08:55
Part I
I watch as you take slow, laboured breaths. Nothing but time, I tell myself; I have nothing at all but time. I am destined to spend my long and drawn-out days waiting for a response to issue from your silent lips. Like a close relative, like a faithful lover listening for a shudder or a groan from their comatose patient; thus do I love you.
And, so, desperate, I cling to your bed; I lift your arm with light touch, and pray that it does not fall back down with a thump. (Indeed, it falls; it slumps back onto the cold white mattress the second I release.)
The soft inviting hues of Before, like the pale green walls of this hospital room meant to distract from our suffering; the hues of our blithe past cannot paint over the dark suffocating opaqueness of the Now; seven coats yet still they are ill-equipped to dilute this present this agony this anguish this hereness and if anything are an unsightly highlight of the realisation: that this is where people come to die. These walls swallow my every attempt (my feeble words, desperate attempts indeed) to awaken you, everything falls so hopelessly flat; limp, like the arm of my comatose patient. What am I meant to do but sit faithfully by your side?
Part II
Oh, how you are so near, soft to the touch (when I cradle your hands, they feel like happier times), yet so distant, somewhere my cries of anguish cannot reach. I am drained of every drop of determination I once had to nurse you back to health; sitting, here, I grow weary of waiting. Sometimes, I wonder what the weather is like outside.
Suddenly your chest heaves and you shudder; but nothing shakes me any longer. If you sat up and cradled me, I mightn’t move a muscle. Losing hope is a strange thing—I always held onto glimmers: the memory of when you clutched my hand tightly after weeks without the slightest quiver, or how sometimes you just barely open your eyes and smile. I remember, but memories are not tangible. These small redemptions—like sips of water—can only quench my thirst for so long; for I am parched.
Abruptly, in a final desperate feat to rid us of this malady, without warning nor second thought: I release you, vein by bruised vein, and carry you out through the bleak hospital doors, looking left and right, and right again.
Part III
But here, I may halt; here I may ask…why? Against all your flaws, why do I trudge forth, through the impenetrable forest made of your shortcomings (in which we have lost ourselves, for we have wandered long and far), your limp body hoisted over my shoulder? Pushing forward purposefully, thus, why do I walk, unimpeded, by the brambles and thick branches that slice through my skin? Here, I ask myself, nursing my wounds: to what end?
And, here, wrapping bandages around my lacerated limbs, I may lay you down. Gently— with the slow and cautious movements of a parent lowering their child into bed; here, I may lay you down, glance at your face, so serene when you are asleep (you were always a sound sleeper), and look fondly upon your beauty, for it is only now, peering closely, that I can admire your features…but, no, it cannot be! I rub my eyes, I peer at you once more, yet still your grin has lost its fervour, lost its delight; indeed, you appear to wince—ah, the horror! I will myself to look away, to look at your eyes; once more to admire the way your eyelids fall softly over great orbs that used to shine for me but alas, beneath them your love dims; alas, I have grown tired; I look upon your face once more, and alas—
Part IV
I haul my trembling body back onto the path whence I came, with a little less fervour, a little less grit than I had as I carried you in. Pushing stray hairs from my sallow face, I realise with a jolt, with surprise, that it is no longer wet, no longer stained with tears. And though there is relief; though I rejoice to stand tall, no longer bent under the weight of your love; though I am thankful to be free of the dull ache in my back, of the torment that loving you did bring, I cannot seem to find joy in this victory.
I toss my heart filled with its memories and its little happinesses into the lake along which I walk, and suddenly realise that you are not by my side to dutifully retrieve it; I remember a time when you used to run and jump without hesitation into the murky waters of my sadness; how you used to emerge, shivering but so majestic with my heart cradled between your hands. As my heart sinks, inch by inch, I remember—oh, how easily you would give me life, with the simplest of gestures; a good morning the moment you’d wake up, the way you’d ask with fervour “How was your day? Oh, a lecture! A museum! Do tell me more, do tell me every little detail, till I am swallowed whole by the image of you waltzing through the Kew gardens with a book in hand and a breeze whipping your black hair—so much longer since the last time I saw you!—this way and that.” (Something like that, you would say.), and at night—oh, how I anticipated it with bated breath! when you would tell me you loved me; when you would wish me a sound sleep. Thus, you once shone colour into my face; thus you once loved me. But, lo, I have reached the edge of your woods, and with a heaving sigh, no longer crumpled, finally…I collapse.
And the Sun shines regardless; the Sun shines in spite of us.
sundowning 