Boarding school

Unfortunately, this is going to be a post about a dream I had, with all its random bits and pieces, instead of a story based on a dream. But I have to get it out of my head, because it's stuck there.

The setting: Early-to-mid 20th century, Europe.
The scene: A boarding school for boys and girls (whom were separated, of course.)
The season: Deep winter, cold as fuck.

I was riding along in a large horse-drawn coach with many other children. All of the children had identical satchels with them. Brown leather, shoulder strap, just enough room inside for a couple of small books and maybe some writing paper. Mine was the only one that was different. Someone (I presume it must have been one of my relatives) had embroidered a beautiful blue swallow on the front flap. In fact, it looked a lot like
this, but the bag was brown.

Some kids started making fun of my "purse." It was then that I realized I was a boy, and boys just don't carry satchels around with pretty little birds on them. I have several theories as to how I came into possession of this bag. Perhaps it was a hand-me-down from an older, female sibling, and my parents couldn't afford a new bag. Perhaps a grandparent lovingly embroidered the swallow without regard to the possibility of jeering from the other boys.

At any rate, I shoved the satchel next to me and towards the wall of the coach so no one could see it until we got to the school. We were all wearing identical burgundy coats, the girls' coats cinched at the waist, and the boys' tailored (more or less) like a suit jacket. We all filed into the school where there was a large gymnasium with tables set up to check off our names and write down our parents' professions. I did my best to hide the swallow the whole time, but inevitably, one of the boys started mocking me for it.

At that point, a great brute of a woman wearing her hair in a bun wound so tight it ironed out all her forehead wrinkles, wrenched me out of line by my arm. She talked in another language, but I remember it in English because, in the dream, I could understand her and everyone around her. She snatched the satchel from me, informed me that it was not proper school attire for a boy, and told me I would be made an example of.

Once we finally all signed our names, we were split up- girls on one side of the gymnasium, boys on the other- and we were all taken to our designated classrooms for our first lessons. I wondered when the promised retribution for my "non-regimental" bag would come. Soon after sitting down in a seat that was so small and termite-eaten I thought it might buckle beneath my weight, the lady with the bun took me out of the classroom. We went up several flights of stairs, and we finally reached the door to the roof.

"Give me your coat," she said. I hesitated. "NOW!" she screamed. So I gave her my coat. My punishment was to remain on the roof in the cold winds and snow for as long as she saw fit. Now, this is where the dream really jumps the proverbial shark. In order that I not try to climb down the building and run away (where the hell would I go? The school was many miles' walk from anywhere) there were machine guns trained in a line of fire just inside each gutter. "And don't get too close to the edge," said evil teacher lady, "because I don't want to have to interrupt your parents' work day to announce your death." Then, she left, and the grey metal door closed behind her.

It was screamingly, paralyzingly cold on the roof, and with only my uniform shirt to keep me warm, I wondered if I would die up there. Then I spotted a strange structure, sort of a geodesic dome that looked like it had once been a greenhouse of some kind. Some of the triangular sections of glass were missing, but it still created something of a windbreak. I curled up in the tiny snow-free area inside the dome, shoved my hands into my armpits, and prayed.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where that dream ended, or, rather, morphed into something entirely different. Yet, some memory of the first dream lingered in the next one, and I was at some sort of summer carnival near a blocky, non-descript building that looked suspiciously like the school. It was falling apart, now. Then I realized I had my satchel back. The last thing I remember before waking up was rummaging in my satchel to find my mobile, because I was convinced, somehow, that I had taken pictures of the whole ordeal and I wanted to show them off to my friends. (I guess I must have survived.)

The rest of the dreams I had were the usual child-abuse flashback dreams, and I really don't feel like writing about those.

Valkyrie

Sometimes, I wake up with a story in my head. Until now, I haven't been writing them down. Typing them down. Whatever. Today I'm going to change that. This story is an embellishment of a dream I woke from moments ago.

Someone's time was up. I knew who it was, and that he would die on my watch. It was hardly an unusual occurrence at a nursing home, but, being what I am, I could always feel it. I had to be careful. Always knowing when someone was going to die could draw suspicion that I might be chemically assisting their passings. So, most of the time, I didn't give the residents any special attention on the days of their deaths. I just muddled along, business as usual; handing out meds, checking vitals, dressing wounds, wiping butts -- the stuff nurses do at places like this. Sometimes, I would help prepare the bodies for transport to the next destination.

Other times, I'd prepare the souls.

"Caleb hasn't been responding since this morning," said Bethany, one of the nursing assistants. "His vitals are okay, but it's like he's checked out. We've been keeping an eye on him."

"Thanks, Beth," I said, setting my back pack and my coffee down at my nursing station. "Have a good night."

"You too," said Bethany, leaving through the back door as the alarm spat out a cautionary "beep".

My two aides were already on duty, doing between-shift rounds. Third shift was always blessedly quiet. No visitors. No meals. No wheelchair traffic jams in the elevator. No screaming, usually.

I waited most of my shift before going to Caleb Albrecht's room-- 205B. The TV was on, and the wizened old man was slumped in his wheelchair, staring into space. I tsked at my aides, who should have put him in bed hours ago.

"Caleb," I said, shutting off the TV. "Time for sleep, sweetheart."

He was so light, a mere shade of the man he must once have been, that it was no trouble for me to lift him into bed myself. (Totally against protocol, but we were so understaffed that if I didn't go against protocol at least twice a shift, nothing got done.)

As I expected, his blue eyes met mine soon after I tucked him in. "Wait," came a soft, ragged voice.

And wait, I did, because I could not have moved if I'd wanted to. It wasn't in my job description. My real job, I mean.

Some call us Angels of Death. Others call us Valkyries. Most don't call us anything at all, because they can't see us for what we are, or don't want to. (I can tell you that we're not Angels. Angels are terrifying, beastly creatures who only appear as beautiful to those for whom they have a message. They are beings unto themselves, and they're often rather haughty, unsociable fellows.) Valkyries can come from any race of beings, including humans, and our job is usually pretty simple. We're the Choosers of the Dead. We often end up working in places like nursing homes and hospitals, and more than a few of us are in the military.

You might think we only flutter around battlefields, hoisting the fallen to our bare bosoms to take them to Valhöll. Well, um, I've never done that, and Valhöll isn't the popular destination it used to be. Truth is, the Chosen get to go to whatever version of the Afterlife would make them happiest, and we take them there.

So, to clarify: I am completely human, but Chooser is my job description, and I'm not naked. Usually.

On this occasion, the Chosen was Caleb Albrecht, a World War II veteran with two purple hearts and a battle scar he loved to show off to the younger female carers here at Amber Acres. He smiled toothlessly, and I smiled back.

"You here to take me?" he asked.

"Take you where?" I countered, speaking merely as a nurse.

Caleb grew silent for a moment, squinting hard as he looked at me. "Yer wings are showin', doll," he said, winking a blind eye.

"Say the Word and we'll blow this joint," I shot back, in his vernacular.

"The word? Oh, yes... the Word," said Caleb, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I was told never to tell St. Peter'imself that Word."

"Do I look like St. Peter?" I asked. "C'mon, it's part of the deal. Then we can go. Your wife's waiting, and so's Whiskey Tango." Whiskey had been Caleb's loyal dog for seventeen years.

"Well, all right," he said. "The Last Word I'll ever say."

To anyone else, Caleb's Word would've sounded like a string of unintelligible syllables, the babblings of a demented, dying man. To my ears, it was a sweet, harmonic note that froze time for all but the two of us...

A minute later, I covered his face with his favorite blue quilt. I walked down to the nurse's station, and made the call.