blood, birds and glaciers

Lawns are emitting the fragrance of chemical flowers. The firehouses are empty, dark. And I'm stranded on a sidewalk in the dead part of town, Futility's ghost swirling in my head like smoke from her cigarette.
And I tasted her faded lips.
And I thrashed inside her wilted figure.
I look skyward. Huge birds blanketed in black are soaring, wingtips slicing, painting invisible arcs. Their silence is grace. Their grace, ineffable.
A fire flickers in my chest.
And I remember Futility...

She was sleeping as rain rattled off rooftops and cascaded into gurgling gutters. Puddles coalesced on muddy lawns, flooding and silencing that chemical scent.
I closed the window, lit a cigarette and stared at her body. I felt like a painter, an artist studying the female figure, attempting to digest an unmanageable microcosm of perfection, incalculable beauty. The human mind cannot grasp the concept of perfection -- but her body offered a glimpse into that staggering abyss. I felt impotent. Out of place. Like a bloodstain on the immaculate linen of a queen. ("And queens do not bleed.")
And then, words fell. Softly.
"We are giant glaciers of ice. Shifting. Moving. Slowly. Our coordinates will change. Eyes will traverse strange landscapes. Our flesh will taste foreign climates. And we will befriend invisible lovers and lick their salted wounds behind locked doors in midnight rooms. We will attach just to peel off, away. Every experience will mold, shape and sculpt a body, a memory, something to live inside us. But when our pupils dilate and fade for the final time, what will be the sum of these experiences, these memories, these bodies? Who will read our epilogues after we exit? And who will stand in the shadows of our intangible sculptures and offer validation?"
Her name was Futility.
I left her side, walked to the window and peered through the curtains. Cats and dogs continued to fall, a punishing rain. It was the kind of rain that forces lovers and strays to scamper and take refuge.
Through the rain and across the soggy landscape I could see a cemetery. The graveyard was like a quilt stitched into the hillside. Hidden in the threads were bodies buried in boxes, forgotten secrets.
And I wanted to hear them.
I put on the shirt she had crawled on and stained with her sweet scent, climbed into pants of dirty denim, strapped on my boots and walked outside, into the thick of it.
I was soaked in seconds but remained undeterred. The tombstones and mausoleums beckoned like a dying chapel, a lighthouse.
And I was a captain lost at sea.
The pelting rain was telling me to abandon ship ("There is nothing here"), turn around and return to sheets warm with Futility, but I stayed the course. This was a pilgrimage I had to make. I wanted to know the secrets -- the code of the dead.
Lightning flashed like dying filaments.
Thunder cracked like broken bibles.
And it was then that I realized the dead know nothing.
The dead.
The unborn.
They all occupy that great invisible void: the collapsed cosmos of nothingness. Inconceivable and unjustifiable, like Futility's flushed flesh.
And it was then that I realized there is no heaven, white and glowing. There is no perdition, fiery and furious. No towering god. No devastating devil.
Only this moment.
A flinching eye.
A beating heart.
A drop of rain.
A kiss like the Fourth of July.
I jumped ship and ran through the flooded streets.
And it was then that I realized Futility was my chapel. My lighthouse. My Jesus. My secret. My moment.
I was dripping like a dead sailor as I ripped through the door. A staggering silence greeted me. That detestable stillness of an empty room. Her scent lingered but Futility was gone.
I peeled off my saturated clothes, threw them away. I was naked. Stripped of the moment. My scars glistened in the dim glow of candlelight. Hot wax. Clammy flesh. Contrast. Unity.
I fell to my knees, crawled into bed and pressed the pillow to my face. Her scent slithered into my nostrils and filled my head with lamentations.
"Oh, Futility, where have you gone? You've left me dripping, shaking, alone with a heart full of dirty blood."
A flash of lightning penetrated my closed eyelids.
And I waited for the sky to explode.
I opened my eyes, looked skyward, and on the ceiling, written in the ink of a ghost, were the words:
Appreciate the knowledge of the unknown and embrace the weight of the invisible; for life is a fleeting kiss from the unborn, the futile.

Stranded on this sidewalk, I'm trying to shake her memory loose, trying to exorcise her tepid ghost. I'm trying to pretend that nothing happened. I'm telling myself Futility didn't exist.
But she did.
And she does.
She's a caged bird trapped inside my cold chest, pecking away and making a bloody mess. The doctors tell me it's heartburn, acid reflux, something. I don't listen to them because I know better. It's Futility, eating me from the inside out.
"And I won't deny you, baby."
The black birds of grace have disappeared and the sky is a gray canvas, blossoms of clouds are pluming.
I can hear thunder rolling over a distant prairie.
It smells like rain.

mc

flash

My friendships and relationships have been like a kaleidoscope: brilliant colors glimmer and shine briefly, only to turn, shift and transform into something unrecognizable, foreign, fading to nothing. And a memory is formed. The faces, unforgettable. Always. "I won't forget you."
She's gone now. Her absence only confirms my fear of trusting another soul. I cut myself open and exposed all those secret places that I hide from everyone else. I sliced open old scars, let them bleed into her; I revealed fresh insecurities, she was assurance.
And now she's gone.
No one will ever know the amount of strength I expend attempting to establish something, anything with a new face. I thought I had established something meaningful with her. A foundation, a floor, a bridge, something steady and durable, something to silence the fear, the doubt, the insecurities, the static -- a remedy.
I shared with her the most intimate of secrets, ghosts that had never been exposed, ghosts that now haunt me more than ever because they've been leaked into her heart, a sacred vessel I thought to be secure. Safe. And trustworthy.
And now she is gone.
And now there's this disconnection.
And now those secrets, those ghosts have become unmanageable particles, dust catching rays of distant light, floating through my fingers and out of reach, swimming in her heart. Those untamed secrets -- pieces of me -- drift, unprotected.
I feel exposed. Ashamed. Foolish. Naked. Exploited. Alone. I feel like the unsuspecting talk show ghost who has been bombarded with an embarrassing monster from the past. I feel like an obscene caricature, a forgettable punchline from a bar room joke because I was naive enough to suspend my fears and trust her.
She was a strange juror and I was at her mercy.
The jewels of dependability, assurance, love, trust, safety, reciprocation and peace glimmered in her beautiful eyes (the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen), crumbling my defenses and numbing my instincts. My heart now bares the scars of retribution.
Alone tonight, my mind flickers with the fleeting memory of a glimpse, a taste of what I longed for. And now she's gone. A memory. A postcard. "Wish you were here." I was, but for a flash.
"I won't forget you."

mc

passing

As I drove home earlier today, I saw a gopher, twisting on the roadway.
It was confused.
It was contorting.
Writhing.
Its eyes moved in slow motion, unable to calculate the End.
It was dying.
Slowly.
Once I recognized the situation, I looked away and hoped its end would come soon. I hoped for a giant steel belt wrapped in black to come tearing down the road and crush the suffering. But a prayer for death is a plea fraught with complications. How does one weigh suffering and life with salvation and death? Who wants to wear the executioner's mask when his or her heart bleeds with sympathy and compassion?

Thirty minutes later Sister calls with tears in her tone.
What's going on? Is everything okay? How is the pregnancy proceeding?
She tells me the baby boy is doing fine, his kicking and wrestling a constant reminder, and he's due in mid-November.
But this phone call isn't about a baby, a beginning or a new life.
This call is about an ending, and her tears are for Family Dog.
After seventeen years, Family Dog's life is quickly fading and Sister is faced with that brutal prayer: a prayer for death. The Angels of Anesthesia are calling and Sister, naturally, is hesitant to heed their song.
Family Dog was the staple that bound Sister and I through our parents' divorce, and when everything was falling apart, that little Pekingese was there to lick our wounded hearts.
And this is very difficult to write about...

It's hard to express how the confluence of recent events has affected me emotionally... My creative spark remains broken, silent... My mental stability: a volatile signal of depression, self-doubt, fear and hopelessness, with intermittent flashes of joy, love and passion... It feels like everyone is an antenna, receiving some kind of secret broadcast -- a transmission I'm unable to catch -- and I'm rendered lost and lonely, left with frequent moments of "unreality"... And the last pure and untainted symbol from my crippled childhood will soon be gone.
What happened? How did things get like this? And why is Family Dog's imminent death just another tragic poetic stanza?

mc