Nils had been sick. He knew that much.
He was quartered in a barracks of indeterminate size. Long hallways dissolved into the misty middle-distance. He knew it was not foggy in the building; it was just a manner of thinking about it. He’d not yet had the chance to get outside to reconnoiter. His comrades all seemed to be male, but it was hard to tell considering half of them were animals. Nevertheless a definite maleness pervaded the place that a single female would have erased.
Nils had been deathly ill, but he had been saved. With a firm, insistent hand she had pulled him, or led him, from a very scary place. He couldn’t remember anything from before that, but he still felt, just behind him, a pit of blackness and despair, a place he didn’t want to be. She had drawn him to the surface, drawn him to herself, into herself, and not just with her hand, but with her voice. And not just her voice, not just the words, but the caring, the compassion, the trust they were freighted with. He had surfaced from a dream, from the well of oblivion, risen, gasping, towards her image.
And there she was. Not a stranger to him, but his reason for existence. It was she he had always known, always had beside him. It was she he had cradled in his arms and held to his breast through a lifetime of luminescent days and endless velvet nights. She was his staff, his comfort, his love. Rather, she was his heart, all he had. His existence. He knew her as he knew himself, better. His succor and aid; all that had ever mattered.
Her eyes were fixed and as bright as the buttons on her blouse as she held his chin and deftly scraped the grizzle from his cheeks and jowls. Careful under the lower lip and around his ears. Her bright blue acrylic brush parted his hair to its accustomed place and she turned down his collar and rubbed his neck and shoulders as he knew she always had. She read to him, her voice caressing his ears like a cat lapping milk, and when he reached for her hand it was always there.
But now she was gone.
For how long had he sat on his bunk crying her name, mesmerized by longing, with such an ache where his heart should be? Such a sweet ache; the ache of hollowness. It was all he had of her now but memory. It was round, the ache, right in the middle of his chest; round and ever-present, never wavering, never subsiding. The sweet ache of love. As real as love, indistinguishable from love, a measure of love, of longing. He rubbed it around its edges.
When he put his hand to his chest he found a hole, an aching hole. It brought tears to his eyes, but he could push his hand right through his chest, right through the hole, until it was sticking out through his spine. With his other arm he could reach up behind his back and shake his own hand. If he’d had a gooseneck, he’d have been able to stick his head right through, that was how big the hole was. But there was a force field that filled the hole and his hand and wrist tingled with electricity when they were inside it, so he contented himself with rubbing around its edges. It didn’t ease the pain but it somehow calmed him, reassured him of his love, of her existence, of the necessity of her return. She’d saved him, brought him back to the living, then ripped his heart out by going away, leaving him a living donut.
Sometimes he distracted himself by playing bridge with his fellow inmates. He enjoyed it even if they didn’t seem to. Nils, pay attention; it’s your bid, someone would say. One Duck! Hee hee. Hee hee, he’d giggle into his cards. No one seemed to notice his joke. He knew very well that the suit was called Chickens, but he called them Ducks. The other players seemed to understand too, because the play went on as if he’d bid one Chicken. It wasn’t a very deep joke. It was like calling a Spade a Shovel, something he also did at times. But he was teasing his partner, pointing out the absurdity of the situation, even if no one else noticed. He snorted as he glanced up at his partner, whose bid it was, over his fan of cards, watching him as he turned his head sideways to peer down at his hand. Turned his head so he could see past the enormous orange bill that erupted from his face just between his eyes making it impossible just to look down at his cards. Hee hee.
He was sitting at his station on the wooden stairs halfway down, not in the city, not in the town, his shoulder against the wall, grasping the handrail above his head with both hands. It was a staircase from the depression era, leading to a dingy foyer of similar vintage with a coat-rack, a narrow table for hats and gloves, and a tall mirror that gave back a faded image. Suddenly the front door opened and a burst of light banished the dinginess and every angle and corner flew like a startled starling into focus. A blurred, back-lit form, no more; her white uniform shining darkly against the brilliant halo, and his every fiber leapt in recognition, an electric shockwave ripped up his spine and lit his ears on fire. But he didn’t move, gripped more tightly the banister, and watched as she shrugged off her cloak and mounted towards him. She gave no sign of recognition, was about to pass him by, when suddenly he grabbed for her hand. Smooth, supple, like an old baseball glove. Mary, Mother of Mercy, his tears like rivers, his ache swelling to engulf her. She was back! She stopped and turned to him, stooping to take his hand in both of hers. Her uniform was piped with black. I know, darling. I know.
Now he is sitting rigid on his bed and she is perched beside him. Her head is bent against his shoulder and with one hand she holds one of his and with the other she strokes his stubbled cheek. I’m here, my sweet. I am here. The hole in his chest is heaving with his breath, crying for deliverance. He jerks his hand to soothe it but finds only air. That ache, that sweet ache, oh, to have it again! Anything! To feel anything but the void that has replaced it. This enormous ache of emptiness. How could he feel betrayed, when she had finally returned? But she had returned to shepherd him back to where, with every particle of his being, he dreaded to go. His eyes are streaming. There, there. Try to be calm. It all comes to this. You knew it would. Every step you took. Now here we are. Yes, here I am. His face twitches then freezes into a contortion, but not a contortion of terror or anger or hate, not of resignation or desperation, and not of understanding. There are no epiphanies. His face twitches, his eyes wide open, then it freezes into a mask of utter loneliness. He casts aside her hand, and from his bowels, his belly, surging like black bile, animal immediacy, against all reason: I DON’T WANT TO DIE!
Taos, September, 2000