Eyes open to the same brick wall. How long has that been “my” wall? A year now? two years? Maybe three?
Things are so elusive these days, like a part of myself has been somewhere, but where? Was I dreaming? It’s been years and years. Aren’t you dead?
I blink again, and again. My eyes aren’t what they used to be—everything’s smeared with misty glow. Am I dreaming right now? Why did you come? And where did you go? I thought you were…gone.
Can I move in this place? Ai… sharp cinching pain across my midsection, like someone’s bound me with barbed wire. Pain’s an old friend these days. Well, at least I know I’m alive. And where did you go? And why did you leave me?
And who’s this? I don’t know why she keeps jabbering on like I understand. Like those twittering jays outside my window, going on and on even though it’s barely daylight. I don’t know why people say it’s song. It’s noise, pure and simple, just noise. But I guess it’s better than some sounds. Someone was screaming last night, a man, a tortured man. I turn to look at my wall again. My wall. My prison.
But I can’t. My warden, Miss Twitter-Jabber, wants me up. Ai ai… slowly now. Damn wire. What I would give with a strong pair of pliers. Invisible pliers for these invisible wires, that would be good. You were good with those pliers, I remember. The ducks got caught, almost strangled themselves with a panic, but those pliers. You were good. But where are you now? Weren’t you just here? If you come back, bring some pliers, dear.
Ooomph, and into my circular legs. I tell our great grandson that I’m part machine. He just stares and tugs at the brakes. You can tell that this old bag of bones scares him, but not enough to suppress that two-year-old curiosity. I like that about little ones; curiosity trumps fear. Something to remember if I’m going to make it through another night of screams and visitors.
Yes, dear, yes even if it’s you visiting. I have to admit, it’s unnerving. Don’t think that just because I didn’t throw myself at your casket in grief that I don’t remember that day. That I don’t remember our empty room. That I don’t remember my heart breaking and our dreams slipping away like silt lifted by the yellow river. You died, dear, and part of me went with you.
But the rest of me is here. Almost 25 years later, sitting half broken with Miss Twitter-Jabber pouring me some liquid she swears is coffee or cocoa or something or other. Sipping this luke-warm brown stuff in this fuzzy brown brick room. I’m waiting.
Oh, I suppose dear, that I’m waiting for our son, or maybe the grandkids, I guess you could say I’m waiting for company. But let’s be honest, you know I’m waiting for someone else. You? No, you visit me enough. You and all our friends, in the night, in my dreams. So cold… Why is it no matter what I do, I just can’t stay warm? Maybe my spirit is flickering, shrinking. It’s life is too frail to heat this cavernous shell of a body. And maybe it’s waiting to be let out so that it can have a fighting chance.
It’s waiting; I’m waiting. I wish it could feel like waiting for company. Waiting to exchange a meal and some news. No, dear, it’s not like that; it’s dreadful. Like the sirens, I hear them sometimes. I look to the skies expecting Japanese bombers to descend upon us like a darkened raincloud pregnant with devastating precipitation. Oh those sirens and then the wait, the horrible wait, and then the explosions. The body parts mixed with clods of dirt. The fire and the smell of roasting flesh. The sirens, the wait, the dread and then, the screams.
Isn’t that what He’s like, dear? Devastating, frightening and final? Of course you don’t know, you’re already gone. And of course you can’t hear me, you’re not really here. You’ve died. Left me all alone here to wait, to dread, to miss you… and I do. I miss you, dear.
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