Elena’s Hill
Grant Maher


Elena crawls slowly on her hands and knees up the steep grassy hill towards the spreading limbs of a huge oak tree sprouting from its crown. Limned like an oriental ink-painting against a gunmetal sky, the filigreed twigs and branches of the ancient tree fan out widely, ending in solid clumps of foliage. The whole effect is hypnotic and attractive to the girl. Elena’s wide brown eyes fix on the bulky dark bole of the main trunk as she scrabbles at the grassy earth, propelling herself up the slope one agonizing inch at a time. She must reach that tree.
But the pain, oh god, the pain; her head hurts like the times when she had bitten an ice cream cone. And what is this stuff? Around her nude limbs and torso what look like strips of linen bed-sheets tangle and drape and coil like snakes. Each movement is underwater slow, so…slow. There is so much resistance. And the young woman is tired, very tired.
“Don’t stop. Must not stop.” she whispers. A gusty wind snatches fitfully around her head like a distracted hand, and she realizes that she is alone. The iron sky, the gently rounded hill, the tree, and a wide blurry horizon in the grassy distance are her whole world. How long has she been here? She doesn’t know, but it has been perhaps a long time.
Wait, what’s that? A thin reedy voice carries on the wind, crackling with static and hard to make out. “Hispanic female, age 17… bummer… time will tell… we’ll get a repeat CT in a couple of…” Elena looks to her left, and sees two ghostly men in lab coats standing together. They fade in and out of focus like the turning of a kaleidoscope knob, then shred and blow away on the wind. Elena chokes back a cry. Come back!
A loud screaming explodes near her right ear. “Oh Dio! Oh Dio! Oh diodiodiodiodiodiodio…oh..dio…oh…dio…odiodiodiooooooo!”
The words smear together and ascend into a keening wail. A woman’s tear-streaked, swollen face appears before Elena. She is wringing her hands and bobbing back and forth. Her features convulse almost beyond recognition.
“Mom…Mom!” Elena stretches out her hand slowly. Her mother fades backwards and a man appears instead, eyes solemn and mouth compressed, dressed in a plaid shirt. “Mija,” he says softly, looking into her eyes.
“Yes Papa! I’m here, I’m here!” Elena tries to say, as Papa becomes translucent and disappears. Elena can’t muster the energy to think or feel. She must…get to the tree. Knee forward, then the arm and the hand; knee forward, then the arm, then plant the hand on the grass. Keep your eyes on the tree. How far is it, maybe a hundred yards? God, how tired she is and how frustrated with the fabric that encumbers her body! She tries to disentangle the confusing knots and twists in the sheets that are wound around her but they seem to grow only tighter. Why won’t they come off? Elena’s slim and dapper boyfriend Edgar now materializes next to her, and alongside is Omar, a classmate.
“Dude, you better hope she makes it,” Omar whispers hoarsely to Edgar, “or you’ll be in so much trouble.”
“She’ll make it,” replies Edgar, reaching towards Elena’s shoulder with a hand that becomes invisible as it gets closer and never touches her. “Won’t you baby? Yeah, you will. You have to make it. Do it for me, babe, do it for me.”
Elena motions for Edgar to help her remove the wrappings but he is already starting to flicker and recede. “I love you baby…” he says, pantomiming a kiss, and then both he and Omar disintegrate into what look like pixels on a video screen and disappear.
Elena gives up wrestling with the sheets and resumes crawling up the hill on her belly. Now she hasn’t the strength left to get up on her hands and knees. Even after a long time of crawling she doesn’t seem any closer to the tree. Elena sobs and shakes with frustration and the effort of moving.
“Elena, why are you crawling up this hill?” asks a smooth voice. A dark-haired lady in a powder-blue dress and matching high-heel pumps has appeared in front of Elena, and now crouches down beside her with an earnest expression on her kindly face. “Where ya goin’, girl?” she asks gently.
Elena thinks about this for a moment. “I don’t know. I just want to get to that tree up there.” Elena motions with her eyes towards the majestic tree.
“Ah yes, that tree,” says the woman. “It’s beautiful, of course. But look behind you, Elena. Look down the hill.” The woman places her warm hands in Elena’s armpits and gently hauls Elena around so she can see behind herself. “Tell me what’s down there.”
To Elena’s surprise, some way down the slope of the hill lays a beautiful blue lake, with a quay and a beach. How had she had missed it before? Shimmering and dancing as if seen through hot air, people swimming and sunning themselves on a sandy shoreline and a line of children waiting their turn in front of an ice cream stand are visible. Even though at a considerable distance Elena spots an old man in suspenders and a battered straw hat standing on the quay next to a little red sailboat, smiling and beckoning her to come and get into the boat.
“Grandfather…” says Elena. “My grandfather’s there with his red sailboat.”
The lady in the blue dress sweeps hair out of Elena’s face. “Yes, he certainly is. So, Elena, why don’t you just go on down the hill to him? It would be easy to get down there--just roll sideways down the hill like you did as a child and there you’ll be in a flash. Wouldn’t you like to get some ice-cream and go for a sailboat ride with your grandpa like you used to? He really misses you.”
Elena thinks for a long time, her face screwed up in concentration. “No, I have to get to the tree. I’m going to go to the tree now.” Elena groans and flops like a beached elephant seal until she until she is facing uphill and tries to creep forward again, but it’s obvious that she can’t do it; she scrabbles and grunts and writhes, trying to move her body, to no avail.
The lady in blue stands up straight and regards Elena’s struggle on the grass for a long moment, then sighs and shakes her head ruefully. She emits a soft snort, then sweeps back her own heavy dark hair with one hand and unclasps from her left ear an exquisite turquoise earring, heavy and round.
“Elena, I’ll help you get to the tree, but you must do exactly as I tell you. Will you do it?” she asks.
“Yes,” replies Elena. “I’ll do whatever you say. Please help me.”
“Here.” The lady opens Elena’s left hand and places the earring within the palm, then closes it up into a tight fist. “Don’t look at it; I’ve put an object into your hand. You must hold onto it and not open your hand for any reason. Do you understand? Do not open your left hand before you reach the tree or you’ll never make it. Keep the fist shut.”
“OK” replies Elena. “I won’t open my left hand no matter what.”
“It may hurt very, very badly,” the lady says solemnly. “Still you mustn’t open your hand. Can you do that?’
“Yes. I can do it. I will do it.” replies Elena.
“Good girl…now get going!” The lady pulls Elena up onto her hands and knees and gives her a nudge at the small of her back. “You can do it! Keep moving!”
The entangling sheets somehow fall away and Elena begins to crawl, her eyes on the bole of the great tree. The wind resumes with greater force and whips and moans around her. Keeping her left hand tightly clenched in a fist, and supporting her weight on the knuckles gorilla-style, she makes good progress. The object within her hand begins to vibrate and tingle like a cell phone on vibrate mode.
At last she’s getting close to the crown of the hill. The grass becomes shorter and more bristly. But what’s this? In her path lies a messy bundle of plain white bath towels lying on the ground as if tossed there by somebody. What are these doing here?
Elena pulls the towels apart, exposing what looks like a huge blob of strawberry jam. A sick feeling in the pit of her stomach warns her that she probably shouldn’t look at it. But she does look, and there is enough light from the steely sky to illuminate a little face peering up from down in the depths of the semi-clotted jam, a pale-pink face with flat watermelon-seed eyes that seem to hold secrets that its yet sealed slit of a mouth cannot tell.
“No, no, no, no…” murmurs Elena. The little face is topped by a bulbous translucent forehead laced with delicate blue veins and connected to a pale slug-body. Quaint pipe-stem limb buds tipped with rice-grain fingers and toes extrude outward. A pulsating waxy cord trails off down into the jelly. It’s alive, Elena thinks. Oh my God. I can’t leave this here. It will die. How can I carry it? I can’t open my hand…
Elena instinctively arrives at the only possible solution, and does not hesitate. Plunging her right hand into the red mass, she gropes and then pulls forth the dripping body, positioning it on her palm. Her first bite severs the waxy cord in a gush of warm slime. Her second takes the head, chest, and arms. She works her jaws hard, feeling rubbery proto-bones crunch like turkey gristle between her teeth. She swallows the semi-chewed chunks in several throat-stretching installments. Gouts of pulpy red liquid squirt from the sides of her mouth and drip down her chin. She almost gags. After a few deep breaths, she crams the bottom section into her mouth, chopping at the ragged hunk with savage grunting bites, jaw muscles aching from the effort. After heaving and dry-retching twice, the load decides to stay down.
Leaving the remainder of the mess behind in the towels, she crawls around and on up towards the tree, carrying the essential within her stomach. She rapidly covers at least a hundred yards, but the round object clenched in her left hand has now become burning, biting hot, stinging and smarting. She must not let go, and she will not. The tree is getting close enough now to see the striated details of its bark. Soon she’ll be under the protective canopy of its spreading branches and leaves.
OH, THE PAIN. Her left hand has been plunged into a deep-fryer. It is now massively swollen and bright red, with the redness and swelling reaching up the arm almost to her shoulder, advancing with each throb of her heart. Elena knows she will pass out from the pain at any time, and scrambles wildly the last few feet to the base of the tree, crunching over twigs and acorns on her bare knees. She lunges with her outstretched right hand and grabs a knobby old root swelling, and at the same moment her agonized left hand gives one last mighty heaving throb and explodes like a hand grenade, spattering her head and face with carpal bones and scraps of flesh. The flash of white light from the blast obscures the last thing she sees, the scarred trunk of the mighty oak. Elena screams long and loud, a movie scream, a scream to end all screams, and dies.
***
Beep…beep…beep…
Elena opens her eyes to find that she is lying on her back in bed looking at off-white ceiling tiles. An I.V pump is the source of the beeping sounds. Four women in uniforms are near her bedside, two bent intently over her left hand, manipulating it. Now there is no pain, only sensations of poking and pressure.
“God, it’s about time we got this hand open,” one nurse says. “She had it all contracted into a ball. And what the hell has been festering in there? There, see it? Pull that out.”
Something clatters to the floor and rolls under Elena’s hospital bed.
“Get that and put it in a specimen jar, and then let’s wash the crap out this hand. This is going to need antibiotics; there’s quite an infection here. No wonder the poor thing was screaming; that must hurt like hell. At least we know that she can scream now. That’s an improvement.”
Her companion reaches under the bed and comes up with a spherical turquoise earring. She wipes it with a tissue and holds it up to the light. “What a weird earring,” she remarks. “It’s like a miniature planet earth. Look, you can see all of the continents; there’s Africa. There’s South America.”
The first nurse snorts. “Well, someone around here has lost their planet in the wrong place, and I’d like to know who. Not the patient…no pierced ears, I don’t think.” She bends closer to check, and notices Elena has her eyes open and focused on her.
“Whoa, check this out. She’s waking up. Hot damn, we got to call the doctor!” she exclaims. “Can you hear me honey? Squeeze my hand if you can.” Elena squeezes the nurse’s hand with her right hand. The nurses cluster around, excited.
“Honey, you’ve been in ICU for around two weeks. We were starting to think you were never going to wake up,” the nurse tells her. “Can you understand me OK?”
Elena nods yes. She wants to say something but her mouth is incredibly dry. Where’s the tree? Where’s the hill? What has happened? She has no memory of events beyond a certain vague awareness of her life history. She has only a feeling of herself in the second person, as one would know the history of an actress. The room and people seemed insubstantial, wispy. The hospital linens seem to be the only real things. She notices how the sheets and gown encumber her body and twist around her as she tosses and turns in the bed. Her right wrist is tied and fettered with a cloth restraint “to keep you from pulling out your I.V.” The fetter prevents her from bending her right arm, and bothers her more than anything else. Her left hand is soon swathed in a bulky bandage.
Later in the day, after her parents, her doctor, and Edgar have visited, Elena’s settles into a fitful sleep. Nobody has told her anything, only variations on “You’ve been very sick, but we’re so happy that you’re getting better. Now get your rest, dear.” Now she is alone with the machines, the nurses, and the X-ray technicians. Late that night, a new dark-haired nurse in powder blue scrubs pays Elena a visit. After hanging an IV medication, the nurse turns on a light over the bed and props a newspaper against the inner side rail of the bed. She goes over to where a specimen jar sits on a shelf, removes a turquoise sphere, and after wiping it down with an alcohol swab, places it on her left ear to match the one dangling from her right. At the doorway to Elena’s cubicle she turns back briefly. “Carpe diem, dear--make use of the day,” she says to Elena with a smile, and then she’s gone.
Turning her head, Elena can make out the print on the paper and begins to read. A headline catches her eye.

San Jose Teen in Coma after Abortion

Seventeen year old student Elena Gutierrez lies in a coma at San Jose Medical Center and is expected to succumb from injuries sustained from an illegal abortion allegedly performed in the back room of a downtown apartment.
Gutierrez, a high school junior, allegedly had been desperate to end her four-month pregnancy but had “waited too long” according to Dr. Barry Hicks of San Jose Medical Center. “Nobody will do a late term abortion on a juvenile without parental permission, which she apparently didn’t have,” Dr. Hicks stated.
According to police detective Dale Jones of the San Jose Police, an unknown party then attempted the procedure illegally and botched the job—the teen had been carrying twins and only one of the fetuses was removed. Sepsis then set in, leading to meningitis, kidney failure, and finally coma, which has persisted for two weeks. The young woman is now expected to succumb to massive infection. “She’s a fighter, though,” remarks Dr. Hicks. “She has survived far beyond where we thought she would, or where anyone could be expected to survive.”
Incredibly, the remaining twin, a boy, clings to life in Elena’s womb. “When she dies we’ll have a double murder on our hands” said Officer Jones. “We need to get a message out there that illegal abortions that kill are prosecuted as murders and will have heavy consequences.”
No suspects have been identified so far in the case but police are questioning the victim’s eighteen year-old boyfriend, Edgar Morales, for possible leads. “This case shocks and saddens the whole community; a lot of things have to go wrong to produce a tragedy like this. Elena obviously slipped through some cracks, and we need to find and fix these cracks before someone else comes to grief,” said Jones. Anyone with information on this case should call the San Jose Police. Tips may be left anonymously.

Elena rubs her abdomen. So, I am not alone, she thinks. That’s O.K by me. That’s fine. I will make use of the day. Elena feels a prickle of joy, a tingling on her skin like sunlight, an alien but dimly remembered sensation that she thinks that she can get used to again. “Someday, maybe we’ll have a home by a lake, near an oak tree on a hill,” she whispers to her companion.