Disappear.
That there. That’s not me.
Alistair Grigson-Smith came to find he was alone when it happened. And now just like then he’s all alone looking over the body. A body he used to occupy lays lifeless in the satin lined ebony box. There isn’t much to see other than the new suit his sister picked out for him. A suit, a tie and a new pair of shoes. The shoes he definitely needed after the homeless man stole his in the alley where it happened.
Alistair thinks of the word Wake and wonders how effective its use is in this instance while he’s watching people as they pass him, one by one with their remorse and tears. All he can think of how peacefully he sleeps while everyone around him sleepwalks through the motions of this life including their movements through this ritual.
It’s a ritual that wouldn’t be happening had he not been late for the meeting last Monday morning. He was always running late when he should have been on time. He was unable to go where he wanted by the constraints of living. Now he concludes that he’ll never have to worry about anything stopping him from going and he steps through a pair of unfamiliar mourners making his way towards the wall.
I go where I please. I walk through walls. Float down…
Passing through the wall he finds himself entering another room. A thousand flowers seem to come from everywhere in the small room. Flowers surround people in their solemn faces and clothes. There are threes and fours of people he’s never seen. Or mistakenly seen a lifetime ago, at the beginning of the dream their images dance upon the cusp of a memory as if it were a word hanging on the very tip of a tongue.
This moment with the flowers reminds Alistair of the dark alley beneath the rainy sky when it happened. When it happened there were piles of flowers tossed outside next to the rubbish piles and broken glass bottles on the ground. All around there were oversized puddles of water and dripping waterfalls from fire escapes when that unfamiliar man stepped out with his knife. The thoughts of the man and his knife come and go just like Alistair as he glides up the stairs before passing through another wall.
I’m not there. This isn’t happening.
Alistair has spent the morning convincing himself that he is no longer here among these people. Although this is happening around him, it is no longer happening to him. He watches his siblings move their possessions into the study where he once wrote his favorite bits of nonsensical poetry. He watches them talk about his silly things as if they were their silly things. Alistair’s family is already making plans without him. There’s nothing left as the final viewers pack up and leave. A man from the home closes the lid on his ebony box and signals the Palls that it is time.
After it happened Alistair remembers how he had to detach from himself to watch his un-living progress forward. He kept telling himself “That’s not me,” while the coroner cut a downward with a straight line that passed through his belly. He faintly felt the shudders of life when the man gently pulled back on the blade. He knew there was no point in feeling bad because no one would want what’s left afterwards. Once the insides of him were on the outside he begin to realize that he’s not sure what happened before he was here. Counting backwards in his un-life the last memories of living aren’t clear and fading quick.
Alistair accompanies the final journey. More people solemnly line up and share their faces with each other. Tears that can be felt, anguish that lives in their stares, and love that they can only share with each other. Alone in his emptiness, he strains to relate to the pain of his mourners Alistair knows that his time is slipping away. Slipping downward; the ebony box slides after finding its release from the hands of its bearers. Alistair can no longer move without their hands. Hands reach into earth and toss their final goodbye onto his body. Eventually he will be gone and his body will lay to rest beneath the earth.
In a little while I’ll be gone.
Time is all that Alistair knows. He knows that in life there are an infinite number of minutes that will come and be counted until there are no more. In death every moment spent counting backwards from nothing all alone. And soon all that isn’t here and happening will cease for Alistair Grigson-Smith.
Thinking of Matisse. Enjoy life, love and breathing. It's both far too short and too long not to. Kisses. m.
No comments:
Post a Comment