A half a world away, as two people sit over a table in a late-night coffeehouse and struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible, people here are waking, rising and greeting the coming assault of a new day with hope, fear, apathy, and all the colors in between.
Rubbing eyes, stretching limbs, and heaving sighs, some heavy, some joyous as the day breaks in through their bedroom windows. Life awakens, coffee boils, eggs fry, engines rev, and the repetitive path of the school/workaday week begins anew. But some will not see this day. Nor any days beyond. On the Loch the shadowy silhouette moves out of the gloom and into sight where it begins to take form.
While most of the world is either rising or retiring, stepping into or out of their daily routines, the world ticks on. Few understand that the ticking will not go on forever and the clock is running down. There are fabled guardians: spirit creatures who intuit this and understand that their brethren are being hunted, murdered, and crowded out of existence. Poisoned, polluted, and lost as is the world herself, by the very ones who have been her self-elected caretakers, stewards, shepherds. Such a spirit lives in this lake, unmolested and hidden from all but a few. And there are other spirits, in lakes, on mountains, throughout forests and plains and in the deep, deep oceans, who know that the world is on her knees and fighting for her life. They understand that alone they are impotent to stop the onslaught. And how can they seek the allegiance of humans when humans are the cause of their downfall? From where shall their salvation arise? A savior to heal what has been almost irreparably damaged. To fix what has been broken. Their collective eyes are open, searching for the one who will come to them, in whatever unlikely form. They search, in their own way. Even as time runs out.
The mist is rising as the meager warmth of the day heats the surrounding air. The shape moves beyond the damp morning fog and no one is witness as it bumps against the gravel edge of the lake, comes to ground, ends its journey. The vessel is old and in need of repair but there is no one on board, no passenger, no oarsman, no captain, and she has drifted half the night. As her keel scrapes against the glacial shoreline stones, a painted and once loved name is her only identifying mark: The Bonnie Bradana.
Horatio
The three of us sigh in collective relief, yet I sense there is a rather sizable and conflicting “but” coming. The doctor stands in the waiting room . . . waiting. “Can we visit Josie?” It’s little me who pops the question. Suddenly all I want is to see my sister breathing with the light of life in her eyes again. I want to hug her till she yells “Get off me, retard!” like she used to—before she could no longer bear to be touched at all, even by me.
The doctor (did he study drama in high school? Because that’s about the level of his acting expertise) finally lets the cat out of the bag.
“We’ve managed to save her life but she has had a cardiac episode.”
Another pause, like we’re all supposed to know what the hell “cardiac episode” means, with all its thousand-and-one possibilities.
“Can you just spit it out?” I want to scream, but don’t. I just hang there and take it, letting him have his little movie-of-the-week moment. The room is starting to swim and my scalp is cold and tingling with possible imagined scenarios. Mother lets out a pathetic whimper.
“So what does that mean?” I ask, since no one else is talking.
Another theatrical pause.
I’m going to kick him in the balls, I swear to God.
“Her heart stopped, and it took us some time to resuscitate. It was fifteen minutes before we could get her vitals going again,” the bad soap opera actor masquerading as Josie’s doctor finally offers.
We are all leaning forward like dogs trying to will the cookie off the kitchen counter.
“What does that mean?” This time it’s mother reading from my script, same intention.
I can stand it no longer and say with some force “For Chrissake sake will you just tell us what’s wrong with my sister?!!”
“HORATIO!” mother yells in embarrassment, though my father says nothing. The doctor looks extremely put out. I’ve veered away from his script.
“I agree with the boy,” says my father in one of the few times he will ever stand with me. “What are we talking about here?”
The doctor, sensing he has lost his audience, lets us have it with both barrels. “She is alive, but there is significant brain damage. How much we won’t know until she comes out of the coma, if she comes out of the coma. Her brain has suffered severe oxygen deprivation during the time her heart was still, and we have good reason to believe there is gross cell destruction as a result. She is on a respirator at the moment, which I suspect we will be able to remove eventually. But she will, in all probability, need twenty-four-hour-care for the remainder of her life.”
He stands there, the despot. Is he waiting for applause?
“When may we see her?” asks my poor, lost mother. She sounds exhausted.
He turns and exits, tossing back his reply like a sore loser. “I’ll send a nurse in.”
We all wait meekly for some unfamiliar nurse to come in and tell us what to do next. I could really use some more M&M’s.
My mother and I bring my sweet, broken girl home one autumn evening after the doctors, nurses, consultants, a PR dude (wanting to know if our stay was satisfactory—“Yes, we had a fabulous time, thanks for asking”) and the jerk demanding payment in full of the hospital bill before we bail, have all had their way with us. The only light in my Josie’s eyes is a dull fire that seems to recognize nothing and see no one. I’ve spent the three weeks of her hospital stay by her side talking to her, trying to get a reaction to all the stupid shit I’ve been saying, bad jokes, worse impressions, and even, so help me, a thorough explanation of the grand mysteries of the Mormon church, with which I assure her I am no longer affiliated. She does not respond. She allows me to brush her hair, hug her, kiss her slack face, with no objections or questions about my cleanliness, where I have been, or who I might have touched beforehand.
We move her back into her old bedroom and begin the feeding, cleaning, turning her over, talking to her incessantly. And that is all we do and all we are told we can do by the powers-that-be who seem to know so much yet still offer so little.
“There are no easy answers,” is their generic response. “Do the best you can.” Another good one. Love that. “There are facilities that house people like your daughter.” That’s one I particularly despise, although mother perks up at the suggestion. So insistent am I at not having Josie sleep anywhere but in her own bed here at home that I voluntarily include myself in the cleanup detail, which to a young teenager is highly gag-inducing as well as extremely disgusting and unpleasant. But I do it. And it actually gets easier. The stink, the washing, the medicated cream on her bedsores, the caretaking of the soiled laundry actually begins to feel like love to me. Now that I am free of the Mormons’ persistent and invasive grasp I have more time to spend with my tragic and beautiful sister. “Beautiful” is no longer a word that an outsider might apply to my girl—she drools, her skin is sallow, and she lives in a perpetual bad hair day. There is dried food clinging to her nightdress and matted in her tresses, but she is my Josie and as my mother slowly backs off and leaves her more and more to my care, she becomes the real reason I run home after school every night, forsaking friends and even possible potential (though in reality, imaginary) girlfriends.
The big moment arrives when I catch her eye one evening. She points at me with a shaky finger and smiles a big goofy grin.
She has “seen” me, I am sure of it. I call out to our mother.
“Mom, Josie just recognized me!”
No response from the matriarch. So I point to myself, and like a parent teaching a baby new words I say slowly—“Tio. TIO.”
“Sho,” says Josie.
“Motherfucker,” says I. “Yes, Tio, Tio. I’m Tio.” Honestly it’s like she just memorized the whole frigging Encyclopedia Britannica and recited it verbatim back
to me in Swahili.
Now let the healing begin!!!
One of the doctors had candidly admitted there was so little they actually knew about the human brain that it was possible some healing might occur. Rewiring, rerouting of electrical impulses, that sort of thing. I asked if we were talking about my sister or my laptop? Mother swatted me. But here it is, and she would soon be back to her normal self, laughing, going out on dates, and living the life she was meant to live. She would, however, not. She smiles when I enter her room, but “Sho” is about as far as we will ever get. I am happy for that at least. So I now become “Sho.”
One day I hear voices in the living room and head out to investigate. There isn’t a lot of conversation in this house these days, apart from the occasional screaming match between the parents, but I don’t really count that as actual dialog exchange, so the chatty tone drifting in from the living room perplexes me. It is an uncommon sound in this house, the easy, relaxed notes of a one-on-one conversation. It’s weird how something so commonplace can be missing for so long that its sudden intrusion makes it seem almost exotic, alien. My parents are standing talking to an older man who reeks of organized religion and clutches a small book. “Oh no, not the Mormons again,” I think to myself.
My father breaks the casual color of this anomalous exchange and switches to parent mode.
“Boy, this is Reverend Whiting from the church. You know him, I’m sure?”
“Yes, of course,” I lie, finally putting a face to that droning, somnolent accompaniment of my constant erotic fantasies while struggling to get through another Sunday morning at the old Presbyterian.
Mother jumps in before I say something stupid.
“Reverend has come to offer us some Christian help with Josephine,” she says.
Christian help? No idea what that means. Will I now hear him pontificating from Josie’s room, poor girl? Is there an exorcism in the works? “The power of Christ compels you to stop crapping in your bed!!!” Or will he be absolving my sweet, childlike girl of her many, many heinous sins?
“The Father is offering us some aid in the feeding and maintenance of your sister, for a while. To give us a little breathing room so we can decide what’s to be done on a more permanent basis.” This from mother. I don’t like the sound of that at all! Plus, “feeding and maintenance” sounds like something you do to a houseplant.
“I can handle taking care of Josie. I don’t need anyone’s help,” I covetously object.
“I would like to be of service to your family, Horatio.”
What the hell? Who else besides my mother calls me Horatio? The small voice has come from behind me. I turn.
I didn’t even notice her when I entered the living room, so invisible does she make herself. She is thin and very pale, with fragile blue eyes.
Quite a few years younger than the older dude, but not young enough to be a daughter. Her severe ankle-length dress runs all the way up to her throat, covering her completely from head to toe, making her seem exceedingly prim and dour. Like a visitor from another century. There is a fatal meekness to her that is somewhat off-putting to me. Suddenly it lands on me. She’s his wife!! And as if in concert with my realization, my mother says, “This is Virginia. Reverend Whiting’s wife and a wonderful, wonderful woman. She will be coming to help with Josephine four days a week for the next few months so we can have some time to ourselves.”
I can’t stop myself. “You’ve got all the time to yourselves you need. I take care of Josie!”
“Excuse my son, Father. He still hasn’t come to terms with the full scope of his sister’s disability.” Again mom, misreading.
“I don’t need anybody’s help,” I repeat, a little loudly and possibly petulantly.
“Mrs. Whiting starts tomorrow, Horatio, and that is the finish of it!” Mother slams the lid down hard on my small-scale rebellion.
I storm out, too much like a little kid for my own liking, and head to Josie’s bedroom for consolation, validation, and just to be near her.
I sit on her bed holding her soft hand as she stares into space and sees I know not what. The conversational tone from the living room soon drifts toward the front door and disappears out into the night. Silence reigns in our home once again. I know what’s coming next, and sure-as-death-and-taxes, it does.
The bedroom door flies open, frightening Josie and causing me to leap to my feet. I am her knight in shining armor rising to defend her. Actually I’m just a needy little weasel in dire fear of being usurped and removed by degrees from the most meaningful ritual in my life: caring for my sister.
“How dare you embarrass me in front of the Reverend like that!” Whoa! Mom’s on fire.
I push past her into the hall to get the brunt of this away from Josie just in case her mind is able to register the sudden elevated emotions. She does get agitated from time to time and I don’t want to be the cause. The harpy follows me, continuing her rant.
“Don’t turn away from me!! Virginia, Mrs. Whiting, is starting here tomorrow and you will be courteous and help this good Christian woman administer to your sister or you can leave this house right now, you ungracious little bastard!!!”
Okay, she never swears so this is a rather large red flag to me.
I have no retreat. I would run from the house at full speed if I could take Josie with me, but even in my agitated state I recognize this is a solution somewhat full of major holes. For one thing, I don’t even have a job. At seventeen I have spent most of my free time either sucking up to the Mormons or taking care of my sister so the job thing is fairly nonexistent and when I say “fairly” I mean “totally.” And if I did leave, mother would stick Josie in a home faster than you could say, “Life isn’t fair so stop your whining.”
I slump onto my bed while mother stands in the doorway, claws barely retracted, wings tucked in behind her, tail lashing angrily.
“Fine,” is all I say. Having recently considered writing as a possible career path, I’m furious with myself that some answer a four-year-old might be satisfied with is all I can manage. “Fine”? That’s all I’ve got? My mother leaves with her righteousness defended and intact and I head to the family bathroom for a quick, stress-relieving wank in order to deal with my raging emotions. Nothing calms the spirit of the beast like soothing music, meditation, the counsel of a wise sage, or a good monkey-spank. I choose this last option fairly regularly, and when I say “fairly regularly,” I mean exclusively.
God
God (or the entity’s preferred moniker, “Omnipotent Supreme Being”) creates a phone, creates a dial tone, then hesitates, momentarily distracted by something happening over in Galaxy 5,325,708A. The line disconnects. The life forms that identify themselves as the Vee-Nung on the planet they’ve named Ete Mee-Qwa have just fully grasped the concept of quantum entanglement and, utilizing the uncertainty principle, are, predictably, about to turn this really beautiful reality into a really ass-ugly weapon. This is not good, considering the global war–like state that is currently their evolutionary high point. The Vee-Nung are a technologically and organically advanced race of intelligent mucilaginous amphibians, and even though they dwell both in the water and on the land, they are having difficulty grasping that their planet is a living organism, and that constantly polluting, pillaging, and pummeling it and its inhabitants has its consequences and definite term limits. The people of Earth are even less connected to their caretaking responsibilities. It’s enough to make an Omnipotent Supreme Being weep, for crying out loud. WTF! No wonder there are so many goddamn atheists in the Universe. After two conversations with the human named Horatio Cotton, the OSB (Omnipotent Supreme Being) is having even more serious doubts about the orbiting celestial body that the inhabitants have unimaginatively called “Earth.” Earth? Seriously? That’s the best they could come up with? It’s like naming it “Bunch of rocks” or “Dirt, water ’n’ stuff.” Unbelievable. The OSB’s original name for the planet translates, roughly, though incompletely and in
adequately into “Beautiful Blue/Green/White Majestic Starlight.” And they picked “Earth.”
The OSB feels pain on this planet. And when the OSB “feels” something, it includes the whole of the Cosmos and time before and time to come as well as the extra fifteen dimensions that most of the “intelligent” Universe failed to grasp and have hence self-generated all kinds of whack-job theological explanations for something that to the OSB seems very natural and as obvious as swinging dog’s balls. It makes you wonder. The OSB is aware of it all. The devastation, the brutalizing, the destruction and torment of those who are meant to be nurtured and cared for. The poachers who recently rode into a herd of elephants (one of Earth’s more spectacular inhabitants) armed with rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47’s, and chainsaws to destroy whole families, even generations of these magnificently aware and frighteningly imperiled beasts just to savagely hack off their long, pointed teeth as they lay dead and dying in the blood of their brethren and children. And don’t even start the OSB on these humans’ proclivity for hyper-breeding. You’d think they’d invented sex. Not to mention their industrialized powers, who still pour unfiltered and untreated waste, filth, and poisons directly into their own waters, killing and contaminating the once-abundant ocean life, as well as themselves and their descendants as an indirect result. Friggin’ idiots! And living on a planet where a few degrees of orbital shift would result in complete and utter annihilation of all inhabitants, they continue to send garbage into the sky, destroy life-giving vegetation, obliterate whole species of flora and fauna that hold curative secrets, and then kill one another as fast as they can over their thousand-and-one names for God. Truly. Self-serving, short-sighted disappointments, the lot of ’em. Thank the Omnipotent Supreme Being that the life that walks, swims, crawls, or flies around this big blue marble aren’t the only sentient beings that exist there. There is another. It has always been that way. The OSB made it so. And this one has a mother’s survival instincts and a hunger to protect her helpless and decimated children at all costs.
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