Radios in Heaven

A melody drifted through the room. It was soft and angelic like a child’s lullaby, but it needed words to match its beauty. Gracie Midhaven, the source of the music, sat on her bed plucking the same strings over and over, her faced was arranged into a frustrated frown and her long frizzy red hair hung over her eyes. The task shouldn’t have been so hard for her flawless talent, and this bothered her.

Finally Gracie set her guitar near the base of her bed. Not wanting to stare at the instrument she focused on her ceiling, it was just a plain white coating but Gracie noticed that it was taller than she remembered it to be. Almost unconsciously she raised a hand in an attempt to touch the top but put it back down when it never made contact. She closed her eyes and the last she remembered was the sound of the wind rasping in a ghostly whisper.

When she awoke Gracie had an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach. It didn’t feel like an illness, unless she could define it as a small case of the butterflies. Gracie slowly crawled out of bed holding the center of her troubles. She glanced at her guitar, in the same place she had left it, and suddenly the feeling vanished. Gracie shrugged off the feeling and got ready for another school day to work on her musical mess.

"Dad I'm home" Gracie called stepping back inside the apartment she shared with her father whom gave her no reply, Gracie figured he must have left for work already and headed into the small area known as the kitchen. She grabbed the remote on the way and turned on the T.V. to listen to while she tried to find her desired snack.

Gracie felt her ear twitch when she heard the T.V., the news was the default channel in her home and she absolutely hated it. All she ever seemed to hear was something about the war that was going on, or so she complained. With clenched fists she walked over to the T.V. in an attempt to change the channel, her green eyes widened, of course the latest local deaths just had to be on at that exact same moment. But one of the faces looked familiar, a little too familiar for comfort. She scanned the screen frantically for a name, anything that would trigger something in her mind; they finally landed on their target.

Fear struck through her heart, her body froze in time. Unable to move, barely able to breathe…could it really be… there was no doubt in her mind.

Eric Smith

"Alone writing another song I see" Said Eric walking up to the girl with small grin on his face

"That's right," she paused ”how did you find me?" her ‘secret spot’ had been discovered, she eyed the goy down hoping to get answers from him. Eric pretended not to hear her but instead looked off into the distance brushing a hand through his short black hair.

"Come with me" he said. Gracie hesitated, she didn’t know whether to really call Eric a friend, they were together a lot but they usually couldn’t last long without Gracie snapping at him for some reason.

For some odd reason though, she went with him, they remained silent for a time. After a moment of silence she finally decided to break it,

"So what's wrong?" she asked

Eric laughed at her assumption, "I'm leaving, that's what"

Gracie stopped in her tracks, "You're what?" as if she couldn't hear; she was in disbelief.

"I'm leaving, it's my last day here"

"Is that so?"

He was trying not to glance at her "are you gunna miss me?”

Gracie blinked, caught off guard she was searching for an answer

"It might get a little lonely"

He sadly nodded his head noticing she had shrugged his question off. The smaller girl looked at him with eyes of distress.

"Is that so?" Eric finally said looking into those eyes.

Gracie snapped back to reality, her body had finally started to move but instead shook violently.

"I never knew he was going to-" she chocked in mid-sentence trying to hold back tears.

"What do you want?" Gracie snapped at the figure that stood in front of her

"To annoy you, is that a problem?"

"Uh, yea, just a little" she glared at him and turned around to hide her latest work, he sat down next to her. She remained still like a frightened animal.

"Can I see?" asked Eric

"You just love annoying me don't you?"

"Is that a yes?" he asked making a grab at the paper

"It must be," she said to herself, handing it to him.

She saw his caramel eyes scan the music but his lips didn't speak a word.

"It's good," he said after a while

"It should be, I wrote it,"

"Are you gunna be a musician?"

Gracie looked off in thought, she had never asked herself that before, she always wrote her songs for fun. She didn’t know what to tell him.

Eric waited for an answer, when it never came he said, "I was thinking about joining the service"

"Why?" Gracie cried instantly and started to look at the ground in her outburst

He smiled, "Cause it's the only thing left for me, I don't care about school anymore it's not really my thing…"

"That's right, I remember now," Gracie said at the memory "Eric you idiot! …how could you?" she stumbled to her room and fell onto her bed, all energy seemed to had been zapped out of her from the shock, finally she let her emotions give way and cried herself to sleep.

After an hour or two Gracie slowly opened her eyes, her breathing was a little heavy as she started recollecting the moments before her slumber. She hadn't cried like that since she was a little girl. She glanced over at her guitar, an idea formed in her head as she pulled out the sheet music of her latest song. Instantly she started re-writing verses and pulling apart chords to form new ones, this wasn't going to be just any song and she knew it.

The next day all Gracie could think about was the song in her hands; the lined paper was starting to crack from being overused but she didn’t care, she was determined to finish the song.

After a few more hours of alteration at home the song was finally finished, but she had to test it out. She rummaged through her dad's things to find his digital camera; Gracie looked at the object in her hands in deep though before slowly pushing down the record button.

Gracie shyly put the guitar on over her shoulder, her heart started to beat as she stared at her invisible audience.

"This is a song I wrote for a friend I thought I lost a few years ago" she started and looked around her room, "but found out yesterday that I’ve lost him forever, Eric Smith" her hand instantly started strumming chords as a reaction to keep herself together. She waited a few minutes before coming in with her words, they started out a little shaky but got stronger, by the end of the song she felt that all she had done was scream her lungs out, though she had kept the songs soft melody. Without looking at the footage she uploaded the video onto her computer and sent it to the only video website she knew. Gracie didn't wait around for replies or views; she turned off the computer and deleted the video from the camera’s memory.

"Hey!" said a voice the next day at school, Gracie turned around to see who was trying to get her attention, it was someone she didn’t recognize.

"You're the girl that made that video for Eric!" said a rather tall boy with blonde hair

"Yea…" was all she could manage to say

"You're really good, I didn't know you knew him"

"I did…" said Gracie skeptically "But I don't know you"

"I was his best friend" Was, what a way to use past tense "My Name's Josh"

"How did you find my video?" she finally asked

"I was searching for videos on the news about him, my friend didn't believe me when I told him what happened, but I found your video instead"

"That's great" Gracie was starting to feel her checks blush, she was becoming uncomfortable

"Yea" said Josh, apparently just as lost as her "Anyway I just wanted to tell you that I liked your song "

"Thanks." She said, still intimidated

Gracie arrived back home not wanting to even call out for her father

"Hm?" she asked seeing a blinking light on her voicemail, she picked up the phone and listened to the message. When it was over her with her mouth was wide open in shock

Eric's family had seen the video too, they said the song moved them to tears but the part that really got to her was that they had asked her to visit their home.

Gracie stared at the phone in complete disbelief; "this just can't be happening" was all she said before dropping to the floor and curling into a ball.

Her eyes traced the house slowly. It seemed humble enough, maybe a bit broken down but it was a house and that was more than she could say for herself. Her feet walked obediently to the front door and her hand rang the doorbell on command. All she could hear was her heartbeat that seemed to grow louder after every second.

Finally the door opened, a middle-aged lady with pale skin and blonde hair stood behind it, her eyes were heavy from a loss of sleep and she seemed very ill.

Gracie swallowed hard "I'm Gracie Midhaven, the one that wrote the song," she said

"Carol Smith, come in" the woman said, moving away from the door

Gracie stepped in and looked around the house, ignoring the smell of sweat and cigarette smoke, she followed the woman into a small room.

"This was Eric's room" Mrs. Smith said, "I'm his mother, this is his sister, Vanessa" she motioned toward a young woman with dyed red hair who was sitting next to a big middle-aged man.

"I'm Barney Smith, Eric's father, nice to meet you," the man said sticking his hand out for Gracie to shake, she took it, and it was very warm and she noticed that Mr. Smith seemed to have a smile just like Eric's.

Grice started looking around the room, tons of music posters lined the walls, even some of bands she had never heard.

"I never would have guessed he liked music so much," she thought to herself before setting her sights on a lone electric blue acoustic guitar in the corner of the room, she gasped at its beauty.

Vanessa noticed the notion and got up to retrieve the instrument, "This was his favorite guitar," she said "we want you to use this to play your song at his funeral this weekend"

"What?" her life just couldn’t get any worse

Mr. Smith spoke up, "I'm very grateful for what you did for my son, I think it would be great if you played for him one last time"

Mrs. Smith stared off into oblivion right by his side.

Gracie took a few steps back, she knew Eric was wild but his family was just blowing her away.

"This is incredible" she said out loud, everyone looked at her with hope. Gracie closed her eyes and looked back at them, not wanting to let them down "I'll do it" she said, starting to think she was a bit crazy herself.

The morning had come. The clouds were a bit bleak, perfect weather for the perfect day.

"I must really be crazy" Gracie said to herself, adjusting her outfit. She glanced at Eric's guitar, call her superstitious but she couldn't bear to even sleep in the same room with it since she had brought it back from his house, let alone touch it. Shakily her hand picked it up and into a guitar case. Gracie looked at the dark sky, her hands were shaking.

"Ever wonder why the sky's blue?" Eric said one day sitting next to Gracie, they were located in the courtyard of the school

"Because the grass isn't" she retorted

"So why is the grass green?"

"Because the sun is yellow," Gracie continued

"No it's not," said Eric

"What do you mean it's not? What other color would it be?"

"Well have you ever looked directly at the sun?"

"I'm not blind am I?"

"So how would you know it's yellow if you've never looked at it?"

Gracie rolled her eyes; they sat in more silence for a while before Eric spoke again

"Wouldn't it be cool if they had radios in heaven? And everyone could just tune into anything that was going on in the world at anytime?"

Gracie laughed, "I guess that would be pretty cool"

"I'd just sit up there on the fluffiest cloud I could find and listen to the radio all day, who knows, maybe I'd hear a good song or two"

"Right, you do that" Gracie stood up and looked at Eric, their eyes met and both smiled shyly. It was then that Gracie decided to leave the courtyard and Eric alone.

The funeral was full of people Gracie didn't know. She never did well at these things, crying people just seemed to have a bad effect on her. She stood in a small section of the church clutching Eric's guitar for dear life, not wanting to let go.

A tall boy approached her, it was Josh. "You here to play?"

Gracie managed a nod

"Well, good luck I'm kinda glad to see you here, I'm pretty sure Eric is too"

"I hope so,” Gracie whispered

The funeral finally started, after what seemed like forever and a day Gracie was called to the stand to make a speech before everyone headed to the cemetery.

She took a deep breath and with the guitar hanging on her back made her way to the pedestal.

"My Name is Gracie Midhaven, uhm, I'm not really good with speaking or making speeches or anything, I write music" she started before wondering where she was going with her words, "unlike most of you here, I barely knew Eric, in fact he was the annoying kid that followed me around everyday at school” she laughed nervously, some people smiled at her through tears of admiration, others refused to look up. "But there was something about him that stood out from the rest of the crowd, I don't know what exactly, but it was something I couldn't just ignore, you could see it in his eyes, feel it in his smile, and hear it in his laugh. He left the school two years ago, he never told me why…I mean I never asked but I know it was to do something he thought was important to his life. I never would of told him this to his face but I'm extremely glad I was able to meet someone like him, he showed me-" she had to stop to keep herself from stumbling over her words "he showed me a different form of friendship that I never had before, and may never have again, something I just can't explain it's so indescribable, I just know that after he left my life will never be the same"

She looked up at the sun stained windows of the church, they radiated with light.

"Eric, I really AM gunna miss you, oh god I miss you so much, you never had any idea." Finally tears started to stream down her cheeks "You all had a great asset to your family, I just hope you know that, and I really don't like talking this much, I know he's made you proud" it was all she could get out before stepping down in a fit of tears. She looked around, everyone else was in the same situation as she was, Mr. And Mrs. Smith were in each other's arms crying profoundly and Vanessa had buried her face in her hands. Gracie looked at Josh in the back of the church; his head was lowered so far that no expression could be made.

When everyone made it to the cemetery the coffin appeared. Gracie had avoided it, never wanting her next meeting with Eric to be with his cold useless body. All she could see were the colors of red, white, and blue as it was carried over. As more words were said and Gracie started to unzip her guitar case, she picked up the guitar and started to pluck the strings for the first time in a very long time it seemed, they were completely out of tune.

The priest glanced over at her and nodded.

Gracie walked over, the ground itself seemed dead under her feet though it was very moist, she was starting to wonder if she would make it through the song or lose herself all at once. She looked up at the clouds that were very tranquil after the recent rainfall "Eric" she said in her mind "I hope that radio of yours is going to pick this up"

Her hands stumbled over the strings for a very long time, the casket started to descend into the ground, Gracie's mouth opened almost as if to shout, "Please stop!" but instead her lyrics poured out. Her eyes wouldn't take themselves off of a cloud that had floated in front of the sun, the fluffiest one she could find.

She started to sing more confidently and full of passion, she wasn't singing just for Eric, she was singing to him, perhaps with him.

When the song was over she finally glanced over at the casket and smiled through her crystal tears.

"Goodbye, Eric"

Gracie left the cemetery shortly after but was caught by Josh, his eyes were red and puffy but he stood proudly infront of her.

"You're leaving so soon?" he asked

"Yea, funerals were never really my thing" Gracie laughed hiding behind her hair, she hated crying so much.

"Vanessa said you are welcome to keep Eric's guitar if you want"

Gracie said nothing, she had forgotten that she was only supposed to use the instrument for her song; it seemed to already become a part of her.

A long pause lingered between the two.

"He liked you, a lot," Josh finally said.

Gracie held the guitar tighter to her chest, thinking of all the things that were never said, but maybe they didn't need to be said because she realized she had known this fact all along.

"I'm going to go home, I guess I'll see you later" she said

"Yea, guess so,” Josh paused hesitantly “we should hang out sometime"

"I would like that" Gracie smiled.

Back in her room Gracie couldn't let go of Eric's guitar, she strummed the strings softly and for once with the biggest grin she could ever manage, she looked up at her high ceiling.

"I'll take good care of it, I promise" she said "You'll see, I'll bring it with me and we'll play our song together one day"

She could just hear Eric's voice in her head, smiling with that sincere smile straight into her eyes and going, "Is that so?"