The Post-War Dream

by Mitch Cullin

  And so, last evening, Hollis dutifully heeded the final directive of his mission while snow cascaded outside the kitchen windows. On a serving tray, he gathered and organized those things Debra had needed—a bowl of chocolate pudding, a mug filled with Glenfiddich, one Dramamine pill in a spoon, the plastic vials of Seconal and Nembutal, a cup of green tea, a slice of toasted whole wheat bread—feeling no desire to hurry, running his eyes diligently over the items once everything was in place. When he finally brought the tray to their room—pushing the aromatherapy bottles aside so he could set it on a corner of the bedside table—Debra was propped up in the bed, the orthopedic pillow behind her neck and the comforter bunched about her, seemingly pleased by how well he had put the contents of the tray together. This was the night of her departing, the dwindling minutes of her existence, but she didn't look unhappy. As he sat down on the edge of the mattress, she told him she felt blessed. She was, regardless of the disease, content with herself—and him—and the life they had built. Beneath the comforter and the sheets the lower half of her body was hidden, naked, like a bride nervously anticipating the beginning passion of a honeymoon; where she was going, she had joked, it didn't matter whether she wore clothing or not, and he was inclined to agree with her.

  “I guess it's that time,” she said, eventually.

  Hollis bowed his head, saying, “I don't think I can do this.”

  “It'll be all right,” she said, squeezing his wrist. “We'll both be all right.” Then she added, with the trace of a smile: “We ‘ll survive this one, too.”

  For several seconds they stared at each other awkwardly; yet her thin face conveyed no obvious emotion, even as his expression trembled—his mouth curving downward, his eyes wide and scared; his face stayed like that as she ate the toast, and drank the tea, and swallowed the Dramamine pill in order to ward off nausea. She took her meal slowly, silently; afterward, they talked for about an hour, and the severity of his expression lessened as they discussed the unusual weather, the Discovery Channel program she had seen earlier on the Ice Age, various minor topics which steered clear of what would soon transpire. Then they hugged; her cheek was cold but her lips were warm, her breath smelled of tea and sickness.

  “I'll miss this,” he said, while embracing her. “I'll miss just talking to you, Deb.”

  “You can always talk to me, you know.”

  “But it won't be the same.”

  “No,” she said, pulling back to look at him, “I guess not.” They gazed at each other a few seconds more—before she nodded resolutely, insisting, “It's time, dear. I'm ready, I really am.”

  “Okay,” Hollis said, suddenly numbed. “All right then,” he uttered, rising from the mattress while realizing, in that instant, there was nothing left for them to discuss, nothing left to be said which might alter the outcome of that night. He opened the vials on the tray, shaking out some of the capsules—and then glanced at Debra, very seriously, as she extended a hand to accept the drugs; but he didn't hesitate, nor did she: One at a time the capsules were slipped past her lips, each chased with a swig of Glenfiddich, until there was nothing more to swallow or drink. He promptly gave her the pudding, in which the rest of the dosage had been mixed as a powder, and she ate it quickly, licking chocolate from her lips when finished.

  Once the contents of the tray had been mostly consumed, Hollis helped Debra ease down from where she had sat upright, tucking the comforter around her, adjusting the pillow underneath her head. She turned on her side to face him, her eyelids appearing leaden, languidly blinking open, staying shut at longer intervals. Within a couple of minutes, she had already fallen asleep, becoming inactive. But right before sleep fully subdued her, she had said she loved him, and he had responded in kind—massaging her neck, holding her hand, staring directly at her and nowhere else; and when he thought her consciousness had ebbed from this world, she surprised him by speaking again with eyes closed, saying in a voice which had grown impossibly tired and hoarse, “Don't forget to breathe, okay?”

  “I won't,” he answered.

  “Good,” she mumbled, and was silent thereafter.

  And while Debra approached her mystery ride, Hollis undressed completely, climbing into bed beside her, pressing himself against her body—listening as her life dissolved in his arms, as she slowly faltered and ceased. Then her passing, like so much about her, had an effortless quality. She didn't gasp, and her chest didn't heave; no long, labored breaths struggled from her throat. She just proceeded—as if she had crossed from one room to the next, as if she had stepped away for a little while. But the many tears he had wept over the months while fearing this very moment didn't immediately come—nor was he yet shaken by expected waves of panic or overwhelming sadness. He was, upon experiencing what he had dreaded the most, much calmer than he thought possible, relaxed even. Must be shock, he decided. Of course, it hasn't hit me, it hasn't settled in. Or, perhaps, it was because she was with him, resting there; she was slightly warm, and she was present somehow. With her eyes shut and her head on the orthopedic pillow, she could easily have been sleeping. “Deb,” he whispered, taking her compliant right hand into one of his hands. “Deb,” he repeated, awed by the simplicity of her passing, the ease with which she went; yet her dying felt so singular to him, so unique, as if no one else had experienced such a personal loss—the fact that most others had or would couldn't help but amaze him.

  Then how appropriate, Hollis thought, for his final act of love to conclude with a touching of hands, just as the first act had begun so long ago. For now they had reached the end of touching, of mutual contact; they had reached the end of shared hours and conversations and togetherness; beneath the painted bluebird on the bedroom ceiling, they had reached the end. Still, for a while, he moved his palms along her face, her arms, her breasts—those actual finishing touches; and with his chest pressed firmly against her spine, he gave her body his heat even as she grew colder and colder. Somewhere else, he imagined, she was readying to be born again. Somewhere else on the planet, far away, a brand-new Debra was bound to arrive at any moment. Even so, he wanted her to remain like this for now, resting under the sheets; he wanted her to stay—a few hours longer, maybe a day—until he was sure she had truly gone from him.

  Sometime later, Hollis would take himself from their bed—leaving her behind with the comforter pulled to her neck, the orthopedic pillow covering her head—shutting the bedroom door as if he were respectfully closing the gates of a mausoleum. In the kitchen, he poured himself some of the Glenfiddich—and then, in the living room, he stretched across the couch with drink in hand, grabbing for the Tom Clancy novel he had left open on the coffee table. But while reading he fell asleep, eventually dreaming of animals and people—that recurring procession—while snow continued raining as if the heavens had been wrung in the hands of God, spilling down upon an unsuspecting desert. When waking from his nap—the novel resting against his chin, the half-filled cup of Glenfiddich sitting nearby on the floor—he felt strangely at peace inside the house, comfortable there on the couch and kept snug by a beige terry-cloth bathrobe. Lifting the novel, he began reading where he had left off, although his attention wasn't really held by the writing; his eyes scanned paragraphs, failing to absorb sentences, until, at last, he set the book aside, turning his gaze elsewhere as the cup of Glenfiddich was absently retrieved, the liquor seeping warmly past his lips.

  On the other side of the living room the front curtains were drawn, revealing the picture window and what existed just beyond it: a torrent of snowflakes wavering to the earth, some pattering at the glass like moths before dissolving into clear drops of moisture. Soon Hollis was standing there in his bathrobe, resting a palm against the window, sensing the cold while buffered by efficient central heating. There, too, he caught a glimpse of himself as an obscure, diaphanous man reflected on the glass; his transposed image was cast amongst the wide residential street—the adjacent and similarly designed homes, the xeriscaped lawns—backlit by
a table lamp but also illumed in that frozen vapor which brightened the night, that curious downpouring which smothered the gravel-laden property and changed his Suburban Half-Ton LS from sandalwood metallic to an almost solid white.

  20

  Except for the sound of water drip drip dripping from the thatched roof made of palm leaves, it is quiet both inside and outside the tiki hut. Hollis sits there now—in a corner, down on the floor—listening as water drips above him to the earth, dripping, too, around the backyard and off the overhead gutters of the house. Everything is melting, he thinks. Everything melts. An itinerant wind blows across the desert into Nine Springs, but it doesn't stay very long and, instead, dissipates somewhere along the empty, messy streets. Drops patter upon his jacket and seem to be absorbed immediately by the fabric, seeping through to his clothing. He stares up at the leak-proof ceiling. His hair and face are damp but it is dry inside the hut. So the water continues to drip elsewhere, nearby, not touching him and yet, he believes, soaking him all the same. Presently the wind returns, this time with more resolve—howling for a moment, rolling over Nine Springs, shaking palm trees and dazzling the air with fast-swirling currents of fine snow particles and moisture—and then, as if stopped by the flipping of a switch, it isn't there anymore, the airy howl receding and the currents settling in its wake.

  Hollis lowers his head. Lon's mitt is on his left hand. His bare right hand is grubby, the fingernails brown with soil. Before going to the hut, the spade had slipped past his fingers, sailing to the ground and throwing mud at his feet. But rather than retrieve the spade, he went from his garden and stood for a while in the middle of the backyard, eventually walking to the edge of the swimming pool. Where previously the pool was covered by a thin layer of ice hidden underneath snow, it had now become a watery surface once more—interspersed with diminishing islands, miniature icebergs growing smaller and smaller and farther away from one another on a chlorine sea.

  Standing by the pool, he could see into neighboring yards. He could also glimpse part of the street. Nevertheless, not a single person or vehicle was in sight. He looked at the blue-black mountain range washed out by the bright haze of winter. The arching sunlight reflected off the snow blanketing the desert and cast an intense, blinding glow which enshrouded the horizon, diminishing the view of the mountain even more. He hadn't thought of it previously, but just then he found himself wondering about the unseen forests and wilderness thriving on the other side of the mountain and felt an inexplicable desire to journey there by foot. The wind came and went, varying in intensity, sometimes seeming to roll across the desert with a rumbling like distant thunder. Suddenly he realized that the ground beneath him was shuddering, vibrating with a low intensity—a steady, perpetual energy quietly shaking the land and unnoticed by him until that moment. While subtle and unfluctuating, the vibration possessed a frightening and catastrophic power which, he imagined, originated from the planet's dying core.

  All around him, the world was slowly coming unstuck. Cinder blocks and bricks were separating, plaster was cracking, carpet was being tugged toward living-room ceilings. Appliances, televisions, vehicles, animals, children, and entire families were about to be sent upward, gently at first and, then, with the violent speed of a rocket—smashing against overhead light fixtures, or ceiling fans, or skylights, or, in most cases, wafting recklessly like balloons set loose into the sky. If he looked at the garden, he would see cactus uprooting itself, soil and rocks and pebbles ascending as if by magic. The spade he had dropped was already hovering above the porch, encircled by satellites of mud. Soon the signposts of mankind would be jettisoned to the universe, the symbols of presence ejected from a tired, worn-down planet—the cities, the freeways, the airports, the schools, the burned-out and rusting cars, the unkempt pastures of bluebonnets, the high, brittle grass, the gutted houses abandoned on weedy plots, those vast number of commodities fashioned by human design. The great purging was beginning, he told himself. It had begun this morning.

  But when turning to gaze at the garden and the house, Hollis saw that nothing had changed, nothing had been raised to the sky. The spade lay exactly where it had fallen. The roots of cacti and succulents were buried under sodden dirt. His feet remained firmly on the ground, the earth had not undone itself or stopped on its axis. The house was stable on the foundation, as always. The rooms were the same rooms, no different than yesterday. No, nothing much had changed—with the exception of one maddening thing: she wasn't there anymore, but yet she was there nonetheless. Something had irrevocably changed for her, and, too, the life he considered to be his own was then altered past recognition. No amount of mental preparation could have truly prepared him for this eventuality. He was, at that second, aware of a widening black space within himself—a profound loneliness he had never experienced, a complete and utter sense of being left alone without another recognizable soul at hand; he had, in the passing of a single morning, entered uncharted territory and, it was understood, the way back home was lost even as their home stood directly in front of him. So, he told himself, better to go elsewhere for a while and put off what the house entailed—his grief, his fears, the phone calls he will have to make. Better going where she rarely ever went, to where he could hide in the shade and wasn't supposed to think about anything.

  Inside the tiki hut, Hollis hugs his knees to his chest and stays like that for what feels like an eternity. Later on, he lifts his head and stares again at the water dripping outside from the ends of the thatched roof, thinking: If the water stops dripping right now, she'll return to me. If the water will only stop dripping—all of it, every single drop—then Deb will walk out of the house, calling my name. He tells himself this, with eyes fixed on the droplets which keep forming and plunging, forming and plunging, while knowing in his heart it won't happen. The water continues dripping, and she never calls for him. And he wonders why it has to be, why was she just here earlier as she had always been—the movement of her limbs, the resonance of her singular voice, the warmth of her skin—and yet now she is gone from the world. How could she go?

  Still, the love is here; the love they shared is here—it is more tangible than ever. He has that. Yes, I have that. Then, maybe, it is he who has gone away for good—not her—and he has vanished from the world without yet realizing it, somehow existing beyond the fade to black, as if in another reality, as if in an illusion. But where are you this very second? he asks himself, rocking back and forth. Where does someone go when finally gone? And what—he asks aloud—is the meaning in death? However, no answers materialize from his wondering, and yet that void of understanding, in its own vacant manner, provides the ultimate, all-inclusive answer to his questions. So decent people die each and every second of the day without reason, the living are required to forge ahead nonetheless, and that is simply that; the role of living is acted out on a daily basis, an individual's act of dying is a one-time affair—but everyone gets a shot at playing both parts, none are exempted, none are unique, everyone goes on and everyone goes.

  Sighing miserably, Hollis presses his palms flat on either side of himself. The dream is over, he concludes. I'm awake. A heavy internal weight has consumed his limbs, mooring him to the floor and making it difficult to stand, but somehow he manages to pull himself up anyway. He staggers in the shadows, bracing himself against the hut's doorframe, the thatched roof jutting beyond him and sprinkling the ground with droplets. Sunlight illuminates the backyard, raining upon the garden beds and the swimming pool and the house. Except, to his confusion, the house appears miles away, although it summons him closer. Their bedroom also beckons—as beloved places do which cannot be experienced as they once had been enjoyed—be-cause she is there, at least for a while. She is waiting.

  “All right,” he says, after taking a deep breath, and then steps from the shadows of the hut and into the light of the backyard, heading along a flagstone pathway toward the house. With the brightness stunning his vision, he stumbles on a flagstone slab, his body
wobbling off the path, his boots crunching across gravel. Today the sun shines. The desert thaws, the cactus needles glisten with beads of water which mirror the heavens and seem to hold the sky. Tomorrow the temperature will soar at Nine Springs, burning through the day and onto the skin of golfers. There will be warmth, but not for him, not for Debra. “It's okay,” he assures himself, finding his balance, returning to the pathway—squinting now against the sun and reaching his hands outward to grasp at air, weaving blindly ahead for no other reason than he must, pacified by the sudden understanding that all things born are fated to move toward their end.

  SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  The two figurative paintings which, respectively, preface each section of The Post-War Dream were created by Peter I. Chang: I. Dwellers (gesso, charcoal, and acrylic on wood panel, 2000); II. Safe Places to Die (acrylic on developed photographic paper, 2000).

  Both ovary illustrations—Fig. 29 and Fig. 30—were originally printed without the artist's name cited in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex, by Dr. A. Willy, Dr. L. Vander, Dr. O. Fisher, and other authorities (New York: Cadillac Publishing Co., Inc., 1950).

  Copyright © 2008 by Mitch Cullin

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by

  Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto,

  an imprint of The Doubleday Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2008.

  Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Nan A. Talese/Doubleday edition as follows:

  Cullin, Mitch.