Adam Rotstein

Till the Mourning Comes

I am not part of time. 

I can see it flowing. The haphazard wisps of seconds, hours, days, eternity, wafting hazily in my periphery. Yet I remain untouched.

I can look out my window and see a car drive past. People are walking. Birds fly by. Time is happening. Just not to me.

I’m not frozen in place. I am functional. My various physical parts are in working order. I am living and breathing and eating.

I interact with people and objects and places that are firmly situated within time. Seamlessly crossing over whatever barrier separates us. An invisible chasm, whose depth seems at once incalculably enormous and infinitesimally small. 

I am existing concurrent with time. But I am not contained within it.

It’s been this way for a while now. This numbness.

I can trace it back with pinpoint precision. It started the moment my father died.

Maybe a little before. So not quite pinpoint precision. Depends how dull the pin is.

“Should we head home?”

My wife isn’t answering. Maybe I only said it in my head?

“Should we go?” 

This time I made sure the sentence was tangible. 

Leah doesn’t stir. No indication that my holler pierced her attention. 

I clear my throat with enough exertion to clean out a clogged pipe. Ready to infuse my speech with an unsafe amount of decibels.

“Should—”

“No.”

Who said that?

I look around the room. The room I’ve been in for ninety-five percent of my waking time this week. My parent’s… my mother’s condo.

The people have left. There were reams of them. A boon crop of relatives, friends, acquaintances, a blurred mosaic of faces. All gone. The harmonic choir of crowd noise deflated to a manageable thrum of relative quietude. 

My mom is here. My wife is here. My brothers and families are here. We fill the void with echoes of speech. But none of them replied with, ‘no.’

The voice was curt. A tone I hadn’t heard in a week as all manner of recent conversation was lavishly coated in eggshells.

“It’s not them.”

I know it’s not them. The people sitting in this room are the voices I know best, with one recently excised notable exception. Whatever torpor my neurological pathways are encrusted in, I am coherent enough to register that.

“Who’s saying that?”

I definitely spoke this aloud, but none of the people around notice. Leah, sitting next to me, an oak tree of support, didn’t even blink. Nary a fallen acorn of recognition.

A person steps out of nothingness. At least I think it’s a person. It’s hard to confirm one hundred percent the personitude of someone that emerged from nowhere.

The wiry, slightly concave, spontaneously materialized man stares at me. 

“Umm, hi?”

No response. 

“Can I help you?”

Nothing.

“Who are you?”

“No one.”

The manifested person grabs me by the shoulders, gently but solidly. A semi-firm cheese of a grip. If this is a hallucination it feels pretty real. I guess all hallucinations feel real. I’m not that experienced with them. At least that I know. Has my whole life been a hallucination? This spiraled very quickly.

The man gave me a hard push. Instead of it sending me sprawling across the room, I didn’t move at all.

Everything else moved.

The room looked the same but completely different. An almost transparent film that had encased everything like a protective plastic around a grandmother’s couch was gone. I hadn’t noticed until it wasn’t there. 

I sensed connection with the people around me again. That palpable energy that permeates through the shared inhabitants of the same space.

The man is gone. Had he even been there at all? 

“We should probably think about dinner,” my wife says. It had seemed as though we were occupying the same space while in different dimensions, now we are back on the same plane.

Maybe none of that had happened. My brain has been doing weird things. Sure this was a little weirder than forgetting my aunt’s name, but, still within the realm of possibility.

Then it was gone again. The connection severed. Unplugged.

The man is back. He doesn’t look pleased.

“Great. You’re stuck. I really don’t need this.”

“What do you mean stuck?”

Stage 1

“I didn’t say stuck.”

“You very clearly said stuck.” Didn’t he?

An enormous sigh emanated from him.

“Do we have to do this?”

“Do what?” I have no clue what’s going on.

As if in answer to both our questions, the room changed again. 

That’s actually not quite right. Nothing was moved. Nothing appeared. Nothing altered. It was as if the room had been one thing and now it is something else without a hint that it had been different.

It had been the living room of my mother’s condo, now it is a courtroom. 

The courtroom is full. 

A judge, straight-backed and stern behind her gavel. A full-on jury, seated in a tastefully appointed jury box that would actually look nice in my mother’s living room. A bailiff of intractable height, wobbling like one of those air-filled dancing streamer people outside of used car lots. An entire team of lawyers behind a table, impatiently shuffling important looking papers and whispering to each other in furtive excitement. The formerly having-appeared man, cocooned in the witness box, shaking his head derisively at me. All of these people are in attendance.

And, seated at the table behind me, a very harried looking person. Features difficult to ascertain, as they seemed to shift each time I blink. The person looked at me. Grimace firmly placed in their mouth. Mouths. Stoma. Cloaca. I have to stop blinking.

“First and foremost, I’m sorry for your loss,” the being spoke.

The specific arrangement of words that I’ve heard incalculable times over the past week. Their meaning obscured. What I lost is immeasurable. Yet measured by everyone. 

“You probably have a million questions, but we don’t have time. The trial is about to begin and I take it you haven’t prepared?”

“I don’t even know what’s going on.”

And then it dawned on me. This really should have been clear right from the start, there is some sort of litigation going on, and I’m the lawyer?

“I’m hallucinating.” 

“No, you’re not,” the aide said. 

Even though all signs pointed in the opposite direction, I believed them.

“Mr. Roth, we don’t have all porcupine,” the judge said. 

“I’m sorry your honor, lead counsel needs a hazelnut,” the aide responded.

“You have fifteen tornadoes.”

The aide turned to me. “Sam.”

How does everyone know my name? There is a rapidly growing list of things that would concern me if I were capable of regular thought.

“Did the judge say ‘we don’t have all porcupine?’”

“Yes, but you have to focus.”

“How long is fifteen tornadoes?”

“This is not focusing. I wish just once someone would come prepared!”

“I’m not sure how anyone would prepare for whatever this is.”

The being agreed. It did nothing to abate their harriedness.

“Question the witness. Get a certain answer and move on. That’s it.”

“What answer?”

The Judge broke in.

“Mr. Roth. Proceed.”

I guess fifteen tornadoes elapsed. Felt like only thirteen. Tornadoes sure do fly when you’re having fun.

“Sure. I can do that. I’ll just, uh, start with a question. No problem.”

Literally no questions come to me. Words of any form are pretty scarce.

I looked at the man. Maybe just putting a name to the face would help. Get the ball rolling.

“Um… Mr…?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay then…”

I have no clue what to ask this guy who does not want to answer anything. Is he under oath? An instantaneously appearing courtroom seems a little slapdash, legally.

“You mentioned that I was stuck.”

I figure if I don’t know what I’m supposed to ask, I can at least get some answers as to what the hell is going on.

“Nope.”

Not under oath then. Or maybe I have no idea what under oath means.

“You totally did.”

“I did not.”

“You said ‘Great. You’re stuck. I really don’t need this.’”

“I’ve never said that in my life.”

“I heard you!”

“You couldn’t have, because I didn’t say it.”

Maybe he’s telling the truth? I honestly don’t know. I am unsure of anything. Even my own feelings. Or lack thereof. 

Since my dad’s death, I’ve been sleepwalking while awake.

I can’t cry. I cried a lot in the first two days. And now it’s gone. I’m not even sure I feel sad. I know that it’s in there somewhere. But I can’t feel it so it’s as if it doesn’t exist. 

I guess this is denial? I’m not denying he’s dead. I know he is. I know I’ll never see him again. Well I don’t really know that, but this isn’t the time to get into my spiritual uncertainties. 

It’s not his physical death that I’m denying, it’s my dealing with it. Or maybe it’s not denial at all, it’s just that I’m some sort of heartless robot.

And then it dawned on me what I was supposed to get this recalcitrant guy to do.

“Is it possible for you to say yes?” I asked.

It was just a split second but I could see he wasn’t expecting me to ask that.

“No.”

“It’s not possible?”

“That’s what I said.”

“You said no, it’s not possible for you to say yes?”

“No.”

“No you didn’t say that?”

“Nope.”

The wall was back up, but at least there were some cracks in it.

“So you can say yes?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No.”

“No what? I didn’t even ask a question.”

“I’m pre-empting, I can see where it’s going.”

“You can see what I’m going to ask next?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“When?”

“When you said you could see where it’s going.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Do you… say anything?”

“No.”

“You don’t say anything.”

“No.”

“Then how are you speaking right now?”

“I’m not.”

He got a grin on his face. This is getting tiring.

“You can’t catch me in a gotcha moment. I’ve been around much longer than you. Socrates himself tried this. And if Socrates couldn’t do it, what chance have you?”

Great point.

“That must have felt good.”

“What?”

“Beating Socrates at his own game.”

“You have no idea.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“It was incredible.”

“Beating Socrates?”

“Yes. I do this a lot, but some mean more than others…”

The judge’s gavel drowned out the rest of his sentence.

“The court finds in favor of, Mr Roth. And may I say… good luck…”

The denying man sunk his shoulders.

“Crap…”

And then the entire court dissipated. 

I was left out in the open. But like no open I’d ever seen. A dark expanse of sky, littered with unfamiliar astral patterns, and several planetary objects that I could swear were not usually in the Earth’s sky. 

The landscape is cracked and arid, strewn with crevasses filled with molten material flowing in violent outbursts that did not need a ‘do not swim’ sign to keep me out.

Where the hell am I?

Where in hell am I? 

Hell, am I where?

“Hi.”

A woman, clad in an incongruous outfit, a cross between post apocalyptic warrior and guidance counselor, smiled at me. 

She looked around her surroundings in wonder.

“This is new.”

Her comforting gaze rested back on me.

“Do you know where we are?”

“Not even a little.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

A giant roar echoed through the air. Gaining volume as it wrapped itself around us in an eddy of pure terror. A thirsty growl that said in no uncertain terms I did not want to see what had made it.

“First we should probably run!!!” she said.

Stage Two

Another roar tore through the atmosphere. The vibrations of which almost physically knocked me over. 

“I can’t help but notice you’re not running!” my protector yelled back at me. Not pausing her own escape, I note.

“Yep,” is all I can muster as I will my legs to carry me away.

And now we’re both running. Fleeing from the unseen roar-er, while dodging pools of liquid that I’m certain would eat through my entire physiology without breaking a sweat.

I follow the lady. She has a practiced gait. I have a gangly half-trot.

Other creatures skitter out of the way. They are like nothing I’ve ever seen. They don’t seem like solid masses. More like meticulously coordinated energy waves bundled in a defined shape. A million laser pointers outlining a squirrel. 

A whirling light show of a creature resembling a cotton ball with many eyes, rolled across my path, causing me to lose my balance. 

I trip, my feet tangling in a synchronized effort to lay me out. Unplanned propulsion taking me straight towards a lethal lake. Its turbulent roiling so angry that it’s spilling over, singeing the heavily pockmarked ground in its wake.

I inch closer to the fatal soup. I can feel its sickly heat, the pungent fumes dismantling the threads on my clothing.

“This is… bad,” I say, as a massive understatement.

With no other recourse, I throw myself prone, hoping to staunch my flow. The ground tears at my skin, but not as destructive as that toxic liquid would be. I come to rest a measly meter from where its spray scions could get me. 

I breathe. Feeling like narrowly avoiding your own demise necessitates a quick respite. But it is short-lived as the lady’s face fills my vision, obscuring the moons I’d been staring at.

“Let’s not do that again.”

“No promises.”

“We can hide up there.” 

She points to a craggy outcropping ahead. A jagged awning covers a nesting spot a few meters up the peak. 

Another roar, this one a bit closer, gets us going apace again. 

Now, in our haven, nuzzled into the rocky nook, having not heard the soul-penetrating roar in a while, I’ve splayed out, emptied of energy.

There’s no fire. No food. No water. Nothing of the sort seems possible here. Weirdly, I don’t feel hungry or thirsty, or even have to go to the bathroom. This is the longest I’ve ever gone without needing to pee. Though I can’t be sure how long it’s been. Weeks? Minutes?

“Why don’t I have to pee?” I ask the lady, who I now know to be Angie.

“That’s just one of the perks of being stuck here.”

“That’s the second time someone has talked about being stuck. Stuck where? Is this still my mom’s condo?”

I know that seems like a dumb question when it is a foreign planet as far as the eye can see, but for some reason I feel like I’m still standing next to my wife.

“Sort of. But also not at all. You’re not where you think you are. Or, when you think you are. You’re out of time.”

Seeing my bewilderment, Angie continues. 

“Because of your mental state, you exist in a kind of atmospheric layer of perception that does not follow the constraints of time. Generally people phase in and out, not long enough to take notice. But, you’ve been teetering on the precipice for a week. I guess you fell off.”

I get the sense this was not an accomplishment.

“Are you a guide or something?” 

“Kinda. I got stuck myself long ago, and I sometimes wander into other people’s processes. I don’t get paid or anything. There’s no need for money. With time not existing, I don’t age, or eat, or…”

“…go to the bathroom.”

I get it. Sort of. 

 “So I’m here because…”

“…of your grief. There’s lots of reasons people end up out of time; comas, those slow down periods during a traumatic event like a car crash, good quality drugs, but grief is in the top three for sure.”

This is exactly as I’d been feeling. Out of time. I just didn’t know it was an actual place and not a state of mind. Maybe it’s both.

“It’s different for everyone. Formulated out of neural pathways in each individual’s brain, yet connected to each other. Which is how I move around. Never been here though.”

“Me neither.”

“It’s a very angry and unforgiving place. You must be going through it.”

The mention of anger reminded me of something.

“I was in court before… was that, denial?”

 “Was there an inscrutable man you couldn’t get straight answers from?”

“Super annoying.”

Angie laughed. “It’s usually some sort of argument with him, court is one of his favorites because he gets to sit. I’ve run into him a lot.”

“That makes this… anger?”

“Definitely the thing chasing us. The rest is probably color.”

“So how do I get past it?”

She shrugged. “It’s always different. Not everyone goes through the stages, some do one, some do thousands, and some have nothing to do with any. A few people never move forward at all.” 

Angie got introspective. An expansive sadness scanning through her body. She shook her head, exorcizing whatever was in there.

“There’s no playbook. We grieve in different ways. Yours happens to include some sort of hellbeast that might rip us apart.”

There was a practiced rhythm to Angie’s patter. Not in a glib way. The feigned commiseration of the funeral home director. This was more comforting. 

“So, how long have you been here?”

She took a deep breath.

 “It’s not like that. I’ve been here for what feels like forever but is also nothing.”

“I guess I mean, why haven’t you left?”

Angie closed her eyes.

“I’m not ready.”

Her eyes betrayed a devastating sadness. The front she was projecting was built on a lattice of despair.

I knew why she was here, she’d also lost someone, but it hadn’t really clicked that she was going through what I was going through. And that she was having even more trouble than me. 

A well-timed roar shook us back to reality. The roar-maker itself appeared on the horizon.

Its physiology comprised of the now-familiar laser show composition, except instead of consulting the entire palette, this was all shades of red. An ombré running from a playful blush to a deep raging mahogany. 

“Do we run?” I ask. Unwilling to take control of the situation. 

“We can.” She put the decision back into my hands.

“I don’t know what else to do.”

“There are no set acts. This isn’t a play. I don’t know how to deal with it either.”

That last sentence described her as much as it did me.

“This doesn’t make sense. I’m not even angry!” I plead to no one. But also slyly to the monster hoping it would turn around because of misinformation.

“This quickly approaching beast begs to differ.”

“But I don’t feel angry? I’m not feeling anything,” I professed.

I thought I was having a real feeling earlier. An honest emotion had almost crept into my eternal stoicism.

I’d been thinking about the last moments with my dad and then I had the thought that he would love the story and I should tell him, before realizing that I can’t tell him because he isn’t here to be told anymore. Never to be told anything again. 

And then I started to get sad, waves of despondency began to wash through me, the first salted orb of a tear tentatively building in my left eye. Then, as quick as it had come, it was gone. My mind shifted to something else mundane. Something unimportant. Or maybe it was important. I don’t know. Is anything important? Is everything important? 

I tried to cling to the feeling for dear life. But it had flitted away and there was no catching it.

“Why can’t I feel anything?”

I stood up, the glint of a creature less than an Usain Bolt race away. A seam was opening in my brain and I wanted to clamp it open.

“This can’t be it. It has to be there somewhere!” 

My voice was rising, in timbre, tone, pitch, and yaw. Shafts of light surrounded me, cocooning me in a gleaming tornado. Luminosity brightening with each word.

“I want to feel it all. I want the whole thing to take over and then I want to get through it and be done.”

The lights had almost enveloped me but I didn’t notice anything except the rage rising within me. The ire at myself. At my circumstance. At the fact that I was helpless to do anything about anything.

“WHY! WHY AM I LIKE THIS! I WANT IT DONE. ALL OF IT!” I squealed in the lengthiest amount of all caps that I’ve ever outwardly projected. The force of which gathered the shroud of brilliance that was threatening to carry me away and hurled it towards the beast whose enormous jaw was so close that I could feel its volcanic breath.

The two battalions of light clashed violently. Radiance growing until I had to look away, brighter than a thousand suns.

Moments, seconds, eons, entire universe life spans, passed. No time, and all time. I could feel the intensity. Palpably reaching a point that could not sustain, threatening to take everything with it.

And then it was gone.

And Angie tapped me on the shoulder.

I tentatively opened my eyes to the smallest slits I could manage. A child watching a cringe-y romance with their parents.

“Seems you were kinda angry after all.” She said.

The beast was gone. My furious laser show was gone. The landscape was changed. The moons were now suns. The bubbling, toil, and troubling vista was now verdant flourishing flora.

I guess I was angry. Am angry. It’s withdrawn, but it’s still there.

I thought that would be cathartic. Maybe the dam would be broken and my emotions would return. But they hadn’t. The shop was closed again. But it felt a little less. Its power weakened even if just minutely.

The grief is always greener on the other side.

“Good luck in whatever comes next. You’ll get through this.” Angie managed to get out before she disappeared with everything else. 

“Thanks. I hope you do too.”

The look on her face before it vanished was one that did not want to heed those words. I have no clue how long she’s been here, she probably doesn’t either, but whatever she is grieving, she doesn’t want to lose it. I know how she feels.

In less than an instant, measured without time, distance without length, I was no longer on alien terrain, I was in a museum.

Stage Three

It’s not a regular museum. Instead of staid displays and themed wings, this place looks as if a bazaar met a particle accelerator. It’s all clean lines and metallic sheen conscientiously coupled with haphazard placements of an incredible deluge of objects.

It’s endless. An amaranthine gallery. The market-like rows go on in perpetuity. 

The only reason I know it’s a museum is because of the sign that reads MUSEUM in front of me. The word recombining into every language I know, many I don’t, and even more that don’t look like language at all. Yet it reads clearly in all of them at the same time.

 “What is all this stuff?” I ask. Only then remembering I was talking to myself.

But a pleasant and authoritative voice fills my ears from the inside. Like if Morgan Freeman were hiding in my temporal lobe.

“That’s a toaster…” 

“What?”

It’s mildly disconcerting to hear a voice inside your head. If I hadn’t ruled out a psychotic break this would be a huge entry in the plus column.

“A toaster. This model, the D-12, was the first commercially viable version. Constructed and patented by General Electric in the Gregorian Earth year 1909…”  The voice points out to me as it becomes apparent that I am indeed looking directly at a toaster.

Wait…

“Earth year?”

The voice happily chirped, “Earth year. In the Gregorian calendar this refers to the span of time it takes the planet Earth to orbit the sun.”

“Yes. I know that. It’s the stress on “Earth” that I’m questioning. What other types of years are there?”

“Would you like a list?”

“Kinda.”

“In Earth English, starting at A, there is Aaaaaaaaaaaa. Aaaaaaaaaaba. Aaaaaaaaaabalonian. Aaaaaaaaaabatatat.” The voice paused. “And that’s just nearby galaxies. The beginning of the list alone would be infinite if we opened it up. Maybe we should set some parameters?”

Wait times two…

“Galaxies?”

I looked around. It now became apparent that ninety-nine percent of the objects surrounding me were not from Earth. Rounding down.

“What kind of museum is this?”

“An everything museum.”

“Everything?”

“Yes.”

“Like all things?”

“Every single one of them.”

“From everywhere?”

“Every single where.”

“An elm tree?”

A representation of a route emerged in my head that directed me towards where the elm was housed.

“A tricycle?”

The intra-head map reappeared. Weirdly the tricycle was beside the tree. Was that because I’d put it there, or was it there before I’d thought of it?

“Um, steak tartar?”

“Yes. That’s a thing. And in here is every single thing.”

True.

“What’s this?”

I picked up a small cylinder. 

Unlike most museums, I could reach in and grab any item. It felt subversive, like I was smearing my fingers over the Mona Lisa.

The cylinder was made of a material I’d never seen. It was cold and hot. It was wet, yet my hands were dry. It was solid yet felt like it might float away.

“That’s a Garblongian Winklow. A decorative adornment for high-ranking military officials in the Garblongian Armada during the Wars of Hapthalier Nine. Made of pure ascardia, the Winklow was seen as a symbol of command.”

“What’s a Garblongian?”

“Garblongians, from the Circinus Galaxy, are a civilization comprised of…”

I thought ‘stop’ at the voice, and it did.

I put the cylinder back. You break it you buy it probably has immense consequences in a place with no need for currency.

I pace. No clear direction or directive in mind. 

“What does this place have to do with bargaining?”

“Bargaining. Concept. Quadrant 3.14159.”

Another map appeared in my head. This museum also houses intangible ideas. 

I continued my impulsive waltz. Hoping inspiration would tap me on the shoulder. 

“Huh.”

A feeling. My mindless meandering had slalomed me to a peculiar stall filled with peculiar things. I think I’m supposed to park myself right here. I just have to figure out why.

My eyes swept over a wooden cabinet. The voice perked up.

“The first armoire, from seventeenth-century France.”

Probably not for that armoire. But I can’t rule it out.

The area is a jumble of things. From smaller-than-the-smallest small (“Invertular” says museum voice) to blue-whale-sized (an actual blue whale) and everything in between. Finding the needle in this haystack seems impossible.

Except it wasn’t. My internal compass was guided by something. A game of ‘hot and cold’ played wordlessly. My ping-ponging scans settled on something. 

An ancient dust-caked signet ring with a hexagonal etching.

The voice gave me its biography. 

“The Ring Of Solomon, forged by a melding of brass and iron, is said to bestow upon the wearer the ability to control various magical beings. An early mention by first-century-earth historian Josephus…”

I mentally paused the description.

“That’s what I’m here for.”

Why? I can’t explain. I just know.

Like any child whose dream it is to touch dinosaur bones in a museum, I grab the ring and slip it on my right index finger. As soon as I do, an ethereal snake-ish creature emerges, wearing glasses and looking frightened. Which, for a twelve-foot snake made of shimmering light, is a difficult thing to do.

“Don’t send me back there. Please!” The twinkling snake grabbed me by the shoulders, even though prior to this point there had been no outward appendages.

“Um. Okay. I… won’t?”

The snake started laughing. 

“Oh man, you shoulda seen your face!” the snake said to me with the patois of close buddy-busting my chops.

“It’s… like… I don’t really live in there. How would I even fit? It’s a ring.” The snake smiled. I sort of half grinned so they wouldn’t feel so alone but they could tell I had no clue what was happening.

“Hooboy. I guess let’s just get on with it then?”

“Get on with what?”

The snake slumped. 

“I’m a jinn, you’re wearing the ring, you get wishes or whatever.”

“You’re a jinn?”

I don’t know why I should be surprised. There are alien things here. Why not mythological creatures? 

“I’m Mari. Jinn extraordinaire.” Mari continued. “I get it. You’re confused. I’m confused too. Try being in the middle of a nap and getting called to one of your rings where you meet some perplexed weirdo, no offense, that doesn’t know what he’s doing?”

Fair enough. 

“In this place, where nothing exists, everything exists. Does that make sense?”

“None of this makes sense.”

“Exactly! So everything makes sense! Anyway, what kinda wish can I put in for you today?”

“Right. A wish. That must be why I’m here.”

“It’s definitely why I’m here,” Mari exclaimed.

“Can it be anything?”

“You’ve got the ring. You make the rules.”

“But like, are there limits?”

“You’re in a place where time does not exist. In a museum that houses every object in the Interverse. Talking to a jinn.”

“Good point.”

What should I wish for? I could wish for money. For my family’s eternal well-being. To get back to my mom’s condo.

And I want all those things.

But I want one thing a lot more.

“I’d give anything for one more minute with my dad.”

The jinn winked. 

“Donezo.”

He’s right in front of me. Maybe It’s not the real him. It’s probably not the real him. But, can I totally discount it being the real him? This is all unbelievable, why should my recently deceased father appearing next to me be different?

He looks just as he did before the cancer took hold. Vibrant. Strong. Quietly imposing.

Maybe he never looked like this. Maybe this was my idealized version. It’s hard to separate wistfulness from substance. Does it matter? 

He’s looking at me. A gaze I thought I’d never see again. Appraising, comforting, didactic, the incongruent mélange of emotions only a parent can emit to their child.

What do I say? This is my one shot. I’ve gotta make it count.

Should I tell him what he meant to me? That he was the first person I’d call when life threw me a speed bump? Not like when I had to put together furniture, or something trivial. He wasn’t a YouTube video. Though, yes, also for all those trivial things.

Real moments. Things that a forty-five-year-old should have learned to deal with a long time ago. I didn’t have to. I had him. Is that a crutch or an asset? Both? 

Should I tell him that he was this reliable strength? This titanium rod of support. Just knowing he was there was an incalculable comfort to me. Now this vacancy exists. A black hole where my reassurance once rested.

Does he want to hear this? Do I want to say it? Should I just tell him I love him? Loved him? Love him. Maybe that’s —

He dematerializes. 

What?

“Where’d he go?”

The bleeps and bloops of the objects around me are bleep blooping, but no sign of my dad.

“Gone,” Mari said.

“What do you mean gone?”

“You’re time is up.”

“How can it be up, we didn’t do anything?”

“You asked for a minute. I gave you a minute. In this place without time you chose an amount, and that’s what you got.”

“I didn’t even say anything!”

“It’s not my fault you were standing silent the entire minute.”

“Well… that’s true… but… it was… an unproductive minute?” 

“There was no qualifier for what type of minute, just minute. I do what I’m told.”

This felt like denial again, except this time I was wrong and knew it.

“I was thinking day.”

“But you said ‘minute’.”

“Minute. Sixty seconds of Earth time. Quadrant 1138.237.”

“Not now, voice!”

The voice backpedaled. 

 “A minute is too short! Even if I had said something, he wouldn’t have had time to respond. You need time to respond!”

“I agree. Yet, and I cannot stress this enough, you got what you wished for.”

“I know! The problem is I didn’t wish for enough.”

Did I really screw up the chance to spend more time with my father?

That can’t be.

“I messed up.”

“I saw. It was a painful minute. Felt like fifteen tornadoes to me.”

“I need a second chance.”

Mari looked like he felt bad. But resolute. 

“You may need it, but you’re not getting it.”

“I’m wearing the ring. Don’t you have to do what I say?”

“I did. Now it’s done. It’s not a lifetime thing. That would suck for me.”

I thought for a second. 

“I’m still here, which means this isn’t over, and I’m guessing no one wants me to hang around. So there must be something else. We can run it back. You can run it back.”

I gave him my best pleading look.

“All anyone wants is more time. A weekend. A day. An hour. Even a minute. But I wasted it. I can’t have that added to the list of things weighing on me. It’s already more than I can bear. Give me another chance. And I will leave forever. I think. I actually don’t know if that’s true. But I’m hoping.”

Mari considered.

“Fine! I will make this one exception. You get ten seconds. Don’t ask for more. You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

I’m getting something you can’t always count on. A do-over.

And I know just what I’m going to do with it. 

“Ready?” Mari asked. 

I nodded.

“Be sure. I don’t want to listen to how you choked again.”

“I’m ready.”

Mari winked.

My father appeared again.

I hugged him. No words. Just hugging. Our arms wrapped around each other. The tactile love permeating through our touch. The momentarily feeling that everything is okay.

After ten seconds that felt like an eternity and also a blip, it was over.

I could still feel his warmth as Mari nodded to me and the internal voice tried to show me where Goodbye was housed in the museum before my surroundings shifted again.

Stage Four

Back to my mom’s condo. But, not.

The uncanny valley version of my mom’s home.

None of my family is here. That’s the first clue. 

Also, there’s a large robot beside me. Clue number two. 

I would enjoy having one second to process everything. Like the fact I just hugged my dead dad. That could use some rumination. This robot isn’t allowing for that.

The robot swiveled in place. There are many more parts to this robot than seems necessary. A hodgepodge of limbs fitted together like a mechanized quilt.

“Hello.”

The metallic voice is lilting and melodious while cold and sterile. 

“Hi. I’m Sam.”

The robot’s angular features contorted into an approximation of a smile. 

“I know… I’m Lydia.” 

“Lydia, are you here to help me?”

Lydia shrugged. A thousand thrumming parts rising and falling in unison.

“Is this depression? I know I’m depressed, so we can probably move this along.”

“No, Sam. There is much to do, and we are behind.” 

Lydia steamrolled past me. Literally. Her lower mobilization unit is hundreds of individual steamrollers.

I stumbled. Except I didn’t move. I’m unable to pull my legs from the ground. Feels like I’ve grown roots connecting my feet to some subterranean anchor. I can sway, and bend, but I can’t actually get anywhere.

“Is this supposed to be happening?”

Lydia’s head rotated 180 degrees, followed by her body, the sheer volume of moving parts making me dizzy.

“Everything that is happening is supposed to happen!”

She whirled and lifted my dad’s favorite chair. The chair that still has indentations from his resting position was now held high over my head.

“What are you doing?”

“Doing what I do.”

Lydia laid the chair on top of me. In the gentlest way you can imagine a very heavy reclining chair being placed on your neck.

I tried to move, but being stuck in place, all that did was get me in a better position to receive the chair.

“Lydia, I don’t want this chair on my back!”

“Not wanting it on your back does not stop it from being on your back.”

This chair had to weigh two hundred pounds, which would usually cause me immense strain, but it wasn’t. I felt it, but it didn’t require a trip to the hospital.

Lydia had a second chair lifted above the first.

“Are you trying to kill me?”

“I do not wish for you to die.”

Nice to hear.

“But if you do die, then that is what is supposed to happen.”

Not as nice to hear. 

“Can we talk about this?”

“Yes.”

She dropped the second chair on me, perfectly balanced on the first, the combined weight of which, still not debilitating, stooped me over more.

“I mean talk about it before you drop more furniture on me.”

“Then no.”

Lydia grabbed the couch and nonchalantly plopped it onto the tower of possessions being erected on my spine.

This I felt. Through my whole person. The weight exhibiting itself as much metaphysically as physically. 

“How many things are you going to put on me?” My speech was strained. Having a living room set on you will do that.

“As many as it takes!” 

As many as it takes to do what?

The TV stand, TV in tow, unceremoniously followed the couch. 

The pieces, in the normal world, would have crushed my larynx long before, but I could discern no lasting harm. 

It’s the sense of weight I’m feeling. The idea of the objects impressing upon me. Their heft aura.

All of these objects are things my dad used. A lot.

Their emotional density is crumpling my internal self into a broken heap. 

“Lydia, stop.” It’s all I manage to get out. 

Lydia was not stopping. She had the coffee table, all of its inhabitants nestled cozily, remotes, papers, items my father had touched, read, placed, stuck in situ, added to the growing strata on my back.

“Sam, it is not yet time to stop.”

Everywhere I look, piled high on my back and strewn about the place, there are memories of my dad. There are contrails of him all over. Places he sat. Places he stood. Places he was in various other states. Crouching for example. 

All of it hums of him. My memories interlocked with the objects. Inseparable. 

Lydia takes no notice of my agony. Her myriad legs telescoping upwards to deposit the dining room table on top of the mound.

The table we had spent so many meals. So many celebrations. So many conversations.

My father at the head. His place of honor and authority. Also closest to the kitchen where he could get stuff easily. Functional and meaningful. Just as he is… was…

I feel a thousand iterations. 

All happening at once.

Never happening again.

Lydia hasn’t stopped, I’ve just stopped caring. She steadily piles on more relics, undeterred by my observable leaking of essence.

This entire condo, entire place, me, everything everywhere smacks of my father. 

I’m not sure that will ever change.

I’m not sure I want it to.

I don’t want to erase him. I don’t want to erase the people I love. I don’t want the people I love to erase me. 

I want to take it all in. All the moments. All the life lived. Keep it close. 

“Give it all to me, Lydia.”

“I have, Sam.”

And she has. The sum total of my father’s life in this condo was now resting, literally, on my shoulders. The belongings and the moments that went with them.

It’s a heavy load.

It feels lighter. I’m aware it‘s there, the immensity not shy about announcing its presence, but it has buoyancy.

It is vacillating between levity and gravity. Weightless and ponderous.

I can be crushed by it, or I can be elevated. Depends on the moment.

But I can handle it. For now. 

I let go. I have to bear the full brunt of it. The back brunt. All the brunts. I’m going to see it through and see where it goes.

It’s definitely going somewhere.

The mementos propel me forward. Push me down. All the way down. Through the ground. 

Into another space.

A blank space.

Stage Five

I am alone. Profoundly alone. Unquantifiably isolated. Bereft of even the hint of a whisper of the faintest trace of anything or anyone else. 

There is nothing here. No ground. No sky. No horizon. I must be floating, but I can’t feel it. I just am. And I am the only thing that ams.

It’s quiet. More quiet than I ever considered possible. I cannot even hear my breath. A rustle of my jeans. The movement of air. This is the silence that comes when there is literally nothing making sound. 

There is nothing to focus on. Nothing to distract. It’s me and my thoughts. The one place I’ve been avoiding.

As much as I have loathed the forced company of the Shiva, the girding myself to have another obligatory conversation. I’ve hated it, but I needed it. Otherwise it would have been this, alone, with my thoughts. And no one wants that.

“I accept!” I yell. The sounds disappearing as soon as they are made. 

Nothing happens.

What do I accept? I accept that he’s gone. I know that. I saw it happen. It’s my final memory of him.

I can see his face, in that last moment, staring at nothing, or maybe at everything, I will never know. I hope it was peaceful. I don’t know what that means. Is there such a thing as a peaceful death? How would we measure it?

It’s one of the many platitudes I continually say and had said to me. None of them make anything better. They are just something to say when there’s nothing to say. Maybe that’s the point.

I think his last moment is going to haunt me for a long time. I can see it when I close my eyes. 

I see it now. I try and push it away. As I’ve done, hundreds, thousands, dodecacillions, of times. I don’t want to think about it. I want to think about other moments of his life. I want to think about other moments of my life. I want to think about anything else.

Do I have to face it? Is that it? Is that acceptance?

Face it? It’s all I’ve been doing for the past week.

I can picture him during other times of course. But I am having trouble really reaching past the immediate past. This moment takes up all the space, pushing everything else away. 

Whenever I try to hold on to some other memory, those last images bully their way in, set up camp, and refuse to leave. I am concerned that this is what it will be like going forward. That these will be the strongest memories I have of him. I know that it’s all still raw and nothing has been set in stone, or even ethereal Etch-A-Sketch. But it feels like this is everything right now. 

I would like to go forward. I don’t want his death to be the first thought that comes to mind when I think about my dad. Literally any other moment would be better.

I don’t have a choice in the matter.

I’m sure eventually things will get better. Clear up. The memory will fade, fall back, become just another clip waiting to be called up for duty again.

But for now. It’s there. 

I don’t want it to be, but it is.

A pop sound emerges from somewhere in this blankness. The first sound other than my own voice since I’ve been here.

And I am falling.

“Should we head home for dinner?” Leah was looking at me.

I feel dizzy. Better than I’ve felt, but dizzy. Connected to things and people in a way I’d forgotten existed. The weighted blanket of sadness and exhaustion and that tiny hint of the joy of us being together, like sunlight piercing the cloud cover of my mind.

Everything is still there. The denial. The anger. The depression. The bargaining. The memories. But there’s something else too. Something that had been missing. 

Me. 

I’m there

“Yeah. I’m pretty hungry.”