By Icnived
Round the corners edge
Down the charted ledge
Through the withered wedge
Past the hidden hedge
Past the forest tree
Through the mazes three
Down the mounts decree
Round the rivers free
Round and round we go
Down in hope we show
Through the world we flow
Past sanity for all we know
We are the life to life
Water rain, this is our strife
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Wave (prose, short story)
Sitting in the windowpane, staring down at the people walking by in the street, I pulled my legs up under me and leaned my head against the cool glass. Jim Morrison on the stereo, singing Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name.
“Deirdre,” I whispered, “Deirdre is my name.”
It was Coral’s second suicide attempt. The first one was still fresh in our minds when we again got the call from the hospital. Between them I would lay in bed for hours, on my back with my hands under my head, lights off, staring up at the ceiling, watching the shadows dance as cars passed by underneath the window. I kept putting off buying curtains, and it never got completely dark. Sometimes I lit scented candles, and put them in the windowpane. The draft from the window, which had made white roses of frost on the inside of the glass during the coldest days of winter, made the shadows from the flames flicker unpredictably over the room, and spread through it the smell of roses or lavender.
We had quite the absurd conversation in the hospital bed, Coral and I. She had made room for me to lie down beside her, under the covers, as I had just come in from an icy summer rain. The umbrella had kept me dry enough, but I was still shivering with cold as I leaned down to kiss her on the cheek, and the bed was invitingly warm and dry. I kicked off my shoes and crawled in next to her.
“I had my suicide note all worked out,” she said. I didn’t know how to tell her I didn’t want to know about it, so I cuddled up next to her with my head upon her shoulder, saying nothing. “I had this perfect quote I wanted to use, and everything. But then I forgot to write it.” Her voice broke off, and the silence that followed was painful.
I put my arm around her and found her hand, and, above it, the bandage covering the wounds on her wrist. I couldn’t help fingering with it. It felt strangely intimate. Even though I wanted the conversation to end, I heard myself asking, “Which quote is that?”
There was a slight pause, then “That to die is to wake,” she said simply.
I didn’t know what to say.
When she again spoke, I could hear impatience in her voice: “P. B. Shelley. ‘He hath awakened from the dream of life’.”
I cried silently into her shoulder. I don’t think she noticed.
On my way home, I leaned my head against the cool bus window, blindly gazing at droplets of polluted water snaking their way down the glass, crisscrossing each other as they went. It looked wrong. The young boy behind me was listening to loud music in his head phones, and I could make out a familiar melody, and found myself adding the lyrics I couldn’t hear.
I’m too messed up I should’ve followed you. Where’d you get that smile and the fine hair?
On the aisle across from me a woman my age was reading The Catcher in the Rye, expressionlessly, and it somehow didn’t make sense, as if I was watching a movie and someone had swapped the familiar soundtrack to something that didn’t fit at all. I broke my promise, and read the small piece of paper that had been put in my hand just before I left, with the instruction that I was to wait until I got home before I read it. Four short lines in her handwriting. I recognized the words immediately from a CD she had once borrowed and somehow never returned.
Wave thou art pretty
Wave thou art high
Wave to the city
Wave wave good-bye
The first thing that hit me as I walked into the apartment was the red-blinking light on my answering machine, and the knowledge that I should never have left the hospital.
“Deirdre,” I whispered, “Deirdre is my name.”
It was Coral’s second suicide attempt. The first one was still fresh in our minds when we again got the call from the hospital. Between them I would lay in bed for hours, on my back with my hands under my head, lights off, staring up at the ceiling, watching the shadows dance as cars passed by underneath the window. I kept putting off buying curtains, and it never got completely dark. Sometimes I lit scented candles, and put them in the windowpane. The draft from the window, which had made white roses of frost on the inside of the glass during the coldest days of winter, made the shadows from the flames flicker unpredictably over the room, and spread through it the smell of roses or lavender.
We had quite the absurd conversation in the hospital bed, Coral and I. She had made room for me to lie down beside her, under the covers, as I had just come in from an icy summer rain. The umbrella had kept me dry enough, but I was still shivering with cold as I leaned down to kiss her on the cheek, and the bed was invitingly warm and dry. I kicked off my shoes and crawled in next to her.
“I had my suicide note all worked out,” she said. I didn’t know how to tell her I didn’t want to know about it, so I cuddled up next to her with my head upon her shoulder, saying nothing. “I had this perfect quote I wanted to use, and everything. But then I forgot to write it.” Her voice broke off, and the silence that followed was painful.
I put my arm around her and found her hand, and, above it, the bandage covering the wounds on her wrist. I couldn’t help fingering with it. It felt strangely intimate. Even though I wanted the conversation to end, I heard myself asking, “Which quote is that?”
There was a slight pause, then “That to die is to wake,” she said simply.
I didn’t know what to say.
When she again spoke, I could hear impatience in her voice: “P. B. Shelley. ‘He hath awakened from the dream of life’.”
I cried silently into her shoulder. I don’t think she noticed.
On my way home, I leaned my head against the cool bus window, blindly gazing at droplets of polluted water snaking their way down the glass, crisscrossing each other as they went. It looked wrong. The young boy behind me was listening to loud music in his head phones, and I could make out a familiar melody, and found myself adding the lyrics I couldn’t hear.
I’m too messed up I should’ve followed you. Where’d you get that smile and the fine hair?
On the aisle across from me a woman my age was reading The Catcher in the Rye, expressionlessly, and it somehow didn’t make sense, as if I was watching a movie and someone had swapped the familiar soundtrack to something that didn’t fit at all. I broke my promise, and read the small piece of paper that had been put in my hand just before I left, with the instruction that I was to wait until I got home before I read it. Four short lines in her handwriting. I recognized the words immediately from a CD she had once borrowed and somehow never returned.
Wave thou art pretty
Wave thou art high
Wave to the city
Wave wave good-bye
The first thing that hit me as I walked into the apartment was the red-blinking light on my answering machine, and the knowledge that I should never have left the hospital.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
