Delya

Story Copyright ©1999 n.vélez

An interior monologue.

"They’ve brought me here. Though I don’t know why. Could it be possible that they think-"

Shakes her head. "No, they wouldn’t know."

Now we realized that there is another in the room. Visible only to the one talking. "You have been so kind to me Michelle. I wouldn’t know what to do if it weren’t for you." A pause. Then a small laugh. "Yes, I know. Isn’t it funny how they act. You would think that they were-" The sound is muffled and then cut off. No more is heard.

The light is dimmed slightly. A young girl –16 or so in age- is sitting at a well polished rectangular table. Next to her is a bag that contains her most important material things. The rest were inside. She starts to examine her hands and speaks to her companion at the same time.

"Don’t you think they make me look older. Well I think so. See the wrinkles…They are not imaginary! Well, they could be caused by the rings. I suppose so." She sighs. "Can you believe it Michelle?! Finally, they are long enough. Not that I can play. Whatever." She quickly dismisses the thought as if it had no place in her mind.

The light is now no longer. Nodding her head in acceptance, she is not surprised when a door opens, bringing with it a blinding flash of white light. She passes a hand over her heavily highlighted hair, the light bronze streaks shimmering. After making sure that it is all in place, she checks her clothing and then stands up.

"Have you come to take me?" she asks. No answer is given. Instead a young man takes her arm and leads her outside.

"So, what do you think?"

"It’s a very interesting case doctor. Though I fear there is not much I can do."

"Of course. You are one of the new students. We’re not really expecting a lot from you."

"I can take it. I just don’t see how I can help."

"Oh, you’ll help. No need to worry about that."

The door is closed after her with a soft thud. She turns around, inspecting the room. Her name is clearly printed in gold lettering above the bed. DELYA SANDOVAL. At least they spelled it right. The gold color was pretty also. Suddenly feeling tired she lies down on the bed. Totally unaware that her friend is no longer with her.

Upon waking up she finds herself no longer sweaty. Refreshed one might say. Her face felt clean and her clothing, obviously looking slept in, did not smell. Standing up she finds a small door leading to a bathroom. No shower, just a toilet and sink. How weird. Most weird. Whatever.

The halls were painted white and as I passed them the smell of sanitized air entered my nostrils. Everything seemed fake. The smiled, the greetings, even the white suite I was wearing. Technically it felt more like a costume. The sound of all the shoes that passed by me seemed to be making a rehearsed, mechanized song. And that seemed most annoying to me.

"Delya Sandoval. Am I right?"

She lifts her big brown eyes to face my blue ones. Though her face seemed expressionless I had the feeling she was saying: "Well, what do you think."

"OK," I continued. "My name is Gary. It’s very nice to meet you."

She nods her head. At least she responded, I thought. Considering that she didn’t speak to the others at all.

After a flood of questions I began to get tired. Personally, I think that the girl was playing a game with me and seemed to be having fun.

"There is not much to tell," she had a weird accent that I couldn’t quite place.

"I can see that you are getting tired. Let’s make this easier for both. Leave me alone and you can return to your work."

"You are my work!" I responded angrily. "So you see, there isn’t much I can do."

She looks at me –or better- past me. "All right. Do you mind if I say something to my friend first?"

Expecting her to start speaking in some weird language I waved my hand carelessly. After a minute or so she turned to me. "We are alone now."

Surprised, I looked up. Never did I see anyone else. Suddenly a thought entered my mind. What friend? I was certainly confused. Apparently it showed on my face for she smiled and spoke.

"I don’t think you can see her. Especially when she’s not here."

I slowly nod my head, "ok, I think I get it. She’s inv-"

The sound of a loud horn broke through the silence. Two men came inside and ushered me out.

"So," I began, "tell me about yourself."

"What do you want to know?"

"Anything. Anything at all. Your friends, family, your likes, dislikes. Whatever you want."

"There is nothing I want to say. And what I want does not really matter."

I look down at my notes and try to think. The information needed to start a conversation I already had. I knew about her family, where she cam from. She was right. There really was nothing to say. There has to something! Think, man.

Lame, but I’ll try anything. "What’s your favorite color?"

"My favorite color?" she repeats, sort of shocked. "It’s blue. Though I wear a lot of dark green and black, sometimes khaki or white."

"What type of music do you like?" I continued.

Her eyes seemed to sparkle momentarily but it was gone as soon as it came. "Music." She lingered on the thought, tasting it in her mind. "There’s not really a specific type. Just about anything with a guitar driven sound. Of course, they have to know about music. Be real musicians. Not just guys who play guitar, drums, bass, or piano. Trumpets, saxs, and trombones are ok too."

She seemed to be describing a type of music, which was no longer heard. At least, not openly. I think my grandparents used to hear it but I couldn’t remember clearly. I can remember the 6-string instrument my grandpa had which I believe was a guitar.

"What type do you like?"

I was caught of guard by her question and stammered as I thought. "I don’t really listen to it much. There’s not much out there that is pleasing to my ears."

Suddenly the room turned bright white and I was again ushered out.

"You’re going to have to give me more time." I was angry. "Everytime I finally get a conversation going these two dudes walk in and take me away. I’m not the patient here."

"You were given the assignment to study her. Not converse."

"What do you want me to do? Interview her? Ask questions about things we already know. This girl has something- something I can’t place, but there is something. And by sitting there asking stupid questions I’m getting no where."

I stared at the Senator. She just stared back. "All right. Do what you want."

After five sessions I was still getting no where. Besides, the enthusiasm she had previously showed was gone.

After a monetary silence she spoke up. "You have never experienced it?"

"Experienced what?"

Her eyes opened wide. "Music."

"No, not really."

She nodded her head, reached for her bag and took out a large circular item. Thinking she was going to show me, I eagerly leaned forward. Instead she connected some earphones to it and then placed them on her ears. After that she no longer spoke to me. This time it was I who got up and left the room.

It was very dark. A solitary patch of yellowish light shone upon her. "I’m getting tired Michelle. I want to go home. You’ve been there. Tell me what it’s like?"

"Come on. Don’t disappear like that." She slumps down on the chair. "Thanks a lot."

The door opens. She sits up straight. But instead of the young man who had been there previously a strange old man walks in.

"Miss Sandoval? You are to come with me."

Delya curls her feet around the chair. "Where’s Gary?"

"Gary?" The doctor looks confused for a moment. "Oh yes. He’s gone."

"Gone!" alarmed, Delya stands up.

"Yes, gone. Now come this way."

The darkness was unbearable. All sense of time had been lost, the sense of direction along with it. Delya no longer knew where she was. Or what she was doing. Or who those people where. Who she was and where she came from she knew, but that was about it. The door opened and a person walked in. Delya didn’t even look up. She just continued to make invisible circles with her finger. But for some reason she knew who was there for she spoke.

"She has gone away. I don’t know where. She’ll most likely not come back."

Her voice carried a sad tone that was not there before. It used to be quiet, soft, but interested, alert. Now it was just sad. Even her accent was gone.

"Delya, do you remember me?" I asked her.

"Yes, I remember you. The young man who kept me entertained. Like an angel. They told me you had gone away, so I am surprised to see you. Surprised but pleased."

She seemed older all of the sudden. Not just mature but older. Quietly, I sat in front of her.

"Tell me. Where did she go?"

She looked up, "she went home. I am alone now. Just me and my thoughts like it used to be before Michelle came to me."

"Michelle was the friend I couldn’t see, right?"

"You could see her if you had tried. It doesn’t matter now anyway. She’s gone."

Turning to face me completely she asks, "how old are you?"

"I just turned twenty," I answered. "Why?"

"Are you married?"

"No," I was certainly confused.

"So why is a guy who just turned twenty and isn’t married working at a place like this? Don’t you have any friends?"

"I have some friends. They just aren’t into the same things I like."

"You like to interview people?!"

"No, I like studying the human brain."

"So I’m an experiment."

"Of course not!"

"If am not then explain to me some things. Why am I here? What is this place? I think they told me but it’s not as if I can remember. Where is my family? What happened that I ended in here anyway? And not just that. How come everytime I wake up I don’t have to take a bath? Why is it dark in here and extremely light out there? Why is it that at certain times some women come into my room and do something that I can’t remember what it is afterwards? I think they are nurses but I’m not sure. I can’t remember! Why am I out of breath at times and sometimes I feel as f I could run for miles? Why does my head throb as if there were a constant pressure being applied to it!? And how come when my food is late I never find out when I received it because I faint?!" She was screaming at me now. "And why is it that everytime I’m in my room my hands start to shake uncontrollably until my whole body is shaking with them? They may be small but they are still my own." With that she sat back down for she had gotten up when she started screaming at me. Putting her hands to her face, she started to cry. Then I noticed how small her fingers were. Small but long. The nails on her right hand were longer than the ones of her left hand. Just like my grandpa had them.

Then her hands started to shake. She put them down and tried to calm them down by rubbing them. Not that it worked. "They shake worst at night. After the nurses come in. In my dreams. And after you left that day, when the two guys walked in. When the old man came I had given up trying to calm them."

I said nothing. The truth was that I didn’t know. I knew none of the answers she was looking for. I was clueless. The light seemed to have changes. I was wondering if the lighting system worked based on the emotions of the people in the room. That would explain why the halls were always white. And why my dorm frequently changed color. Not that I could give it much thought. The annoying bell rang and two guys walked in and escorted me out.

She was biting her nails when I walked in. Her long nails. And the room seemed to be a rosy, amber color. The minute I sat down it took on a hint of purple. She didn’t say anything, just handed me her "music machine" as I began to call it. When I put the earphones on my ears she pushed what I guessed was the "play" button. I was totally taken by surprise at the amazing sound that came in. I started humming the tune and she started to sing with me. She had a pretty voice. Strange but pretty.

"And that was Collective Soul," she informed me.

Taking the disk out of the machine she put it away in a circular purple case and took out another one. She kept at it until I had heard all the disks in her collection. All of them were of a different color with the bands name engraved on them. They were large compared to the small ones I had seen but not as large as the ones at the museum. Everytime she picked up a different one she would tell me about it. The band’s name: Skillet, Bleach, Supertones, Third Eye Blind, Jewel, Creed, Matchbox 20, Live, those are the ones I remember. They’re style of music: punk, folk-rock, alternative, hardcore. Then she would tell me about the songs and why she liked them.

"I feel like the songwriters do sometimes. And the music is captivating. It just stays in your head all day long."

"Where did you get them?" I asked her, amazed.

"My great-grandmother left them to me along with the player."

"No wonder I’d never heard of them. These are great!"

She smiles inwardly and slightly blushes, "thank you.

"And when did your great-grandma live?"

"She was a teenager when the century started. She died just before whatever happened happened. I think it was of a lonely heart. My great-grandpa had died two years earlier. They were very close.

"For as long as I can remember my dream has been to play the guitar like she did. You never heard the guitar being played to it’s full potential until you heard her play. She even won a Grammy. The first of her people to win Best New Artist and Best Album. The first who believed who believed in the Father like she did also. Before she died she told me that her dream had been completed. Her purpose in life had finally been achieved, and not to cry for she was happy. The years of waited rest were finally here, she told me. I did cry anyway, but I was glad and peaceful. I loved her greatly."

"What was her name?"

"Delia," she smiles.

"You were named after her?"

"Yeah, but my father changed the I for a y."

"Your father?"

"My dad was her grandson."

And in the light of the discussion, the room brightened and then became dark once more as the door was opened and the two young men walked inside. Before they pushed me out I saw that Delya’s face had turned grave again and all sings of the talk seemed to have vanished.

After seeing the success I had with Delya, the Senator tried me with others. These were idiots with no decent thought in their heads. A thought which I expressed to her. Not that it mattered. The Senator’s heart was made of iron and nothing that anyone said made any difference when she made up her mind. I noticed tat at times I wasn’t allowed to see Delya, much less enter her room. And at those times I noticed that she did not smile. And if she was forced to, it was definitely fake. Like everything else. I remember once when I was walking through the halls that I spotted her. I clearly recall that the light seemed to turn gray. By then I was convinced that people’s emotions controlled the lights. Meaning that since they were usually white, the people in here where either heaven sent or of processed sanity. And that the sound of their shoes walking sounded like a song that weakened me everytime someone passed me by.

I was allowed one more talk with Delya before…

"Delya," I thought about it, "what does it mean?"

"I don’t really know."

"Oh, ok." I seemed to have run out of things to say.

"I know everything now."

Surprised, I looked at her with a frown. Her large eyes searched mine. "What do you know?’

"Everything," she replied. "Everything that there is to know. They didn’t want to tell me, fear I guess. But after Michelle left I had a lot of time to think to myself. That’s when I figured it all out. I’ll never see my friends again. My parents are gone I suppose, or they would have come for me. I think that my brother is out there. Continuing the mission that my great-grandma set in his heart. But they won’t let him in. He can’t come anyway, or risk being discovered. It’s very dangerous, his mission, they could kill him." Her voice sounded like that of a young child. "I guess they assumed that I knew something. Or that I could help them in some way but I can’t. I bet they think I’m insane. Mentally unstable, however you wish to call it. Trust me. I’m not. Quite aware of the things going on around me I am." She laughed, a wicked inward laugh. "It’s very funny, they are totally unaware that the destruction is to come from the inside. I bet they’re clueless." She started to laugh again, but very sad. "It’s a shame. I’ll never be able to play like she did. I’ll probably never hold a guitar in my hands again.

Then she looked at me. How much time passed, I couldn’t tell. There was nothing that I could say. Nothing to say. Then a flash of brilliant white light blinded me. In that instance I missed something for when my vision cleared the room was dark again.

"I’ll miss you," she said to me. "I really will. I must thank you for all you have done for me. You helped me out when others wouldn’t and that means a lot to me. When I am gone, please remember me. Promise you’ll never forget me, my story, who I am, where I came form, and why I am here. Pass it on to others."

"I…I…I don’t-…I promise," I didn’t know what else to say. She smiled at me and took my hand.

I woke up suddenly. I knew! I knew everything. How could I explain this to the doctor? And what about the Senator? I glance around my room and seeing a clean shirt and a pair of jeans, I put them on. Forget the white costume I was required too wear. But I couldn’t find her. I had to tell her that I knew! That I finally understood everything. All that she had tried to teach me I finally got. How could I not find her!

I was stopped. Two men came and stopped me. I was led to a large white room where I found the doctor and the Senator.

"Where is she!?" as the angry greeting I received when I in. ‘Where is the girl? What did you do to her? I have lost my most important discovery ever. Don’t you see what you have done?"

Yeah, I saved her, I thought. "I don’t know. I’m looking for her myself."

"You don’t know? You don’t know! That’s very funny. FIND HER!

They looked but they never found her. She had left all that was given to her here and had taken only what was hers. I got tired of their game. I was sick of it and wanted no part in it. And I told them.

After one angry search I entered the Chamber.

"Leave her alone!" I demanded. "She is gone and she left happy. None of the things that you did affected her. She is free. Let her be! And I left, never to return.

After that I told her story to many others. Those with that Talent revived the lost musical genre. I never again returned to that place until the day it was torn down. I never saw or heard of Delya Sandoval. Whatever happened I could not tell. I never met her brother either. But I know that she found him. Twenty years have now passed. I decided to write the story down before I forgot. How did I know? I just did. We connected somehow. All her thoughts became mine. You could say I found my soul mate except that I didn’t love her in that way. But I’m content now. I did find out about her great-grandmother and I learned about her God. So that when I die, I know I’ll meet them both. The two most amazing women one could ever know.

Gary (whose last name was never known) went on to write many historical-fiction stories. Whatever the Place was, or the people who worked there was never known. The details are muffled to those who never heard the story from Gary’s own mouth. And those who heard it all decided not to tell beyond what he wrote. And so it became a forgotten secret. But know this: Gary means "Mighty Warrior" and that he was.