Old And New Life

The park was directly across the street from the library as you exited its doors for the evening, it was hard to miss as the wind wending its way through the trees seemed to call her name. She didn’t want to go home yet; she also had no desire to be out.

It had been this way since the death.

That’s how she thought of it now all of the time, in the third person and obtuse so that it didn’t come too close to touching her because if it did, it burned, and she suffocated.

It was just the death. Two words, one syllable each that seemed to define a separation in the timeline of her life, like she had her own personal B.C. and A.D.

There was the time before the death, and then there was the time after, which was now and in the present and seemed to be dragging out longer than any time she could remember before the death had occurred.

Whenever she recalled the memories of before, they burst forth in a swirl of bright effervescent color and a nirvana of sound; happiness in the vortex of fast-forward that she yearned to slow down.

She sucked in a shaky breath as she crossed the street in an attempt to calm her agitation both with the memories and herself, attempting to focus on the crisp air of April as the earth shook herself free of the last vestiges of winter.

It was late enough that the park was nearly devoid of foot traffic, only the random jogger or cyclist careening by her on the path for their evening routine. She envied the way that they seemed so untroubled and carefree.

Had she ever been like that?

There was a routine now and she hated it, but she needed it and she hated herself for the need. The death had turned her into a trembling, sobbing, needful creature that sucked in sharp, ragged breaths into raw and bleeding flesh.

The blade had called to her as the need for punishment and pain had overwhelmed everything, even the grief. Now she only felt things if they were painful, every cut to her flesh releasing the numbing guilt and anger and replacing them with sharp clarity.

The patterns she drew in her flesh somehow had kept her clinging to reality, lest the ground open below her feet and swallow her whole.

The pleasant hum of the first crickets cut across her dark musings as the trees along the trail drew her in, the leaves whispering secrets in the gentle breeze to lull the tempest within her. She was trying to lose herself to nature, to be present in the now as she walked down the path, making her steps firmer in the damp earth, forcing the ground below her to memorize the shape of her feet and the measure of her journey, mundane as it was.

She shoved her hands into her pockets and froze as her fingers brushed over the handle of the box cutter and a shiver ran down her spine as the urge of her addiction whispered to her with the seductive tongue of a lover.

I’m here…… I won’t leave you like all of the others have…. I’m pain that you can control…..I’m the punishment that heals…… the disease and the cure….

She hadn’t surrendered to that voice for at least a week and she was both proud and disappointed at the fact. The urges had come on suddenly and left her only after grueling distraction, making her feel shivery and sticky as they passed, like the breaking of a fever.

Her footsteps had carried her unconsciously to the gazebo at the center of the park where small orchestra’s and bands converged for spring and summer concerts like the ones that they had enjoyed before the death. Now the sight of the empty wooden structure mirrored her own hollowness as her feet slogged over the soggy debris of dead leaves and twigs in the dark. She tried to conjure a memory of music that they had heard here, but her mind was utterly devoid of melody and warmth and only ghosts came alive in flittering images that were too garbled to decipher in the dark. Her footsteps carried her out of the skeletal shell of the gazebo then of their own accord, some semblance of self-preservation moving her away from the pain for once as she left it behind.

No, there wasn’t music here anymore.

Her fingers fiddled with the blade again in her pocket, her thumb caressing the sliding button that controlled the length of it, the metal warm and weighty in her palm.

It was like holding hands with an old friend.

She had pills too in her purse. Pills for anxiety and depression, pills for sleep, pills for pain, pills for temporary relief. But if she used them incorrectly, could the relief be long-lasting and permanent?

Would she become the death then for someone else? Could she be at peace with herself and her actions if she inflicted this pain on another person? Was there anyone left to miss her?

She paused beside a tall oak tree then as the wind picked up, tossing the new leaves wildly on their branches and she pulled lungful’s of it in; forcing herself to keep breathing even though the air was cold enough that she could see her breath on every exhalation.

It is painful; this breathing and living and moving and thinking, each day blending with the next as she went through the motions.

But there’s more, something better, something new; just wait and be patient. Life goes on, it’s supposed to hurt. Growing hurts, changing hurts; it’s beautiful and cruel, singing and screaming; the way you have to pull yourself hand over hand from the grave you’ve buried yourself in, though you weren’t the one who died…..

She sobs aloud then, leaning against the tree in the dark for support; relieved that she could cling to its trunk as the tempestuous wind shook the leaves in its upper branches violently enough to cause the birds sheltering there to take flight for a more stable roost. She needed to be more like this tree; stubbornly rooted to the ground no matter the forces that shook it.

Several minutes pass by as she collects herself, her universe becoming a utopian bubble that included just her and the tree and the wind that shook them but could not destroy.

Further along the path, she saw the first green shoots of tulips and gladiolas rearing their determined heads to the sky and her hand dropped the blade in her pocket as the urge passed once more and the dark thoughts fled her for the moment.

She kept the image of the budding flowers in her mind to write about in her journal when she got home in hopes that after a good nights rest, she could rise again with their same determination.