Made it....
Dec. 1st, 2003 11:54 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
winterdrake.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
just_writing....just. I make it 23:53. This is hurried, for obvious reasons. Apologies for the many and varied imperfections.
The clock struck thirteen this year. Somewhere inside my head, inside my gut, it’s ticked and hummed and measured every second, hands passing smoothly over its face (like a pose, like despair – hands raised and moving to hide the eyes, the mouth – hide the truth of who and how you are). Three hands though, not two (the better to hide?). Seconds, for the record-keeper; so it can never be said that I did not know how long. Days, for the defeat and victory of living still, breathing still, at the end of each. And years for the final count, the implacable entry in the book of life. It has been this long. This long. This long. This is the time of my life. I am measured out in ticks.
Tick
A globe spins on its fragile, glittering thread, and throws back a fast, flashing reflection of the room. Fire, warmth, light; three faces basking in it all, and in their delight in each other. Christmas decorations piled all over the floor, the furniture – spilling out of boxes, packages and cartons, a great exploding cornucopia of holiday, covering everything in the room except the tree, which stands serene and almost untouched in its dark finery, in pride of place beside the fire. I hover above them, in a far, cold corner of the room that was not there when this was real – that is a creation and extension of my doubled presence, both unaware and happy, kneeling on the floor beside my son and husband, revelling in the moment, and shivering with terrible foreknowing, all the worse for being helpless, alone and screaming silently. The curse of Cassandra, never to be heard.
Tick
Spin. Flash. Another globe, another image. The same room, but quiet this time, and resting in the friendly almost-dark of tree lights and embers; glowing with expectation. The tree is almost unrecognisable; doused, disguised and daubed with tinsel, baubles, lights and endless bits and pieces. Some are obviously old, and much-loved (the wobbly and wonky clay reindeer, still miraculously whole despite many years of packing and unpacking). Others have the new-possession-shop-fresh shininess that is part of the joy of acquisition (the cross that tops this work of muddled art; unashamedly tacky, bright with fibre-optics, adding its gleam to the safe silence). Presents are piled at the foot of all this outpouring of decoration, giving off their own slow mist of hope, anticipation and the enjoyable postponement of greed. They gleam like hippos, barely glimpsed in their sap-scented pile, waiting for their moment; waiting to be touched. I reach for them. My fingers are an atom’s width from brushing the satin coolness of the paper, riffling the edges of the ribbon, and I can reach no further.
Tick
Spin. The night has cooled now, and the air is moving in the room. A draught reaches out as the door swings gently open, and as it passes over the tree, it catches a silver bauble and sets it spinning, darting tiny gleams of light across the room. I watch, returned to my corner, cold and broken, as he eels and edges round the open door, taking such care to avoid the squeaking board that lurks by the door. He sighs in relief as he makes it past the danger point, and begins to walk more confidently across the room, feeling the lure of presents, packages, with their not-yet-possessed potential. He reaches out; his fingers brush the paper, caress the ribbon. A sparkling gift tag catches on his sleeve, and he turns it round to read, smiling gap-toothed-grin as he sees his name. I want to cry out, to slap him, beat him, stop him. Not again. I must not witness this again. Is there to be no release?
Tick
Spin. And I see them, coming now as every year, to keep this vigil with me. We do not touch; we never touch. It would be too great an admission, too close a look at what we’ve lost. The images are coming faster now, and at the same time clearer and more confused. It’s always like this. The faces blur; only the eyes are clear. In the glitter from the tree I see him, kneeling surrounded now by packages, all the heaped piles rearranged about him, centred on him, but still sealed, still intact – still unspoiled reservoirs of potential. Like the future, before it whips into present and past and there’s no longer time or chance to alter it.
Tick
Spin. A sudden sparkle, as he reaches for a final parcel. A tiny thread of smoke, weaving up between the branches. The first quiet, venomous hiss of flame.
Tick
Spin. He turns, puzzled. He can’t see what happened. The lights have gone out, but that happens all the time. He crawls under the tree for a better look, branches shaking as he moves, decorations shivering against each other.
Tick
Spin. The tree tips, insecurely wedged in its stand. He doesn’t notice, buried deep within, almost within reach of the plug that should be powering the lights. Too late, he senses movement above and around him, and the tree tilts, wavers and collapses, showering needles, baubles, tinsel as it falls. The silent, ever-greedy embers in the hearth light up at the unexpected gift of food, of fuel.
Tick
Spin. Flash. Blue red strobe pulse light sound shrieking urgency, emergency.
Tick
Spin. Choke-smoke black lung-dark can’t clear breathe ease try blackness.
Tick
Spin. Wet road ice slip harsh breath panic.
Tick
Spin. Wordspin sense-spin “expected” “ill for so long” “kindness” “consent” “switch”.
Tick
Spin. “Bruises” “Can’t explain” “….ribs, one arm…” “care…” “police”.
Tick
Spin. Papers flashing before my eyes. Names, dates and one line on each, so clear, so bright. DOA. Smoke inhalation. Third degree burns. Leukaemia. Car crash. Abuse. Meningitis. Electrocution……
Every year the same. The tree, the decorations and the death. My pain becoming theirs, transmuted into other lives. Around me now, around this room that has for all of us been pivotal, central to what we have become, they stand. Thirteen figures, watching the door. Thirteen figures, here to remember their own time in the light, for tonight is Christmas Eve, and tonight we dance our measure once again, weaving the lives of the living into patterns of our own devising.
They keep selling the house, and they keep buying, despite the history. They keep bringing their children in, food for my need, fuel for my fire. They keep decorating their trees, and leaving the room to us, to the silent sentinels they cannot see. The decorations have formed a pattern over the years, and I like to let it happen, to see the spinning shards of light shatter round the room as the storm begins to gather. Do you know what the pattern is?
Thirteen globes of fragile, spinning coloured glass, and a cross, for memory.
The clock struck thirteen this year. Somewhere inside my head, inside my gut, it’s ticked and hummed and measured every second, hands passing smoothly over its face (like a pose, like despair – hands raised and moving to hide the eyes, the mouth – hide the truth of who and how you are). Three hands though, not two (the better to hide?). Seconds, for the record-keeper; so it can never be said that I did not know how long. Days, for the defeat and victory of living still, breathing still, at the end of each. And years for the final count, the implacable entry in the book of life. It has been this long. This long. This long. This is the time of my life. I am measured out in ticks.
Tick
A globe spins on its fragile, glittering thread, and throws back a fast, flashing reflection of the room. Fire, warmth, light; three faces basking in it all, and in their delight in each other. Christmas decorations piled all over the floor, the furniture – spilling out of boxes, packages and cartons, a great exploding cornucopia of holiday, covering everything in the room except the tree, which stands serene and almost untouched in its dark finery, in pride of place beside the fire. I hover above them, in a far, cold corner of the room that was not there when this was real – that is a creation and extension of my doubled presence, both unaware and happy, kneeling on the floor beside my son and husband, revelling in the moment, and shivering with terrible foreknowing, all the worse for being helpless, alone and screaming silently. The curse of Cassandra, never to be heard.
Tick
Spin. Flash. Another globe, another image. The same room, but quiet this time, and resting in the friendly almost-dark of tree lights and embers; glowing with expectation. The tree is almost unrecognisable; doused, disguised and daubed with tinsel, baubles, lights and endless bits and pieces. Some are obviously old, and much-loved (the wobbly and wonky clay reindeer, still miraculously whole despite many years of packing and unpacking). Others have the new-possession-shop-fresh shininess that is part of the joy of acquisition (the cross that tops this work of muddled art; unashamedly tacky, bright with fibre-optics, adding its gleam to the safe silence). Presents are piled at the foot of all this outpouring of decoration, giving off their own slow mist of hope, anticipation and the enjoyable postponement of greed. They gleam like hippos, barely glimpsed in their sap-scented pile, waiting for their moment; waiting to be touched. I reach for them. My fingers are an atom’s width from brushing the satin coolness of the paper, riffling the edges of the ribbon, and I can reach no further.
Tick
Spin. The night has cooled now, and the air is moving in the room. A draught reaches out as the door swings gently open, and as it passes over the tree, it catches a silver bauble and sets it spinning, darting tiny gleams of light across the room. I watch, returned to my corner, cold and broken, as he eels and edges round the open door, taking such care to avoid the squeaking board that lurks by the door. He sighs in relief as he makes it past the danger point, and begins to walk more confidently across the room, feeling the lure of presents, packages, with their not-yet-possessed potential. He reaches out; his fingers brush the paper, caress the ribbon. A sparkling gift tag catches on his sleeve, and he turns it round to read, smiling gap-toothed-grin as he sees his name. I want to cry out, to slap him, beat him, stop him. Not again. I must not witness this again. Is there to be no release?
Tick
Spin. And I see them, coming now as every year, to keep this vigil with me. We do not touch; we never touch. It would be too great an admission, too close a look at what we’ve lost. The images are coming faster now, and at the same time clearer and more confused. It’s always like this. The faces blur; only the eyes are clear. In the glitter from the tree I see him, kneeling surrounded now by packages, all the heaped piles rearranged about him, centred on him, but still sealed, still intact – still unspoiled reservoirs of potential. Like the future, before it whips into present and past and there’s no longer time or chance to alter it.
Tick
Spin. A sudden sparkle, as he reaches for a final parcel. A tiny thread of smoke, weaving up between the branches. The first quiet, venomous hiss of flame.
Tick
Spin. He turns, puzzled. He can’t see what happened. The lights have gone out, but that happens all the time. He crawls under the tree for a better look, branches shaking as he moves, decorations shivering against each other.
Tick
Spin. The tree tips, insecurely wedged in its stand. He doesn’t notice, buried deep within, almost within reach of the plug that should be powering the lights. Too late, he senses movement above and around him, and the tree tilts, wavers and collapses, showering needles, baubles, tinsel as it falls. The silent, ever-greedy embers in the hearth light up at the unexpected gift of food, of fuel.
Tick
Spin. Flash. Blue red strobe pulse light sound shrieking urgency, emergency.
Tick
Spin. Choke-smoke black lung-dark can’t clear breathe ease try blackness.
Tick
Spin. Wet road ice slip harsh breath panic.
Tick
Spin. Wordspin sense-spin “expected” “ill for so long” “kindness” “consent” “switch”.
Tick
Spin. “Bruises” “Can’t explain” “….ribs, one arm…” “care…” “police”.
Tick
Spin. Papers flashing before my eyes. Names, dates and one line on each, so clear, so bright. DOA. Smoke inhalation. Third degree burns. Leukaemia. Car crash. Abuse. Meningitis. Electrocution……
Every year the same. The tree, the decorations and the death. My pain becoming theirs, transmuted into other lives. Around me now, around this room that has for all of us been pivotal, central to what we have become, they stand. Thirteen figures, watching the door. Thirteen figures, here to remember their own time in the light, for tonight is Christmas Eve, and tonight we dance our measure once again, weaving the lives of the living into patterns of our own devising.
They keep selling the house, and they keep buying, despite the history. They keep bringing their children in, food for my need, fuel for my fire. They keep decorating their trees, and leaving the room to us, to the silent sentinels they cannot see. The decorations have formed a pattern over the years, and I like to let it happen, to see the spinning shards of light shatter round the room as the storm begins to gather. Do you know what the pattern is?
Thirteen globes of fragile, spinning coloured glass, and a cross, for memory.
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