Fragile

by Chris Katsaropoulos

  These are my thoughts, the spontaneous presence of my mind. And now I see that my thoughts are things, existing in and of themselves. My mind creates them and sends them into the world. Each one of them can utterly unleash like certain strange inherent liberating aethers, blue pragmatic as the sea.

  Spinning, spinning, they do spin forth their rays and spears of ever-colored light. My mind creates these thoughts and each one is an entity that goes into the world in a spiral motion, spreading aureate and blue. With each thought I unleash in this realm, I am released from the world of doubt and terrible appearances I once knew. I am unbound from the simple constraints of the physical world.

  I abruptly glimpse dense liquid mass of suns that could be held within arms’ reach apart. These balls of light are floating, gliding, colored orbs like fire balloons, like tinted suns three yards across, sprouting rays and orbiting basilicas of strange revolving madness. This is the nature of my thoughts, the nature of my mind.

  But I am not yet ready for this place of pure thought, where everything I think can come true in an instant. Secretly, I call upon the dim blue shade of the sixth hour of darkness, I call for the captivity of every sundered thing, which is the physical world.

  Did he not say that anyone who has no regard for his life on earth, but despises it, preserves his life forever and ever? At last I understand what he meant by this. I bequeath the unbelief by two and two, for two is aught the same as zero. It is less fearful than the eyes that spin forth rays and spears of light to turn away to blackness for one instant, to turn away undone by her own hand, the straps of the bra hang limp astride her collar bones. She exaggerates this slow, restrained unfurling of her self before him. He leans back on the bed and squints his eyes in the late evening haze, and she watches him who watches her. The bra drops to the floor, released. Holly is nothing but pure form now, nothing but a body to enjoy, a supple sure expanse of feeling, a perfect interface connected to the world. An ache of nameless dilation overwhelms her, emerging from her heart the spear of light is terrible, is rushing past, a whisper out of dust, open-mouthed and trellised with desire. Spear of light impeccable, invincible, in vulgate and refinement. Pound out the beating of my heart, sound out the declaration of the drought, of fierce enormous waves of light unfolding.

  I see beyond the shimmers of my own small incremental thoughts: a sphere that engulfs the heavens with its wide and varied wonders. I see and understand that this astounding sphere of light, incessantly unfurling, is perfect Wisdom. Wide beyond all seeing sphere, as if a sun crouched down, a piece of wonder on a mountainside, deep-sunken and enormous, it bears its weight, its freckled, huge, illuminating weight upon the waves of matchless fivefold light.

  But I turn away from this lustrous wide beyond all seeing sphere, I turn away from the open doors of heaven. I am not yet wise enough to be as one with this. If I could bring myself to look upon this glory and give myself up to it, what a heaven I could find. Yet I turn away, for fear of never seeing, never being, never howling into anyone again he notes upon returning from the errands he has run to waste the waning pale remainder of the weekend that she has left every single blessed light in the house on, the upstairs hallway light, the several master bedroom and bathroom lights, the lights in the master bedroom closet, the lights in two of the three unused bedrooms of this wonderful house they will soon abandon, not to mention several of the lights downstairs, the two old matching lamps in the living room handed down from Tris’s grandparents on his mother’s side, the half-dozen recessed jar lights with dimmers he installed in the kitchen are on full glare. Even the garish chandelier that looms high above the two-story front foyer is blazing, the one they only use when entertaining party guests. The house is lit like a sinking ocean liner, in the precarious moment before it tips and plunges to its watery grave. And she is nowhere to be found.

  He calls to her. His voice rings out and echoes in the towering spaces of the front hallway. “Laura?”

  She is not home. She turns the thermostat down to sixty-nine and complains to him about the four hundred dollar electric bill, then leaves the house with every single light on. Not only is she obstinate, she is dumb.

  He turns and charges towards the kitchen with the purposeful intent of one who has been wronged. He must turn off all the lights—again. And as he passes through the short corridor that leads to the rear of the house he instinctively glances to his right to catch his reflection in the hallway mirror; but the mirror is gone. She has removed it, along with the photographs of their children and grandchildren that used to hang upon this wall. Packed away—decluttered, no doubt. She has probably gone to take more boxes to the storage unit and the secondhand store. Soon, everything will be gone. Every single thing he has loved in this house, every totem of his life here, packed away and gone. Soon, everything all at once, every single thing that ever was, and ever is, and ever shall be, all at once. It all comes crashing through me, the wayward Babel-din of hearing all the words that ever have been spoken. I see at once all everything before and here and after, spanning limitless illusion, which is the Day of Reckoning.

  In every corner sight unbinds me. Every touch sensation ever felt by me or any other, every voice I heard, and all the multitude of waters. I can see every daughter, uncle, baron, king. Each midnight father, every drop of rain and sheaf of wheat. I hear all dimly spoken tongues of long ago and now and ever after. All honey and nectar, and every baby’s shriek unanswered.

  All orchards, bark of trees, all sparks of life and colonies, all human beings with their burdens. All host of heavens rolled together as a scroll and every human frailty. I hear all hammering, wretched hollering, all touch of sunshine harlequined and every feeling unprocured.

  I see and know all kindness, any witness to the angels’ matted wings, and every one I reproached and blasphemed. Any first and second fingers, any blemishes or swarms of smoke, all squabbling and discord, any rattling and any tastes that forge from heel of tongue to tip.

  All expressions and damnations I ever saw or knew or felt, from whatever lands they hail, all music strange and misery. All weather in succession, every usury and increase. Every homage to betrothed. Yes, I see this is the Day of Judgement, when all will be revealed.

  All salt smell, all varnished wood, all hot milk buckets brandished in the cold of dawn. All abominations unto law, and every ooze of life’s first rendering.

  All half-heard cries of loathing, any ridges, any roots, all wings stretched up unto the sky. All woodlands sweet stillness. I hear and see and taste these things.

  This is the sphere of mind unleashed, all ripped into knowing all at once, which is the Day of Judgement. A life I once lived came forth a thousand years ago as if it were one instant. It is a treasure for me to see these scattered fragment lives of mine, impervious to time. They reveal themselves: A desert priest from tribe unknown, an avenger and a slayer. My own mouth battling, the putting out of eyes. The lives reveal themselves: I am a martyr undefiled, a victim of monstrous hammers.

  I was once a slave on boarded ships, I was a loping slow apprentice smith. And once I was a child undone by tyranny of parents. I am now a female, now a male. The dead of all the dead and all the living yet to come live on and die with me today. And now the person I have become is shown to me: this is the Day of Reckoning.

  Reveal how once I shuffled through a downtown crowd of shoppers, eight years old, my hand in Elmer’s hand. Reveal that Elmer feared for me within the landscape of faces all unknown, feared he would lose my hand and lose my little soul, and all the while it was the far distant happiest moment of my life.

  Reveal all premonition, all shame and futile regret. The biggest things and every detail of the smallest all at once. Show me how every thing affects another, how it teaches all at once from every person’s thoughts, from every person’s humiliation.

  Show me how many days and people I have known and how they knew me, by what means. We were connected and even still reveal their wondrous names and
all their wishes. Each and every stranger gathered together as one with me through nothing but a glance, our eyes and souls connected. I know and comprehend that every accusation, every clattering predicament, each temptation was a reference to my waking Spirit and my waking Soul.

  Now reveal a summer’s day when I was twenty-three. My life was far diluted, taken up by radio music and TV shows in black and white, and ballgames Elmer listened to, evenings on the porch. One summer’s day a man called on me, phantom image of a man from the office where I worked, who from my dreadful diffidence I forgot. He rings the bell and looks through the venetian blinds that cover the front door. He hopes I answer, he wants to see me to the show. His heart is filled with slow degrees of pain and longing for me, for my body youthful and diaphanous. Still young, it looks so young, dear God, and beautiful, yet I coveted and held it back.

  I saw the man from behind the shades and cowered there, resisted. I was ever hollow from lack. I turned away; I kept my vigilance to sacrifice. I turned away and never went to answer the door, and in his disappointment he also turned away and never did return.

  I lost through arrogance and spite and shame, reveal it all at once, everything I lost. A courtship with this man, and an infant never born. Not one, but two that never came. Show me a life with them that never was, with children of my own, a house in a city far away. A life that is not, was, but could have been. Reveal it as a mirror humiliation, destitute. Show me each moment I was vain, and coarse, and callous, and insane. Show me all the ramifying consequence of each and every word, and act, and thought.

  Now I hear a cruel word indeliberate but cunning cruel all the same. A night in spring when Dennis was but ten, he came to me and wanted something quite uneventful, insignificant. Only ten he was, dear Lord, how sweet, how beautiful, how wonderful a boy of ten can be. He wanted but for me to walk him to the store for an evening treat, an ice cream cone or candy. Here reveal each consequence, each ramifying judgement on my soul. I say to him in my distraction, irritation, finishing the crossword puzzle: “NO.” The word rings out, and in my anger, for I had had a tiring, difficult day at work, “Get up to your room now and leave me alone.”

  Alone I am and ever shall be, dear God. It was not much, but now I see it set an ounce of hardness in his heart, it put in place an inch more distance there between us. He turned away in disappointment. He turned away, and I turned back to what, to something tossed away and gone, some thing. No thing should ever supersede another person.

  And in eight short years, in less than that, he was gone for good. A moment there I squandered. There are not many moments in a life, a life is here and gone, and those moments when we are young and with our young are of most consequence.

  I had my pleasures, yes, and underneath all this a second mind revealed, the mind of sleep, of night, of consciousness absconding, all tangled up with every thought that dwells within is outside now. All those underneath and age-old awkward human longings are the halo of my Soul, blown up and out into atonement. It is the day, the hour, when all is monolithic, anonymous, laid bare. There is no hiding, no garnishing, no explaining left to do, all is here laid bare. All thoughts both strident known, unknown, despised. All come to fore, all explode before me here.

  The halo of my Soul expands and comes before my judgement. Did I waste the seconds that make up the hours? Did I turn away from mercy? Did I vainly wince and sunken down go feeble, did I shrink away from my talents? Did I perpetuate the race? Did I hold to books instead of friendships? Did I leave my fading hopes untendered from my ancient Soul? Both yes and no.

  A fierce unbending light pours forth from me, from the portion that is nothing but a sleepless, commanding eye: This judging, analyzing part of me is my Spirit. This judgement is atoning for the waste, a glare of light that shines unmindful, ever watchful and commanding.

  And what is judged, the halo of my all, my deep-known, sleep-known self: This is my Soul.

  They watch each other here at last, my Spirit and my Soul. They entertain one last enduring mystery here. They assemble one last time for fullness, soothing happiness, a bursting cycle of voluble connection. My Soul, untendered, is joined unto my Spirit, to the glare of light that shines unmindful, ever watchful. One judgement more, one final deep abomination, one burning, glamorous candidate for a deep and heavy headache, Holly sits up in bed and looks for something to drink. There is a glass of old water from the night before or maybe several days ago, before she went into the hospital. She takes it up and drinks from it, a sip and then a gulp. And she turns to find that he is still there, rolled up in a ball with his back turned away, his enduring perfectly socketed back. The amazing back. What is she to do with him now that it is Monday and she is home and her girls are not home, they are in the home of another man while this man is here with her. At least it is Monday, she is not missing any more work. She stares at the bandage on her wrist; a spot of brown where the blood wore through, it needs to be changed. Could she take it off and go to work tomorrow? Or maybe wear a long-sleeved blouse, something light enough to be comfortable even in the August heat.

  The air conditioning kicks in, the rising air slashing at the window blinds gives her a chill and she recoils into the blankets once again, nudging him awake. Scent of sleeping bodies washing over her, scent of sex. He grumbles and rolls over, eyes still shut against the noonday light. Reaching out, his arms instinctively intertwine with hers and they collapse into clinging misalignment. His hardness is reassuring. He is always hard, every part of him. His free top hand explores her lower back and the slight paired indentations where the cleft between her buttocks begins. This could be good, having him here in the morning for a change, first time this has ever happened. She allows herself to be drawn in closer, pressing her breasts against him, this is the only family she has today. Her head feels as if a sea of black smooth oil is washing against the walls of her skull, a neutral pounding with every movement. She could make him stop and bring her some aspirin. But he never stops, he never wants to stop.

  “I bet that limp-wrist Tom doesn’t give it to you like this.”

  The whispered words come to her confused, far away, muffled by a layer of her own fine hair and the pliable mass of the pillow. He would be perfect, the perfect man, if he never opened his mouth. If only he would keep his mouth shut, she could keep him around for a while.

  She pulls her head away from him and looks at his face. Long nose, thin and aquiline. Dark eyebrows nearly grown together above it. Mouth and lips that know how to make her move. Hair close-cropped stubble receding from the brow. And eyes that look back to her with challenging half-masked fear and derision. He has been as beaten-down by life as she has, she can see that in his eyes.

  “You want him, go ahead. Just because he buys you things, rides you around in his car.”

  Why is he saying these things, why now? He must know her better than she realizes. His understanding is pure animal and instinctual, conveyed by sense of touch, from his hands and arms and thighs locked around her. He must have felt that she was missing Zoe and Jenny.

  “What are you talking about? I never said anything about him.”

  “Yes you did. At the hospital. Telling me that he is taking care of your girls, your precious girls. So what?” His eyes plunge into floating broken anger. “You never even let me see them—not once.”

  Again she considers how his absolute animal knowledge has drilled straight to the heart of the issue, to an understanding subliminal and dispersed. She has not consciously kept the girls from him, but now that he has said this, she realizes that she has until now never let him set foot in her apartment, and perhaps he has seen the reason all too clearly.

  “That’s not true, you could see them if you want.” She has to tread carefully around the variations that could arise from this. It could go any number of ways. “It’s just that … we always meet late, after work. The kids are home asleep or at the sitter’s house.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want me to see them?
Here you are living in this two-bedroom dump of a place, cutting hair for a living, your head so screwed up you don’t even mind if I crack it in two, and yet …” He gropes for a word; he isn’t used to making such a lengthy speech. “The only one good enough to see your precious darlings is limp-wrist Tom. You had it all planned out, didn’t you?”

  “What are you talking about? It wasn’t my choice to end up in the hospital and have him come charging over to save me.”

  “Sure it was. Everything is your choice.” He removes his arm from under her waist and sits up in the bed. “Listen Holly. I need a place to stay, for a few days at least. My landlord, they kicked me out. Too many rubber checks.”

  So that’s it. No wonder he didn’t want to go to his place. Her mind calculating precisely the next actions that must be taken, the ramifications of her very next words. She envisions him waking up here in bed with her day after day, a strange man in the house when the girls go to the kitchen for their cereal. No, he cannot stay here, this place is for her and for her girls, he must go with a cataclysm that ripped the earth and sky completely apart. My Soul and my Spirit ripped in two, the reflection of me undone. My Spirit sees and understands what is happening in a cold, analytical way. My Soul stumbles along in a trance of wonder, circling round about itself. My Spirit is the light that shines inside, pure consciousness, forever watching whatever comes its way; and my Soul records every single thing the Spirit hears and sees and feels, faithfully balling it up into a proud and hopeful, scared and dream-distorted memory. And now, these two parts of me are ripped apart.

  Spirit sees what the Soul can no longer register: After about forty-eight hours of no blood to the corpus collossum—the short, leathery band of tissue connecting the two hemispheres of the brain—it no longer provides the Soul and Spirit with the interface they shared in the physical world. The final tenuous link to the body is broken, and so, the majestic mind of Amelia Geist is torn in two. This is the Second Death.