Monday, May 12, 2008

• Rot

  Currently Reading Birdwing By Rafe Martin see related

   

  

  When I wait for him by the river's edge, the things I've forgotten resurface in the corners of my mind, playing at the edges- half in sight, but diving beneath the surface when I turn my head. Like shoals of silver fish they glint in the light of my almost understanding, and then, they're gone. It's always like that now.

  All I can think about is what it would be like to sever his tail from his body. I imagine it would be incredibly satisfying, like burying your arms deep down into the mud of the marsh, only more so. You only have to watch them to understand what I mean. That tail is what propels them through the water so fast that catching anything, even a six year old boy, requires no effort at all. I think that maybe if I can remove the tail, I'll stop dreaming about the leftover pieces that I kept finding for days afterwards. Maybe I'll be able to stop thinking about alligators.

  Maybe I'll even move on, but I doubt it.

  I want to render him powerless. As powerless as I was when my voice and breath caught in my throat- nowhere to go but back inside of me strangling my heart and darkening the outer edges of my eyes. As I watched those jaws snap shut, I froze. And for years, that was all I was. Years and minutes and moments and nothing but stretching time- seeing nothing more than water stained with what had been my son.

  But I am not frozen now. And all I can think is how will I catch him, how will I get past the bone, how will I feel, once it's over? Is there a release- will I feel sorrow, and not just ice flowing through my veins?

  Or will that darkness come back to take all of me this time? Will it push me down to rot beneath the mud and silt?

  Since then I've been watching from the shore, waiting and planning, until finally I'm ready. I've made a spear to slow him, and I don't doubt the strength I'll find to pull him from the water. An axe sits upon the shore and I check it one last time before I slip into the river.

  The light is high, and I have nothing to hold me back. 

  I wait along the river's edge, holding onto roots to stay in place. With the water high above my head I surface for air only when I remember, I'm so lost within the water- lost but waiting. Time now is the same as always- it stopped for me so long ago.

  I wait until what I think are just shadows and the difference of darkness and light, quickly turn to limbs and claws and jaws so powerful my skull can feel the threat. From the mud and silt of the river bed, my feet slipping, heart pounding-

  I do not lunge.

  Instead, I shrink in awe of his presence passing above me. The late afternoon sun shines down on the water and silhouettes him- so that his eyes, brown but still so clear, catch the light and fragment it back through the current. His tail pushes him lazily along, and I watch, entranced and powerless by what I yearn for. As I watch him go, my breath grows short, and I rise slowly to the surface knowing that it's over. I let my spear fall and for the first time in months, I feel warmth spread through my body as I pull myself by reed and root up onto solid earth.

  And lay here panting. Satisfied, and digging my arms deep down into the mud of the marsh and crying and gasping and underneath it all, overjoyed.

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