Rejoinder

She was slumped deep in the sofa cushions, still dazed, her insides jello still quivering from the shock. Still staring at her apartment door. She couldn’t take her eyes off the damned door. The door he had closed behind him softly but with finality when he left; that he had used for his cliché-ridden exit. Really, Bob? she said silently to the door. You really think that it was just that we had grown apart? That we just don’t want the same things anymore? That no one is to blame, really? Or if there was anyone at fault, that it wasn’t me, it was you? And you’re really sure now that someone else will come along who would be so much better for me? She couldn’t decide what pissed her off more: 1. that he had reached the conclusion she had still been working her way towards (for of course he was right that things had gone pffft between them long ago); 2. that he had snatched the role of oh-so-gracious dumper before she had a chance to (leaving her the dumpee); 3. that he had laid on her cliché after infuriating cliché; or 4. that she had been left speechless as each patronizing platitude fell upon her like a blow, locking up her brain, leaving her open-mouthed, unable to even squeak out a retort or response. Over and over, her thoughts kept bouncing between 1, 2, 3, and 4, like a ping-pong ball in a doubles match, faster and faster, until her mind was a white blur. Unable to contain her oscillating anger any further, she yelled to the empty room, “OH, YEAH? FINE BY ME! JUST MAKE SURE THE DOOR…” Wait, that wasn’t right. “I mean, umm… don’t let... DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOUR ASS ON THE WAY OUT!” Hah! So there! Then, impelled by an urgent need to drive it home with one final exclamation point, she rose from the sofa, stomped to the door, opened it, and – BLAM! – slammed it shut on him so thunderously the pictures on the wall flinched on their hooks. She stood before the door, hands on her hips, still panting, nostrils still flaring. Okay. Silly. But it felt good anyway. Twenty minutes late, but still.

(February 2013)

The Stories of Your Lives

You were so few and unobtrusive when you first started appearing that you did not even register in my awareness.

Truth to tell, I cannot say with certainty that I even had any awareness at all at the time – certainly not of you; nor, perhaps, of anything else.

You were all so ephemeral.

You were like a puff of wind, like mist, like distant sparks in the corner of my eye that winked out before I could turn to you.

But over time, more and more of you started drifting towards me from the other side, forming gusts and flurries, like snowflakes blowing in only to melt in the air.

Over time, I woke up to your nebulous presence billowing in and dissipating all at once.

Over time, I learned how to differentiate each one of you from the myriad others in that burgeoning cloud.

I learned to see the uniqueness of each spark, to catch each singular snowflake, to discern the patterns each of you formed.

I learned to know what you truly were.

Thus did I realize – slowly, haltingly – that you were the final unraveling thoughts and memories parting from your mortal selves on the other side, just as your mayfly lives moved towards termination.

* * *

Many of you were fragmentary: merely broken pieces of the final sights and sounds and sensations that you perceived, the last emotions you felt.

The surprise as the black, metal grill of the truck loomed instantaneously, impossibly large; the dark, massive shock as the screeching world crushed you.

The weeping faces of your loved ones looking down on you, growing dimmer against the backdrop of the larger darkness.

Watching yourself from the ceiling with the utmost clarity and compassion, as the gloved hands of the green-garbed man worked furiously inside your open chest.

The fluttering, dissociated images of your dreams as you passed away in your sleep.

The sound of your breathing becoming raspy and labored, the beating of your heart growing fainter and further apart – the only sounds remaining in the world, slowly fading away.

The strains of a song you once heard.

The scent of cinnamon from your grandfather’s bakery.

Your long-dead mother’s voice, speaking inaudibly but lovingly.

And so on, and so on.

* * *

Some of you were more complex, forming more coherent wholes.

Some of you flashed through memories spanning your entire life, all in an instant – providing me with a narrative of your existence.

Some of you saw beings in your mind, with whom you spoke, who bestowed upon you a sense of contentment and unconditional love.

Some of you beheld visions and images of strange, fully conceived places that never existed in your world.

Some of you felt yourselves falling or flying into an all-encompassing light, being surrounded by it, experiencing a peace and bliss you had heretofore never felt.

Sometimes I wonder if it was my being these last few sensed in those final moments, mistaking me for the light.

Perhaps.

* * *

But then you dissolved, just as countless others came in to take your place in a roiling, unceasing fog – only to dissolve themselves.

All of you, every last one.

* * *

Of course, many of the things I have spoken of do not really exist in this immaterial realm, on this side of the divide.

There are no sparks, no wind, no mists, no gusts nor flurries, no snowflakes, no air, no clouds; I have no eye to see you with, no head to turn to you.

Until you came to prick my awareness, there were not even such things as words, or thoughts, or time.

There was no I.

There was, I surmise, only an inert, insensible being that only slowly became conscious of itself when you began to appear and it began to perceive you.

Becoming aware of you, awareness stirred within myself.

Becoming cognizant of the period when I slowly awakened, and measuring my growing consciousness from that point, my awareness shifted into forward motion, putting me on the track of time.

Learning your thoughts and memories, I grew to know your words.

Deciphering your words, I pieced together the over-arching story of your kind.

And the more I knew about the moments of your deaths, the more I understood the stories of your lives: your experiences of sorrow, fear, anger, regret, joy, contentment, solace, grace, love, peace, resignation, curiosity, surprise, awe, compassion.

And so I have been changed, and continue to be changed.

And so there is a me to be changed.

And so more and more I have been fashioned as an image of you.

* * *

I do not know what this all means.

I do not why you have come to me to affect me so.

I know you do not mean to do so, that your passing briefly into my realm is not something you intended, nor have any power to accomplish, really.

I know that many of you believed in a teleological direction to your lives, a purpose for your existence – or for existence – though few of you were ever able to attain complete certitude in these matters.

Thus, your uncertainty and doubt give rise to mine.

Perhaps there is a purpose to all of this, though I do not know what it could be.

Perhaps I will discover it someday; perhaps it will become clear.

Sometimes, I do vaguely feel as if I am moving towards something.

Sometimes, when I am moved by the joy and happiness that you have imparted upon me, I think that this is all a gift – that your coming has been and continues to be a gift.

But then sometimes, as I contemplate the truly enormous weight of your fear and suffering that I have had to bear, I think this is the worst possible affliction of all.

And then sometimes, even as I apprehend you as you continue flowing towards me in an ever-growing haze, I am caught by something else entirely: a stillness, an empty space – and I am left to simply wonder.

(February 2013)

Stranded

You scan the parking lot as soon as you peel away from the burbling stream of children pouring out of the school entrance. You spot my car in the lines of waiting cars, and just for an instant, there and gone, a look of relief flashes on your little girl face. But the expression winks out at once, replaced by a frown. You let your bulging backpack weigh you down, so that you are slouched and shuffling as you amble towards me and my car. It’s been nearly a week now, and you still haven’t forgiven me – not yet – though I think you’re getting close.

You open the back door, dump your backpack on the backseat, and clamber in. My smile and chirping “Hi, sweetie!” bounce off you as you arrange yourself carefully on the seat and drape the seatbelt across your chest and click it in. I turn around to face front, but continue watching you through the rearview mirror. You only graduated from your car seat last year. Divested of that bulky, plastic, cushioned appurtenance, you seem so small now against the gray fabric backdrop of the backseat. A familiar feeling washes over me: of joy and repose, streaked with just a tinge of heartbreak, at how small and beautiful you are. A familiar feeling, and yet still, always surprising.

The cars ahead of us move forward in fits and stops, car length by car length, taking on their young passengers, until at last we are at the head of the line and clear to exit. I maneuver the car onto the street and we are on our way home.

“How was school, sweetie?” I ask. Your answer was, of course, clipped: “Good.”

I have to keep trying, though. “Anything happen? What did you do during recess? Did you play with Tricia and Megumi?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“Played in the slide.”

Hmmm. So, maybe not so close as I’d hoped. After you had tantalized me last night by letting me read you a bedtime story after having refused for three nights.

But then you add, unasked, “Some of the boys kept sliding down and then they kept crawling back up the slide instead of going around. We didn’t get many turns.” – and I brighten up.

“That wasn’t fair,” I say, pricking my ear for a hoped-for response.

But you remain silent, and I sigh, wearying of your stuttering, two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance towards me. But then that, in other circumstances, is one of the blessings of you, isn’t it? That wider, more expansive sense of time that you have that sometimes forces me to step out of my frenzied tempo of life, so filled with drop dead deadlines and constricted minutes and things that needed to be done yesterday. You make me match your pace, slow down to your more measured, more deliberate, more hesitant rhythms.

It had been a deadline at work, dumped on me last minute, that had delayed me in leaving the office to pick you up on Monday, five days ago. I had tried to rush to you to make up for time, but several cars ahead of me had piled into each other in a string of fender benders that slowed traffic to a crawl. It was in a state of growing agitation that I inched forward in my car and watched the dashboard clock as it ticked slowly to 3:00 o’clock, then touched it, then stretched on past it. I had wanted to call the school to let them know, but when I scrounged around inside my purse for my cell phone, in a moment of face-blanching consternation, I found that I had forgotten it at work in my hurry to leave.

I finally reached the near-empty school parking lot, driving in slowly, taking care not to tear into it. I saw you sitting on a bench along the wall, hugging your backpack, your face pinched and tear-streaked, your mouth downturned in an inconsolable little pout that tore me to pieces. Your teacher, Ms. Wati, was sitting with you. I parked and ran to you at once, but I had to hug you and your backpack together since you kept holding it in front of you. I explained, to you and to Ms. Wati. Ms. Wati was annoyed and disapproving; she cautioned me how important it was to be on time, especially with younger, sensitive children such as yourself. But she is an adult, and well-versed in the vicissitudes of life; despite her reproof, I am sure she understood.

You did not, and you were unforgiving. And I understood. It was just forty-two minutes that I made you wait, but, as I knew, time passes for you differently than it does for me. Forty-two minutes is barely anything to me, just an instant that flies by. But to you, it must have been endless – and horrible. There must have been ten or fifteen terrifying minutes there, after you saw the last of the cars drive off, when you felt you had been left behind, when you imagined you had been abandoned forever. I quite understand why you have been so hurt and intractable. It didn’t matter that it was the first time I had ever been late, that it was one transgression after years of reliable constancy; indeed, the breaking of the pattern might have made it worse – like the breaking of a promise, like the cracking of a foundation that once seemed solid.

I turn into our street. We are nearing home. I say, still trying, still in a cheery tone, “It’s Friday. Tomorrow morning, we’re visiting grandpa and grandma.”

You say, “I remember.”

“They’ll be so happy to see you. Are you looking forward to it?”

“Yes.”

I turn into our driveway and park the car. I get out and open the door for you. You unstrap yourself, climb down, pull your backpack after you. We walk to the front door in silence and I unlock the door and open it. You enter our house. I pause for a moment, and think about how these little moments – even the wretched ones in which it seems things have unraveled between us – are the threads we are slowly weaving together, that are being stranded together in a skein, binding me to you forever. You may not know this yet, but I do. 

I walk in, following you.

(February 2013)