“Get them out of here!” I yelled. “No more flowers. I can’t take any more flowers.”
Their faces turned ashen.
“Take them out,” Jewel whispered to Wes.
“Take them all out!”
I lost control of myself, screaming, crying. The nurse came in; she injected something into my IV. A relief, if only temporary in nature. It allowed me to leave this place. I felt the warmth of the medications run through my veins. In a moment, my lids were heavy. My eyes closed. Yes…that sweet feeling of nothing, the intoxication of nonexistence overtook me. So without protest, I left the pain.
I would awake to the endless parade of people. They continued from Austin’s school, numerous professors, and of course, many of his fellow alumni came. There were people from the theater in the East Village, some of my fellow alumni, past co-workers, and even people from Paramount. Zander, Austin’s agent, and Stanton, the representative from Paramount, stayed for more than a day, coming twice before saying their goodbyes. On the second visit, Zander had some paperwork, an insurance policy the studio took out on Austin when signing him. I was Austin’s beneficiary.
“No,” I said. “No….”
I didn’t have the strength to deal with this conversation. Austin’s mother handled all the arrangements. She made sure I signed the bottom of a legal document. It would seem the studio made money, and I now had money. I hated every penny of it. Nothing could make this better. The money might as well be blood money.
People continued to stream in, tell me how sorry they were for my loss. They knew in time my heart would heal. Their words, blasphemy, clawed at me. I cringed at the thought. How dare they suggest I could heal from this type of pain. Who were these people? They spouted nothing but sacrilege. I began to shutdown, not listening. The room became a buzz of sounds with no clear distinct words being processed within my mind. I felt the expression on my face smooth. Something about my demeanor must have worried my mother. She sent for the doctor on more than one occasion. Strangely, she could be found many times clinging to my father, her ex husband.
The day of the funeral was the worst. People attempted, poorly, to put my mind at ease because I was stuck, unable to say goodbye. The funeral went on without me. I remained enslaved in my hospital bed with people talking nonstop and crowding in around me. I wished they would leave. The funeral service was unimportant. While others may have need for the service I knew it took place to make them feel better about saying goodbye. They required the closure. My inability to attend Austin’s service seemed to bother other people more than me.
I glanced out the window by my bed. The sky, hazy, filled my vision. My mind drifted as people spoke, only catching bits and pieces of what they said. The prospect of never seeing Austin again preoccupied my thoughts. Death could not be the end. What we found with each other was supposed to be unbreakable. I must find a way to keep Austin and his memory with me, no matter how painful it may be. I would be forbidden to let Austin go. Yet since the accident he was gone, really gone. The connection between us, that pull, no longer existed. I closed my eyes and tried to feel him, find him near me, but…You said you would always stay with me Austin, where are you?
“Things will get better in time,” someone said.
The very thought, the implications of this was foreign to me. While some may have felt it helpful, let him go, say goodbye, move on, it terrified me. It incensed me. Did they really think I could put a close to this chapter of my life and move on? Pure insanity.
“He’s in a better place now,” another voice offered.
My eyes popped open.
“Just shut up!” I yelled out “Shut up!”
“I’m sorry.” I heard a small broken voice say, so I shut my eyes in an attempt to find silence from their words. Make it quiet. What I wanted, to see Austin. To hear him, feel him, but I felt nothing. I needed….
“Get out!” I screamed.
I don’t even know who I yelled at. My sobs broke me, unable to see through the gushing torrent of tears. My outburst would rally the nurses. It was a matter of time and little at that. The nurse came in with her all too tempting injection of medication into my IV. As before, I welcomed the dose of liquid escape. The Winter which lay in this hospital bed looked forward to the darkness and wished to sleep without dreams. Anticipation rushed me, looking forward to the missing of time. Soon the warmth of the medications trickled through my veins as if a familiar friend. Dullness filled my senses. Slow languid stillness crept over me, becoming my companion. Darkness would soon follow and allow me to leave this suffering again.
When I did wake, I found Austin’s mother and my mother to be permanent fixtures. While I knew I should be grateful for their presence, I wasn’t. I did not care to see anyone. In fact, I yearned to be left alone, to die in my grief. A large part of me wanted to allow the sadness, the emptiness, the complete and total devastation to take me. If only I could will my heart to stop. To find a way to allow myself to go to sleep, to fade away, to never wake. I pondered the idea of the nurse making a mistake, perhaps give me too much pain medications.
Maybe I could die?
I became angry at the rescue workers.
Why did they have to start my heart?
I became angry at God.
Why did He take Austin only to leave me?
I don’t know what I said to my mother or Austin’s mother. I’m unsure of how I acted toward them, how I looked at them. I could only imagine I was closed off, wishing for my end, hoping my mother and Austin’s mother would allow me to leave.
Let me die, let me die, let me die….
I closed my eyes, retreated.
Gloomy morning skies greeted me. This followed by the horrific smell of scrambled eggs and coffee, the sound of multiple footsteps down the hallway outside my door, and beeping machines. This became my experience, morning after morning. After forcing myself to eat a bite or two of breakfast, I endured the humiliation of a sponge bath. Visitors filled my afternoons, along with physical therapy, medications for pain, and sleep through the help of powerful drugs. One day skipped into another and time passed.
I found as nature has its way, my body was healing. My mind along with my heart continued to fracture, splinter off into very distinct sections of misery. I would only have one outward scar from this life changing event, on the inside of my right ankle. But my inward scars would be another story. I thought about the scars, feeling a strange sensation of hysteria. I laughed out loud then broke down into immeasurable sobbing.
How odd, my heart remained broken beyond repair yet my body which had been beaten, battered, busted, was healing with very little to show as evidence I had not truly survived this event. Because in reality, Austin’s Winter did not survive. In actuality, if you could see my heart you would know. Winter would forever be, irreparable. My outward scars should match my inward scars. If that were to be the case I would be unrecognizable. Maybe I’m already unrecognizable.
When the day of my release from the hospital came, my mother took me back to the apartment. There are no words to describe the pain I experienced when I walked into that inhabitable space. All sense of home, gone. I should have expected this. My home, my safe harbor, left when Austin left. Without him, there would no longer be a home. Nothing to come home to. My heart, just as vacant. I, too, was inhabitable.
I teetered on my crutches, glancing around this once bright home and found it dim. I entered into the master bedroom, hobbling around, lost. Without much strength or will, I stood and looked with new eyes at the barren space. I went to the bed, pulled back the sheets then lifted Austin’s pillow to my face with an unsteady hand. Not here. Someone washed the sheets. I needed to find a piece of Austin, something tangible to touch, something which left evidence of him behind. There had to be something I could feel or smell. Something to allow me access to him. He had to be real, to love me. Our life together was real, right?
I went to bathroom. His things were gone from the vanity. I
n a panic, I opened up the cabinets. I thought I would find his cologne, his toothbrush, his comb…anything, but found nothing, his things were gone. There must be something in the closet. I hobbled to the closet. With the tip of my crutch, I banged the closet doors until they gave way. A shaking hand reached out. Oddly, it was my hand that flung the doors open only to find the closet had been cleared of Austin’s cloths. Only my clothes hung there.
“Where are his things?” I yelled out. The tears streamed down my face.
I heard my mother’s voice from somewhere close behind me. “Austin’s mother felt it would be best, dear. She packed up Austin’s things. She has them.”
“What gives her the right? She had no right to take them from me!”
I went to the hamper, threw down my crutches, and balanced my weight on one foot. I threw everything out onto the floor, searching, hoping this to be one area I might find some semblance of Austin. A strange sense of relief washed over me at finding that pile of dirty clothes. No one had bothered the hamper. I dug through the dirty laundry as though my life depended upon this moment.
There….
I saw something. There beneath my old sweatpants, something familiar. I tugged on the material. I found one solitary shirt. Austin’s shirt. The white and blue dress shirt I would sometimes wear to bed. I picked it up, held it to my face, and inhaled. I tried to find his smell, but it too was gone, vacant, forever lost from me.
I screamed out in pain, thinking my screams were only inside my head, but then I heard them. “NO! I need to find him! She had no right to take what I had left of him!”
My mother ran to me. “Winter, my love. Please, you need to calm down before you injure yourself. You are still not completely healed.”
I laughed out loud quite hysterical. I could never heal. My outward healing was nothing. My inward healing would never be.
“I have nothing.” I sobbed and fell to the floor. “Nothing left….”
I felt my mother fall down beside me, covering me with her body and her arms. I protested her touch and curled up into myself, trying desperately to find an escape to this pain.
“Winter, my sweet girl,” she said as she cried.
“Leave me mother. Just leave me.” My voice barely broke a whisper.
I have no idea how long I stayed there on the floor. I remember the light out the window dimming. I watched the small particles of dust move through the air, caught in the stream of light. As they moved, floated through the air and twisted, the light caught within them, holding them brilliant for a flash in time, then nothing. The dust seemed to disappear from the ray of the sun. I thought about the dust. I knew that was me once. Floating, drifting through the sun, but now nil. I disappeared, too.
The light moved, changed, and made shadows on the floor. Soon, the daylight shifted. Complete darkness filled the room. When my mother came back, she asked me to please eat something. I refused, telling her to leave me. I wanted to be left alone. She wavered and looked at me with an expression of fear, but she turned quietly, allowing me my silence.
I woke that night, screaming from panic. Sweat beads broke over the top of my lip, my forehead, and my neck. My dreams were strange twisted things, distorted images of Austin. It wasn’t his face, not his beautiful face. And his eyes were not his clear blue-gray eyes. The images kept running through my head then left. He was gone. My nightmare turned into a bitter desolate search.
I ran through silent streets. The city streets no longer held traffic, and the once tall familiar buildings were dark, empty, boarded up, or crumbling down into piles of rubble. I called out Austin’s name and heard nothing but the echo of my own voice in return. The barren streets turned into a long dark hallway. I tried to reach the door at the end of the hall, but every step I took forward only made the door farther and farther away. My focus went to the dim light from beneath the door; however, I could not reach the light.
I walked forward to see other doors. They aligned the hallway on either side of me. My fingertips brushed over the wall, the doorframes, and passed doors which were chained in the darkness. A part of me knew I searched for Austin, but no matter, all I found was empty, devoid or locked. The emptiness of the hallway turned into a vast space with nothing but gray. The gray enveloped me. I realized the open empty space was me, my heart. I lost my connection to Austin. I started to scream. My mother came into the room, slid onto the bed, and held me in her arms as I cried. I do not know when I stopped.
I must have fallen asleep, only to wake alone to a beam of light. It filtered through the curtains and fell across my face. Morning made its way in, and I hated the sunlight. I threw the covers over my head, hugged Austin’s pillow, and cried. At some point my mother returned with a hot bowl of oatmeal. I refused it. With much discussion, we made a deal. I would eat a few bites, if she would take me to see Austin’s gravesite.
Two spoonfuls of oatmeal and one sip of orange juice later, I dragged myself from the bedroom, never bothering to shower or change my clothing. I left my hair a tangled rat’s nest. On some level I knew I was an untidy mess. Yet, even with my mother’s protesting and offer to help me shower, I declined. I cared less what I looked like. What did it matter? I just kept telling my mother over and over I needed to see Austin. To be with him. It’s past time, and I had to see the place where Austin’s body was laid to rest. My mother conceded to my wish. However, by her expression as we left, she wasn’t sure if she made the correct decision.
The drive there played out in silence. Memories of the crash came back. They flooded my senses like a title wave. I trembled intently. Trying not to see the horror, I welded my eyes shut. I didn’t wish to see the images of twisted metal.
My mother’s voice broke as she pulled over to the side of the road. “Winter, what is it?”
My fingers were white knuckled as I gripped onto the dashboard.
“Metal. All I see is twisted metal,” I confessed, breathless.
“Maybe this was not a good idea. Let’s go back home,” she suggested.
“No!” I protested. “I need to be near Austin. Take me to him.”
I knew if I did not go and go now, I may curl up, never leave the solitude of my mind or the bedroom. A large part of me wanted to stay hidden away in the hope of finding some sort of comfort in the thought of allowing myself to wither away, but an even bigger part of me needed to find Austin.
When we arrived, I exited the car on my own. I didn’t wait on my mother. Once I gained my balance and adjusted my crutches, I stood and gazed out at the sea of headstones which sprawled out before me. This place echoed a silent, cold sound. And while it overflowed with headstones, it was vacant. There were no signs of life contained within this place. A sense of dread filled me, because I was unsure of what I would actually find here.
I closed my eyes and listened. In the distance someone wept. The rustle of the breeze moved over the headstones. I heard the moan of my own broken heart. I lifted my chin, opened my eyes and gazed up into the sky which seemed to bemoan my existence. The sun which stayed tucked behind the clouds sent a silvered gray color across the sky. I dropped my gaze to see the remnants of snow which hung in small periodic patches. They were dulling shades of gray. I never considered it may be me. Maybe it was how I see things now, dull, colorless and gray. I couldn’t remember seeing colors anymore. I did not recollect the sun. Everything in my world was colorless, dim.
I glanced at the trees. They were barren without any signs of life.
“Even the bark on the trees is gray.” I mumbled under my breath.
“What, dear?” my mother asked. She looked at me with a mixture of concern and fear.
“What day is it?” I asked my mother in a lifeless toneless voice.
“The twenty-first,” she replied.
“The twenty-first of what month?”
My mother’s brow creased. “Of February, dear.”
I followed my mother through the rows of graves, hobbling, fighting with my crutches. We stop
ped at a mausoleum so I could gain better balance. I glanced at the gray walls modeled in mold or maybe that was death. I readjusted my crutches and continued to walk until we stopped at our destination. The headstone sprouted out of the ground. Large, square with scrolled ends, tall, and marble. The writing on the stone was clear. I read Austin’s name. AUSTIN WELLS CARLYLE. I ran my fingers over the carving, feeling each of the letters, taking in the knowledge of this place, of his name. I outlined the date of Austin’s birth then the date of his death with my fingertips. His body rested here, but his soul was not present.
Once again I closed my eyes in an attempt to reach him, to feel him, hear him. The pull which was once so strong in his presence remained nonexistent. This empty feeling took root within me. I had been unable to find anything which would keep me somehow connected to Austin. I did not know how I would be able to continue.
How?
That one little word kept running through my mind. I found nothing tangible to hold on to. The essence of Austin didn’t exist. The flavor of my life which once filled me, gone. The brightness of Austin, of his life no longer survived, so my life, my light disappeared into the murky nothingness of forever without him. Go to him. I thought about joining him. This idea filled my mind, overtook my senses like an evading army, because I did know how after all. I would kill myself.
Chapter Three
SAVED
While my mother stood quietly behind me, the plan to leave this hollow shell which held me here crept around, on the edges of my mind. It weaved its way through my thoughts. The seed had been planted in the hospital, so I gave it time to take hold and grow. Pills…yes, pills would be the way. I did have access to pain medication along with some medications for depression. I would go home, wait until my mother went to sleep and take every single last pill. If I ended my life, it may well be the end to this emptiness.
Requiem Page 2