for life below the clouds.