**************************************************************** Kipler's e-mail address has changed to: FanficKipler@verizon.net **************************************************************** From Kipler@aol.com Sun Sep 08 13:34:27 1996 Do not archive anywhere other than Gossamer without the author's express permission. SOLILOQUY by Kipler@aol.com (Mary Beth Clark) July 8, 1996 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ All characters are the property of 1013 Productions and Fox Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I look at my hands, and I am startled suddenly. They are my father's hands, thick-jointed and bent. They are crossed with lines; the skin is loose and tired. Strange. I know the years are there, but I forget. I forget the years that I carry in my hands. The smell assails me, and the sterile light. I have been here before. It is the same - the glare on the tile floors, the buried odor of sickness, the cold, hard click of heels drumming toward me through the halls. Once, I sat in a room like this, in a cold, tiled cell of a hospital. The smell and the light and the sounds haven't changed. They are the same after thirty-five years. Thirty-five years. I suppose it must be that long. Longer than that, even - since I sat waiting in a room like this. Waiting for news. Waiting for her. How long had I known her then? A year? Eighteen months? Not so long. And yet I thought I would break if I lost her. I thought I would dissolve. I remember seeing the grey lips, the pale skin. I remember thinking that just seeing her like that could kill me. I hadn't known how young I was, then. How close to the surface of everything. Thirty-five years. I look at all those years, gather them in a long line and stack them, one on top of the other. They feel heavy, that way. I feel the weight in my hands. It is strange to be near her again. It is strange to have the space close like this - to have the long stretch of years mean nothing after all. To stand with only brick and plaster between us. Time means nothing. My mind skates over time. I see her young, again, coming back to me. Given back, after I believed that she was gone. Healthy. We were together, and we had time, and if we had... But we made the mistake. We let fear take over. I tightened myself around the work, tried to hold it in, to keep it from touching her. I tried and faltered and failed. And she let me. I know that. She tried to blame me, once - to accuse me of pulling away from her. But her arguments were weak. She let me do it. She let me pull inside myself. The click of heels moves past me again, and a loud buzzing sounds somewhere down the hall. I sit up with a start and look around the bleak waiting room. I have forgotten where I am. A nurse hastens by, not glancing at me, and then the hall is empty. There is no one watching me. Her room is so close. I want to see her. I want to be next to her. I have always known that I would be here. I remember knowing. I remember saying it to myself: "I will be there with her on the day she dies." But I have to wait. She is not alone. Visitors. The family is with her=2E The boy. He has the right to see her. I wonder about her family - what they have meant to her. She was so young, still, when she met her husband. He was good man - a friend from work. A friend to both of us. And I resented him. I think for a time I hated him. Jealousy. Pettiness. I am ashamed of myself, looking back. Such a small thing, my jealousy for her affection. But how large it seemed, then. How young I was. A husband - what was that? Someone kind, and easy, and free. Someone to make her feel safe, normal. And the home? The family? They were only buffers. Only walls to protect her. They changed nothing. They could not undo things between us. She knew that. She understood it when I could not. I remember one morning in May, and a fit of anger. I remember my voice - sharp, bitter, pained. "You're leaving me." But her voice was calm, reasoned, true. And her eyes - so blue, so sure and unwavering. There was no room in them for questions. "Nothing changes between us. Not ever. But I need this." I was so young, then, that I doubted her. I doubted the truth of her words. There was nothing in my past - nothing in my life - to teach me about permanence. It was a lie, a story for children, something to calm them through the night. It was not for me. But it was. She taught me that. Weeks slid by; months disappeared. And always, there was a telephone call. An invitation to visit. A holiday. And always, I would look in her eyes, and I would know that she had not lied. She was stronger than my jealousy. She was stronger than the space of time. She made me believe that things were sealed between us. Immutable. It was a fair trade - her absence for her safety. I told myself that. And so I could live and breathe and move content in the world. This chair where I sit is hard and cold. My hips ache. I rock slightly.I shake my head against the memories. I shouldn't think of these things. I know that. But regret is a habit; memory is an addiction. I let my mind do its familiar damage. Her absence for her safety. A fair trade. I was content with that. But we were naive and wrong - all of us. There was no safety. There were no walls to protect her, no buffer. The danger moved with her; it traveled inside her. My stomach clenches; I fidget. My hands are restless. I can't keep my mind from falling over the past. I watch as things come undone. I shout warnings to the poor fools. It's not safe. He can't protect you. I can't protect you. Everything is so clear, now. So easy to understand. And all the clarity is useless. That last day comes into my mind. Almost twenty-five years ago. So clear. Twenty-five years. It was November, and it was cold, and the phone rang one morning and her voice was vacant as she told me the news. I came as quickly as possible, that day. I found her alone, in the garden of her house. The others were gone - her husband, her child. Sent away? She was alone, silent and far away. She would not look at me. Her eyes were unmoving, distant. They frightened me. She had closed them off. She did not belong to me anymore; she did not belong to her husband. She had taken herself back. I would have pulled her pain onto myself. I would have bargained. I would have fallen down on the pavement and begged for any hurt that the world could give me. And maybe I did. I think that I did. But it was no use. This loss was the last one. It had taken her. I remember her eyes, the day she took them away from me. I remember her eyes and the cold, damp wind and the leaves dragging themselves across the brick walkway. It is late, and I sit in this vinyl chair, waiting. I am weary, tonight. Something in the light bothers my eyes. I blink them hard. The smell of stale coffee drifts through the air. I pick up an aging magazine. I hear the soft voices of two nurses down the hall. The overhead light flickers. It is a long time since I slept. I close the magazine and lean back to rest my sore eyes. I wonder if it will be tonight. I wonder if she will die tonight. I cannot remember the world without her. I wonder if it will be the way it was, when I was young. I cannot remember who I was before I believed her. She gave me permanence; she made me believe in unyielding ties. Truth, truth. Some things are unending. I stand and pace back and forth in the hall. The sterile smell oppresses me. When will the son be out of the room? I need to be there myself. I need to see her again. I made a promise. I will be with her on the day she dies. I sigh softly and look up at the clock. It is late. I look down at my hands. I rub them together. The skin is rough and dry. They are old hands, old fingers. Hardened. I do not remember what I was like, when my hands were young. I remember her hands. I remember her eyes. Time means nothing. I lived twenty-five years without seeing her. And then I lived one-half hour with her. Two days ago, we argued. Guilt. Blame. I cannot make it up to her, that final loss. I have tried. I have not stopped trying. Twenty-five years and then one-half hour. My mind sets the one up against the other, measures them. They are the same. Time means nothing. I wait in this dark, hollow room in this hospital - wait for the son to finish his visit. There is no telling what the boy will do if he sees me. He does not know. Could not understand. I will forgive him his ignorance. I have done so before. He is so young, still. So close to the surface of things, so eager to fix blame, to find reason. He thinks he is angry. He thinks he knows pain. He has the world entire in his hands and does not know it. I wait here for him to leave her side. I wait as if I am a stranger. I have no right to be here. I have no name to bring me here - I am not "brother" or "neighbor" or "cousin." I have no name for this thing between us. Once I called it trust. Love. Maybe it is true that this thing has no name. But it is real. It endures. It follows me where I go. Sometimes I think that it is a weight of shadows that I carry behind me. I wonder, I wonder. All the shadows between us - the faces and the pain and the guilt voices of the dead husband and the missing girl... When she dies, do they disappear? Do they leave us ourselves again - clear as we were then, and sure? If we ask, do they forgive us? Does she ask? The smell overwhelms me; it is the smell of dying. I wonder if she will die tonight, or if it will be a long, slow change. It doesn't matter. Time doesn't matter. I glance around. The sign says "No Smoking." But there is no nurse at the station. There are no patients in the hallway. I fumble restlessly for a match, and pat my pocket until I find my last cigarette. I light it deftly and inhale. The smell of sickness and dying disappears into the background. The familiar sweet burn enters my chest, and a hot flash of guilt. I am afraid to die; I am afraid to follow her, afraid that the shadows are stronger, there. But I am too old to change, now. Habit is stronger than fear. I wait here as if I am a stranger, as if I am not connected to her, as if she could leave the world without my feeling it. I try to imagine what it will feel like when the world closes her to me. I inhale deeply and toss the empty cigarette package into the wastebasket. The hand of the clock moves slowly. My fingers tremble. I am weary. I lean against the wall and wait for Fox Mulder to leave his mother's bedside. End. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is a summer story. Odds are the point will be moot after next October's season premiere, when the hero does something heinous and dashes all my glorious theories to the ground! So read up now and enjoy! Comments are eagerly read and much appreciated! --Kipler@aol.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------