S3 Ep. 10 | ELLA IN AMSTERDAM The Big Day
Elections more stressful than college exams
After lunch with Kelly I took a nap before a final campaign event later in the evening for Chamber of Commerce bingo night, then went to bed early. All of this is too much. Now I leave my fate in the hands of the people of Los Hellas.
When the election is official done and as the day is finally here, I will figure out what’s going on with my body and my apartment.
There’s no longer music in my ears but slow beeping sounds. At this point I’m sure that there’s a mold or something that is making me hallucinate.
It is the morning election day and Chelsea gives me a call
Chelsea: Morning sunshine, I have some interesting news for you
Me: Hi, what’s that?
Chelsea: Last night, one of my friends who works in the polling center told me OFF THE RECORD that an hour before they closed the polls last night a messenger came in with 2,000 mail-in ballot votes
Me: Okay…
Chelsea: And well, we will have to see. As it appears all 2,000 of those mail-in ballots dropped off last minute were votes for you and only you. Not even in a ranked way
I try to think how that’s possible? How could I have gotten so many votes and at once?
Chelsea: My birdie insider tells me he thinks that Sven had something to do with it
Me: Why would Sven hand us that many votes?
Chelsea: That I do not know. At any rate this means for sure you won the city council election. It would be impossible this late in the game for any possible ballots in the district to be enough for Sven to win
There’s a silence between the both of us; partially a sense of relief and a sense of confusion. Why would Sven run for city council just to hand the role to me, on a platter?
Chelsea: Also I have some other news. I was waiting for the election to be over to tell you…
Dreading what I think is coming next I simply wait for Chelsea to finish what she needs to say
Chelsea: During these fun times we’ve had I somehow acquired a girlfriend and I’m crazy about her.
Me: Oh is this the kitty kat that has been putting a smile on your face?
Chelsea: Something like that. This whole campaign has been hard. The last year has been hard, so I gotta say something and I hope you understand
I feel dread while also feeling physically not myself. The big day is here and I feel… off. Nothing feels real anymore.
Chelsea: I too gotta say goodbye. Not like goodbye forever. I just, I need to now focus on myself and potentially a future with the girl. I won’t be at the election ceremony although something tells me you got it.
You did it, we did it. You got what you wanted.
I am getting accustomed to everyone saying their goodbyes to me. Something inside me feels this indeed is the end of an era for everyone
Me: I understand Chels. I will never be able to thank you enough. Besides I’m a big girl and can handle whatever happens later, whatever the results are
Chelsea: You got this. Look kitty kat is calling me right now, funny her name is Kat on the other line. I love you Ella. I only want the best and I will think of you more than you know. Love you.
Me: Love you too
We both hang up and in many ways I am relieved as this entire adventure has taken a toll on everyone around me. Turns out politics has a price. It seems I am indeed getting what I wanted and in this comes a sense of inner peace, a euphoria like none I’ve felt in my life. I feel almost high.
I put my phone down from the call, look around the apartment and notice many things I normally look at are gone. The little picture of me and Chibuzo is gone. My favorite keychain missing from my keys. I notice too there’s less and less furniture.
Whether it’s a hallucination or not, this new non reality IS a reality, of sorts.
The Results Are In
After a short mediation session I get ready and head down to the civic center where election results are being monitored and will be announced in a matter of hours if not minutes.
I leave the apartment taking one last good look at it. My heart is filled with love: thank you Chibuzo. Thank you Vivian. Thank you Kelly. Thank you Chelsea.
Arriving at the center just in time I walk into a large mess hall type of room with hundreds if not thousands of residents and a digital vote counter on a big screen in the center of the room, I can see it: Sven: 4,020 votes Ella: 8,100 votes
I start to wonder if Sven knew he would lose anyway? What could his motivations have been? I feel so groggy and everything seems blurry and the beeping sound is slow and light in my ear. GOOD. Maybe the beeping will stop once the election stress is over.
A few minutes pass before a buzzer goes off and the room starts to cheer “Ella, Ella, Ella” and I realize that’s it. I won the city council seat. A host of the elections event motions to me to take the stage for a small speech. It occurs to me I had been so focused on winning this city council election I did not actually plan on what to do if I won.
I get up on stage and a small microphone is clipped to my shirt. A person behind a camera motions to me with their hands that I have 5 minutes…
“Thank you all for coming here today, for voting and caring about Los Hellas. As many of you know this was a huge journey for me and now that the numbers have spoken I am more than pleased to serve this city and the residents of Los Hellas”
People cheer. A younger group in the back I can only assume were interns that Chelsea was managing start popping bottles of champagne, probably because the bottles are free to them and probably because they too are exhausted. And just like that I realize I don’t have to stay at the civic center. I won. Its done. I gave a speech. It’s now time to go home and rest.
Remarkably I walk out after my speech and not a single person approaches me or says hi to my own relief. I take a taxi back to my apartment to see the sign in front of the house no longer says “for sale” and instead says “sold.” I actually don’t care.
Maybe it is time to get my own place and go on my own path?
A Fresh Start
In the morning the next day I wake up to see the apartment has even less stuff than it did the day before or the day before that. There is only a vague, light beeping sound in my ears which gives me solace. Maybe I did just get some kind of stress induced delirium the last few weeks?
Without knowing what to do or what my new life would look like I go for a run. When I return there’s a moving company fully emptying my apartment. Panic. I try to talk to the movers, no one will speak with me or answer me. I feel invisible when it occurs to me, I am invisible. I reach into my pockets for the keys to the apartment. I don’t actually have any keys. This is when I put the pieces together. Is this reality actually real? Or is the other reality actually reality?
I take a deep breath and decide not to harass the movers clearing the apartment and instead straighten my mind for a cool-down walk. Time to let go.
I walk by Chibuzo’s old office space and see the Knight messenger company fully moved in with a happy and energetic staff. I go around the corner to see my campaign office completely empty and cleared out.
Feeling hungry for the first time in what seems like a lifetime I walk further down the hill to the waterfront, pass where Kelly took me to lunch the week before: its closed or out of business hard to tell. Using my iPhone I pay a street vendor on a pier for a croissant. I notice I can smell it properly and perfectly.
Normally the waterfront area is foggy. Today the sky is blue, it’s a beautiful day. The amount of peace and tranquility that fills me is hard to explain as I reflect on my life and all the steps that brought me to this point. I take a bite of the croissant and it’s the flakiest, most delicious thing I have eaten in my entire life. Warm and buttery. The smell I had been smelling for months. It is so absolutely satiating to eat something you have been craving over and over, this must be how it feels to be pregnant? Delicious.
Right when things could not be more picture perfect a seagull flies down to take my croissant. Caught off guard I try to use my arms to protect the croissant only the bird wins and I slip and fall off the pier into the water. The rush of cold water around my body stings and then feels warm. I move my arms to swim or grab the pier, but I can’t move my arms. I can’t move any part of my body. Italian music begins to fill my ears. I worry about drowning until my mind begins to play tricks on me as I half feel water around me and half see myself in a hospital bed back in Italy, from above the room.
As my brain tries to sort if I’m in the water drowning in Los Hellas or if I’m in Italy the water goes away and that’s when it all makes sense: I am not in Los Hellas, I am not in the water near the pier, I also am not in Italy either. I’m dead. Chelsea won the city council election not me, not the physical me. My body died last year in coma after slipping in a hotel bathroom with Nicolas. It was my soul all along that was in Los Hellas, not me. It was my soul who needed to say goodbye, not everyone else. Vivian made the decision with the doctors to take me off life support at that Italian hospital and with my physical death my soul was now free and the spirit which helped everyone reach their goals was also now free. It was time to finally go home.
As the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke once said “Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live yourself into the answer.”