“He’s going. Soon.”
,she says this and I can no longer feel any remorse in her voice. She is stating facts, she is reading a shopping list and not so far off from being bored.
It’s all receding, even the random sensations,
-blink of eyes, taken for granted for so long, still happening but completely behind my back, eyelashes and lids no longer speak to their upper or lower counterparts, going about motions, silent and thus invisible,
-tightening of scrotum with simple shifting of thigh
-tension of the muscle atop shin as leg extends and toes point away, stretching
-tongue flattening against roof of mouth, tip first, upward, forcing saliva back, releasing tongue and throat ripples downward, so as to swallow
-holding of spinchter and gentle mumbling of bowels resisting movement, shifting
-even air entering, brushing along lips and passageways, through trachea, and wet at some point in lungs, until diaphragm, detached and foreign, squeezes, and rush of exhalation, thrusting, expanding softest parts, just edges of nostrils, and out. Breathing.
It no longer registers, despite its effort to continue. How refreshing it must’ve been to catch myself breathing when I had least expected it: the act, in itself, so selfless, without any demands on the mind, seeing chest or stomach, dependent on my position, rise and fall, so delicate, so determined,
it all fades from me, now, the sounds that once emanated from me, in me, of me internally, even the memory, thin thing that it is. It takes much concentration to think of those things. To perpetuate, at least, functions that despite good intentions, I no longer appreciate as having come full circle, completed, with enough inertia to go ’round again.
I might have already left and last synapses are convulsing, simply. That the precisely last sensory input, of her, somewhere near, speaking,
“He’s going. Soon.”
was never near, nor input, nor precise. She might have said more, but the brain, in its dying spasms, retains only those words for some odd purpose, or defect in a switchboard between left and right hemispheres: a scratched record, skipping and repeating a fragment. Of a larger context. The truth of the matter is, at this point, so far from even the waning auditory capacities, it is impossible to discern nor imagine otherwise, or likewise, in any event.
It’s all receding, drifting what have you, but for glimpses of effort, to remember how to be alive. For just a bit longer, beyond the finality, focusing on the mechanics, so little left after so long, without any pretext on approaching Death. Chances are great that there will not be an opportunity to introduce myself to Death properly, it will suddenly be in my home, without formalities, rude and polite. On this I simply can not be accurate, I will already be gone just when I thought I was still going through the motions.
No. That’s not right. Wishful thinking. I am still, and she also, a chair and desk bolted to their positions on the floor for fear of thievery, I wouldn’t mind or disagree. It’s her voice, now and before, not post-exit, or mortem, or the last smoldering.
My sight has completely blurred beyond what it was before, which was not much to note. Rain on a window, wet and dripping, now completely opaque, where all has vanished but for the numb and vague colors. When it was ‘sight’, and recognizable as such, it was useful enough to encourage honing: onion peeling, every crevice expanded and regarded, volumes of notations on the horizontals, vertices, variety of angles, and depths, interlockings of the such. I should say, if ever I had a pen at hand, or a book, there would’ve been volumes of examination. Just lines and curves and dimensions, without attention to color. I never practiced any interest in hues and brilliance or measures of the such, not in the blood, most likely, though the sight of my own blood brought on quite a stir, or alarm, depending on my mood. This is neither here nor there.
Reminiscing. Before even my eyes left me, or just at the failing of, seconds perhaps, everything else had deteriorated, or in the process of, close to finish, exhausted I believe, she was sitting at my bedside. How terrible. She concerned genuinely, how pock-marked. Just then, it all left, the seeing and sight of her, and that was immediately comforting. In hindsight, however, filled with regret. Her contortions are the last thing seen, etched in the skull as it were, an image stared at for far too long, ghostly or ghastly. Either one, but I prefer mangled, there in the darkness, nothing else to remember her by, in the last moments. I can recall other things of her: the soft part of her thighs, her sturdy back, her neck, but it hollows itself out further and empty even in the attempt. To start again, in spurts, without content beyond spontaneity. Not her on me, no. No memory of that. Rather, with me on her, the localities of a what of me that touched a what of her, the sensation of me in her. It had been slow reaching her, or actually, to convince her to reach me, I was never too far. The implication is that she was lazy and did not want, no. I can’t describe it. Nonsense, even after decades. That is safe to say, we had decades and bed sheets and flowers and coffee grinds and grips and sweat, but the beginning was difficult. Now she does not leave me, it was a habit of hers, leaving always, at the onset. Any more than that, to analyze, would be pure speculation, as it was, and nothing more of it. It is gone, or has been, from the moment I felt her insides,
-how warm and tight and unexpected, the first time, suddenly hesitant between sheets, we knew what we were doing but we were doing it to each other, quiet disbelief and laughter, bright teeth smiling
-her rump high and back at a curved angle rising, in the shower, rivulets of water down her sides, back, off her breasts, cascading, her arms bracing the wall, head back, slightly turned, her eye on me, hair dripping, my hands on her hips
-quieter times, no words spoken, solely the eyes, across the length of the kitchen table,
it all recedes in the distance, I can feel things remove themselves, and yet I am not alone, she is here. I can no longer feel her hand as it was on my own, before that also flickered out, nor see her, only the memory of her distorted features, frayed, at my side, vigilant. I am relieved for the recent change in her voice, the lack of concern over the inert quality of me lying useless. It comforts me beyond imagining. This body no longer pains me, even with catheter in the urethra and needle in my arm. So withered it was when they slid it into the vein.
The shades are dimming, one by one, the stars , like matches, I am not alone
Walls shrinking or melting, I am not alone even as the world becomes soundless
all anchors have been raised
not even her voice not even an echo
i am not alone at least i am not alone i am not alone i am not alone
i am-