Sorry for all the dark pieces lately. Second to last one, I promise.
I step blindly forward. I see only my feet. I know only now.
I cannot see behind me as I head forward, that which passed passing into the oblivion blocked by my skull. I cannot see it, I cannot know it, it cannot exist in me.
I cannot see before me where my feet plod on. The blows of my own thoughts force my head down. The path in front of me simply existing as slides into my view, as it throws itself under my circling feet. As it becomes my here and now, even as it is becoming my past. It does not exist as a future. I do not exist in a future.
I recognize only the reality pressing in upon me now: the sloping ground, the biting wind, the dimming light. All else, all past or future, blackness. No reflection of my singular light of being hits my brain. Nothing hits the light. Nothing. Only the here and now. There is no hereafter.
And yet, as level sod pass my void eyes as if they only ever had, as utter stillness caresses my skin as if it only ever had, I see, I feel another time. Deep in the recesses of my body, pain. And not that pain of lifelessness. I feel a tensed brow, that I no longer wear. I feel a ventilator draft that no longer blows. I see the face of my brother who no longer laughs.
And he lifts my eyes to meet the marble marred lawn, to face the rising sun, to acknowledge eternity.
Hmmm--is this a walk through Forest Lawn? A walk up the hill from Jacob and Isaac's graves? That's what the ending imagery led me to imagine. There are a few minor wording omissions--"The path in front of me simply existing as slides into my view, as it throws itself under my circling feet." (3rd paragraph). But you'll catch all of those things on another round of editing. I like a lot of your word play: "that which passed passing," "as I head forward...blocked by my skull." Keep up that very careful prose crafting. So here's my question: this piece feels like a description of grief, but without actually naming the emotion of grief. Is that correct? At first I thought that it was a kind of existential questioning, a sense of profound isolation. But the end of it seemed more like an examination of grief. It might be good to think about what the central emotion is here and then try to tease that out consistently from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteThis piece is the beginning of the ending of my short story in the works. This is set at dawn as the narrator walks to her brother's grave. She still struggles with the grief and depression from her loss, but begins to see that the moment isn't eternity, that there is a world beyond the confines of the grief shrouding her brother's grave.
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