A new day. That's what I want. A day not like every other day. A day that does not add to the accumulation of those forlorn eyes. Fish belly white; bottom lake cold. Then I think of the boys that arrive with none. Of the children they will never see. And how must they cry, how can they cry, without eyes. . . .And still it is cold. The last two days have been officially documented: blizzard. Snow looks like sand as it huddles against our tents, as it gets in our shoes, as it makes even the slightest trip outside miserable. The days are short of light, overcast. Everything appears darker than it is. And there is a heaviness to sound, a notch too much of bass. Wears on you. Grates on you. And you crave the one thing war can never give, yet gives too often: silence. The silence of closed eyes. From the palm of a hand.
I work with five other nurses. The 91st surgical field hospital having been spilt into thirds with the push in mid-december. We travel like gypsies following the army, living off what the war has discarded. We exist because it does. We have work because others sacrifice, which is an euphemism. This is what accumulation does. It compresses you. Weighs you down. Until you have not the strength and you break. You say things you shouldn't say, which is only a pale reflection of what you've been thinking.
I write letters home but not as often as I should. I hate the lies. I hate that I am writing to an audience that no longer knows me, that the girl they said goodbye to no longer exists; yet, these falsified letters, is what I feed them and the riff grows. And I want to say things, write things they would not recognize. So I pretend. I say that I am fine; that everything is going according to plan, that we are winning this war. And in the saying, I am saying nothing at all. I have created this other self, this former self that I inhabit when I write to them. I wear it like a dress that no longer fits. From a distance, no one can tell.
We fix what has been broken, but what has been broken, has been broken for us. Like ice in hot tea, our boys are consumed. There is pride at times and guilt. But mostly a vague disgust, a shimmering anger beyond the tongue to define. As if the eyes have rendered one mute, mute of diction for this carnage, of looking into the blue eyes of a young boy, wiping the sweat off his brow with one hand while holding his intestines in with the other, waiting for help, for his turn, telling him to . . . and then you realize those eyes are just staring. But they aren't seeing you anymore.
There is a language in eyes not seen outside of war, not seen outside the OR. We arrive; and so do they. An odd choreography, them coming from one direction, us, the other. And there are always more of them than us. Dropped in their soaked litters, those oxblood stains, damp, sticky, a look and smell not unlike calf birth. Without the birth. They lie because they can't stand, can't walk and it hits you, the obvious, these teenaged boys, who should be running and jumping like deer, can't. Some never will. Many of them were handsome.
Art by Andrew Jones
9 comments:
Sigh
WOW
This one truly rendered me speecheless. Outstanding literature. The mere thought of Mary writing letters to an "audience that no longer knows me", how sad. This will stay with me throughout my days, and nights. The more I learn of Mary, the more I feel as though a part ofher lives inside of me. Not the part I envy, but the part of her that is lost, sad, searching, and yearning for the past, for the way things were, if even they only were for a very short time. That perfect moment in time. Forever lost. sigh.
A brilliant piece of writing.The descriptive use of language amazes me. I can always feel, see, hear and smell your point. Very few have this gift. Cherish this, as very few have it. It is something that no one can take from from you. It lives inside you, and this is obvious to anyone who reads you work.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend.
H
PS. The image you use her is also amazing. I almost said equally amazing, but then that would not be true. At least not in my opinion. As wondersul as that image is, the writing is better ten fold.
As always, you leave me eagerly awaiting your next post.
Lady of the Lake.
Thank you my dear Lady of the Lake. Your kindness is most appreciated. And I find your identification with Mary intriguing and interesting. As for the image, Andrew "Android" Jones is one of if not my favorite digital artist. Expect to see more. :-)
As I begin, in a blur of tears are the words that I write. And I find myself searching my memory once again, filing through memories of every poem, every short story, every lyric, every novel I have read for any to which I can compare, so far and few between is the conclusion of that search once again, and for those who struck cords as deep, who managed to create such a genuine voice, who achieved eloquence concordant with you, it was never with the consistency that you have. Every word that you write, my goodness, still harder they stream as I think of the enormity and the truth of this, every word that you write. It feels like love, I want to say. It feels like life, it is replaced by. But it is more than that, it is the deepest connection, the most heightened awareness, it is the best of us, upon these pages, souls meeting one another, embracing, unified whether one is fictional character, creator, reader.
Reading your posts today, I keep thinking about faith, about what I believe as I seek to hold within the enormity of your gift long enough to offer up some kind of sensible response and find myself using terminology pertaining to the great unknown, as it were, I find myself contemplating such things as reincarnation for how does one accomodate otherwise in rational thought the sphere of your insight. It seems so beyond imagination, beyond empathy, if you told me right here and right now that you had lived before, that you had lived these eyes, that you quantum leaped through time and lived a life long enough to know it intimately, I would believe you unconditionally, it would in some ways be more comprehensible. And it isn't so much that you can envision, that you can draw Mary so deep within yourself - which as I write it sounds absurd given Mary is within you, born from you, from your soul, yet at the same time is demonstrative of the life you have created - that you can feel her every vibration, it is that you are able to release those so that we feel them to the extent that we do. To where, using my example, I am so completely affected by what she describes, what she shares of herself, I cannot recall being more deeply touched by the heart of another.
(Perhaps you might appreciate this, I find myself having now to go back and read the post again so carried away upon what she felt, I no longer remember what she said.)
And there I go again, the words blurring as I come to the end of the first paragraph..
I'm helpless to write a proper comment, this piece of writing has developed my definition of the word genius. I thought about going through a paragraph at a time, but I would not be able to stop myself from bookending every line with quotation marks, one sentence at a time and following it with the most profuse wows. I don't even know what to say. As much as I was aware of your supreme talents before this post, I understand better now their limitlessness. And I understand just as well, the next posts will stretch that understanding still further.
By the way, something I have never done before is to read your posts backwards, which I have been doing with these last 3-4, in turn it confirms with evidence what I knew to be true in that the singular post is complete in itself and in regards to affect as had one read them in sequence.
I feel as if I'm standing upon the beach and your comments are warm waves gently flowing over me and there is no other place I'd rather be. Still, I wish for just once I could be those waves, to see what they see, to feel what they feel, to know their wetness.
By the way, my favorite line in this post is the last. I had originally written the thought as two sentences.
Many of them are handsome. Were handsome.
I like the more subtle change. :-)
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