The Dead of Night

This piece was inspired by the Andre Kertesz Image – “Budapest, 1914”

It was during my walk through the quietest, deadest, still part of the night that the cold, biting wind gnawed at my face and exposed knuckles.

I had been down the winding river road trying to numb the pain of the fitful, anxious last moments of one of my oldest friends. His passing had drained me completely, both physically and emotionally, and I found myself shivering to the core as I made my way home.

Painful, icy talons of the unrelenting gusts needled at my body through layers of clothing. The collar of my wool overcoat was drawn up high around my neck, my hat dutifully covering my thinning hair, and my left hand buried deep in a somewhat protective pocket.

The only sound in my ears was the slight wailing of the winds, and the light crunching of my feet moving hurriedly over the open lot where Miller’s produce had once been, before the fire.

My right hand firmly grasped the hard, squeaking leather handle of my thirty-plus year old bag. It had been given to me by my mother at my graduation from medical school.

In the eighteen, no, nineteen years since her passing, it had been a constant companion, a reminder of her, and a compass, that kept my heading in line with the ideals of my early days in practice.

That night, however, it was a reminder that my wrinkled hand was as bitterly cold as the tip of my nose.

The frozen dirt beneath my feet was as hard as rock, and the village was so suffocatingly quiet in these early morning hours.

I was almost home, knowing that as I rounded the next corner I would be able to see the glow of the oil lamp that my wife always left in the hall window for me, lighting my way in this inky-black, moonless night.

That was when it happened.

There was a brief muffled crackling as out of the blackness came a warm, brilliant light, as if a higher power had split open the night and gazed down upon me. I whipped my head toward the sound and light, standing motionless; transfixed in the wind.

A scar of brilliance ripped open in the blackness above as light streaked across the sky. The falling star made no noise, no protest, dying gracefully in an instant of beauty.

Reflecting momentarily as the light faded once more to pitch, I hoped that when my time came, that I might be lucky enough to pass with such unassuming dignity and serenity.

Whispers

. . . and the tree spoke to me as I meandered past.

I stopped. Turning and cocking my head to the side, leaning closer to find the words I thought I had heard whispered.

Wind rushed through the clusters of branches and leaves above . . . allowing a previously unrevealed energy . . . an alluring, hollow presence, to escape. Soft wisps of unintelligible sounds, barely above silence, streamed out . . . sounds of a weary soul, stirring, as if from a deep slumber, to speak concealed secrets to my ears . . . ancient secrets of Earth and Wind, protected and hushed for Millennia.

This same presence had wailed untamed across the surface of a young, cooling world, witness to all manner of life, death and rebirth in the great elapse of time since. I sensed the elusive whispers were painfully important, and I concentrated more intensely, closing my eyes . . . trying to make sense of the faint sound ripplings . . . to find the barely recognizable words loosely threaded within.

As I did, the clear black shroud of the night, pinpricked overhead with winking stars, closed in around me like a thick blanket, blocking out the world . . . its noises . . . the cold . . . warmly embracing me, pulling me close like a sagacious elder about to impart the gift of acquired wisdom.

This tree that I pass by, quite unaffected, at least twice daily had chosen this moment to reach out and intrigue me . . . entwine me . . . entrust me.

Although as I listened, I realized it was not the tree speaking. It was merely a tool, a channel employed by the wind, to be the vibration of its voice. Such gentle breezes passing through . . .

Was it the faint whispers of my mother, or brother, or some other who had passed on?

Was it a guardian, appointed to watch over me?

I stood still, listening desperately, the wind tenderly caressing the exposed skin on my face. I tried to understand a murmur, a phrase . . . something. Then, the wind relaxed, and as quickly as the presence had beckoned, it departed.

The branches whispered no more.

The tree fell silent . . . its hold on me was broken, and again the wind blew cold.

Perhaps one day, when I am more prepared to listen and open to its messages, the elusive winds and tree will once again speak to me.

The Cleansing

It was a very hot afternoon, some five years ago now, during a very dark chapter of my life, when I was struggling.

I had bottomed out in a very deep depression, and I was trying to feel alive . . . to feel any signs of life . . . to feel . . . something, anything but that empty, gaping, tattered, all-consuming hollowness where my heart should have been.

I had stopped off after work to pick up my son from the YMCA. His class was still in session, so I stood outside in the heat of the day, waiting for him, sweating.

I wondered if I would ever find my way back to myself, and any semblance of a "normal" life again.

The humidity was oppressive, but looking back on things, I was actually rather enjoying the opportunity to do nothing, having to be nowhere, not having to think about something, and simply observe people as they came and went.

They dropped off and picked up kids, parked their cars and walked inside in their spandex workout gear and cross-trainer shoes, hurrying from their air-conditioned cars through the heat, into the cool of the building.

All had places and lives they had left behind for a short time to exercise, and would then return to the timeline of their lives afterward.

From my vantage point, leaning against the corner of the building, I could see the entrance and entire front of the building, the parking lot and out to the main road beyond, lined with tall trees.

Sweat dampened my face and hair as I watched the tops of the trees across the faraway main road begin to sway slightly at first, then under a bit more force.

A few moments later I heard a breeze and finally felt a blast of cooler air as it rushed at me from the tree line.

Then the initial burst of air became a wall of wind blasting across the parking lot, blowing dust, pollen and leaves toward me.

I squinted a bit.

The flag which had been hanging lazily snapped out perpendicular to the pole, straining against the cable, flapping furiously in the strong wind. It felt ominous, like something big was about to happen.

Then I heard something. A roar that seemed to come from beyond the trees, and growing louder. As I watched, the flailing trees were overtaken by the sound and immediately became obscured, in what an artist would call a grey wash, their colors dulled.

I stared across the parking lot, my shirt flapping wildly, and hair lifting . . . squinting, watching the line made on the ground and in the air itself by this wall of grey moving across the parking lot toward me.

The wind blew crazily in my face now, howling like a beast, as it swept over the cars and the building, racing toward me . . . the noise was almost deafening now.

I stood transfixed, determined to merely experience the simplistic majesty of this moment, as the grey wash and the roar closed the gap between itself and me, finally sweeping over me in a blast of stinging raindrops and cool air, immediately soaking me to the skin.

I closed my eyes, allowing the rain and wind to blast at me. I drank in all my senses would allow. I raised my arms out to my sides, turned my face up toward the sky, closing my eyes to be completely in the moment of the experience of this naturally-occurring baptism, this cleansing.

I felt the energy of nature rushing all around me, bathing me, enveloping me . . . the sky was crying for me with such fury, a fury which, until that point, I had only known of my own tears.

I had been the recipient of a wonderful gift by the higher power . . . a natural wiping of the slate, a rebirth of sorts.

It was an amazing event that I will never forget.

Other pieces . . .

Other pieces can be found here:

http://unpublishedpieces.blogspot.com/

and here:

http://shortsandwriting.blogspot.com/