My wife is sick sir.
He came to me, his quiet wife in tow - twisting his cap in his workworn hands - a furrow in his weather beaten brow.
What seems to be the problem Mr. McCullogh? I asked him gently.
He looked down at the cap rotating in his hands, feeling the familiar shape of the brim slide beneath his fingertips - as though the tweed may open its mouth and answer him.
i don't know. he said softly - like a lost child.
I looked at her - she hid halfway behind him - her hands clutching at his arm and his jacket - unable to meet my gaze.
What's the problem Martha? I asked - concern for them edging into my voice.
I don't rightly know sir - she said quietly - I leaned into hear her. She looked up - startled to see my face so close and her eyes instantly fell.
I can't seem to... think or see rightly. she said without confidence.
What do you mean? I asked quizzically, seeing she saw and thought just fine.
There's something... gnawing at me on the inside... I can't rightly explain.
The colors - the world - is seeping away. she continued on.
I listened intently.
It's like - sometimes... sometimes I feel like everything is being drawn down - washed out - the water pouring drown the drain... like me life is being sucked away.
She looked up at me earnestly -
I keep seeing it - like a dream - but reality - and everyone else keeps going on - right as rain - and I'm just falling to pieces - falling away - I can't - I can't rightly explain.
The last repeated with frustration and she bit her trembling lip - where the words still perched bitter on the edge.
To my mouth rose the diagnosis of depression - of anxiety - of hormonal imbalances - a hundred scientific explanations and reasons, and I tasted the bile of it in the back of my throat. I looked into their faces and knew that these were lies... band-aids applied to gaping wounds - paths that could open up new avenues of new anxieties, new fears, new bondages - to free from the fear of the unknown - the emptiness that was eating away at everything.
How did you explain the disease of the world.
Her words struck death knells in me... I too had felt the implosion of the source.
I looked into her eyes and knew... there was no cure.
She read the answer there and hers welled up with tears... falling again to examine the floor - waiting for the linoleum to give the answers I could not.
Her husband looked between us - still lost - though it was she who clung to him.
So... he said - clearing his throat uneasily - so... is there anything we can do about it?
I looked at her - she looked back up at him.
I don't know, Jim - I told him - I'll see whether Martha and I can find some solution.
--*--
There's something that isn't right - her eyes were feverish and wild - the world - it's broken at the seams. The magic... the magic is seeping out.
What magic? I asked her - watching her tremble at the word.
The magic - she cried - the magic that makes things live and breathe - that gives meaning to everything
her hands flung out and wide - her fingers splayed.
it's fading for me - I canna' see it... I canna' see it and it's leaving me.
they clutched into her chest at her heart, squeezing and holding it into her invisibly...
It's leaving me - she sobbed...
it's leaving me.
she curled up rocking in her pain
I canna' see it anymore and the world - the world is shriveling up like a dried raisin and dying... it's dying... and I'm dying - and the whole world keeps spinning on - the people - they continue with their lives... they canna' see it... they canna' see it and they are dying - they are all dying even if they canna' see that they are.
How can they canna' see it? she cried out again - hurling the questions out from her throat.
How can they be blind? How come they canna' understand?
she launched herself at me, off the couch - clutching at my hands - hot and shaking - and gripped me in them - her strength belying her diminutiveness - fed by desperation.
Tell me you see it - she cried - searching into my eyes - hers bloodshot and red, bulging from her head and still - blind and feverish... lost in the hypnosis - and the swallowing emptiness.
tell me doctor - tell me you see it and I'm not insane - she begged - falling to her knees again at my feet - agitated, distraught and hysteric
tell me tell me tell me she whimpered... tell me you know it's true.
and i did -
it had died for me not long ago
wrapped in the shroud of sensibility and propriety - i had watched helplessly as the world I knew and loved slipped back and away - leaving the world barren and grey
hollow
and empty -
left me standing at the edge of the abyss - screaming, weeping with laughter and pain at our own great insignificance.
her hand lay on my foot, I could feel the heat of her fingers burning through the leather as she wept
knowing I had no answer she wanted to hear
and no comfort to give
it is dying. the world is dying. and no one can hear it gasping for air - but those of us whose souls are burning with it.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
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