Willing Myself To Waken

 

Another night of one of those haunted, haunting dreams. Not my idea of a dream, it is a nightmare from which I cannot escape. There are just so many versions of the same frightening prospect of being lost, not being able to find my way home. Much worse, being separated from my life-companion, searching for him desperately, and only finding him when I finally wake up. Rescued from another nightmare.

I read too many of those personal accounts of dreadful acts that people commit against one another. When the human psyche goes berserk. But that's only part of it. My husband also has similar disturbing dreams. Where he cannot find his way home, despite his anxious determination to come home to me. It's all that travelling he had to do throughout his working life, he tells me. It's the memory of loneliness, of impersonal hotel rooms and foreign destinations.

For me, it's more that when he travelled I yearned to hear from him, to feel him close again beside me. He was always good about that. No matter where he was, halfway across the world, he would telephone me, and that was comforting. He would come home from his workplace appearing quieter than usual. That should have tipped me off to a forthcoming trip, but it always surprised me when he finally explained he would be off again.

To places throughout the length and breadth of Canada, in the United States, Mexico, Japan, Great Britain, Ireland, China. At first I thought how utterly privileged he is to travel like that and see the world, and I had to scold myself if I ever remotely revealed to him my sense of apprehension. I made a deliberate attempt to be pleased for him. And when he returned from one of those weeks-long trips, I'd listen carefully to his perceptions and experiences.

Travel by proxy. What had seemed exciting and romantic early on in his career, became a dreary re-occurrence. Some deep-seated fear must have lodged itself in the depths of my being, in some dark and secret place where it is dredged up from time to time, transformed to one of those impossible dreams. Last night's was not quite typical but then not quite atypical.

We were young again, young parents of a family of three pre-adolescent children. We had travelled somewhere for a holiday; not an exotic vacation, since at that time we did not stray all that far from home, although I've no idea where, in the dream, we were. Suddenly, my husband was somewhere else, not with us, he had told me he had somewhere he must go to, and would soon return. But he did not, and I was left with the children in some strange place.

Where I suddenly became alerted to the fact that the small town or village in which we had ensconced ourselves for our temporary stay, was bristling with people hostile to our presence. Men, women and children, all were alert to our presence, and demonstrated unmistakably ill intentions toward us. I gathered the children and we began our swift exodus from the town, but we were followed by irate people.

They threatened to kill us, all of us. I thought surely, my husband would appear, take charge of things, defuse this peculiar threatening situation, but he did not. We fled, and the throngs followed. We sought refuge in a house in the surrounding countryside and the people there behaved no differently, and seemed prepared to kill us there and then.

There were two children in the house, besides my own; one a toddler with a bonnet and a frilly dress. I scooped her up, said I would do to her what they planned to do to me and my children, and suddenly the situation changed. We were permitted to leave, refusing to leave the child, taking her with us. We wandered about, looking for a safe haven, looking for my husband.

Then we were confronted with the mob again and leading them was the family whose child I had abducted. To demonstrate quite how serious I was, I threatened to bash the child's head against the wall of a nearby house, and the crowd became very still, no longer belching bellicose abuse. I thought to myself, we would escape, we would be re-united with my husband, and I would retain the child, and raise her as our own.

Again, the crowd followed and confronted us with vicious intent. As so often happens when I have a nightmare that I cannot escape from, I awoke. Aware in my drowsy state of the content of my dream, willing myself not to resume the nightmarish dream if I fell asleep, and despite that, when I fell asleep a few moments later, the dream resumed. In the dream I was acutely aware that I could escape by willing myself to awaken.

And I did. 

 

 

The Known World

 

How can it be plausible that people
can discover functional merit and purpose
in preying upon others in the curse of humanity's
propensity to the practise of slavery? That African
tribal chiefs sought profit by selling their rival
clans - men, women and children as livestock
to be herded into caravans by Arab traders or
to European slavers to die agonizing disease-
afflicted deaths, their frail black lifeless bodies
strewn upon the deep seas as fish fodder.

An ancient, hateful tradition predating
written memory, where the victors triumphed
with the processions of shackled, miserable
vanquished, the conquest of humanity, the dire
misery of hopeless enslavement, the generations
born into inhuman bondage, their lives borne out
in witness to the celebration of the free, the
mourning of those imprisoned in serfdom, no
purpose but to serve a remorseless master.

A man whose daunting philosophical genius
awed with the elegance of his intellect, but was yet
a slave, subject to the imperious whims and commands
of his moral, creative, cerebral inferiors themselves
impervious to the degradation and misery they
sustained. The harvest of human bodies for
righteous duty to those who presumed it right and
proper to prosper from their purposeful enslavement
has stained humanity throughout the shameful ages.

As it does to the present, where the indigent
and the vulnerable, the young, the fragile and the
unprotected are abducted and violated. there is no
universal conscience, no inborn genetic code to
instinctively cause aversion, no god of divinely
merciful dimensions to demand the cessation and the
release of the indentured denied their equal portion of
humanity's dignity, purpose and freedoms.

All is chance, geography, fortune, good or ill. And it
is a decidedly ill wind that lights the embers of human
avarice, ambition and pitiless aspiration to assemble the
users, abusers and the soul plunderers toward the purpose
of hegemonic upheavals, the spoliation of children,
the harsh domination of the defenceless. 

 

 

Simply Put: Why?

 

A three-lettered query, simple in its
surface innocence, but complex in its
need to know, nuanced with an underlay
of demand on the sensibilities. Acutely,
humanly needful of thoughtful introspection
and response. Why, he asks, the sentence
forwarded for contemplation, comprised
of a single word. The most meaningful
plaint in human communication, but
sans context, an arcane conundrum.

There is an inhuman distance of vast
geography separating us, yet our connection
is managed through the ether, permitting
those faceless, voiceless masses of which we
are two, to meet. Brief contact, one mind
reaching another, past language, culture and
history to find a common human interest.
You grope for those to share your search
for meaning, and there am I, responding.

No, your malady is not mine, but my
emotional grasp of its life-destructive
powers require no great stretch of the
imagination; humans are imbued with the
capacity to care for the plight of an
unfortunate stranger. Call it empathy,
compassion, a remote tenderness of
vision and responsibility as an uncomplicated
gesture, person-to person, unseen, unmet.

Your language is not my language, so it
must require quite the effort, a huge
difficulty for you to marshall your thoughts,
transcribe and send them on their way through
the miracle of telecommunications circling the
atmosphere, tickling our awareness of one
another. Messages of enquiry, attempting
to solve the riddle of the deeply rooted
covenant of the spirit, to respond to need.

Your insistent need to know: But why, then?
resonates and saddens, it does not elevate
the discourse because you will not accept
the simple act of humanity, obsessed by a
response you will not dredge from me,
invested yet with the belief that good exists
somewhere deep within, and sometimes
we must defer to that impulsive instinct.

 

 

Season of Mourning

 

It is an unspoken covenant between
grandmother and granddaughter, the
daily after-school call, born no doubt of
their intimate history when in the first
decade of her young life it was grandma's
arms that enveloped her after school.
Distance has made the invisible silken
strand of connection - tender yet strong
as a spider's skein - no less compelling.

Watcha doing? elicits the identical
quotidian refrain: not much. But it is
intensely cold, windy, damp and so did
you wear your winter boots and jacket?
represents another facet of the formula
of this relationship. Nope, the laconic,
expected response. And the vital news of
the post-school snack emerges: a pomegranate.

That mysterious Eastern fruit, its amazing
structured, celled interior surfeit with
faceted ruby jewels like those in a treasure
chest discovered in the fabled caves of
Ali Baba. These glistening sweet jewels to
be consumed, not worn in brilliant splendour,
arrayed upon the white, swan-like necks of
beautiful Harem girls. Careful you don't
squirt your eye, grandmother urges.

Damn! granddaughter informs, just squirted
my eye. Language, chides grandmother.
Then in the silence asks do you know the
Greek legend of the pomegranate? Have you
met Demeter, the goddess of the harvest and
her daughter Persephone? Do you know where
the seasons come from? Have you studied
Greek mythology in your school curricula?

To the last query: yes, some, in drama class.
To the previous: no clue, as they claim in
teen vernacular. But you can ask about
vampires, we know about them, grandma.

Grandma sets about enlightening her child
in the delights of tragedy and mystery, grandeur
and petulance, power, esteem and comedy, all
residing in the arcane minutiae of a folk
panoply of gods, their overweening pride,
bumptiously covert antics, vain jealousies and
curiously oppressive sexual adventures.

How an abduction of a beloved daughter
led to a grieving mother and a deadly chilled
season of mourning, when no flowers bloomed,
no crops grew, dark wailing veils hung from
trees and the brows of mothers alike, and all
life was suspended in unappeasable grief. The
redemption of compassion that would bring
spring back to the world, and the single seed
of a pomegranate that consigned a daughter to
dark Hades and a coldly possessive yet loved
husband to satisfy both life and death.

 

 

The Inner Self

 

Life is a difficult passage - from childhood
curiosity, stimulation and growing aspirations
to the development of memory, experience
regret and profound concerns and finally
disappointments. We are singularly fortunate
when the serendipity of personal fortune
outweighs the overlapping misfortunes that
are met and dealt with on our life-journey.

It is incumbent upon us all, in reflection of
the finer emotions we are gifted with, to care.
The manner in which we express that care, on
every conceivable level, identifies us as
individuals. When caring becomes an intolerable
burden that makes a misery of our lives, there
is a useful human antidote: humour.

There is no situation, however stressful and unhappy
in its dark bleakness that does not hint at humour
for even humour can have its grim edge, lifting
us from submission to despair. Before we
stretch the tether of emotional balance to its
snapping point, humour beckons to be heeded.

A lighter mood has its own perspective, capable
of reflecting hope and deliverance from the
destitution of lonely, devastating destruction of
confidence in the future. Where there is no hope
there is no future. Where there is not future, there
is no reason to prolong life. The imperative is to
steer in the direction of life and the future. One
where the light of hope and comedic relief from
life's stressors liberate us from rejecting ourselves.

We can laugh and find humour everywhere; light
and carefree, or mercilessly dark. But humour
withal. Transient but renewable, sturdily useful
enrapturing at times, insightful and mind-directing
it may become a tool of choice in our enduring
free-choice subliminal quiver of survivalist options.

 

 

Causmology

Ultraviolet Andromeda
Credit: UV - NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)
Optical - Bill Schoening, Vanessa Harvey/REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF


There was nothing, a vastness of emptiness,
a void incomprehensible in its dreadful silence
its inconceivable non-existence. That much is
clear. Or not. What is a hypothesis but a leap
of faith in a mind's genius in provocatively
imagining that which might - or might not - be?

Nature holds her secret formulaic rituals close.
Why should she divulge her elaborate architecture
of the scaffolds of existence? The creative impulse
is hers, hers to conceive and to execute as she
wills, when she deems fit. Away, you compulsively
seeking minds! This much she will tantalize you
with: radiation, gravity, gaseous emissions, organic
elements, order and disarray, temperature,
atmosphere, distance, time and space.

Surely with the considerable aid of these primary
constants, your precocious minds can construct
the origins of the Universe! Try a little harder, do...

Think: There was a beginning. It was dark, cold,
immeasurably vast - and there was no thing
visibly present. Therefore, there was nothing. Or
was there? Ah, from nothing something resulted.
Something unspeakably profound, majestic
immense and powerful. Was that not so?

The birth of awesome energy, density, as
matter rushed to fill the cold, vast emptiness.
Imagine, if you will, the brilliant, all-absorbing
awe-full richness of light, clashing and
tempestuously crashing, slashing the darkness
with the ineffable life of a universe born into
existence. Call it what you will, nature simply
shrugs and proceeds with her blueprint of creation.

She is busy with galaxies, nebulae, stars, planets,
super novae, collapsars, icy comets. Red dwarfs
black holes in her comprehensive engagements in
which she takes such pride of ownership. Taking
pleasure at her leisure in unleashing solar winds
fiery eruptions on the liquid seas of volatile gases
amusing herself for fourteen billion years. Meaningless
as a measure of her timeless sovereign presence.

Sufficiently bored, on occasion she will set aside
her amusements, suffer all matter, energy and time
to be beckoned and collected into those black
receiving agents of anti-matter, to be stifled and
become no more. Until eventually, the housekeeping
is done. Nothing more exists and the black holes
collide, re-imagine themselves into the vast stillness
of nothing. Goodbye. And hello! Yet Again.

Once Again To the Breach!

 

There, she's done it again. Your anxiously
lonely and obsessed, impetuous daughter
has chosen unwisely, and in your ears,
piercing your torn heart comes the
unleashing of the conflicted anguish. Out
it comes in an unending stream of emotional
bile against yet another man whose cavalier
approach to partnership in life has managed
to devastate expectations; are you surprised?

A brief nod to self-reproach as she moans
that her generous spirit and open heart
conspired yet again to leave her gasping in
frustrated disbelief. You cannot interject to
remind her of the imperious rejection of your
cautious advice, for now is not the time and in
fact there never will be a time. You are there, a
soft wall of compassion, absorbing her grief.

Note to self: you will shop for a luxurious set
of warm flannel queen-size sheets for your once-
again bereft child, hardly knowing where to turn
for the comfort of a life companion once again
denied her. It is a gesture the absurdity of which
will pass beyond her, and just as well, given the
circumstances. Those circumstances being nothing
you may now amend, after all those years.

Did you raise her so ineptly, arm her so sadly
insufficiently to recognize quality from liability?
Fail to imbue her with an acute awareness of her
own value and discerning discrimination well used?
Were those life lessons you imparted by word and
in deed so shallow and redundant? She is approaching
menopause. When does personal passage to life's
afflictions become one's rightful ownership? 

 

The Shrinking Man

 

He was a familiar figure to the other
habitues, given to strolling along the
trails close by the neighbourhood of
homes fortunate enough to enjoy the
wooded ravine, so readily approachable.
This man, a gregarious personality,
loped along the trails. He leaned
angularly against the prevailing winds
and forged his way through the many
meandering trails, as a regular hiker.

He had a companion, a very tall and
very black Labrador, matching in
appearance, the towering size of its
guardian. For every two strides forward
most trekkers took, this man took one,
carrying him expeditiously along, his dog
trotting beside him. They were clearly
devoted to one another, the dog and the
man. They no longer, though, represent
familiar figures to those who recall them
with fond memories of camaraderie.

The dog had lived out the years allotted it,
and his companion mourned his faithful
dog's absence. No longer any reason to
perambulate through the woods. He was,
however, often seen about the near
neighbourhood and the rapid alteration
in the physical appearance of this man
distressed those who had long known him.

His height became vastly diminished as
his neck crooked forward, resembling
that of a turtle. Instead of a turtle's
carapace, his back had curved into the
very realization of a hopeless shell. Now,
he cranes forward, head faced down to the
pavement he now favours, walking along
the urban streets contiguous to the woods.

He is not alone now in his long rambles
through the area. For he adopted another
canine whose promise as a pup could be
theorized in the size of its massive paws.
The Russian wolfhound grew as rapidly as
its owner's immense size diminished. One
imbued with a lust for life, the other become
an amazing shrinking man, folded over
into himself, barely recognizable.

The reduced quality of life for the two
million men and women with osteoporosis
in Canada is enormous.

I Am Here...!

 

Silently the large glass doors glide open. You enter, legs moving you forward at a halting, unfamiliar pace. You feel small, vulnerable, not who you really are at all. Who are you, then? A compact, grey-haired woman of six-score and more, well-lived and -loved for whom life has assumed a new dimension of huge uncertainty.

A short turn in a corridor, then a cavernous room and choices confront you, vexingly. Turn one way, a long wall of glassed-in offices, reception to this vast enterprise of healing for unanticipated maladies. On the other, open hallways leading elsewhere in the bowels of this enormous place. Here, though, are the rows upon rows of seats occupied by mute, absorbed waiters, reflecting on pain, predicament and the virtues of stolid patience.

You hobble self-consciously to the glass wall, there to uncertainly state your purpose: admission; suspicion of heart rebellion. And you weep, ill-done by, for you have placed such trust in that organ, as faithful to it as you presumed it would be to you. You seek along its length for some indication that here -- or there -- or over there -- sits an admitting nurse. Some questions; crisp, kind, professional, and you are swiftly bundled into a wheelchair in the waiting room, set aside for a moment to contemplate, alone, the heavy, bleak darkness of this morose day - anxiously scan the area for view of that beloved face.

Alone, you weep, and heads turn slowly in a tide of enquiry. An elderly man detaches himself from his vigil to tentatively approach, offering his wan concern. Suddenly, you are gliding across the smooth stone floor, a quiet, soft-voiced orderly steering you down long hallways wide with people striding purposefully, focused as living cogs in the great machinery of the medical-health restorative enterprise to which you have now appealed.

You feel forlorn, abandoned by assurances for the future. Welcomed into a small curtained space, lying on a hospital cot, cold with uncertainty, the grey cast of the day increasingly grimmer as the space becomes flooded with attendants.

Nurses bustle about, preparing a plethora of mechanical, electronic devices, while a doctor hovers, quietly probing mind and your memory for intimate details, and at the same time manipulating the body which is yours alone. You may feel alone, but you do feel a sense of professional capability and obvious concern, eliciting from you trust in this place and its busily-engaged people.

Trembling with exhausted anticipation, nervous tension, fearful of the near future, you hear a voice rambling quietly on, speaking a professional short-form known to other professionals and become aware of the entry of another medical professional whose immediate, visceral concern for your well-being manifests in a repeat, as the new interlocutor hazards experienced interpretation of your symptoms. The small room is dark and heavy with their conclusions.

Within the constricting cocoon of your faltering physical presence and friable state of emotions, and despite relief at the presence of these medical experts within the shell of a modern, technologically-advanced place of diagnosis, treatment and healing, your spirit has delved within a deep dismal interior space; dark, unfamiliar, disorienting and damned.

A quavering voice, barely recognized as your own, pleads "where is my husband?"

And suddenly a miracle: the curtains part again and the room is brilliantly illuminated as the sun of your existence strides toward your bed. 

 

Life Versus Lifestyle

 

Have you noticed the peculiar, stealthy
proliferation of a new commercial commodity
in our communities; self-identified as fitness
"clubs" to which all are cordially invited to join
to enhance their lifestyles. And while the
ubiquitous presence of these recreational
exercise institutions attract hordes of clients
packing parking lots, people appear to have
absent-mindedly set on a high, unreachable
shelf, memory of how to achieve exercise,
eschew sedentary habits, adopt sound nutrition.

Those who religiously devote themselves to
the alter of self-aware presentation, quality time
at well-appointed gyms and recreational workout
asylums for the memory- and habit-impaired
suffer an inability to self motivate, to perambulate,
challenge nature on her own turf, exercise mind
and body nourishing both adequate to their own
initiative. Expert opinion must be sought, approved
equipment used, personal instructors involving
a prime workout. Then the drive home, stopping
at a handy fast-food outlet to complete the scenario.

This lifestyle commitment has become so
endemic it has led contrarily to an epidemic
the health care community identifies as
inexorably leading to a current-and-future
population of hugely overweight, disease-prone
succession-demographic; children, teens, adults.
All of whom have become immune to using
and treating their bodies as the finely-calibrated
precision instruments whose well-being reflects
our own, understandably. This asymmetry of
thought and action, a syndrome of neglect, has
its morbid grip deep within the social contract.

Have you noticed, your social peers, friends,
neighbours, family, are robustly over-ample
in girth? Worse, the role models within and
without community and society are becoming
increasingly rare, a truly vanishing species.
For within health-care institutions themselves
the health professionals are increasingly
puzzlingly presenting as ungainly in size and
immobility. The theory of health and disease
prevention is their avowed profession, yet they
fail their initial tests by excusing themselves
from the restraint they impress upon others,
and encase themselves in ponderous excess.

Presumed experts in their professional field of
health and medical knowledge they fail to
mobilize experience on their own behalf; their
pallid, obese waddling presence does not inspire
confidence; their sternly cautionary message of
abstinence where required, resourceful application
when needed, falls on deaf ears, observant eyes.
When the sensible balance of the Golden Mean
eludes them, how can it entice us?

Their failure serves to emphasize the futility of
it all; if direct knowledge and constant professional
exposure to the life-draining implications of chronic
yet avoidable conditions serves them so ill, they
present as personal failures. The morbidly obese
nurse and the breathless, overweight physicians
lecturing, hectoring, belies the cause and the
message is still-born, as we heedlessly descend
the abyss of self-afflicted misery, succumbing to
disease, unease, and early departure from life.

 

Woodland Brigand

 

He follows swiftly, determinedly shadowing
us, to challenge our presence, that blackly
furred mite, for this is his place and we come
bearing gifts. Your swag or your life! he charges
toward us. Our toy poodle feels himself to be
more than capable of defending us all, but no
need. Stumpy pulls up just short of our boots
and swivels his absent tail in avid expectation.

We fumble to discard those peanuts whose
shells are inadequate, searching for large,
plump specimens suitable to proffer toward
his nimble awareness. Secure in his clever paws,
he permits our departure. Then hunts us down,
time and again, as we proceed along the leaf-deep
forest trails, dispensing nuts elsewhere for
discerningly anxious but nowhere-near-as
existentially precocious squirrels as is he.

He is disarmingly amusing, cleverly self-
availing. Aware of the caches, yet deigning to
approach straight to the source of the deposits.
Where the crowds of squirrels that converge
in our wake share a dim associative recognition
of our presence and purpose equating with
largess, he alone instantly understands
the relationship; no mystery to him.

His homage secured, he turns his back to us
and leap-frogs over stumps and branches,
his short fluffy fur where a long furry tail
should be, winking whitely at us,
like an impish rabbit, swiftly receding...

Until next time, when he confronts us once
again, demanding stand-and-deliver!
And we most certainly will - the brazen little
highway-squib. Our very own, up close and
quite magisterially personable, wonderfully
well adapted woodland brigand. 

 

 

He's The Man

 

There he is again, big, bluff and hearty,
plodding down the long hill as we trudge up.
Booming voice greeting us, and we so pleased
to see this genial man whose leisure it is
to cleanse the woods of rude discards,
whose pleasure it is to delve deep and wide.

Mushrooms, we enthuse, are sprouting
everywhere -- and a wide, conspiratorial grin
overtakes his generous features. "I know!"
he confides, almost bellowing with delight
though none but us, our little dogs and the
squirrels to note his pointed gesticulations.

So the edible treasures, bright and luscious,
remain his alone. Who else, after all, can
boast sufficient knowledge and boldness
of culinary purpose to unerringly identify
and disqualify those which threaten, after all?

"There's these hedgehog mushrooms I
gathered yesterday", he waxes eloquent, "and
they were fabulous! Got them home, fried
them up with onions, a dab of sour cream
when they were done - food fit for a monarch!"

His knapsack hung loose and empty on
his broad back. A good day for the hunt,
after days of unrelenting rain, and finally
the sun greets us on this cold, autumn day.
It's a fine day to be out in the woods, it is.

"This big old pine", he says, motioning to
the rugged tall sentinel that has greeted us for
decades, "won't last past next spring." And
we are dismayed with his prediction, but he
insists, he has measured the collapsing clay
banks, points to the birch and the oak that
have already succumbed, lying akimbo in
their bare death across the moiling creek.

Not so, we make bold to deny; it has years
yet left to go. He laughs knowingly: "One good
gust of winter wind when it's weighted with
snow..." We've lived longer than he, seen more,
experienced much, and refute his expertise.

He regards us thoughtfully, shrugs with a
resigned air of one whose credibility is
questioned, says he's off! Knows where there's
a new cache of mushrooms, of a type growing
as a shelf fungus,the colour of ripe melon,
needing to be picked right this very moment.

 

Testing, Testing...

I experienced a truly lousy night. Woke the first time at 1:30. I easily read the clock on the opposite wall to my bed, in the soft light coming from the nurses' station, just across the hall from my room. The curtain wall was not completely drawn.

I could also see the white bulletin board on the white-painted wall, next to the clock. It read 'Critical Care Unit', the date, name of the nurse on call dedicated to my immediate welfare, and the name of the staff cardiologist who was looking after me.

The blood pressure cuff was on automatic and every time it squeezed it woke me. It was as though I was wearing my very own lively and emphatic python concentrating itself on my upper arm. The electrodes all over my chest and their tubes snaking over to that monitor beside the bed; a tall, grey hulking bulk like a medical obelisk bristling with technology, which also held the IV drip administering the drug to stop my stomach bleeding and the second blood bag, earlier transfused, had earlier been replaced by a saline solution.

My haemoglobin count, they said earlier, had come up. My heart now beating too fast, had to be slowed down. There was medication for that. For someone who prided herself on having no chronic illnesses at my age, and who never even took over-the-counter medications, this was a total reversal. I was now taking a veritable cocktail of powerful drugs. And then another ultrasound to be performed. Early tomorrow morning. Rest now.

Can't sleep? The nurse has come in at 4:00 am for a blood sample, to see if the lab could isolate the presence of those enzymes that indicate a heart attack had occurred. She swiftly draws the three vials, tenderly pulls the white sheet to my chin, gently pats my arm and departs.

And I am left with my darkly despairing, creepy thoughts. The muted sounds and soft voices from the nurses' station are fleetingly and slightly comforting.

This was a totally new experience for me. I've always enjoyed good health. Rarely saw our family doctor, because I was never ill. Except for the time I somehow contracted shingles, and that did not require a hospital stay. I cannot recall the last time I was admitted to a hospital. The birth of our three children: check. Oh yes, the last time most surely was when I had the elective procedure that ensured there would be no more children. That would be almost forty years ago.

The hum and ping of the obelisk are clearly not designed to give confidence to the unfortunates who have been plugged into its diagnostic potential; the sound seems menacingly intrusive, portending conclusions that must be truly catastrophic.

I cannot find comfort. Physical nor psychological. Comfort eludes me; either within my throbbing head, nor on the bed to which I am tethered. I cannot shift too far one way or the other on the narrow, white, mechanized hospital bed. It is ill-advised to be so restless. The blood pressure cuff, suddenly alive again, murmuring in its relentlessly firm grip, and the snakes-den of tubes are not amenable to comfort.

My stomach is churning and I carefully manage to exit the bed to move the three feet to the commode to relieve myself, trailing wires and tubes. I do not flush, unwilling to have Nurse Liz come running. And finally, slowly and awkwardly settle back into the now-crumpled bed sheets.

Instantly, the nurse comes rushing in: "one of your electrode contacts has come off!" And I recognize a new "ping" as though the device has plaintively revealed at the nurses' station my wicked non-compliance.

Nurse Liz re-attaches the errant electrode, fusses with the bedsheets, again drawing the upper one smoothly over me. She smiles reassuringly, and pats my arm again before withdrawing.

Finally, I've fallen asleep.

My fretting mind, wondering how I'll ever "catch up" with my life, manage to get things done, all the routine things requiring energetic intervention - cleaning the house, preparing the garden for fall, looking after my husband - crowded in on me during the night.

A sense of dark panic: would I ever be the same again? Remain in a perpetual state, after this, as a life-depleted force? How would we ever cope?

I tried to will myself to be reasonable; things would work out. I did my best to persuade myself to let my body relax enough to sleep. Knowing full well it would be useless. What did work for me when sleep eluded, was pleasant thoughts. And under these rather abruptly untoward circumstances that had swooped down on my life, pleasant thoughts had fled the scene.

Gloom and helpless, dismal and frightening prospects for a dire future had kicked, pummelled and shoved "pleasant" out in favour of shuddering apprehension.

Try to be a little more mature, I scolded myself. You're in good hands. In the best health-care institution in the area, a medical centre of excellence. Skilled cardiologists, practised and highly professional nurses and technicians. State-of-the-art, computerized diagnostic equipment.

Sleep did eventually release me from that torment of self-induced fear.

Then my name sharply spoken. The light of dawn not yet seen through the room's narrow window. The sharp flash of the overhead light, and the crisp, three-letter explanation: 'E.K.G.", confused my foggy brain. A yellow-haired technician beside my bed, trundling her apparatus into place, repeating to my dumbly bleary face: "E.K.G."

No smile, personal introduction, nor hesitation as she peremptorily snapped, "straight on your back, please", lifting the top sheet, groping under my hospital gown, slapping cold, hard, greased
contacts on my chest, breast, arms, ankles -- to take the impressions she is formally tasked to do.

I stare blankly, attempt a pleasantry. She, soundless in response, jerks the wires off the contact points, leaves the cold, sharp, greasy stickers on my body, yanks the top sheet roughly over me, and departs. 

 

 

Two Of Those

 

Everyone else has left the room. The doctors, the nurses, the technicians, the orderly. Telling me they'll return shortly; the doctors, that is. Arrangements must be made to formally admit me. Soon, they say, an X-ray technician will be by. Also someone from Pharmacy.

The blood bank upstairs has been notified. They're looking to see if there are any previous records. They will find nothing. I have had no previous episodes. I told them that. They are in the process of confirming my blood type.

Someone pokes his head around the curtain edges, looks at me, grins, says, "I'm Pierre".

"Hello, Pierre."

He pulls the curtain, draws himself into the room. A short, neat man in a blue tunic, with a flat-top hair-cut.

"I'm going to put in your IV airlocks."

"Oh." Do I know what that is? I don't ask. I trust; have I many other options?

"Won't take long."

He approaches the gurney and begins to lower it. Then he crouches on his knees, on the right side of the bed.

"You could use some knee pads" I observe. Good sport, that's me.

He laughs. A nice, loose snicker. "At home, I've got my gardening knee pads. Never thought to bring them here."

"You like to garden?"

"I sure do. When I'm out there I forget everything else. It's restful."

He is carefully manoeuvring a slit into my wrist. There is a sudden sharp pain and he places the air lock carefully into position, tapes it quickly into place. He had forewarned me. He is deft and skillful, a well-practised technician. No more pain. He is talking throughout the process, responding to me.

"Like begonias in your garden?" I ask this new gardening soul mate. "It's one of my favourite bloomers", I tell him.

"Sure I do. I have lots of them", he responds eager to discuss gardening. Gardeners are like that. Never know where you'll pick up some practical tips.

"Keep them over-winter", I tell him. "Don't toss them into the compost."

"No? What do you do with them?"

"Cut the stem off sharply at the corm. Shake as much dirt off the corm as you can. Stick them all in an open paper box, an old fruit basket, a plastic egg tray, anything, and put them in the basement to over-winter."

"Yes? You can do that?"

"Yes, I do! Year after year. They only get better. Bigger blooms, more gorgeous than the ones you buy freshly in bloom at the spring nursery. Some of them will sprout in the basement, come spring. Some of them will even flower, just sitting there, piled on top of one another!"

"I'll try it!" he says happily, moving around to the other side, crouching, beginning work on the other wrist.

"You'll need two", he says, nodding at the right wrist, satisfyingly mutilated, as he starts in on the left one. 

 

The Dawning

Reminiscent of an primordial
atmosphere, dark streaks of bruised
purple dominate the receding dark
of the night sky as dawn lays its claim
to day. A cascading series of whistles,
shrieks and groans tumble from
the surrounding canopy of trees.

In the distance, grey trails of
vapour and white mists veil the
mountain slopes Fear recedes as
dawn breaks night's clasp and the
sky's helmet clears to blue, revealing
a pitiless sun, swiftly drying sodden
green, soon to shrivel foliage in its
ferociously torrid onslaught.

Three hominids humped before
the embers of a fire laboriously
masticating feed on what their
omnivorous, rarely-satiated appetite
craves. Forgotten now their cowering
desperation during the prolonged
onslaught of thunder and lightning
threatening to reach deep within
the cold shelter of their cave to
deafen, irradiate and drown.

Another of countless survivals.
In the cowl of the morning they will
deploy to gather nuts, seeds, fruits
and seek the easy prey of small, furred
creatures whose bones their teeth will
grind to the marrow, sustaining them
for yet another day's existence.

Mid-day is the time to shelter from
the unrelenting fury of the fiery orb
that, sending probing rays into every
unshielded interstice, turns rocky
surfaces to infernos. Warm-blooded
organisms scurry toward sheltered
havens. That brief time between sunset
and the dismal, darkly-cold curtain of
night, another hunting respite.

Then the mellow light of dusk, swiftly
transforms to black; opaque reality
becoming nothing at all, as objects
vanish and cringing animals seek refuge
from fierce night prowlers. Cold descends,
fires flare, shuddering bodies cling for
comfort. At night, come the bestial,
life-ending predators silently gliding
on padded feet, quietly springing,
bloodily triumphant in claw and fang.

 

 

Caveat Emptor

"The aftermath was more bloody,
more awful, more terrifying than
anyone could have imagined. I can
say that never did I guess the
nightmare that unfolded."

Yes, a butterfly unfolding its wings to dry,
then flapping off into the adventure of its
lifetime may influence other events that may
afterward occur, seemingly unrelated to its
existence, in a demonstration of the concordance
in nature of all elements of life and natural
proceedings emanating from the unfolding
of chance, circumstance and destiny.

Yet humankind is gifted with the discreet
options of informed, reasonable and rational
choices. Knowing that for every action there is
reaction, for every purposeful choice there will
be inevitable consequences. Such thoughtful
introspection does not grace the minds of
sociopathic dictators, careless of the impact
and aftermath of their self-absorbed decrees.

Such can, however, haunt the memories of
world leaders whose inadequately considered
choices refer hindsight to history's fresh heap.
Regrets there may be, internalized, even gravely
admitted, as elder statesmen seek to burnish
their legends and leave behind an untarnished
legacy for posterity to cherish in nationalist triumph.

The tempest of the times chained to motivations
that steered toward poor choices. Later lamenting
lost lives that weigh on a conscience, assuaged
by the self-assured belief that there was no other
choice recognizable. The leader, acting in post-haste,
reports, long afterward, at leisure. He committed
to what he felt was the correct course of action at
the time. In retrospect regretting his decision,
committing his country and its youth to sacrifice.

"I feel desperately sorry for them, sorry for the
lives cut short. To be indifferent to that would be
inhuman, emotionally warped." And he is not "that
sort", you see. He has shed tears for the sad
and sordid outcome of his decisions: "All I
know is that I did what I thought was right."

Lesson learned? Never. Mankind remains
tendentiously inhibited to the rigours of self-
discipline. And the great crowd of humanity
seek those among them to act as plausible
stewards of the public weal. A tradition we
are wedded to, in our stolid need and belief in
a higher order of responsibly-elite minds setting
a course toward justice, equality, purpose and
prosperity. The dead are mourned, tucked away
in memory and old politicians find new ways to
expeditiously and profitably get on with their
distinguished and honourable lives. 

 

 

As Ever It Was

The Middle East is as it was ever, a seething
viper's nest of tribal and sectarian violence.
Fanatical enthusiasts of fundamental extremes,
hurling bellicose accusations at one another's
tribal traditions and scorn of their opponents'
version of Islamic zeal as Shia hurl descriptive
epithets of apostate slander at Sunni belief and
custom and the compliments returned in bloody
match-ups destroying expendable lives.

Bedouin with their still-nomadic lifestyles
clashing with urban elites. Christian Arabs
cringing before the onslaught of Muslim Arabs,
determined to expunge vestiges of holy sites
dedicated to Christ even while purporting
veneration as an honoured prophet named in
the Koran. Infidels, may not under threat of capital
punishment defile by their presence, Mecca.

Murderously brutal dictators, theocrats and
tribal princelings prey on hapless populations,
favouring their supporters and fellow tribesmen,
vigorously violating the most basic of human rights
of all others, while maintaining an iron fist of state
security and corresponding public 'peace'. In
deference to Islam's dictums of brotherhood
and peace, as long as kuffars know their place.

Volatile antipathies, honed and burnished
over the ages in a proud tradition of
representing the one true faith within a sea
of Islam-insulting rivalry, seethe incessantly
below the surface of a restless geography.
Where might is right and atrocities casually
inflicted upon the weak and the powerlessly
undefended. Revolt kept scrupulously at bay. 

 

 

Our Existence

 

Alicia

 

Sometimes she wondered what was wrong with her. She felt overwhelmed, stifled, confused and surrounded by an aura of anxiety she couldn’t quite comprehend. Her best friend knew what was wrong, that’s why she kept urging her to call when she felt that way, so she could talk her down. Better yet, haul them all over and they’d have a ‘play date’, all of the children together, a confused jumble of ages and personalities to confront one another’s little piques with life, young as they all were.

Things got a whole lot better for her, because of Nora’s support. She hardly knew how to repay her. She did just that, though by clinging fiercely to her as a life-saver, giving her the kind of adoring attentions he had once lavished on Bruce. Bruce, now that rankled. She had always been there for him, they were supposed to be inseparable, partners in life, think-alikes, both devoted to their two children, and equally devoted to one another.

She could see now how utterly one-sided that was. It was she and she alone who invested her emotions in their relationship, who trusted and believed in their future. She only fantasized that he returned the depths of her reliance on their relationship. It became painfully clear to her that in his opinion, unspoken, but real nonetheless, she finally understood that she represented to him an addendum to his life.

She still resented that he would anticipate, expect her to ask how his day had gone at work. That had become routine between them. An expression of caring. Unspoken, but understood that this rote enquiry and the response that it invariably invoked, pouring from his parched soul, represented their binary-clinging relationship. His resentment at the lack of recognition of his talents, his experience and academic expertise, obvious by his slow advancement in the ranking echelon within the university. The undeserved negation of someone of sterling quality whose opinion and knowledge should be valued and whose opinion should be assiduously sought and appreciated but was casually overlooked; its effect on him was incendiary.

The release her empathetic listening ear afforded him, unburdening himself of the depths of his antipathy toward his academic peers, and above all toward their departmental head, was important to him. She knew that. He, however, never acknowledged it, simply expected her to play her wifely role, sympathetic to his dissatisfaction with his employment. A mode of employment, however, that kept them financially comfortable.

She, according to him, had no need to take in other peoples’ children. Just to earn a few dollars of her own. What need had she, after all; wasn't he an excellent provider? What was she lacking? She had everything she needed, didn’t she?

“Bruce, there’s more to it than just that. I want to be able to feel that I can be kind of independent.”

“Independent? You’re married. You’re the mother of two kids, our kids. How can you be independent when you’ve got those responsibilities?”

“Financially. I meant financially independent. I mean I want to know that through my own efforts I’m able to earn my own money.”

“You’ve got money!” His exasperation with her was immediate and heated. As though she meant him to feel guilty that he was the sole wage-earner and she the hanger-on. He felt as ‘liberated’ as any man who had grown into adulthood with the aura of gender equality around him could be. But he didn’t get it. And wouldn’t. Because cause and effect eluded him.

His casual acceptance that her purchases were limited to household things, to operating their home, to maintenance, to seeing that they were well fed, the children clothed and their needs taken care of, limited her. If she wanted additional spending money she had always discussed it with him. Not that she hadn’t written cheques or used her credit cards for purchases he knew nothing about. She did, and then when he looked at the invoices it was always ‘explanation time’.

She resented that. She also resented that once she had begun her career as a child-minder, looking after the children of neighbours, making her own money and spending it the way she wanted to, without feeling obligated to discuss anything beforehand with him, he refused to listen to her exasperated tales of mental exhaustion. When she felt drained, without energy, depressed and upset over her inability to manage the temperamental vicissitudes of her pack of children.

She wasn’t even managing as many kids as Nora did. She had only three, when she knew by law she was permitted, operating a home day-care, to have as many as five. Not counting her own. Her own were temperamental enough, but they were her own. She was long accustomed to their petulant demands and time-outs and conciliatory promises for good behaviour.

Packing on an additional three other children to her preoccupation with her own children’s needs simply exhausted her. She could hardly complain to the parents of the children whom she was minding. The effort involved in providing five children with nutritious meals, half of the contents of which they refused, some happily eating items that others turned their noses up at, and vice versa, drove her to distraction.

That the children seemed unwilling to co-operate, interact with one another civilly; incapable of getting along together without calling upon her to separate them frayed her nerves. She had no opportunity to rest, no small blocks of time when she could just sit down and catch her breath.

She hardly knew what to do, yet she had convinced herself she wouldn’t ‘give up’. She had the respect of her neighbours as a hard-working, responsible and reliable day-care provider, and she meant to retain that. Besides which, it wasn’t always so awful.

And the money she earned represented a regular stream of income that she knew was hers alone to do with as she wished. It was all right for Bruce to sneer at her income level, to inform her that she was needlessly making her life more difficult, and he didn’t want to hear any complaints about what she had imposed on herself, but it was important for her to persist.

She knew she could. There was a formulaic mechanism to success that eluded her, but it wouldn’t forever. She had to be around Nora more often when she was in charge of a complement of five, not counting her own four. That was almost twice as many kids as she had been able to work into her little cottage industry, and Nora did it effortlessly, her quiet, confident voice was all that the children required for instruction, and they obeyed her.

Not so for her and the children she looked after. They were defiant of her guidance, as though they were instinctively aware of her inner sense of insufficiency. Taking advantage by some impossible inner realization of her insecurity, to slight her.

And, impossible as it was even for her to believe, three-year-old Alicia had her completely confounded. She truly did not know how to react, how to mollify that child, how to impress upon her that her aggression and miserable attitude was what was responsible for the other children’s dislike and avoidance of her.

Instead, Alicia, young as she was, insisted that the other children were ‘bad’ and she was ‘nice’. She tried sitting down with Alicia in her lap, stroking her hot, angry forehead after an altercation, to quietly explain to the child that she mustn’t pinch, slap, punch or kick the other children. Alicia, sobbing in frustration, would deny she had done anything wrong. It was the others, taunting her, making her unhappy; their fault, not hers.

The thing was, it was the other children who had a tendency to listen, to behave themselves more or less well. And it was Alicia to whom she was forever saying “don’t touch”, “don’t do that!”, "please, behave yourself”, and which obviously represented more of a red flag to this child than it did to the others. They tended to listen for the most part; her reaction was to set her little face into a grim mask, determined to continue doing whatever it was that had drawn attention to herself.

She feared for the child, yet continued to be exasperated by her unwillingness -- or inability -- to understand that she couldn’t simply forge ahead and do whatever she felt like doing, there were repercussions. Invariably, out of such situations the child was physically hurt, stung by a bee, smacking herself with a stick too heavy for her to manipulate, falling and skinning her knees when she was prevailed upon not to run on the playground pathway; to wait until they reached the grass.

She hardly knew what to do, how to react, how to impress upon this obdurate child that listening to the advice of an adult was a positive attribute for a vulnerable little girl, not a signal to run amok.

She felt certain that Alicia’s behaviour was motivated by emotional neediness. Yet, unless the little girl was in a state of emotional upheaval as a result of having harmed herself, she behaved standoffishly, as though hugs and laughter were foreign to both her experience and her needs.

She had discussed the situation endlessly with Nora, in countless frantic telephone calls. She had taken Nora’s advice, done whatever she suggested, and nothing appeared to dent the child’s determined venturing into a physical world that she saw in aggressive terms, to be challenged, as though she had the heart of an extreme adventurer, in the body of an, excitable, emotionally friable child.

As for her, she needed some relief, a release from the stultifying atmosphere of tension that arrived with Monday morning, and refused to leave until late Friday afternoon. Leaving her so emotionally spent she was hardly able to pull herself out of an aura of dull disconnectedness with her own life. Unfair to her own two children, and certainly to her husband.

She badly needed those times when she was able to be with Nora. Those get-togethers she hosted with a few other area care-givers were her life-savers. She could never adequately express her admiration and obligation to level-headed, competent Nora. She did try, and that embarrassed Nora. She tended to shrug, look away. Obviously uncomfortable at the level of her own obvious neediness. In that sense alone, she told herself, a counterpart in neediness with her tiny charge.

Her spirits always lifted when she knew Nora had another get-together planned. Nothing seemed to faze her quite as much when things went awry as they most certainly tended to, whenever that child was around, and that was always. She couldn’t find it in herself, despite the constant concern and pressure, to inform Alicia’s glum-looking mother that she’d have to find another sitter.

It wasn’t fair to Alicia, she had concluded, after much introspection. And despite all of it, the daily struggle, the difficulties of balancing the child’s temperament against the needs of the other two she looked after -- without even taking into account her own children’s needs -- she had become fond of the child. Even as she deplored Alicia’s constant obnoxious tantrums, doing her best to halt the inevitable before it developed into a full-scale breakdown, both for Alicia and for herself, her heart ached for the child.

The few times she had mentioned this to her husband; before she stopped saying anything to him about it altogether, he had commented that it sounded to him as though the kid needed psychiatric care. That amazed her. Just like a man to take that route, wash his hands of any concern for a child whose confused view of the world and how she fit into it frightened her and baffled the adults caring for her.

She readied the children, made sure they all had their little towels and changes of clothing, and marched them down the street to Nora’s expansive backyard. Before even entering the gate, she could hear the excited tones of many children’s voices. Her own little troupe reacted as though some kind of electronic communication had excited a response, an anticipation of group fun and games, and they began chattering excitedly even as she ushered them through the gate into the backyard.

She felt her own heart skip a beat in appreciation of the fact that she could relax a little. In the general melee, children moved purposefully about, a few with sand pails, others with water wings strapped to their backs, some throwing balls, and it seemed as though everyone was on their best behaviour; there were no shouts, no challenges, no weeping children. Her own moved quickly into the crowd that the 20-some-odd children represented, heading directly for a pile of outdoor toys and small-child game equipment.

And there she was, finally, in a small group of two other care-givers, not including Nora, who was busy with another clutch of women, all of them half-turned to one another, talking animatedly, but keeping an alert eye on the children, the while.

She had quite a lot of stories to divulge. Some of them irritatingly maddening, some hilariously amusing. They all did. They exchanged these stories, a kind of ritual of unburdening, eliciting groans and laughs from among one another, as they could feel their tensions ease.

She hardly knew how long it was that they were busy listening and remarking on one another’s stories. Her eyes half-cocked to the story-tellers, her mind chalking up another possible solution to some of her own problems, glancing periodically toward the children, counting off her own and what they were engaged in, then turning her attention back to the group which now included all six of the care-givers, including their hostess. They were all feeling pretty good.

And then there was that dreadful, piercing, heart-stopping shout. For help. An older child, crying for help. Not for himself, but for assistance. He was in the process of hanging on to the edge of the rim of the above-ground pool, and frantically trying to haul something out of the pool. Something limp, small, and colourful.

Alicia could not be resuscitated. They tried, desperately, tears streaming down their faces, with children running about screaming, half in excitement, half in distress.

Most of them hardly knew what had happened, but they sensed it was something alarming, because four of the adults were gathered about an unresponsive child, while the other two were trying to hush and round up the rest of them, to take them into a huddle of silence, where they could be kept busy doing things that would not hamper the futile attempts of the others.

Alicia’s mother did not blame her. It was an accident. It could have happened anywhere, for any reason. She knew, she said, how difficult it was to keep track of her own child. She half expected to lose her little girl to another kind of accident that might occur. Any kind of accident, anywhere, at any time. She’d had a premonition…. 

 

 

The Urban Woods

They exist, those rare and wonderful urban
wild spots; deep wooded ravines, home to birds,
mammals, winged insects, wildflowers, creeks
and reptiles, living among the forest trees;
great pines and maples, spruce, fir and ash.
For nearby residents, a green growing oasis,
a respite from the roofs and roads of harried
urban life, our mean little plots and smaller
nature-emulating, envious, inadequate gardens.

Into the ravine dip nature-seeking residents
of networks of nearby streets, laid out around
the perimeter of the woods and winding ravine,
to amble and breathe cleansed air, to hear the
birdsong, see the flowers in their changing seasons,
the aspect of the creek and its banks, the trees
and the trails brushed with autumn's fallen
leaves, dense layers of snow, spring awakening
and summer's bated-breath release to ease.

Then summer upon us, school is closed and
children ride their bicycles on the trails, dabble
below in the clay bed and banks of the creek and
its tributaries, tie ropes on long, overhanging
limbs of old trees and swing from the groaning
branches. Tender new growth on shrubs and
trees torn and broken, lying sadly askew.

Tree trunks bear the marks of saws almost
severing the living presence. Muskrat and
beaver are harassed, squirrels targeted.
Paintball smudges on trees, wet balls littering
trails. Rude graffiti sprayed upon wooden bridges,
curses carved on grey beech bark. Fires lit on
benches, bridges and within hollow old pines.

Our valued, beloved, living urban forest.
Nature, meeting the unbridled exuberance and
unfettered disrespect of youth unbound. This
natural green and growing place of constant
renewal and discovery, sacred to many, an
disposable, casual venue of opportunity for
resentful kids to vent their detached contempt
and destroy the ineffable beauty around us.

 

The Paper Recluse

 

After his wife died he became obsessed with the need to maintain his life the way it was when she was with him. For he missed her cruelly. It was almost ten years since she had left him for the Grim Reaper, at that point in her battle with cancer, a more attractive suitor to her than he was, and she seemed to decide against remaining with him.

Holding on to life, even if she was capable of doing it, throughout the months of her treatment, after that useless surgery, just meant ongoing pain, even if he did everything his feverish, grieving mind could think of, to ease her torment. It just wasn’t enough, loving her as much as he could and would and did. She needed something he could not offer her; complete release from the incessant darkness the future offered; pain surmounts cherishing love, he learned. And she finally greeted death thankfully, full release straight ahead.

And he was released from the burden of caring for her. His tender ministrations, gently awakening her to pain in the morning, after a long, restless night of coping and aching for sleep that finally came too late and too briefly to offer a reasonable period of energy replenishment. True, it was late morning when he brought her back to pain, and she did so much appreciate the baby-warm water that he used to cleanse her wasted, wrinkled skin and limbs that he so well recalled were once smooth and wonderfully curved and inviting to the touch.

He fed her, spoonful by spoonful, the broths he learned to prepare that might give her lapsing stamina a brief surge of strength to face the day ahead. He knew his close attendance on her needs meant much to her. It could not be otherwise, since his own life was now shaped by the need to tend on her, be with her, bring her the comfort of his loving presence.

She hadn’t, until near the end, lost her curiosity about everything occurring about her in wider society. Wanted him to read the daily news to her, for she oddly had no willingness to listen to the news, view it on television. She had never been an avid news-watcher, television bored her. She wanted to feel the paper of the newsprint firmly in her hands, turn each page with growing anticipation, often reading out to him brief bits of news she felt he should be knowledgeable about. She had always felt he hadn’t paid sufficient attention to the daily news, the newspapers; too reliant on the evening broadcasts.

“They’re just the tip of the news iceberg”, she scoffed.

“That’s enough for me” he would respond, defensively.

“Well, you’re not getting the details, the details are only provided when they’re shabby and shoddy and tinged with sensationalism; they're anti-social in nature, because that’s what the little minds watching television want to be regaled with”, she insisted.

“I am not invested in the news the way you are. I’m satisfied with a broad outline, I don’t need all the gritty details”, he’d repeat by rote, for this was an ongoing irritation between them. Her, the newshound, he the indifferent reader.

“You’ve no social conscience”, she would sniff, rebuffed and patronizing.

It was just her way. Part of her character. To be critical of everything he did. A bit of a harridan. He knew the bargain he had, with her. She was intolerant of so many things about him. She was a relentless nag. But she was his nag, and he loved her. And he knew how vital his existence was to her well-being. She depended upon him, always had, right to the very end. And he was there, right to the very end.

He felt utterly crushed, devastated beyond any sense of loss he might have imagined. His world and his life suddenly become meaningless. A void where his sense of being, his balance, his idea of the meaning of life had been. He was adrift, confused, disbelieving that despite the cancer steadily consuming her, she would prefer death over life. In death he was absent, no longer at her side, ready and eager to perform all that she commanded of him. How would she manage without him, in that dark kingdom?

More to the point now, how would he ever live without her presence close beside him? At night he groped in the dark for meaning and it eluded him. He wept into her pillow, the white no longer white but a murky grey, for he never changed the linen as often as she did. She so assiduously looked after all the minutiae of housewifery before her decay into nothingness. When she was ill to the point of physical incapacitation she would instruct him when and how he must proceed with taking care of the household chores she was formerly invested in. She had been a meticulous housewife.

He’d always notice when she’d gone through the house like an efficient whirlwind of cleaning-activity. And he always expressed his admiration and appreciation to her for that, and she in her turn appreciated that. That was before his retirement. It seemed as though the moment he had the time and the leisure to spend himself in close communion with her, she suddenly collapsed, became a faint shadow of her former robust, bustling, critical self.

It had not even been a year that elapsed after his retirement when she began to complain of feeling ill, and then the swift diagnosis of cancer. It wasn’t fair. He had worked all his life to produce comfort for her, companionship for him, and as soon as he had the opportunity to delve more deeply into the nest he had helped her to produce for them both in their declining years, she was gone.

He held her close beside him, still. He was convinced she was there, hovering about him in death, a busily-engaged wraith. Just as she had been in life, a vigorous and complaining presence. He adored her still. She loved him still. He spoke with her incessantly, and he could hear in the deepest places within his viscera, that she responded.

Oh, her responses weren’t always calm and approving of him; they were weighted with her usual picky observations and pithy denunciations. She upbraided him for his untidy mind and untidy work habits. Her own most placid and satisfying times, it always seemed to him, was when she was busy with her housework. And those were the times when she would endearingly, hum the melody to that old Disney-produced film from Alice in Wonderland. She had thrilled to that silly film, and the rabbit's song always possessed her when she was busy: "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date, can't stop to say hello, goodbye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late, and if I stop...I lose the time I save..."

He could hear that refrain at the oddest times of night and day. It seemed to serve as a prelude to her addressing him. And when she did it was invariably to remind him of his obligation to become what she saw in him.

“Too bad, Ted, that you’re so loathe to become a better person than you are. I know you have it in you, you’re just so comfortable being a sophist, a cynical social critic viewing the world through that conservative lens. Try to think a little more compassionately”, she would urge him, “of the great mass of humanity whose existence is wrought with the despair of indigence.”

He no longer shrugged off that kind of patter. He thought more deeply about human nature and humanitarian impulses came slowly to him, but they did emerge. And he began to respond to the never-ending requests from every imaginable source for charitable donations. He even once, went out himself in an effort to give himself over to door-to-door solicitations for local charities, but he found the experience so psychically debilitating, he never repeated it.

It did, however, encourage him to give more generously himself. And when he discovered that some of the charities he responded to with such generosity were nothing less than scams, he felt cheated, angry, and he took it up with her in an evening conversation.

“Hazel, are you there? I’ve tried, you know, I’ve tried to be a more generous person. I know you were always the one who gave to charity, not me, and I scoffed at the meaningless of it all. You know, don’t you, that I’ve changed. But Hazel, I think I was right in the first place, it’s a conscience-sop, nothing more; those charities have no real function other than to drain people of their hard-earned savings. I think I’ll give it a pass, now.”

How she berated him, making him feel badly about betraying her values in death as he had in life. “Ted, you can’t do that! There are legitimate needs out there that have to be met!” she wailed. And he quailed. But adamantly refused to himself to tolerate the thought of wasted savings going in some social-deviant posing as a humanitarian’s, savings account.

He turned instead to honouring her commitment to the news. He took out newspaper subscriptions once again to the many papers she had insisted on subscribing to, and once completed poring through them, meticulously placing in the garbage, insistent that neatness and comfort required that one be merciless in getting rid of items no longer needed. Whatever she read was securely stored in her head, her memory banks had never failed her, and she had no need of retaining waste products.

He, on the other hand, did his best to consume the news, but nothing seemed to stick with him. As soon as he read anything, he would let it slip past his consciousness, and be forgotten. And, unlike his wife, because he knew he might have to resort to checking back on news items if she ever decided to quiz him about the daily news, he maintained a stack of them. At first it was only one stack, and then it grew to two, and kept increasing until the living areas of their home became a warren of newspapers with narrow corridors from the rooms he used most for access to the bedroom, kitchen, bathroom.

All other rooms of their modest home had become utterly stacked beyond access with years'-worth of newspapers. Growing yellowed and brittle, but still legible, if he could but make his way through to them, somehow discover the whereabouts of specific issues. He had stacked them with care; all the papers of one publishing source stacked in one room, by date.

It had become a mindless compulsion. He no longer even glanced at their contents when he drew the day’s papers in from the front porch. He left them sitting on the kitchen counter throughout the duration of that particular day, then before withdrawing for bed, he picked them up and carefully tucked them into any remaining interstices in the rooms assigned to them.

If there were insects or mice or rats curious about the news of the day, nesting within these opportune stacks of paper, he would have no knowledge nor any curiosity about their presence. But he was aware of his wife hissing at him that he was not being neat and tidy, cluttering up the rooms of their house in this manner. "My dear", he responded gently, "everything is neatly and tidily stacked".

He lived the life of a recluse. Distant family members took little interest in his presence beyond occasionally dropping a note. With no response, even that tenuous contact stopped. Neighbours, long accustomed to his curious manner of retreating from society were comfortable in greeting him familiarly on the rare occasion he was seen on shopping expeditions, or cursorily caring for his property.

He was known as the “Paper Hermit”, for people had glanced on occasion into the front vestibule of the house when he would answer the doorbell.

It was only when a considerable length of time had passed when he hadn’t been seen around and about and the weeds on his untended lawn had grown to startling proportions that anyone thought something might possibly be amiss, and contacted the authorities.

No one heard Hazel admonishing Ted about his lack of housekeeping skills. But he was thankful to be with her again, and grateful to be the subject of her never-too-tedious remonstrations.