Falling Asleep
- J. Welsh

Dani was born and raised Catholic. At twenty-five, she was somewhat of a disappointment in that area, barely attending mass and only singing religious Christmas carols because they'd been bred in her from youth. She was a dispassionate inside observer of her grandmother's faith.

She'd been spending a summer abroad in Europe, traveling to some familiar sites she'd known as a child, mostly for the sake of reliving a few memories. Her family had a record of military service dating farther back than she cared to think about, and Dani was the end of that long tradition. There was no desire to join forces to support a government she didn't particularly care about, but she had reaped the benefits of being a military dependant. Living abroad because of her father's deployment had its advantages, travel through Europe topping the list. This time she was alone, taking time off from the real world to travel and her chosen destination was Lourdes, France.

Dani had been to Lourdes once before with her mother when she was seven. She remembered that the only word ever used to describe why they had come was a foreign one at the time. It was a pilgrimage, one that didn't involve shiny shoe buckles or a traditional turkey dinner. Her mother had made perfectly clear during the bus ride that it was not a vacation. It barely qualified as a journey in the way Dani associated the term "journey" with adventure. The purpose of the tour group traveling to Lourdes was one of prayer, specifically for all the soldiers who had been recently deployed for conflicts in Eastern Europe. For Dani, her reason for accompanying her mother to Lourdes was directed more toward her grandmother, and the belief that with enough prayer, anything could happen. She had believed in those grand kinds of miracles as a child.

She remembered the overweight tour guide at the front of the bus, sweating from the lack of air conditioning, trying to adjust the microphone three times a day for prayer. He had said it was a time to reflect, a test from on high that everyone on the double-decker should endure until the problem was fixed. The atmosphere on the bus was almost always thick with the humid air constantly circulating in from the open windows. It wasn't the most interesting place to be for eighteen hours. The good thing was Dani had always been a self-amused child; windows had made up her closest friends for long road trips. If she wasn't sleeping along with everyone else, her nose would be glued to the glass watching the scenery fly by in a dizzy blend. The cityscape melted into the countryside, and back again, the shift only pausing when the bus stopped to refuel. All the other people on the bus, save for the one or two other children divided among single seats and their parents, would pray for what seemed all day. They would do it in their seats, in the aisle, in their sleep and probably even a quick word in the bathroom to whichever saint was in charge of upset stomachs. The rest of the time they slept. In her mind, there were much better ways to amuse herself. Besides, if she had even tried to pray with her eyes closed like that she'd just end up falling asleep like the rest of them.

It was the same now, eighteen years later and sleep was more important than whispering a few repeated lines of rhetoric. On the rare occasions she prayed, Dani was usually on her back, somewhere under the covers of her bed. She only used it as a relaxation technique if something was weighing on her mind. And it couldn't hurt to send a mental note to any and every deity up there who might listen if she was having problems. So far, there wasn't much to report to anyone on high. Dani shrugged to herself, more at the idea of an old man keeping a running tally of her do's and don'ts than anything else.

"Hail Mary"

The late summer afternoon in Lourdes was hotter than she would have liked, but it didn't stop the constant surge of people flooding the market streets toward the grotto. There was a spring of holy water that flowed from that place, and religious myth flowed right along with it, miraculous healings were the most popular. Pilgrims, journeymen, priests - all looking remarkably resigned - patiently awaiting an invisible miracle or spiritual epiphany to happen upon them just for being in the area.

Her hands were in her pockets as she followed the crowd rather than the signs to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. It was an easy walk and there wasn't any reason to hurry. Mother Mary and the Almighty would wait, just as they had been waiting for scores of other people over the centuries. Dani doubted they issued out tardy slips in heaven, though another mark might go on God's tally with a scribbled note, "Awaiting further judgment," on the side.

All the shops sold the same things, and even the street vendors' carts were laden with the overflow of religious memorabilia. Virgin bobble heads nodded at passers-by, a few of them adamant to purchase anything and everything they could probably do without. That wasn't really the point of it, though; she'd been caught in tourist traps before as well, and she knew everyone had been guilty of it at least once. She walked by a store with posters of St. Bernadette and the Virgin plastered to the windows with bargain signs lining the entryway. There were dozens of holy water containers shaped like the Blessed Virgin staring out through panes of glass. The hole was in the Virgin's head believe it or not; her crown was the cap that never screwed on straight. Dani remembered going into a similar shop with her mother, and they not only purchased one of those empty virgins, they purchased three, along with two containers of holy water from the springs. Her mother had plans to spread the miracle of healing overseas to Dani's grandmother, an aged woman with the kindest smile Dani could now barely remember. Dani had thought it would work at the time, thought the healing waters could cure anything and everything.

"full of grace"

The clustered shops with an indescribable language scribbled along their sides amazed her young eyes. Dani and her mother were making a quick tourist stop to check out the kind of souvenirs offered in the area. Her mother let her wander around one of the shops to stare at all the strange memorabilia and pick something out for herself.

"Hey Mom, this one's pretty! Can I get this one? Please? Please?" Dani held up a purple rosary in her hand, dangling it out in front of her for her mother to see. Her mom took a look at the sign that had a translation saying, "Rosaries blessed by the bishop." All she did was raise an eyebrow, take the rosary from Dani's hand and add it to the pile of souvenirs; it was about time for Dani to have her own rosary anyway, blessed or not.

"You'll use it, right? I'm not going to buy it if you're not going to use it." Dani's mother had always said that, and somehow always ended up buying things Dani never used.

"I will. I will! I can use it when we go to the grotto and on the bus back home, too!"

Her mother paid for everything and tucked the plastic bag in her backpack. They were on their way to the basilicas just down the road and would stay in the grassy center of the Domain until mass was held in the Upper Basilica with their tour group.

"the Lord is with Thee"

Dani walked through the shaded entrance of the Domain, watching the steady flow of people across the walkways leading to and from the various holy sites surrounding the basilicas. They were the blood of the place, pumping and surging forward, carrying their faith like oxygen, needing it to breathe. It was a symbolic joke to her, a small conspiracy by the angels up in heaven to have her soul lie prostrate in reconciliation before an unfamiliar priest. Dani never went to confession; she didn't see the point of it. If God was as omni-everything as people say he is then he'd know whether or not she felt a desire to reconcile the differences between them – an all powerful and a no powerful.

The church bells of the Upper Basilica were singing out their hourly "Ave Maria" as Dani stared at the entrance to the three churches, the setting sun casting strange shadows along the walls of stone. The Crypt had been built first and was somewhere underneath the Upper Basilica's floors. Dani remembered how eerie it had felt as a child. How could a place under so much stone feel warm, much less holy? The Upper Basilica had bewitched her as a girl, and it deserved more of her attention than the droning mass between songs. It was fascinating but terrible; its walls were built high and the windows were unreachable. The incense swirled, mystifying the eye to the point of believing an invisible hand was shaping the smoke into being. Dani had no desire to return to that place. It felt too dark, as if it was hiding something everyone knew was there but no one would say what it was. She fingered the purple rosary beads in her pocket. The open dome of the Rosary Basilica directly in front of her was unassuming, welcoming with its colored walls. Mary's arms were outstretched above the pews, encircling all who sat down to rest and honor her. The mosaics along the walls, each, finely detailing scenes from the three mysteries, were almost alive with their craftsmanship. She thought if someone could only get close enough to breathe on them they would come alive and the glory of God would be real, would be present, right in front of her. Maybe she just wanted to get close enough to touch them, to leave something of herself behind to prove there were still people who doubted and questioned the miracles. Because miracles didn't seem to work the way people thought they would.

Dani's grandmother had died of cancer the year after Dani and her mother had taken their pilgrimage to Lourdes. Being sick and having cancer were apparently two different things. A person never died from being sick; they died from having cancer. She didn't know the specifics then, and she'd chosen to always forget how her grandmother died whenever her mother told her. Calling it cancer was better than giving it a detailed name, better than giving it a description or a life of its own.

She remembered the thank you letter she got in the mail after her grandmother had received the holy water; the writing was rough, more characteristic of her grandfather than her grandmother. Dani hadn't connected the dots then. She was certain the healing water and all of her prayers would make her grandmother better, but there was that small doubt growing its way inside her. She knew it had been a biological fact that her grandmother was fading away, a strong and vibrant woman was deteriorating every day and that's what happened when people lived. But wasn't God supposed to heal the believers and ease their suffering? Was it so beyond the Almighty's power that he could not erase those biological facts for even a moment?

"blessed art Thou amongst women"

The two of them had visited the grotto the day before, and Dani had felt like a true initiate into the Catholic faith after having bathed in the healing waters of the medicinal baths and drinking from the spring-fed fountains nearby.

"Look Mom! Look! Remember the bruise I had here yesterday," Dani was pointing at her small elbow, "and here? A-And the scratch I had on my hand, too?" She pointed out the different places to her mother, whom, Dani was sure, had been paying very close attention to any and every injury that ever befell her daughter. All children thought that way. Dani's mother nodded, encouraging this sudden realization to continue.

Dani waved her arms about, "They're gone!"

Her mother smiled, told Dani to take a shower, get dressed and be ready for breakfast as soon as possible.

"It must be all that holy water I drank yesterday." Dani nodded, certain that it was, "Yep. I bet that bath water from the spring took care of it, too." She left the bed for her mother to make and charged off to the bathroom, wondering if, in addition to the disappearance of her scrapes and bruises, she'd grown taller as well.

"and blessed is the Fruit of Thy womb, Jesus."

The sky had shifted to soft purple, gray clouds taking it upon themselves to tinge the universe in a haloed overcast. Dani stood outside the triplet houses of worship wishing for a rain that had not been forecast. She wanted to see the thousands of tourists hold umbrellas to the sky protecting themselves from anything leaking down from an idealized kingdom in the clouds.

A crowd was beginning to form around her, and Dani moved off in the direction of the grotto. She wasn't so much interested in finding redemption, but maybe if she felt like it was there waiting for her that would be enough, maybe.

There was never a chance for Dani to say goodbye to her grandmother, being an ocean away usually complicated matters like that. Her parents booked the flight and then they were there, in a drawn out number of hours when her mother had told Dani to say a few prayers for her grandmother's soul. Dani had fallen asleep after four hours of not being able to see anything but clouds from the window. Some heaven that was, flying through clouds with the frost around the window; it probably felt like a frozen wasteland at that altitude.

"Madame." A small, older woman took hold of her arm in the waning light as Dani had been walking toward the grotto. She said something in French and maneuvered a wax candle into Dani's hand with a paper shade surrounding the area around the unlit wick. She smiled warmly up at Dani, patted her hand and left with a basket of candles swinging gently at her side. The Torchlight Procession was scheduled to begin in a matter of minutes, and a mass of people was assembling along the walkways, the crowd spreading over the Domain like a disease.

The crowd grew larger, practically suffocating with the sheer density of bodies. Lighters were passing through the crowd, a wave of glowing candles behind them. Someone lit her candle. A tap on her shoulder made her turn to someone behind her. He nodded in thanks as he used her candle to light his own. Dani turned her back to him to face what she assumed was the front of the procession. Someone started praying, and soon everyone around her was praying, their heads bowed, muttering an incoherent word or two that joined in a hymn of whispers with everyone else. Then they were moving. Everyone was moving, walking forward with their candles held high. It was as if every single piece of light in the crowd connected to a kite at the front of the procession and the people were merely a long tail trailing after it.

They walked from the Domain through the city. Dani didn't know how long it would be until they returned; she couldn't remember the distance from when she was a child. She just remembered how much her feet had ached and how tired she had been. She hadn't enjoyed it.

Eventually the crowd thinned out, each person walking along at their own pace, their candles halfway gone. Dani saw a side street branching from one of the squares, and she shifted her way out of the crowd to take it, blowing her candle out in the process. A café was just outside view of the square, resting on the curb and closing down for the night. An old man with a mustache was sweeping around the doorway. Dani's French wasn't nearly as practiced as it had been in college, but she used what broken language she could to ask for directions to her hotel. He looked at her, looked at the unlit candle she was carrying and then swished his mustachio as he screwed up his face to contemplate the matter. After a good ten minutes of hand signals and repeated phrases, Dani headed in the direction he had pointed out to her.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God,"

Dani and her mother had stood close to the front of the procession when it had started, and everything had been exciting and beautiful for the first half hour of proceeding down the streets of Lourdes with candles making their faces glow in the night air. After that it lost the breathtaking strangeness that had started to settle in her chest. She was trailing a little behind her mother, trudging and tired.

"Do you want to take a break for a little while?" Her mother asked with a hand on Dani's shoulder. Dani's feet were hurting.

"We can do that?"

Her mother smiled and bent down to take the candle from her. "Of course we can."

"But won't we get lost?" It was probably an obvious question, but one that needed to be asked.

"We'll be fine. We'll sit down for a little while and then follow the lights when we're ready to walk again. Does that sound like a plan?"

Dani considered this, making an effort to look the part of an intellectual as if the matter was of extreme importance, "Yep. Sounds like a plan."

"pray for us sinners"

Dani swiped her keycard through the lock on her hotel room door. The little light barely had a moment to flash green before she entered. She took the paper shade off the candle and crumpled it in her hand, chunks of wax falling to the floor. She couldn't have packed it in her suitcase anyway. Dani placed the candle on the table in the corner of her room with the rest of her belongings. She had initially planned on tossing it on her bed, but then the thought that she'd just have to move it later prevented it. Maybe she'd get rid of it down at the brulières tomorrow, light it and dedicate it in memory of her grandmother or something. She took a shower and let the idea settle.

She ran a hand through her wet hair as she dropped on to the bed, flicking on the TV as she hit the mattress. Half the channels were religious, mostly about the same thing but in different languages. Dani managed to find a familiar old movie on the classics channel, in French, of course, but she knew it well enough to be content without listening to the language. Her mother loved this movie; Cary Grant was one of her Hollywood favorites. Dani wondered if they showed movies like "An Affair to Remember" in the hospital where her mother was. She could just picture her mother trying to convince some of the nurses that it was one of the best movies they'd probably never seen. Her mother was sick, but she'd been sick for a while. Dani wouldn't call it cancer. People died of cancer. She turned off the television.

"now and at the hour of our death"

Their last day in Lourdes was a bright one, relaxing with the wind keeping them cool and energetic. It was only a few hours before they would be packed tight on the bus headed for another eighteen hours of road tripping.

"Excuse me, would you take a picture of us? Thank you so much," Dani's mother handed the family camera to a stranger. Her mother had positioned them in front of the three basilicas for a personal souvenir picture moment. Dani was in front, her mother's hands on her shoulders.

"Smile Dani," her mother said through a grin.

The camera clicked, her mother said thanks again, and the two of them held hands as they walked toward the market streets.

"Are we going to be praying again for the trip back?" Dani's question wasn't overly energetic.

"Yes. If you start a pilgrimage with prayer, you should end it with prayer." Her mother squeezed her hand as they left the Domain for their hotel.

"Amen."

Dani's fingers barely moved along the beaded rosary. She had lost count somewhere on the third of the five sections. Maybe she was on the fourth bead, maybe the fifth. It always starts with a smooth repetition of a familiar prayer, then losing the rhythm, like repeating one sentence over and over again until you can picture it. Only, when sleep was casting itself over her fingers she never could picture it.

She huddled down beneath the comforter and raised a weary hand holding the rosary to the bedside table. Her fingers knocked over the small container of holy water she'd bought the day before, but Dani didn't bother picking it up. She let the rosary slide to the table and then rolled to her side. Losing the ability to think of the lines, Dani fell asleep in the middle of her prayer.