In the film Memento, the lead character is unable to retain short-term memories. So he’s constantly finding himself in the middle of a situation and not knowing how he got there. At one point, he’s running through a parking lot, dodging between the cars, and you hear his internal dialog:
“OK, here I am. I’m running. Am I chasing someone, or running away?”
There’s the sound of a gunshot from behind him, and the bullet hits a nearby car.
“Ok. Running away.”
I hope I’m running toward something.
When the empire was young the towers of the palace filled with white birds that flocked and sang to the people below. One year passed, and two, and three, and five and eight and thirteen, and the birds stayed.
As these years passed the people below talked about the birds and their singing. They talked about why they were there, they talked about the songs they sang. At some point, nobody knows when, the people below decided that the birds were there because the empire was strong. When the empire fell was when the birds would leave, and not a moment sooner. At the time it was a happy thought, a reassuring thought: the birds had been there since the people below could remember, since their parents could remember, since their grandparents. The birds would always be there, and so would the empire.
The people below were safe, and the birds sang to them.
In the years that passed the empire went to war, as empires are wont to do. Its kings donned violet capes and weighty helmets, riding horses into battle after battle. Some battles were won, some battles were lost. The empire won the war. And the war after that. And the war after that.
In the towers of the palace, the white birds flocked and sang, and the empire was safe.
Among the people below no one really knew what had happened. They were, for the most part, happy. Their kings fought wars, took wives, had children. The empire was enormous, stretching thousands of miles in every direction… so huge that it had to be sectioned off and given to local governments to rule over. There was no date recorded in a history book. There was no definitive moment. No great defeat. No mass invasion. One day the birds were just gone.
The people below had never known a time without birds overhead. They blinked in the sun like new fawns, searching for the raucous feathered ceiling under which generations had lived out their lives. For weeks the center of the empire fell into unease, which spread gradually to outlying regions.
Until one day the birds were back. But they didn’t flock, and didn’t sing. They fumbled through the air silently, as if searching for something, and they disappeared one by one until by nightfall none were left. The next day the same thing happened, the birds confused, silent, searching, disappearing by nightfall.
Inside the palace, a young boy rose every morning under cover of darkness, under cover of secrecy. He took up his net and he took up his sack, and went out into the world. When the white birds abandoned the towers of the palace, the empire would fall. His job was to keep the towers filled with birds, and every day they disappeared by nightfall.
______
In England there’s a legend that the British empire won’t fall until there are no ravens remaining in the Tower of London. Ravens remain, but their wings are clipped.
Shod feet hitting pavement at regular intervals; rhythm matches heavy breathing. Or perhaps the other way around. Sweat running down sides of face and body, accumulating in all the normal places: visible show of my extended exertion. Thoughts running ahead, planning, looking around corners and under rocks.
*POP* felt and heard.
Hands on the ground, “holy shit” on my tongue. Half crawl used to move the remaining hundred yards to my house.
Ice.
Wrap.
Elevation.
“Shit shit shit fuck” pushed through clenched teeth.
Doctors.
30-minute surgery two and a half years later, a real in-and-out job of scraping and cutting and a few thick stitches.
I can walk up stairs again.
I don’t run anymore.
Hey kids, let’s play ashes.
Oh Patty. Red
hair and freckles, and that secret
smile. I remember, under the table
on the covered patio, stacks of old
linoleum turned it into a private cave.
Would a kiss be cool, like
an ice cube on the tongue? Your lips
were warm and yielding. I was falling
into butter and cream.
I thought we were forever, but
by the fifth grade we were done.
Do you remember?
There is a photograph. Two boys stand
in straw hats, their arms draped
over each other’s shoulders, freckled
faces grinning into the camera. Behind them,
I remember, is a leaning barn, and an ancient orchard
scattered through pines. I can still feel
the summer heat blowing across the creek,
picking up the fragrance of tadpoles and rattlesnakes.
The older boy is ten, and is me.
My brother John is eight. He has already lived
more years than he has left. (more…)
I hadn’t seen you in nine years. A mutual friend suggested that the three of us get together for “closure.” A week later we met at Black Angus for dinner.
The two of you were already there and seated. I went into the bathroom and freshened my makeup, brushed my hair, pulled down my shirt and sucked in my stomach. Don’t show any emotion; you can always get up and leave, I told myself as the hostess walked me back to the table.
(more…)
When it was time for you to leave, we would stand on the sidewalk by your car and say goodbye for an hour, two hours, longer. We would just hold each other. I think I held you tighter, to keep you from leaving. Maybe you held me tighter, to keep yourself from leaving. Eventually the leaving came. I don’t remember much of the times you weren’t there.
Once you came to see me on my birthday. I was eighteen when we kissed. To hell with all my resolutions, they seemed so silly now. We knew our future was together.
It was 4:00 am and everyone was asleep. No one was moving or whispering. I could leave and no one would know. No one could stop me.
