566. Outtake #7: Imagine the Eyes

Zoe: Von, I don't want to die.

Von:

Zoe: The idea that I won't see my baby, that I will never know my child, that my child will never know me, a child that already will never know his father . . .

Von:

Zoe: Ceru was strong, strong to the end. I have no idea how he did it. I stand at the edge and I feel the bitter wind and I am terrified. The drugs they give me have no effect. My hand trembles uncontrollably. I can't sleep. The nightmare is not a dream, it is my life, what is left of it.

Von:

Zoe: For the first time, I find no comfort in words. There is a gulf. I stand on one side and those with words stand on the other. I am in the rain, they are in the house. I am tied to the stake, they are sipping snizzle in the comfort of their routine. We die alone. You can hold my hand, hold it to the last heartbeat, but death is single file and the fear and horror and terror is to each alone.

Von:

Zoe: I cannot accept being pushed over the edge.

Von:

Zoe: This is my baby. I give it life. I am the mother. I will be the mother. My child will know my touch. My child will have a mother. I do not expect you to understand the bond between mother and child.

Von:

Zoe: I need your help.

Von:

Zoe: This hospital is killing me. This planet is toxic. I feel it in every breath, needles in the lungs, razor cuts in the ocean.

Von:

Zoe: Get me out of here.

Von:

Zoe: Feel this (she places his hand on her belly). Feel that?

Von:

Zoe: Get us out of here Von.

Von:

Zoe: You know what it is like to lose a child. Imagine what life would be like for a child to lose both parents, to never know either one. Now, imagine, one day, the question comes, and it will come.

Von:

Zoe: Did you do everything possible? (pause)

Von:

Zoe: Imagine not the words, not the question, but the eyes, innocent, big and wide and wet in a small head looking into your soul. Imagine that moment between the question and answer. Imagine that bottomless gulf. That day will come.

565. Doors

Von drew breath, hand on door, eye down the hall. Evenly spaced, metal door after metal door, sober gateways to individual realities, portals between this life and the next, confessionals of love withheld, rectangular antiseptic boxes, vibrating with silent cries, prayers sent forth as smoke into the sky, of eyes that saw what eyes can't see. With warm hand upon cold handle, Von entered.

Walking as one before alter, tone hushed in silence not silent, head bowed by the weight of respect, the air felt electric, alive as only life feels before death premature, when temporal hands hold the power of Janus and the chest feels ocean deep and about as murky and dark and cold. She looked magnificent, auburn hair on fire and turquoise eyes polished, skin china white delicate, hands female tender, efforted smile authentic and pure as the heart that beat for two.

"Morning," said Von. "You look wonderful."

Zoe smiled. "You know, Ceru was not a very good liar either."

564. Autumn Wheat Dogs

Em swung her bare feet off the bed and with hands anchored on the edge of the mattress, lifted herself to the cold floor. She wore no makeup, her hair tied behind her head, uncombed. Plain of face as plain of gown, she walked to the window, lips slightly parted in the sight before her wide eyes.

Without sound, two young girls laughed and danced, hands in leash, pulled forth by tongues wagging as dogs in cool weather pull forth in unbridled joy, eyes flashing, tails as flags, hunches lean in sprint. Em watched the girls in ballet, skirts twirling, smiles quick and easy, leashes tangling and untangling, a choreograph of innocence where steps are light and the hour is an eternity.

Still, she stood, Em. Still of body, still as night, still as the heart of parent before child on stage, the kind of stillness one only knows to know after the stillness is gone. She watched without blinking, without moving, without thinking. Green grass, autumn wheat dogs, white dresses.

Round the tree they ran, ponytails bouncing with kite bows, a touch of color, timbre resonant. The fall sky, cloudless faded blue, domed. Harder they ran, the dogs, playing in harmony with their masters, hearts pure, hearts loved and from within flowed without, witnessed in visage, known in countenance.

Statue quiet, the scene played within Em's mind, memories flickering celluloid matching the vision enacted before the stage of her window. Floating, the feeling felt, floating above the girls, watching over them as the wind in the tree.

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563. My Hands are Cold

Yul was in the shower. For what seemed like a long time. Rog fiddled with breakfast, poured another cup of brew, buttoned and unbuttoned his shirt, made faces in the mirror and still, the shower showered on. Bored, he noticed his comm, blinking.

the scene shows rog picking up his comm, listening. his face changes expression, the comm drops from his hand. in slow motion he sprints to the bathroom. the door is locked, something she never does. rog yells, no response, only the steady sound of the shower. he yells her name again. still no response. with all his might he rams the door with his shoulder.

Through the mist of steam, a shape behind the glass, not moving, not standing.

the camera is in the bathroom and the sound of the shower is louder, we do not see yul, but the door. we hear the muffled shoulder and see the door give, almost exhale and contract between blows. the door gives way and we see rog, we see the moment of realization on his face. yul is lying on the shower floor, a small trickle of blood flowing from her mouth to the drain. he picks her up, limp in his arms, crook of knee in crook of elbow, her wet-haired head held tight against his chest, the shower cascading down upon them both like rain. the camera focuses on rog's face and the gamma rises, skin mutes pale and one can't tell what is water and what are tears.

"Baby, hold on." His head bends back, eyes upward, bare muscled arms and chest ripped in the holding, straining within as without. "This is not gonna happen." Rog blinks, waiting on an answer, eyes still cast upward. "Do you hear me. This is not gonna happen."

scene fades with rog standing, eyes upward. the sound of the shower fades into the soundtrack, which starts faint and grows: The Killers' Human

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562. A Grandson

As the nurse propped her auburn locks under another pillow Zoe watched the door over her rotund belly as one watches the ocean over the dunes. Life moved within her, a son to be were the words and still she could not believe it, for it had never occurred to her until she met Von, until she saw the eyes of the eyes she knew, that her child was not to be a child, but a grandchild.

The door, upon which, upon the other side, faint as her heartbeat, were words uttered, the kind of words one didn't need to hear to know. Von was there and another and where one spoke the other listened and the muted tones felt as lazy waves lapping, melodic, soothing, gentle in the way one is gentle when there is nothing to be done, nothing that can be done. She watched the door with the peace of decision made, of gift purchased and wrapped, of anticipation, as Ceru would often say in the quiet of exhaustion, of giving, within the effortless natural flow. She would give as he had given and she would give what no other could, and she would give not to get but as the natural unfolding of right and true, of love.

He would argue and she would smile. And in her eyes he would know the word could not stand against the true heart and then there would be silence and just looking and then tears and holding hands she would begin to talk, to tell the tale he had not heard, to pass the history of the baby's father, the history he would need to know, would want to know. So she watched the door. Knew that it would open. Knew that he would walk in heavy. Knew that he would leave light, in light.

He kicked, the grandson. She smiled as her hand traced the curve. And then the door opened.

561. Mute Eyes

He had not called. He was not taking calls.

They wheeled her into her own room, just a single bed, white sheets and a solitary window overlooking the grounds of the provincial hospital. She sat the bed in a cotton gown, head turned forty-five degrees, eyes fixed on the window. The room had no smell, clean, bland, insipid. She breathed without moving, foreign air into her lungs, in the care of strangers, alone. Limp, her arms hung, hands in her lap, as they had been placed. Her lips, dry, cracked, felt as her heart, bleeding, cause unknown. Strength absent, waiting for purpose, waiting for a call, a sound in the silence, a ring that someone gave a damn.

Images flashed. Her father at the helm, steadfast, the ship rolling in a storm; her mother, pearly smile, saucer eyes, arms conveying what words couldn't as strength slipped away in heartbeats faint and fainter. Family, connection, relationship. This was life. To care, to love, to act, to hold and caress and kiss, a flower in a vase, a thumb on forehead, strokes gentle.

The room had one bed and one small table next to the bed. Light slatted into the monochromatic cell, bars of shadow, confinement solitary, an antithesis slap to all she had known. Together, she had told her father, we will lift her up. Together, her father had repeated into their embrace, father and daughter drawing upon the other. Together their strength grew, together their love multiplied. Together mattered. Together gave meaning. Together flowed, naturally. Together smothered doubt, held fear at arms length. She sat the room, silent, alone, her unblinking eyes fixed on the window, on the grounds, seeing nothing, neither tree nor leaf, neither flower nor bird.

Spoken, not a word, they had said. Mute of eye too. Her chart said shock. She had seen them, strangers, move today as she imagined they had moved yesterday and as she suspected, they would move tomorrow, with or without her. Their hearts distant, necessity she wondered, grown callous in the labor of care, weary in battles lost. They had even misspelled her name. And through it all were images and silence.

Together, father and daughter had lifted, spirit and casket, when the time came. Together, pure as morning before song of bird, within and not without, they lifted their souls as they lifted the soul of womb to eternal light. The walk seemed forever and an instant, timeless she would say later, the most curious mixing of contradictions, held within something larger, something greater, and, for a moment, as if a crack in the wall of darkness, something flashed, something no word could describe, no concept could hold, and her feet felt to float, casket too, and they walked, father on one side, daughter on the other. Together.

Alone, in the white barred silence, Em sat the bed with doll arms, fingers clawed in natural repose. Her face felt paper thin, fragile, fading in this alien world, some Janus forsaken outpost, cared for in a system doing what systems do, processing, cold, mechanical, the faux caring of one in a play, mouthing words mouthed a thousand times before and to be mouthed a thousand more. The room held but one table. The table sat between bed and window and on that table, a small metal object, neither blinking nor buzzing. He had not called. He was not taking calls. He was not here. He was not coming.

Unnatural, the air. Dry, sterile. Not the air of Hyneria. Not the air of love. They had taken her locket, as they described her brooch. Taken her mother. She had watched them, remove her clothes, take the brooch. Her mind moved, her arms did not. And cold foreign hands took the enclosure, their placid unreadable faces illuminated in the pulsing light. She saw her arm resist, in her mind. They placed it in a box. Her mother. They didn't know. She could not speak, her words gone as moments are gone, her chest constricted, caving into itself, a fetal curling, involuted, he would have said.

Would have. Past as present. The world, this cold, alien, foreign world, white, sterile, alone, the silence of the guilty. It wasn't suppose to be this way. Mother had died at home, in loving arms, in familiar surroundings, flowers and poetry, light warm as wood, hands as caring as the bee to flower. Love is round, she had said, not a line or a square but a circle. In bed, pillow under her head, her hair combed, her eyes clear, she raised her left hand into mine, her right hand into father's. A circle she said as father and I joined hands, love is.

Leaves slipped from moor, dancing before the window, a sight best shared, imbibed like children's laughter, hearts drunk with innocence waiting the sentence of time. Innocence held not weight, nor past, nor future. Moments laden as pregnant dew, happy in their own accord, glistening in the light of possibility, the kind of possibility that knows not failure. Her weary unblinking eyes thought of fairy tales and wondered why. Why the silence.