I remembered to include a mythical allusion in this draft. I allude to Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, who was snatched too soon into the Underworld.
By the way, notice how I punctuate--where the quotation marks go, where the speaker is in relation to the quote, and how I capitalize. I want you to imitate this.
Well, here goes:
"Virginia," I find myself saying, instantly regretting the lack of formality.
"You may call me Virginia," she says, and her eyes twinkle and her mouth widens into a Cheshire-cat grin.
[note the allusion--to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland]
"Virginia," I repeat, only half-believing the word or my senses.
"Not to be mistaken for the commonwealth or the Virgin Queen," she says, her eyes full of mischief. But then her smile disappears. She opens her arms and before I know it, enfolds me in them.
"I know this must be a shock," she says. "It was for Dante, too, but look what he did with it. The Woman Upstairs, the one the earth has called God for centuries--and God is all right still--just felt that it was time to repeat the process, that we needed to revise our old ways of thinking. After all, a woman is running for president."
"Woman Upstairs," I repeat. "Woman upstairs?"
"Don't make such a big deal about it," says Virginia. "It's been that way since Day One. That's what you get when you give humans free will. First, one takes a bite of the forbidden fruit, and then another one kills his own brother, which angered his mother no end, let me tell you. She grounded that boy and then God made him wander the world with the mark of Cain. Everywhere he went, he spread the word about how dangerous women were and how they needed to be controlled. It was pretty easy to do, too, because women were often incapacitated with carrying and nurturing children."
"Does she win," I ask.
"Does who win," Virginia says.
"Hillary," I say.
"I can't tell you that. Well, I could, but I won't," she says. "Besides, we have bigger fish to fry. You have been chosen for this journey because of your skills as a journalist. When we finish, you will write a story, one that will convey to the world how they should live."
Virginia takes my arm and we begin to move rapidly through space, the various worlds we pass a blur of color and a cacophony of sounds. We stop in a small, dingy flat with peeling wallpaper, chipped and broken particle-board furniture, and a sofa and some chairs with their foam stuffings exposed by fraying upholstery. The room stinks of body odor and cigarettes and a sweet acrid smell I can't quite identify. The single window is open and we can hear the sounds of traffic and people shouting and fighting in the streets. The yellowing aluminum blinds, covered in a thick layer of dust, reverberate with the sounds, sending dust particles dancing into the air.
"Where are we," I ask, my face as pale as Eurydice when she finds herself in the Underworld.
"Soho. In a crack house, heroin haven, crib, whatever you want to call it, it pretty much means the same thing--despair," says Virginia.
A pale young man, unwashed, with long, blond hair and a week's growth of beard, approaches.
"This is where those who abused their substance with substances now reside," she says. "Among the most famous here, you will see four who left the world at the age of 27. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and...."
"Kurt Cobain," I finish. the young rock star's eyes widen and he moves toward us slowly, as though walking through ocean waves.
"How is Frances Bean," he pleads. "How is my baby girl? Has Courtney done anything to her? Does she still love her daddy? Does she still remember her daddy?"
"I haven't heard anything about her lately," I say.
His eyes widen in terror and tears form at the corners of his eyes. "She's fine," I say, "or she must be. You know as well as I that no news is good news with Courtney. Frances must be sixteen now and I am sure that she remembers her father, as do millions of American fans. Why, you're even a character in a novel by Nick Hornby."
The face relaxes but the tears remain. "Tell her I'm sorry," he says. Tell her I'm very, very sorry. And make sure she remembers me. Tell her not to forget her daddy."
"I will," I say. Cobain turns away and moves back toward a crowd that has gathered in a corner. I recognize Hendrix and Joplin and Morrison. I begin to walk toward them when Virginia touches my sleeve.
"If we had the time, you could interview the others, but the fact is, we do not," she says. "Besides, their stories are much the same and we have many more stories to hear in the realms beyond."
