In The End

The illness was a result of him giving up.  It had been hiding in him, laying dormant, for years.  Wearing down on him but never getting the better of him: never taking hold because he had hope.  When he realized something was wrong, really wrong, he lost hope.  He gave up and had no hope anymore.  He had no proof and didn’t want to know what was wrong; despite that, he did know it was something.  That opened the door.

 

“39.1, how is your throat?”

He just shook his head.

“I know you are sick, but you don’t have to be grumpy.” It sounded accusing in his ears.

 

He had that look on his face, the look of being lost and in pain.  She hated that look and hated him for it.  It was a look of wanting pity, or so she thought.  And she couldn’t give pity. 

 

“I just can’t talk,” he managed to whisper.  She recoiled at the smell.

 

“It smells like something is rotting in your throat,” she managed in a kindly voice.  “Just don’t talk,” she pecked him on the forehead and left the room.

 

He knew she wouldn’t kiss him.  The smell was bad enough to go with the pain.  She also didn’t want to get sick.  She also hadn’t done more than give him a peck on the cheek in days.  But on the forehead?  He wanted help, like a sick man, not pity like a dying puppy.  Either his face wasn’t saying or she wasn’t listening. 

 

The worse he got, the more she went to buy medicine and talked on the phone—mostly with doctors he guessed.  The worse it got the less she sat in the same room as him.  Then, just a look into his eyes replaced the peck on the forehead.  A look from across the room usually.  He didn’t even want her kisses now.  He understood.  She didn’t want to get sick or have to bear the smell.  It was embarrassing.  He didn’t want her to smell him or even see him like this.  And he understood even more.  He didn’t want her to be next to him.  He wanted someone to lay next to him and just be there.  But he didn’t want it to be her.  He wanted, no needed, someone, but more and more it could not be her.  Her looks and movements betrayed something that he wanted no part of. 

 

She was frustrate and worn out.  Not just from his illness but from her life.  She was worn out by what he didn’t want know.  She was driven further from him by his fever, throat and smell… by that look in his eyes.  She helped him, but she moved further and further away. 

 

In her mind, he couldn’t have known and so it didn’t matter.  Even if he did know, he could never have done anything and it was for the better.  She would get him better, get him through this.  She would do what she had to do to get him through it.  And she would do whatever she needed to get through it.  Then she would do what she wanted, finally.

 

In the end he recovered.  And in the end he knew.  She thought it was his illness that ended it for him.  For her it had been over before that.  And in the end she thought that made it all, all right. 

 

Coffee and a Cigarette

Coffee and a Cigarette

The counter was covered with everything that couldn't fit in the kitchen sink. His head filled with faces and names, and an aching fog that wouldn't let him even try to put them together. The number of empty bottles and the absence of damage on the premises astounded him. It was much different than what he was used to.

She was still sleeping. Always, he drank more than her, but she always slept later. She always woke more groggy and in need of coffee but never hung over. He always needed to bring her, her breakfast, usually just coffee and a cigarette, in bed to get her out. After nights like that he needed more aspirin and water, after he dragged himself out of bed.

All the faces and names, forgotten or mismatched, would be a sever handicap to him as he started here. It would be like all the other starts for him: confused and plodding. Faces and places often stuck even when he was drinking, but names… Not even when he was sober. And places that he had never been to or heard of were like uncooked pasta.

He fumbled around the mess, not because of the mismatch and fog in his head. He fumbled cleaning for the same reason he had the mismatch and fog in his head: he wasn't sure what to do where he was and not really sure where he was. A name and photos really only go so far. How to pronounce a person's name there; where to put the metal and glass, if anywhere; what was the first floor and was there a ground floor… That was a whole other for what wasn't just in his head: is surrounded him completely.

Better to just throw it all away, take a shower, make the coffee and have a cigarette. Then watch her until she woke. Best not to think about what to do, or how he got here, or why.

Blue

The clouds, grey and streaked, didn’t fill the sky but they might as well have.  The sun was nowhere to be seen, though the sky seemed endless.  The horizon between the buildings was vast and seemed unreal.  “How long has it been since he was last out of sight of mountains?” He asked himself.  He couldn’t remember.

 

If he walked a few blocks to the east he would catch a clear sight of the water.  That was the opposite of the mountains he was used to: flat ever changing and open.  You could imagine running away into the sea or ocean.  You could make space there, feel free as you moved, not trapped.  Like rolling hills he never sees.  But mountains: men are not eagles, so mountains are difficult.  You can flee into the mountains and get lost.  Lost is exactly what it is too.  Unable to be found but struggling to find a way out.  Always hemmed in.

 

The buildings were not like that.  You could escape into them, go around them, see past them.  In most cities you could feel free despite the apparent obstacles. 

 

As the clouds took over more of the sky, he felt his pocket again: just to make sure.  His glasses were still not there.  He didn’t miss the yellow tint everything seemed to have these days, but the blue of these lenses, without the sunlight, left everything grey.  If that dull yellow was decay and corruption, like puss, the grey was boredom and depression.  But it was better.  And blue was like Miles: detached, cool.

 

With a glance, the watch, which spoke to him far too often, told him that he had no time.  No time to get his glasses; no time to walk to the beach; no time to say hello, goodbye…

 

So he turned east and walked without meaning but with a meaningful walk. 

 

When it came into sight, he could breath.  The salt in the air cleared his head.  The grey and white of the waves pulsating up and down blended into the grey and white of the sky that slip across above it.  Soon it was all he could see.