Read Online A Witness to Life (Ashland, 2) by Terence M. Green - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Terence M. Green
Ads: Link
brow.
"I have money," says Margaret, who has been listening. She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a nickel. "Uncle Mike gave it to me." Her English is perfect, her eyes dark and round.
I think of the atomizer, its rubber squeeze ball, its scrolled surface, of the manicure and toilet set, combs, mirror, brushes, scissors. Jack is clinging to my leg. I reach down, pick him up. He plays with my tie, my collar, my ear. Margaret holds out the nickel.
* * *
FROM: JOCK ROSS
190 MICHIGAN AVE
DETROIT MICH
23 DECEMBER 1912
TO: MARTIN RADEY
DON VALLEY PRESSED BRICKS AND TERRA COTTA
60 ADELAIDE STREET EAST TORONTO ONT
$10 ENCLOSED STOP PAY ME BACK 5 AND SAY MERRY XMAS TO THE KIDS AND BUY A TREE AND SOMETHING FROM US STOP GETTING MARRIED IN THE SPRING WILL WRITE WITH DETAILS STOP GET READY TO COME TO DETROIT STOP
SANTA
3
I pour tea from the silver thermos into my cup and sip it slowly. "Margaret is the only one that I make happy," I say. When the words are out, they astonish me because I realize that they are true, yet I have never thought them before.
Propped up against her pillow, Gramma listens, stares.
A long pause: the trickle effect of what I have uttered runs through my veins, opens doors. "I disappoint everybody else."
Gramma opens her mouth. I lean forward with her tea, help her drink.
"Even though he's still a baby, Jack has no interest in me."
Gramma looks at me.
"Maybe when he gets older."
We sit quietly for a while.
"I think Maggie expected more."
The cup warms my hands.
"I don't know what they want."
Her mouth makes the o, her eyes soften, and I think, maybe, she understands.
I dream that Jack and I are on a wooden dock by a lake when Jack slips into the water and beneath the surface. I dive into the water, hold my breath, search, but cannot find him. I dive again and again, deeper, lungs bursting, but he has sunk out of sight. I know that he cannot last much longer without air. I am frantic. The water is black. He is gone.
A moan breaks from my chest. I wake up sweating, heart pounding, Maggie holding me by a shoulder.
"You were dreaming," she says."A bad dream."
"I lost Jack." I am panting. "I couldn't find him. I couldn't save him."
In the darkness, she strokes my head, my brow. "You're all wet," she says.
I am cold. Jack, I think.
Jack.
TEN
We must always walk in darkness. We must travel in silence. We must fly by night.
—Thomas Merton
The Ascent to Truth
The hawk took another.
A burst of feathers, soundless. We erupted from the field, an explosion of black dots, knowing that death was among us, our movements random, swaying, spurred by the primal flight from extinction.
To the south, then east, headlong, for hours.
Into another node, another loop. Fog.
Suddenly, below us, the St. Lawrence. May 29, 1914, and the Empress of Ireland, rammed by the Norwegian collier Storstad, sank out of sight completely in fourteen short minutes. We settled into trees near the shore, listened, watched. One thousand fourteen people silenced. The hush, the mist, shrouded us. As before, we had fled the hawk only to encounter the cleansing of fire, the finality of water, always.
The Titanic, women and children first. Jack, in a dream, disappearing beneath dark waters, my lungs squeezing, dying.
Through the fog and the curved horizon that was the future, I now could make out the blurred shape of troops that would sail to England down this same river, across the Atlantic, and knew that if I soared high enough I would almost be able to glimpse them plunging down muddy embankments at Ypres, the yellow gas falling, heavy as it tumbled into the trenches, into their lungs, into their hearts and the hearts of their families forever, replacing the fog.
The hawk we have fled was clean, simple, pure. It was right.
The world, both large and small, was in madness.
We lifted off, moving,
"I have money," says Margaret, who has been listening. She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a nickel. "Uncle Mike gave it to me." Her English is perfect, her eyes dark and round.
I think of the atomizer, its rubber squeeze ball, its scrolled surface, of the manicure and toilet set, combs, mirror, brushes, scissors. Jack is clinging to my leg. I reach down, pick him up. He plays with my tie, my collar, my ear. Margaret holds out the nickel.
* * *
FROM: JOCK ROSS
190 MICHIGAN AVE
DETROIT MICH
23 DECEMBER 1912
TO: MARTIN RADEY
DON VALLEY PRESSED BRICKS AND TERRA COTTA
60 ADELAIDE STREET EAST TORONTO ONT
$10 ENCLOSED STOP PAY ME BACK 5 AND SAY MERRY XMAS TO THE KIDS AND BUY A TREE AND SOMETHING FROM US STOP GETTING MARRIED IN THE SPRING WILL WRITE WITH DETAILS STOP GET READY TO COME TO DETROIT STOP
SANTA
3
I pour tea from the silver thermos into my cup and sip it slowly. "Margaret is the only one that I make happy," I say. When the words are out, they astonish me because I realize that they are true, yet I have never thought them before.
Propped up against her pillow, Gramma listens, stares.
A long pause: the trickle effect of what I have uttered runs through my veins, opens doors. "I disappoint everybody else."
Gramma opens her mouth. I lean forward with her tea, help her drink.
"Even though he's still a baby, Jack has no interest in me."
Gramma looks at me.
"Maybe when he gets older."
We sit quietly for a while.
"I think Maggie expected more."
The cup warms my hands.
"I don't know what they want."
Her mouth makes the o, her eyes soften, and I think, maybe, she understands.
I dream that Jack and I are on a wooden dock by a lake when Jack slips into the water and beneath the surface. I dive into the water, hold my breath, search, but cannot find him. I dive again and again, deeper, lungs bursting, but he has sunk out of sight. I know that he cannot last much longer without air. I am frantic. The water is black. He is gone.
A moan breaks from my chest. I wake up sweating, heart pounding, Maggie holding me by a shoulder.
"You were dreaming," she says."A bad dream."
"I lost Jack." I am panting. "I couldn't find him. I couldn't save him."
In the darkness, she strokes my head, my brow. "You're all wet," she says.
I am cold. Jack, I think.
Jack.
TEN
We must always walk in darkness. We must travel in silence. We must fly by night.
—Thomas Merton
The Ascent to Truth
The hawk took another.
A burst of feathers, soundless. We erupted from the field, an explosion of black dots, knowing that death was among us, our movements random, swaying, spurred by the primal flight from extinction.
To the south, then east, headlong, for hours.
Into another node, another loop. Fog.
Suddenly, below us, the St. Lawrence. May 29, 1914, and the Empress of Ireland, rammed by the Norwegian collier Storstad, sank out of sight completely in fourteen short minutes. We settled into trees near the shore, listened, watched. One thousand fourteen people silenced. The hush, the mist, shrouded us. As before, we had fled the hawk only to encounter the cleansing of fire, the finality of water, always.
The Titanic, women and children first. Jack, in a dream, disappearing beneath dark waters, my lungs squeezing, dying.
Through the fog and the curved horizon that was the future, I now could make out the blurred shape of troops that would sail to England down this same river, across the Atlantic, and knew that if I soared high enough I would almost be able to glimpse them plunging down muddy embankments at Ypres, the yellow gas falling, heavy as it tumbled into the trenches, into their lungs, into their hearts and the hearts of their families forever, replacing the fog.
The hawk we have fled was clean, simple, pure. It was right.
The world, both large and small, was in madness.
We lifted off, moving,
Similar Books
