View from the rabbit hole

I slither down the rabbit hole. I stumble into it, I jump, I fall. With no warning I break the time/space barrier and find myself inside. A shadowy premonition of what’s down there, I try to claw my way out, I give in, a prisoner on the gangplank. exhausted. It’s dark, always dark, too bright, blinding. I observe passively, I thrash and struggle. Remain calm. Freak out. No one knows I’m in there, no one saw me go in, no one will save me, they can’t hear my silence. I’m alone. Invisible as I stand before them. Everything's fine on the outside. I feel the smooth walls, they’re mossy, and when I want something hard to pound on my fist sinks into a loamy rotten mess. I want to dig my nails in and claw until they’re bleeding but through this looking glass whatever you want is unreachable, once you settle in the walls fall away and the hell is new and fresh. Hall of mirrors.

Memories are hazy until they become unexpectedly sharp, and the fuzzy thing stabs like a knife. Once kind they bring nothing but a wave of pain. I drown while I burn while I live while I die. But it’s nothing. Not the real thing. Which is what again? The contradictions are endless, as one becomes apparent it shape shifts into another. Science fiction. Everything is the same, on repeat. Beat Box.

Former pleasures elude. The release valve is broken. The pressure builds up, and flows out at a drip, the rushing becomes pulsing and then throbs, and yet the dam holds strong. And the desert grows, my lips crack the sand is salty. The withered veins harden. A landscape of crowded desolation, trembling dissonance. And despite the numbness, it hurts terrifically.

Obligation?

It descends like an unwanted houseguest who turned away would be homeless, and thus due to cruel laws of humanity and hospitality, its here to stay. It’s chaffing, obligatory, unavoidable and felt so deeply inside as to be inevitable. Its shape shifting and guileless, fascinating and exhausting. It takes up all the air in the room and space in the house threatening to burst the seams. It leaves nothing but a vast and endless emptiness. 

It flutters through the body, tampering with the mind and soul, gilding all it touches with a ribbon of numbness until piercing bright white patches of pain into unsuspecting parts of the body, causing one to gasp out loud, startled, disoriented and already plunging into a free fall over the precipice of a sudden dissolution into the same tears which are alternatively housed in one’s heart, one’s stomach and one’s throat, despite the drought it is always present in endless supply.

And I alternate between wanting to chase it away and stroke it, to sit down next to it and move myself into its good graces, offer it a cup of tea, to kill it with kindness in the attempt to know it. To seduce it? To be fascinated by it. To interrogate it, why are you here, how long will you stay, when will you go? I long to understand it, as if by thoroughly understanding it, by mastering it, by being able to dissect it  and take it apart I will be able to find an epoxy somewhere among it’s fractured pieces to slather on myself and become once again whole. 

Lost.

The paper thin skin on her forehead, like mine, is translucent, and it suddenly furrows. She gazes into a distance that isn’t there and for a moment she’s lost from me. It passes quickly, it would be a shadow if I didn’t know by now to expect it, and suddenly she’s back. But there’s something new in her face, or rather if not new there is at least the absence of something that was there a moment ago.

She’s confused.

She looks at me for answers, suddenly like a small child rather than my grandmother. She’s hesitant, but committed as she gazes into a distance that’s not there.

“There’s something here,” she says gesturing with her tiny hand towards something as though it’s just past her physical reach. “There’s something here, there’s some sadness.” Again she meets my eyes, slightly frightened but committed. “What is it?”

I take a deep breath. I have found hell on Earth.

I kneel down next to her chair and take hold of the little hand that appears to be straying from her ever shrinking body and I hold it gently.

“It’s Debbie, Grandma.” I tell her, hoping this will be enough, that I won’t have to repeat the words that bear the facts that I myself am struggling to avoid. Her stare remains blank. I wonder whether to ease into it somehow or just go straight for the jugular. “Debbie died on Monday.” How much detail can she handle, and how much does she need? “We’re going to the funeral tomorrow.”

Her face crumples and my heart breaks. Again.

There is a sharp intake of breath; I can’t tell if it’s hers or mine.

“Oh that’s right,” she says, resigned. “Isn’t that just terrible?”

……………………………………………………………………….

The next day I push her chair through the funeral home, walking her through the boards of photos put together to document her eldest daughter’s life. We look at the flowers; I read her the cards and  we speculate about how much Debbie would have loved this. I mostly try to hold back my tears. I’m grateful for someone besides myself to tend to, for when left to my own devices I dissolve completely. On occasion I’m called away to be introduced to someone, instinctual manners guide me through, I perform the act of niece or daughter when necessary and politely excuse myself after the appropriate amount of time.

I return to where I’ve left my grandmother’s chair, parked in front of the television, which plays an endless stream of photos of Debbie. She sits next to her ex husband’s wheelchair, they greet each other cordially, despite their current close proximity the span of the years of hurt and anger and distance prevent them from together mourning the loss of their firstborn child. They each stare forward solemnly at the television, appearing almost to be trying to memorize the plot of a TV show, but really looking through it to some memory deep in the recesses of their minds.

The service is about to begin so I wheel my grandmother’s chair into the chapel. I place her in front of a photo of Debbie next to the urn so there can be no mistake, and we sit down in the chairs provided. People file in and awkwardly gage their relational closeness to the deceased by how closely they sit toward the front. The rest of my relatives enter, the grieving family, and I’m grateful to have missed the show. There aren’t enough chairs left for them and people move to make room. Kind words are spoken, prayers are murmured, and I hold tight to my grandmother’s bird-like shoulders, not knowing if I am comforting her or holding myself upright, and taking my hand from her knee only to hold my mother’s hand to my left.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and I feel my insides follow suit, my bones feel hallow, my blood runs dry. Amidst this drought my tears flow still, threatening to choke me, to drown me, and I wish they would but for this frail body next to me, this one who needs me to remind her of the tragedy that has befallen her. She shakes in my arms in a fresh wave of grief, and I hold her, for it’s all I can do. 

Pulse.

n. A rhythmical throbbing of the arteries as blood if propelled through them, typically felt in the wrist or neck.

The rate of this throbbing, used to ascertain the rate of someone’s heartbeat and so their state of health or emotions.

--The New Oxford American Dictionary

Pulse. A tiny, repetitive mechanical action. A miniscule flutter occurring with anticipated consistency in beings everywhere, generally unworthy of note. Automatic.

Except when it stops.

Taken for granted.

Until it is absent.

It’s the lack thereof where the real shit begins.

She’s gone. A painting made of honey, I look for the sweetness that must be somewhere in these swirls of pain. She’s at peace. But will I ever be, ever again? A sudden space I had no idea was there envelopes me, and I’m drowning. Escape. While I long to, the pain follows me, hunting me, haunting me, up until the moment I think I’ve eluded it and it springs upon me, taking me down again.

Impulse (n.)

1. a sudden strong and unreflective urge or desire to act.

2. a driving or motivating force, an impetus

[PHYSICS] a force acting briefly on a body and producing a finite change in momentum.

Busy. A body in motion cannot feel sadness. Or at least that’s the way I’m acting. For the first few days I would wake up, remember, want to fall back to sleep again and fail. I would go about my day in an odd haze of sadness, grief weighing me down like boulders tied to my ankles as I struggled to surface for air. Movements come slowly, and occur solely from habit and instinct; anything new or deviant from the routine would likely be forgotten. Time begins shape shifting, with minutes lasting hours and hours lost suddenly with no recollection of their contents. I run myself to the edges, hoping to exhaust myself to sleep before my mind gets a chance to wander.

While a part of me craves stillness, I fear it, afraid of what might happen in the space.

Compel (v.) force or oblige someone to do something, a sense of duty.

“How are you?” The small talk and the long tight hugs might be what will do me in. I am aware that the etiquette dictates that I graciously accept condolences and make those around me comfortable. And yet I want to scream and thrash around, I want to writhe on the floor in a physical manifestation of what I feel inside. And yet I smile and attempt to give the right answers. When I can take it no longer I sit down and let the tears fall freely, people avoid looking at me, or look away quickly as though to give me privacy. It doesn’t matter, my insides are on the outside and things.are.not.well.

Compulsion (n.)

1. The action or state of farcing or being forced to do something, constraint. An irresistible urge to behave a certain way, esp against one’s conscious wishes.

Sick. I often feel sick to my stomach, as though the black sadness has become the bile in my gut and is poisoning me. I want to vomit, to puke out this terrible sadness and feel light again. It’s all so heavy I want to do anything to get it out. My body shudders, shivers, trembles, what is this movement, I will run any distance or go to any length to make it stop. Anxiety. I find myself laughing at the oddest times and for no reason, knowing it doesn’t fit with the setting and not caring because although not impossible, it is difficult to laugh and cry simultaneously.