What Happened to Maranda? (this is a true story)

What Happened to Maranda?
Contributor: wendalpuss

When I was about 16, I had a friend named Maranda. We were such good friends because both of us had messed-up parents. Hardly anybody understood us, the way we turned all of our biggest fears into jokes and felt that laughter was the fix for everything. She said to make someone laugh or just be happy is a feeling of accomplishment, a sense of pride.

We were the outcasts, the loners (though we were never without the company of the other). It felt good and everything worked perfectly until Maranda could not laugh anymore.

It began when her grandpa died. We all were extremely depressed, but I still made Maranda laugh, even though you could smell the falseness in the air. On Aug. 2, 2001, Maranda took enough tranquilizers to put a full-grown elephant down for a good five hours. Luckily, her cousin came downstairs and found her with her head on the ground and her feet on the bed. She was rushed immediately to the hospital.

Maranda was considered dead for 20 minutes. She awoke screaming and thrashing. She seemed to not recognize any of the three people at her bedside, including me. When the nurse tried to calm her, Maranda bit her as hard as she could, almost instantly drawing blood.

After a lot of thorazine and a few months in a “close watch facility,” Maranda was finally home. She was always really depressed looking and would not talk at first; she’d only stare out the window. We could not turn the lights off. If we did, she would scream and throw things. She even stabbed her mother one afternoon when she was waking her up from a nap.

After about two years of abuse from Maranda, she woke up one morning and was fine. Almost as if nothing ever happened. About a week after she snapped out of her rage, I sat with her on the railroad tracks (our secret spot), looking out over busy 16th Street. I asked what her rage was for, and she would not answer. I tried to make her laugh, but nothing worked.

Finally, completely frustrated, I screamed at her “What is all this for? You should be happy they brought you back.” I stared at her a long moment and looked away.

Through all the mixed thoughts in my head and the heavy traffic on the street below, I heard her say softly, without looking, “It was you.” I asked her what she was talking about, and for the first time she told me what had happened that day.

She said she just missed him; that she finally realized she could no longer laugh. She decided to do it when I was not there. That way she would have no reason to not do it. She said that she did not remember anything right after she drifted off. She said she woke up in the ambulance. She could see the paramedics doing what they could to save her, but she felt nothing, no pain, no touch, no emotion. She said she began to feel warm, almost hot as she drifted off again.

This time she awoke to her grandfather sitting in front of a large rock. The sky was black, the air was hot and dry, and it was hard to breathe. She said that her grandfather told her, “He’s been waiting for you, my dear. I’ve come to lead you to him.”

She said he got up and walked away, not looking back. She began to follow him, the air getting hotter and thicker with every step. She said she stopped suddenly when she heard laughter – my laughter.

She said she heard her grandfather yell for her to come back as she turned around, and all of a sudden she saw a man so beautiful that she instantly fell to his feet, still hearing my laughter. When her knees hit the ground, she had awakened, screaming and kicking.

“Why are you so sad by that? I would feel – blessed.”

She looked me square in the eye and said, “Papaw’s there in hell, and he is waiting on me.”