by K B Jensen
“I wonder what it’s like to be old,” Julie said. The condensation had built up on the windows to the point where it was rolling down them in streaks. The fog had erased her message drawn on the glass.
“I wonder if we’ll ever get to find out,” Peter said, his teeth chattering. “I’ve got a bad feeling we’re going to die.” He rubbed her arm, like he was trying to warm his own body.
“Eventually,” she said. “Not today.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“You’ve got to have some faith,” she said. “That it’s all going to turn out okay.” She looked up at his face, the white spots on his cheeks, and she wondered if she believed her own words.
“What if you don’t believe in God?” he asked.
If there was a God, Julie thought, he was surely an angry one, considering the way the wind was howling outside the car windows. The light inside the car seemed to make the blackness outside all the more complete. White wisps of snow came down in streaks outside the windows.
“I don’t know what I believe, to be honest,” she said. “But there has to be a reason so many people across cultures and oceans believe. Even if we do die, if we go to heaven, is it really that bad?”
“Heaven and hell, it’s just a children’s story people make up because they’re scared of death,” he said.
She pulled her legs closer to her body, so the bulk of her was on his lap, close to his core. She was almost in the fetal position and his arms were around her. It was the warmest position she could find, and yet, her feet were still so cold. Her toes were numb and the sensation was starting to fade from her arches, even her heels.
“Look, I have no idea what the truth is, no one does,” she said, shivering against him. “But there has to be a reason so many people believe in heaven and hell.”
“I’m an atheist,” he said. “I believe in science.”
“That’s just another religion,” she said. “What if you could believe in both? Maybe we’re all being too literal. What if whether or not you’re happy or sad in your final moment is whether or not you go to heaven or hell, what if that final moment is heaven or hell because that final moment lasts for an eternity? Feels like an eternity? So if you have regrets, it’s torture, and if you don’t, it’s bliss.”
“I think the last thought people have is ‘Oops, I crapped my pants,’” he said, chuckling a bit.
“Well, that would be hell then,” she said. “But I’m sure by that point, you’ve tuned your body out, tuned out the pain, so it would be the last of your worries.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I think you just like to make up stories. Heaven and hell are just good stories.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe not. No one really knows.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, a break from the brightness. The wind seemed to howl louder. She wondered how they could possibly exist in such an empty moment, such an empty time and space, where there was only white, black and a dimming yellow light.
“What if you go in your sleep?” he asked. “I’d like to go in my sleep…”
“Then you go to heaven with a handful of dreams,” she said. “That’s the best way to go, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think there is a good way to go, really,” Peter said.
“Maybe you’re right,” Julie sighed. The light was dimming around them, but it was still on. Julie was thankful for that. She hated the dark. She was thinking about hypothermia again. What did they say on the survival shows? When your body temperature falls, your heart, nervous system and other organs don’t work properly. She wondered when that would happen, if it would happen. Would her heart just stop beating? She felt sleepy. That was a symptom of hypothermia, too, wasn’t it?
“Do you have any stories about old love?” Peter asked. “I told you one. You’ve got to have one.”
“I do actually, about an old married couple. It’s kind of sad though.”
“I don’t care,” Peter said, wiping the condensation off the window with his sleeve. It was a futile gesture. There was nothing to see but darkness and snow. “Tell it anyway. It wasn’t like mine was super cheerful either. Anything to pass the time.”
The Last Word
This is it. This is the last time. This is the last time I will see my wife, my Marilyn. She’s lying in a hospital bed, her thin, gray hair strewn across the pillow in waves. Her face is hollow, skeletal and her lips have turned a purplish blue. Her face is white, so white. I miss the flush that used to creep up on her cheeks. The sparkle has left her eyes. They are dull, brown, and listless and I’m talking to her, and I wonder if she can even hear me. I know she can. But what do words really matter when she’s slipping away?
“What do you see?” I ask her, squeezing her hand. She’s blinking her eyes. I’ve always wondered about the way out, whether you really head into a bright white light or if that’s all bull like so much they say about the afterlife.
“I see our little Toby,” she says softly with a groan. “He’s young again. He needs me.”
She’s delirious, I realize. I will not get any answers out of her. The machines are beeping, the incessant beeping that gets in the way of her sleep but that remind us all she’s still alive. She moans. I squeeze her hand tighter. Her fingers are cold to the touch. This time, cancer is the killer.
Toby died almost thirty years ago, from asthma. Her breathing now reminds me of his, loud, labored and wheezy. I remember his curly, brown hair—his eyes, her eyes. I remember the day he was born, how small his feet were, tiny fingers, tiny toes. I remember counting them. How Marilyn couldn’t stop smiling, beaming, how her whole face just had this beautiful glow. It’s hard to imagine how so many years have passed. The seasons—the summers, the falls, the winters, and the springs—were like the hands of a clock, spinning in time.
I remember her red-faced and angry at me for being late. She was always on time, and I never was. I’d take that anger any day over the silence in the room now. It’s silent except for the beeping. What will I do without her? Nothing. I will do nothing without her.
“I won’t live without you,” I told her on the car ride in.
“Oh yes you will,” she said.
“You won’t be here to have the final say,” I said. And strangely enough, she laughed. How could she laugh? She was so weak I had to help her walk to the car, but she could still laugh.
“You know me,” she said, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. “I always have the last word. Always.” She let out a deep sigh.
She was so calm even then. Weeks before, she had packed a bag for her last trip, complete with a toothbrush, deodorant, wool socks and a photo album. My Marilyn always did like to plan for everything, even death. And she was always on time and prepared.
She closes her eyes now, and I close my eyes. When I awake, she is still, so still that I wonder if she has died. I touch the skin on her hand and it’s cool but still faintly warm. It feels fragile, like rice paper spread across her veins.
“Don’t leave me,” I bow my head, and I choke on a soft sob. I squeeze my eyes tight and tears flow out of the corners. Back when I was a kid, men weren’t supposed to cry, but I’m tired of fighting the tears. I couldn’t stop them now if I tried. I’m losing my best friend.
I think back to the day I met her in college. I remember the long skirts she used to wear whirling around her lovely, little ankles. I remember her sitting in the dormitory lounge reading a book, with her legs crossed in front of her, covered in a dark, brown skirt that left everything to the imagination.
I remember asking her what she was reading.
“War and Peace,” she said, holding up the giant paperback.
“I’ve always wanted to read that book,” I lied. I never did read it. She teased me about that for years. She even lent me her copy that first year we met. I remember holding it against my chest, all 1,440 pages, and thinking of her when I got back to my dorm room. It was too long. Maybe I should read it
now. No, I don’t want to. I won’t be able to talk to her about it.
I get up and stretch my legs. My stomach growls. I haven’t eaten in over twelve hours, since breakfast. I keep forgetting to eat. It’s time to hit the vending machine again. I know Marilyn would not approve of the numerous Snickers bars I’ve been eating. But I don’t care. It hurts to be away from her for more than a few minutes. It sends my heart racing. What if she isn’t there when I get back?
I get to the machine and it eats my last dollar. I hold back a string of curse words. I walk back to the hospital room empty handed with my stomach still grumbling. She’s still sleeping. I sigh in relief.
I sit in the chair next to her. The bed is raised up to help her breathe. There are tubes pumping oxygen into her nose. It all seems kind of pointless, the breathing.
I fall asleep again, nod forward, and wake and then drift off again. I dream of her young and beautiful. I dream of her brown hair, her brown eyes, her laugh. I dream of us sitting in front of the fire. We are in our first home, celebrating something, maybe Christmas. She always loved winter best. She said freshly fallen snow reminded her of diamonds glittering in the sun. We used to get into snowball fights outside with Toby. One time she pelted me in the face. I remember spitting the snow out of my mouth, cold and frozen. “I’m sorry,” she had said. “I didn’t mean to get you in the face.” I had tackled her and thrown her into a snowdrift. She had pulled me down and we had kissed until Toby said, “Eww.” We were like children then. We aren’t children anymore. But we aren’t old either. Marilyn, she’s only fifty-seven, and I’m only a year older. Maybe if Toby were alive, maybe if he had grown into a young man, we wouldn’t be here, I wonder. Can grief cause cancer? I wonder if any studies have been done.
The nurse comes and checks her blood pressure. Pointless again. “Isn’t there anything else we can do?” I ask.
She shakes her head and mumbles, “I’m sorry.”
Two days pass like this, pass in a blur. I’m not eating and Marilyn isn’t waking up anymore. This is the last time, I think every time I hold her hand. This is the last time, I think every time I kiss her forehead. When will we speak again? Will we ever speak again?
We used to have great conversations. We used to read the newspaper together and argue over politics. She leaned to the left. I leaned to the right. I’ll miss our conversations. I’ll miss the way she’d call me a “stubborn man.” Half compliment, half complaint. I’d call her a communist. She’d scowl but her eyes would twinkle because she was in on the joke. “You know you’ve lost the argument when you resort to calling people names,” she’d say. I always lost the arguments. She was more articulate than I was. It wasn’t a fair fight. Her vocabulary was astounding, probably from all that reading she did.
And finally it is the last time. And the doctors and the nurses leave us alone and the machines aren’t beeping anymore. The warnings have all sounded and been silenced. She never wanted any heroic measures. She just wanted to go peacefully. And that’s how she went, peacefully without a word, into the night, and without a word spoken goodbye either.
I drive back home and open the door to the kitchen, flipping on the light in the darkness. Our cat circles my feet, meowing, but I ignore his lonely cries. I walk up the stairs. I go into our bedroom and I stare at the black safe hidden behind the clothes in the closet. It takes me a minute to remember the code. I punch in the numbers with shaking hands. The door swings wide, and I pull the gun out of the safe, hold the heavy metal in my hands. Trying not to think too much, as fast as I can, I put it up to my head, cock it and click. Nothing happens. I pull the trigger again and nothing happens. I pull out the box for the bullets. It’s light as a feather. I open it. No bullets. Just a note in her beautiful cursive handwriting.
“I love you, my dear, forever and ever. Don’t even think about it. P.S. Don’t forget to feed the cat.”
I collapse onto the bed sobbing. I’m crying because Marilyn is right as always. I’m crying because I can’t be with her. I’m crying because Toby is gone. She is gone and I’m alone. I also feel a shaking, heaving sense of relief. I was so close to death, but I’m still here. I’m still living. I dry my eyes against the comforter. It still smells of her. I will never wash it.
I wonder where she put the bullets. It isn’t until the following spring that I find them in the garden, when I dig up a half-dead rose bush. I shovel up little pieces of steel and dirt. As for the note, it is the last love letter she ever wrote, and I keep it in my wallet, pull it out from time to time, along with her faded picture. My Marilyn, I think with a smile, she always had to have to the last word.
* * *
The light had gone out now. Unceremoniously, it had dimmed and dimmed into nothingness. The difference now was that their eyes were no longer adjusted to the darkness. The shapes and forms that had felt so familiar earlier were foreign and abstract once more.
“Really, you said it was sad but you didn’t mention all the death. Enough talk about death,” Peter said. “I don’t want to think about dying right now. We should be lightening the mood. Really, you should have told me something lighter.”
“You want happy endings and sunshine,” Julie said. “I make no guarantees.”
“You’re having fun with this, aren’t you?” he said. “In a sick way, you are having a good time telling me all about death.”
He inhaled sharply. Julie noticed the sound, the sound of their breathing, the rustling of the sleeping bag whenever they shifted their weight, the howling of the wind outside.
“I didn’t plan on it,” she said. “It was just what popped into my head when you said old love. I can’t control my characters.”
“You can’t?” he said.
“Not really,” she said. “It’s like dreaming. Do you control your dreams?”
“Sometimes,” he said.
“Well it’s like that. I’m not used to sharing my stories either. But in a weird way it’s kind of liberating, to share.” She smiled faintly.
“How many do you have? Stories, I mean.”
“Hundreds,” she said. “I’ve been writing since I was a little girl. But only a handful are any good.”
“Spoken like a true perfectionist,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
“Why couldn’t she just let him die?” Peter said loudly. “The lady in the story, what right did she have to tell him he had to live without her?”
“I thought you wanted a happy ending,” Julie said quietly. “It’s important to live while you can.”
She placed a hand on the window. She wanted to get out. She wondered how far they were to the nearest town. She berated herself for not paying better attention to the details of a drive she had taken so many times. It was a mistake that could cost her life and his.
“Did you know I’ve always been afraid of the dark?” she shivered. “And now I’m probably going to die in it.”
She wondered what her parents would think after their frozen bodies were found intertwined together in the car. Julie wondered what they’d think of the ring stuck on her finger. She wondered if they were worried about her right now. No, she often came home late. They’d think she’d just have gone out for drinks with the girls again and decided to crash at a friend’s house. She did that from time to time. She could feel the fear rising up in her stomach. Her heart pounded warily in her chest.
“I used to be afraid of people thinking I was crazy,” Peter said. “But I’m not anymore.”
She looked at him for a moment and wondered if he was crazy, if she was going to die with a crazy man.
“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about our fears,” Julie said, looking over at his face in the blackness. “There’s enough to be afraid of right now. Got any last wishes?”
“What I wouldn’t give for a twelve-pack of beer right now,” Peter said.
“Hell, I’d like a bottle of vodka,” Julie said.
“I’d just like to feel loved for once,” Peter said. �
��To be loved before I die. No one has ever truly loved me.”
“I’m sorry,” Julie said. She didn’t know what else to say. “You’ve still got time, you know. You’re not dead yet.”
She took his hands out of her pockets and gently blew on them with her warm breath. “Let me tell you another story about love,” she said. “Maybe that will help.”
The Musician
I took a shot of vodka and set the empty shot glass down on the tray. It was my second and last of the night. It burned on the way down. The room was swarming with bodies clad in flannel and jeans. I watched them tilt slightly, spin ever so slightly. It was time to lay off the hard liquor, I decided. But I still grabbed a bottle of beer out of the cooler. My hands dipped into the watery ice. Maybe I was nervous.
I found myself walking in his direction. We were at a party celebrating his first record deal, and he was playing in the corner, strumming his guitar and singing softly. “I can’t help myself,” he bellowed in a sweet, deep voice. Dylan played a C major on his guitar and looked deeply into my eyes. I stopped and stood transfixed. It was a trick he’d used countless times before, I was sure. It was the look you give someone you want to take to bed, and it was hypnotic, but it wasn’t going to work on me, not tonight, I thought with a chuckle. I know all your tricks, you silly man. You aren’t going to get me with that voice. I don’t care how good it is.
He had wild, tousled, brown hair, the kind you want to run your fingers through. In fact, I wondered how many girls had run their hands through it exactly. Dozens, probably. He was a player, and I wasn’t about to be played. I don’t care if you are a rock star one day, I thought. I don’t care if you are singing about love. He was leaving town anyway for New York City. The song, the friendship, would have to come to an end.
He set the guitar down on its stand, and people were cheering, hooping, and hollering. He let out a little smile, a shy smile and I noticed the small gap in between his front teeth. The little imperfections, I find them fascinating sometimes. Why didn’t he ever get that fixed? Because he didn’t need to. He was still beautiful.