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5. IN LISTLESS TIME
For
the last few weeks I had been feeling out of sorts. It started when Mom got
sick, which happened just before spring break, and instead of taking the trip
we had planned for months, she was hospitalized. I cooked and cleaned the
house, and although Mom was recovering well after her operation, this
unexpected turn of events shook me up. What if Dad fell sick too, or worse?
What if a tornado struck our house as had happened to my cousins in Kansas? I
had heard enough about disasters to know that sweeping events can destroy the
most carefully planned human arrangements. It was foolish to think that I was
in control of my life.
Before
her sickness the world felt solid underfoot. Now, seeing how fragile and fickle
life could be, that solid ground broke up again—every creature small and big,
every blade of grass and speck of dust, every star and planet was spinning
toward its own separate annihilation determined by a million of little turns and
twists.
Nothing
made sense anymore. Why was I pushing myself so hard, what was the rush, where
to? What was the fuss and bustle all about if it led only to more of the same?
Why suffer if every expectation was stained with pain, every success marred by
its own peculiar frustration? In the end, what difference did it make how I
amused myself in the meantime, year after year?
The
confident self I had been this past year was but an echo in my mind, an idea
left over from the past, adrift somewhere and useless now. Every morning I made
breakfast and brought a tray to Mom. Every morning Dad went to work, I went to
school. And after school I rushed home to do what was expected of me. The
routine was boring, but I had no bad feelings about it.
Mom
was recovering as expected, and the end to this drudgery was in sight. But by
then I had withdrawn so deep into myself that when spoken to I hardly heard
what was said, and when I said something, no one seemed to listen. The sense of
isolation followed me outside the house. My feet were taking me to school or to
the store, my feet remembered the way from one street to another, but my head
was set on a different course.
I
didn't think much about it. Isolation made me unreachable and inaccessible to
others and that gave me much comfort. Yet soon I was no longer able to respond
to people even if I wanted to. One afternoon, as I walked in from school, Mom
turned to me and hugged me tightly. In a sudden rush of emotion I wanted to hug
her back, but restrained myself because it felt like a weakening of will. The
other night Dad suggested that we go to the movies, but instead of saying
something I just sat there listless, looking at him. He brought my jacket,
helped me put it on, and took me by the hand to the car. I can't say I didn't
enjoy going out or seeing the movie. It simply made no difference where I was
or what was going on around me.
Silence
offered protection from the pressures without and within, silence giving me a
much-needed vacation from dealing with the world. And as silence enveloped me
like a cocoon, after much twisting inside, the cocoon felt warm against the
skin. Drum-tight around me, it fit me better than my shadow. There was no need
to change anything.
But
not for long. Though my hectic schedule had subsided, in school I was still
sitting on needles, still trying to fade out of sight. Was there anyone,
anything in the world I could trust again?
A
shadow squatting atop the cocoon cawed, "You can trust time. Time is on
your side."
"Who
are you?"
"I'm
the raven from Nevermore. You're in my domain now."
Not
knowing what to say, I kept silent.
"Stop
peering into a midnight dreary," said the raven, echoing Edgar Allan Poe.
Hadn't
time brought me to this? Maybe the raven was right—maybe time did carry a promise
of change. So all I had to do was to sit and wait. But to do nothing wasn't
that easy, for flashes of an active self disturbed the present, while being
idle undermined the future. I was sure of that. And as I waited for something
significant to happen, time on my hands grew heavy like a boulder carried
uphill. With hope swaddled in ridicule, the deadweight of time listless and
stagnant was crushing every budding thought.
One
by one glimpses of familiar faces and snippets of past events came to mind as
if to bid me farewell. Gathered in the corner of my mind where images act out a
scene, they replaced thought, words surfacing rarely, like subtitles in silent
movies. And in a silent film, generation after generation of ancestors aligned
to the left of me, the procession receding into the far recesses of time, the
line unbroken telescoping beyond the horizon. And on my right my future was
unfolding—tomorrow still in the cocoon, a year from now in some other place and
state of mind, two years later in college, yes. Then maybe a job, marriage, and
children, yes; then my children having children, then the solemn procession
of births and funerals—all the
inevitable yeses that string together in a human life. As humanity proceeded
into the future—I but a speck in the chain—somewhere beyond the horizon the
past and the future touched. In a flash the circle closed and fused. Rocked by
seismic waves, with a shudder I woke to the present.
The
cocoon felt so tight I could hardly move a limb. A tapping on the cocoon made
me look up
"You
there, still wallowing in self-pity? Speak up!" I heard the raven's raspy
voice. Detecting a sinister note, I didn't feel like talking. When I looked up,
I met the raven's black eye pressed against a hole in the shell, staring at me.
"Would
you rather be dead than alive?"
"I
was sleeping when your tapping woke me up, and..." Suddenly shocked by the
question I started to mumble.
"And?...
What were you going to say?" he insisted, his black beak widening the
breathing hole, pecking at the edges of my melancholy.
"...I'm
waiting for time to bring change. Nothing more..."
"Did
I hear you right? Did you say you are waiting for change to come to you?!"
"Yes."
"Changes
have taken place around you the whole time you were sulking, and you're waiting
for something special to be delivered especially for you?! Don't you know that
all things change as they must, and that includes your precious self?"
"What
changes...?" I had to know.
"For
one, the cocoon has grown so thick that by now you are trapped inside it."
"Trapped?"
Suddenly breathing became difficult. I cried out, "How much longer will
this last?"
The
raven perching above the breathing hole was silent.
I
tried again. "Is the end near?"
But
the raven spoke no more. Yet the thought that there must be an end to this,
made a U-turn in my mind. Didn't I have the yeses to look forward to? Now the slightest inkling of change
felt like the promise of a spectacular escape—change the savior, change the
redeeming force that was to rescue me from a pending disaster—
Gasping
for air, I twisted and pushed hard against the breathing hole, and my head
popped out into a jet-black night. I heard what sounded like a distant wind.
Then like water falling down a chasm. And then a flood wave hit the cocoon.
With only my head sticking out, it bobbed and tilted from side to side taking
on water, water sloshing inside the cocoon making ominous sounds. The
contraption was set on its own predestined course.
Now
the futility of human arrangements struck me hard: wasn't I trapped in a shell
of my own making? Hadn't I built the cocoon to protect myself from the outside
world? Hadn't my wish for isolation imprisoned me? At daybreak the cocoon was
already half full of water and tilting precariously. There was no land in
sight, only huge, lazy waves rolling one after the other, carrying me out to
sea.
"Get
out!" a seagull shrieked above my head. Seeing my upturned face full of
questions, the bird screeched into my ear, "Stop thinking! Act!"
Pushing
at the opening as hard as I could, I popped out of the cocoon just in
time—wobbling this way and that way it sank. A few bubbles of air rose to the
surface, and then there was nothing left for me to hold on to.
Freezing,
I swam quickly, looking neither back nor ahead. When a monumental wave about to
crest overtook me, lifted higher and higher I glimpsed a dark stretch of
land—the wave was to break on the black rocks lining the shore. I shut my eyes,
but there was no crash, for before reaching shore the wave subsided to a gentle
roll and I washed up on a narrow stretch of sand. Greatly relieved, I stood up
tall, and started walking along the base of the towering cliffs.
Some
distance ahead the cliffs jutted out close to water, and there I noticed a
flicker of flame. As I approached it, through a narrow slit in the rock I could
see a fire burning, but not much more. Trying to squeeze in, I stuck my leg
into the slit but stopped short. On the other side a group of people, young and
old, were huddled around a fire over which a cauldron full of a thick liquid
was bubbling, the sweet aroma of honey heavy in the air. Those close to the
cauldron held long-handled spoons or large wooden ladles, while those standing
behind them held sticks. Eagerly they dipped their implements into the hot
honey and then anointed themselves with it. Those who had spoons or ladles
poured the steaming goo over their heads, scorching their ears and faces,
blistering their shoulders. Woeful suppressed moans filled the cave. Yet no
matter how painfully scorched they were, none could resist the taste of
honey—they greedily licked it off their hands and bodies, as if the
self-inflicted pain were worth the suffering, as if the addiction were
justifiable.
Nauseated
by what I saw, alarmed by vaguely familiar echoes of self-mutilation, I slipped
back unnoticed. Sobbing uncontrollably I ran along the cliffs until I came upon
a tongue of sand stretching inland. Glad to leave the beach I turned up the
path between the tall, jagged rocks, and hadn't gone far when the narrow path
forked. Without a thought I turned left. But a few yards later I stopped, no
longer sure whether I had taken the right turn. In hesitation I walked back and
forth, entering the right fork, returning to the left, and, sickened by
indecision, I looked up. On the right where the path turned, were steps hewn in
stone leading to the top of the cliff.
The
climb was steep and treacherous, the narrow steps crumbling underfoot. I was
not alone—my shadow, a fiery red, was walking beside me, flames cresting like
plumes atop its head. With every step I took, tongues of fire licked the face
of the cliff. When I stopped, my shadow climbed on, and upon reaching the top
of the cliff, like a ball of fire it rolled out of sight.
At
the top of the steps lay a burned out sun drenched plateau. Utterly alone, I
didn't want to cross it, and seeing treetops above a cluster of boulders
further up the edge, to escape the scorching sun I headed in its direction.
There,
in a silvery shade, an old man was planning wood, his unhurried motions showing
that he'd been long at the task. I said hello, but the carpenter neither looked
up nor spoke. Knee deep in shavings, both the man and the wood cast a sharp
metallic sheen. But unlike the carpenter's curls, which fell loosely on his
forehead, the silvery shavings coiled fiercely compacted.
"What
are you building?" I ventured to ask.
Without
lifting his head he answered, "I build ships like promises of events to
come."
"And
who might be using these ships?"
"Those
who trust the wind," he said.
Sensing
that I had outstayed my welcome, I said goodbye and left. Outside the cluster
of boulders I looked over the rim of the cliffs. In the waters below a ship was
setting out to sea, the ship built to withstand raging waters, sails rigged for
a distant voyage.
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