"Five Senses"

[Silyosha]

This was written for the literary club at my school. First 'writer's' post!...
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[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']An old woman rummages through her cabinets in search of a coffee mug, knobby knuckles bumping meanderingly against the porcelain. She feels through the sea of smooth handles and familiar rounded rims, humming randomly. Her half-forgotten song floods the tiny space, and she chuckles to herself upon realizing how very off-key she has become. She remembers a time when her voice slid up and down the scale as effortlessly as a needle through silk, bewitching one and all—but that’s all over. She is only an old woman who is losing her hearing, an old woman who, lately, takes even longer than usual to make a mug of tea.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif'] At last she grasps the handle of her favorite cup and—careful!—fills it with the hot water that sits steaming on the stovetop. A dip into the bag of tea leaves, a brief hunt through the low refrigerator for the milk, and the tea has nothing to do but steep. [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The woman sighs, feeling an odd mix of gladness and sorrow for successfully completing yet another speck of a chore, and arthritically settles into a kitchen chair. Her hands worry the hem of her apron, tight with anxiety in that unbearable moment between the seat-taking and the actual sitting. There is always a chance of missing the chair entirely. Don’t be silly, she thinks, mentally reproaching herself. And yet, upon contact with the chair, she breathes a sigh of relief.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Now she can relax. She leans back just slightly and breathes in, air rattling in the bony cage of her chest. Her arthritic fingers relax against the chair’s wooden arms. The odor of burning wood slips through the cracked-open windowpane, mixing with the nutty scent of fermenting tea—old smells, ancient smells, aromas of relaxation; almost liquid in their potency.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The old woman [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] her head, listening to the neighbor children as they dash down the street, laughing to beat the band. Their rubber-soled feet make resounding pong-pong-pong noisesagainst the softening asphalt. She smiles. She thinks she must have imagined childhood, but her head lightens nonetheless at the thought of so much freedom. The idea of leaping out of a warm childish bed at the crack of dawn, slipping into nondescript clothes that mean little and bursting through the door into a clean new morning, ready, with nothing to keep track of but yourself.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']She supposes, sitting alone in her familiar chair, that in a way, she and the children are alike. She herself has nothing to do but look after her own health and comfort. A boy comes every week to clean; a neighborhood lady cooks breakfast and dinner; and a little boy next door dutifully brings in the mail and reads it aloud if necessary, gratefully accepting his few dollars of payment at the end of the evening. Her clothes are laid out for the week by an indigenous niece, who cheerfully refuses any compensation at all, but has been known to swipe little knick-knacks that she supposes her great-aunt will not miss. [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']But she does. She says nothing about it, ever, and yet acutely feels the little space of loss for each of those missing things. All she has left of them are their ghosts. Oh, she has never seen them, but they are completely hers.[/FONT]
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[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']In her first memory, she perches on her young mother’s lap. They are outside somewhere—on a patio she can barely remember the feel of. The air is dry as a stove burner and just as hot. The heat radiated up from the brick walkway like something alive.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The sun created a pleasant line of pressure across her forehead, like a sympathetic hand laid just so over a sick child’s face. She remembers the trilling calls of the mockingbirds at their feeder, overpowered by the blue jay’s raucous screech. Her mother’s chin rested on top of her head, arms wrapped loosely around her child. She hummed a summer song. The vibrations sounded deep within her, like the clatter of iron railway tracks as a far-off train approaches. Her heart beat in tandem with her child’s, slow as a swinging pendulum. [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The old woman remembers the faint brush of her mother’s hair against her forehead, light hair, soft hair she has inherited. She remembers sitting up straight at the sound of a speeding car, muscles tensed in anticipation. [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']She asked something like, “Mommy, what does it look like?”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']“What does what look like?”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']“The car,” she began. “What does the car look like, Mommy?”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Her mother laughed. “Oh, sweetheart,” she said. “It’s just a car. I wasn’t paying attention.”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Her daughter could not comprehend this. She had heard this excuse so many times, that insufferable refrain of:[/FONT][FONT='Times New Roman','serif'] Idon’t know, don’t ask me, I never even noticed it. The sighted world pays no mind to its incredible and collective luck—they go charging forth into a world of wonder and refuse to open their eyes. If I could see, the girl told herself, I’d never shut them. I’d never sleep. I’d look at everything, all the time, even the sun, even if it burned my eyes right out, I’d want it….[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']“But, Mommy,” the girl sulked, holding something back that was far greater than even she could acknowledge, “You [/FONT][FONT='Times New Roman','serif']saw it.”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Her mother only sighed, kissing her daughter’s crumpled brow. She leaned her child back against her chest and resumed her humming, gentler. The little girl felt the old tug of disappointment, that ancient haunt, tempt her to scream, to beg, but she did neither. Instead she sulked, lower lip protruding, refusing to surrender to the thick sleepiness of the summer day. Anger made her tight. She uncoiled her pose only slightly at the unexpected: Light droplets of liquid trickling down her sensitive forehead, warm as bathwater. [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']That the sky could be clear and still produce rain was a fascinating oddity, one she could not bring herself to understand. She stuck out her tongue to taste one of the drops that had slid to the corner of her mouth, marveling at its salty tang.[/FONT]
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[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The sun tumbles through the bay window like warm water from a bucket, soaking her through to the marrow of her aching bones. It smells like starchy linen just ironed. Like heavy summer days at home with her family after church, dress clothes wilting in the heat. On those afternoons, the flowers planted along the front walk felt more elastic than plant, stretchy and rubbery and synthetic. The thick, smoky heat rose up from the walkway in waves, radiating through the thin rubber soles of their shoes. It baked them as if they were pound cakes in the oven, dense and heavy and pleasantly fatigued. [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The woman, shaking the remnants of daydream from her person like rainwater, shuffles carefully over to collect her teacup. The familiar herbal aroma hits her full-on as she stirs in a scanty teaspoon of sugar and the usual splash of skim milk. She has drunk so much tea in the last few years; it has become almost as vital to her as water. Without it, the day fades away a little incomplete, unbalanced just slightly, though never undetectably. When your world is made up of nothing but touch, taste, fading smell and sound, the tiniest thing can seem monumental if forgotten. [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Which, seen in the right light, can be a blessing. Nothing goes without being noticed. The hum of an airplane, flying low, brings a starting burst of made-up colors and half-remembered Braille dots through the woman’s mind. An explosion of foreign words, shouted somewhere across the street, is enough to send her brain reeling in excitement at the new material, spelling out the jumbled words in every way it can. A child knocking on the front door—“ Ma’am, ma’am, my mother baked these for you”—brings in memories of that far-off fairy tale, childhood, things to puzzle over and, finally, to set aside again. She can never go back. She knows it. And yet, it would be so nice to forget it for a while. Funny, the things that choose to lose themselves.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']She crosses her ankles and leans back in her chair as far as possible without straining a muscle. She is so tired. Even these days, when her activities are so considerably restricted and she can do little aside from preparing meals and sunning herself out on the porch with a bowlful of ice cubes for company, everything has its own way of wearing her out. Even sleeping has become difficult. What was once a smooth, comfortable mattress has seemingly sprouted a million hills and valleys overnight, lumpy and inconsistent and completely unbearable. It is far easier to nod off on the foul-smelling rubber seat of an inner-city bus while clutching the arm of some good-Samaritan-type Boy Scout for guidance. Perhaps as a result, she has spent many sleepless nights roaming through the house in her fraying old nightgown, the one she refuses to part with, though its seams have begun to split. She clutches the familiar ribbon laces of that nightgown and listens as intently as she can to the symphony of evening, to the dewy chirp of the dry-legged crickets; the milky coo of the nightingale; the trilling hoot of the dwarf owl, faintly ridiculous and vaguely chilling. She takes in the smells, too: Smoky, fresh-cut grass; the sickly sweet stench of rotting leaves; the salt of weak, trickling sweat left over from the heat of the day. It can be disgusting, really, all those pungent scents blending together into one solid mass, but take care to keep them apart, and it’s all right. Every night feels like a little adventure, something recognizable with only a twist of newness to protect it from becoming routine. In a way, she looks forward to the time when her memory will go—and surely it will—if only because she will get to have each of these things again, new, every day.[/FONT]
(cont....)

 

[Silyosha]

[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']It’s hard to believe, at times like this, that she is dying. [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The doctor told her a year back, and even now she doesn’t let it in. She still finds the idea absurd, that she could be here one day and simply gone the next. But of course, she can do nothing about it. It will come no matter what. She remembers the doctor saying those exact words on that fateful winter morning when she sat with her trembling legs stuck to the vinyl seat cushion in the overheated examination room, protectively clutching her purse. Her anchor. She heard him rustling his official papers, heard the muted click of the old electric clock on the far wall, and clenched her teeth tightly together in anticipation. “Well,” the doctor said, “I must tell you—I will tell you—that your cancer is almost certainly terminal. I’m afraid we can do little to treat it. We’ll try the chemo, the drugs—anything we can—until we get a response. There is nothing you can do. Let us take care of it, and don’t worry yourself.”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif'] She had nodded, mumbled a few questions about when would it happen, how long did she have, and the doctor cleared his throat. She heard the faint crinkle of cellophane. Voice dripping reluctance, he replied, “I can’t quite say. Not now. Somewhere along the line, I will have an exact answer for you, but not now. Ma’am, if there is anything we can do to help—”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif'] At this she had held up her hand, told him no, and walked out. I can watch over me, she thought to herself repeatedly, but she did not really believe it.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Hot liquid trickles over her sore fingers, yanking her out of her reverie. The heat of the tea is almost unwelcome in the knowledge of such strong outdoor heat. Even so, the cozy familiarity of such a practice makes her toes curl. There aren’t many things finer in life than drinking a cup of tea, and it’s over all too soon. Already the rich brew has thickened and sweetened, swinging closer and closer to the sugar-coated bottom of the mug. [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Who knew time could go by so quickly? Most afternoons, the minutes drag by lethargically, each tick of the kitchen clock separated by a millennium of silence. The woman supposes this is lucky. She possesses each minute so completely at a time when her days are presumably numbered, but she can’t help but recall the other ways in which time can work, ways too quick and sneaky to even try grab a hold of. She relaxes into the buttery spread of the sun, far more ancient than she, and remembers those far-off times, occasions when the hours slipped by as fluidly as a silk ribbon through impatient fingers and the clock was something to push aside and forget. Not to fear. Not to beat.[/FONT]
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[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Her eleven-year-old frame buzzed with sensation as she scrambled down the beach, feeling with acute pleasure the light, brisk sting of a thousand particles of sand slapping at her ankles. Her mother had told her [/FONT][FONT='Times New Roman','serif']There’s nothing in the way, it’s all empty, and she needed no further encouragement to run. The best way to have a good time while running, she had found, was to simply believe that there was nothing ahead, therefore opening an entire world of space to you and your exploration. If she ran into something, fine, it was her own fault; a small thing to exchange for so much freedom.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Rushing into the water was a shock. One moment, she was flying across a field of perfect dryness, and the next, she was calf-deep in a soupy puddle of moving, breathing water, heavy with salt, pulling back into the deep as if meaning to drag her with it. The notion didn’t frighten her, however; she wanted to go. Stock-still with astonishment, she leaned down to taste the droplets and was immediately hit in the face with a soaking, bone-chilling wall of wet. It knocked her down flat. She lay still for a moment, checking for vital signs, then sprang to her feet, thrilled and laughing. The experience was so sensory it stunned her—so much to taste, to smell, to feel! It was almost too much! But how could it be?[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif'] She threw herself out further and further still, relishing the thick, fishy, salty odor of the bubbling, roaring sea, the pure depth of it. She wanted to stay with it forever, floating out over the swells until her skin burned and her eyes were at last opened by the healing rays of the sun. She wanted to absorb it all.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']“Jellyfish! Jellyfish!” her mother called from the shore, but she pretended not to hear. Only when her dutiful, sighted brothers were sent grudgingly out to fetch her did she remember herself. She whined and wheedled, pleading for more time, but her mother refused. “You’re too young—you haven’t gotten the feel of it yet” was the reason, and the girl reluctantly obeyed. She sat at the extreme edge of the water and let it lap at her toes, creeping higher and higher after each recession. And when it at last pulled her in she lay down and let it, arms raised above her head, giggling madly. It wasn’t her mother’s concern, or her siblings’, or her father’s. This was between the ocean and her.[/FONT]
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[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The woman chews her dry lips and listens, somewhat detached, to the irritating buzz of the telephone from the far-off kitchen counter. She knows she should answer it, but she doesn’t have the energy. That shrill, tinny shriek is calling for anyone else. She sits with her hands folded in her thin lap, willing to let the thing ring until it chokes, but at the last minute she drags herself up and lurched for the phone, fumbling wildly for the ‘talk’ button. Silly old woman, she chastises herself. Crazy old bat.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']“Hello?” she says breathlessly.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']“Ma’am? This is Dr.—”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']“Yes, yes, I can hear you. You don’t need to shout.” Young people, thinking everyone advanced in their years is an invalid and addled to boot. “What do you want?”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']“Ma’am,” the doctor says, “we have your test results. I thought I’d share them with you, spare you the trouble of coming here yourself.”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The test results. Those. “Yes?” she says, making no effort to control the quaver in her voice. Her hands clutch the old-fashioned curly phone cord so tightly her knuckles scream in protest. Nothing you can do, she reminds herself. Nothing you can do.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']“I suppose you’d just like me to tell you,” the doctor says haltingly. “Ma’am, you have about two months. We are fairly certain on that. If there is anything, anything at all we can do to help—”[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']She hangs up.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Two months. In two months, the moon goes twice through its cycle. The seasons can change. A woman can go to the hospital and come home with her new baby. A family can move. A beloved pet can die and be buried. Two pages of the calendar, tossed in the trash; sixty days of life present in rows of unfeeling white boxes. Sixty cups of tea, sixty good mornings, sixty goodnights. Sixty newspapers, sixty pairs of socks, sixty tasteless breakfasts. Only sixty. The number extends itself in her head, rushing like lightening past every miniscule occurrence that means so much, and then crashes to a screeching halt, ending at…what? [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']She stands unmoving in her humid kitchen, feeling the blood rush through her tangle of veins from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. This can’t be her time—she reverberates with life. Every morning she wakes up and takes that first breath of conscious oxygen, tastes the smoothness of pebbly spring water, and lives. Her heart beats and her brain works, though she is so old. That must count for something. How can it stop?[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']Here is her yard, her house; here is where she has built her life. And here is where she will die, when the time is right. This is all she needs. The fact that she can do nothing does not put her to despair—in fact, it’s deeply comforting. She is now completely in God’s hands. [/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The tiny antique clock ticks away in its corner, oblivious to the last. She turns toward the sound, strength flooding her muscles, and grasps the timepiece, tossing it to the buckling wooden floor, where it explodes into a heap of primitive batteries and anonymous springs. She gathers handfuls of the rubble, marches to the back door, flings it open, and strews little bits of time all over the forsythia bushes; the sundry grass; the concrete back stoop.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif'] Summer fills her lungs and her head and her heart and she can never let it go, never. It is as much a part of her as her own flesh and blood. The earth seems to pulsate beneath her bare feet, slamming into her tough old soles as if it has a heartbeat. The quicksilver laughter of the children across the street fills her with alarming, profound affection. She fiercely loves a world that she has never seen.[/FONT]
[FONT='Times New Roman','serif']The old woman lays out on the rough, prickly grass, arms over her head, legs chaffing against the chunky dry soil. She inhales and exhales, inhales and exhales, feeling the low pull in from the center of her chest. Let the neighbors say what they will. She might be dying, but her home is everywhere. That she is on her way out gives her the right to acknowledge it, and the knowledge fills her with an indescribable joy she is no longer capable of expressing. She is too old to dance for it and too happy to cry.[/FONT]
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