Reverie
A Short Fiction
Record’s turning somewhere down the hall, melancholy echoes from some love-drunk serenade kicking up dust as it goes. Sun’s peeking in through the fogged-out windows, between all those glass-covered cracks in the thin iron latticework, wearing that gold seems to turn the whole place burning. Room’s full of wood and books, the way it ought to be.
I close my eyes and listen to that music croon, listen the way an old man listens when he’s trying to remember the way it used to feel, trying to remember something he forgot.
There’s the Son sitting in the corner, head buried in old pages he found sitting on top the shelf. Always there’s some forgotten ones sitting around in plain view, like stones carried along by a river miles and miles and left on the bank for all that trouble, left in some place for some while ‘til that current picks it back up again. Few miles more, then dropped again. I take my mind to the ocean shore, crush my toes into that sand, think how long those little grains waited as big stones on the bank before their turn to get crushed up.
There’s a ticking from the big ugly piece on the wall, that great wooden thing looks like it must weigh a ton, and I get to wondering how much of it’s glue the way it’s coming apart at the seams from the weight of all those seconds it’s counted.
Man walks in, carrying papers, couple younger ones by his sides. They knock on the open door, God knows why, come in wearing plaster smiles, pleasant masks those types wear look like they’ve made them with their hands right out of the mud, made them best they could to approximate kindness as if that came from outside and not from in. I can see right through all that.
Daughter’s here too, looking beautiful and tired. Got that weariness makes you want to carry whatever load she’s bearing and won’t say out loud. Two of them, boy and girl exchanging some words with the older one just came in as the young ones beside him just look on. There’s a sadness here. Somewhere down the hall a record’s turning, some old love song.
Old one shakes his head. Son’s looking somber as ever. Son’s the only one looks at me, everyone else busy finding some other place to put their eyes. My feet stretched out in front of me-- no, not my feet, some old man’s feet, judging by the toes sticking out from the bottom of the blanket. Wrinkled to hell, like that big wood ticking thing on the wall, each probably got as much glue holding it together as the other, counting the seconds away.
Daughter reaches over, covers those old toes back up with blanket. I start feeling warmer. She don’t look at me, looks right back at the ground.
Older one’s still here looking between the two of them, droning on. “…losing his ability to swallow. We’ve had him on a liquid diet for a few months but we’re risking aspiration.” -this he says real slow and deliberate, in his old southern drawl, ah-spur-ay-shun. “At this point I would strongly recommend a feeding tube.”
Son cuts in right quick, like a whistle “No, no tube, he made that much clear.” Daughter’s looking tired as ever. Son looks around, catches my eye, slows down. “Can’t we consider therapy as an option? Isn’t there some way for him to regain that-”
Older one cuts in this time, slower, words smooth and heavy like syrup. “At his age, and with the dementia, it’s unlikely to have any effect. I’m afraid if a tube isn’t an option we may have to start discussing…” words and words and words keep pouring out his mouth, setting the room in stone.
Record’s turning somewhere down the hall, sun’s peeking in through the glass-covered cracks in the thin iron latticework on the wall. Older one with the young folks flanking him finishes up talking and bows back out the room, somber and polite. Daughter’s looking tired as ever, looking the way a tattered old flag looks sitting high on a pole on a calm day, looking all beat to hell with nothing to do except wait for the next storm.
She’s looking at me now, looking at me with eyes I think I must have seen before. Wet, sad eyes.
“Dad,” she starts, and I remember everything, remember those sad eyes and all the little cuts and scrapes and broken hearts I mended, remember all those afternoons out on the water with the Son over in the corner, head bent over a fishing rod just the way he’s got it bent over that old book. I look clear into her face, my face, my daughter’s face, try to bring something up to tell her it’ll be alright. All that great effort gets choked up like sludge, caught up in some old man’s throat not good enough to spend that wind any longer, and she’s left looking so sad and suddenly I’m back on the beach again, and this time the Son’s there, and the Daughter, young the way they used to be. And she’s there too, that other woman I haven’t seen in a good long while, and she’s not wearing the frail old skin she wore on the way out. She’s smiling, and laughing, looking every bit like those two kids laughing and playing along beside her, and there’s some music wafting in from the sea, some old love song come crooning over the waves. She grabs my hand and it’s just like the sun on my back, that lover’s warm you can feel in your bones. I close my eyes, breathe salt like it’s air, feel my great barrel chest swell with a young man’s strength.
I open my eyes again and see they’re all sand, all the lot of them, all crumbled down by the breeze right there before me. That long-gone woman’s just coarse grains in my palm, and the sun’s too high and too hot to carry on looking where she went. I try to cry out but I’m back in that old man’s throat, staring at that old man’s feet, and all those words I want to yell and scream and slander get caught up in the glue still holding it all together.
Record’s turning somewhere down the hall, drifting through the place like a cool breeze, melancholy echoes from some love-drunk serenade kicking up dust as it goes. I’m in the bed with the old man’s feet in front of me, wrinkled old toes sticking back out the covers. Daughter’s looking at the ground, son’s got his head buried in some old pages he found sitting on top the shelf, and I can see the wet in his eyes, too. Always there’s some forgotten ones sitting around in plain view, like stones carried along by a river miles and miles and left on the bank for all that trouble, waiting for their turn to get remembered and carried out and ground up at sea like all the rest.
I close my eyes and listen to that music croon, listen in the way an old man listens when he’s trying to remember the way it used to feel, trying to remember something he forgot.
