The Hill

It’s funny, isn’t it? All of it. Those minutes making moments. Those sounds making words. Those lights making images; images making people. Then people are crowds, crowds have voices. And all of those crowds and voices, they had to be here now, didn’t they? Funny. Is there anything more bleak than dying in a hospital bed, on a busy day?

‘Who are you talking to, granny?’ Asks Emily. Have I been saying all those things out loud? Am I still… No, my lips are touching. Better keep it that way.

‘What does bleak mean?’ She asks. And just like that, my lips open.

‘Who let the damn kid in here?’ Her mother looks shocked that I would even ask. I hear fragments of her remarks. My ears aren’t what they used to be. But Amanda is trying to argue with me, I’m almost certain of it. Soon she’ll have to teach the word death to her little girl, that won’t be my…

‘What is death, granny?’ Emily’s looking at me again, with those big eyes of hers. My lips, my damn lips. Shut. Silence.

Now let’s take a step back, shall we? Back to those minutes and sounds and lights that make our hearts heavy or weigh nothing at all. It’s all just funny, in the end. It’s funny, how, with all of those moments ending inside of me, I can’t help but look back at when they began.

The memories rush back. But they’re all so small. Little lovers in a life. Feathers flying, floating, falling from a bird. Minutes escaping a clock. And my life, my bird, my clock… It’s funny. Terribly funny, yes. That all those moments mean nothing anymore. What are they now? A thousand little hands, trying to hold onto my mind. They let go, one by one, of the grass. Devoid of any hope to reach the top, they fall into oblivion. There’s nothing left on the peak but you and I, staring into the void that awaits us. You and I, in the only place that I ever cared for, in the beginning, in the end. The hill.

That hill, that wonderful hill. It seems impossible, doesn’t it? That every season, it appeared more beautiful than before. Blooming in the spring. Evergreen in the summer. Exploding colours in the fall. Frozen in the winter. I suppose it’s frozen forever now, in the only place where it still stands; my mind. I imagine it, stroke by the wind. I imagine it silent, sometimes with the sound of a child laughing. My laugh existed there. I thought some day, my child, my grandchild could laugh there too. But both of them are here now, laugh less. The hill is forever gone.

I always dreaded, more than thought, that nothing would be grander than this hill. Here I am, knowing that this is my last day, knowing that nothing has mattered more to me, than the hill. Blessed hill. I see it, more clearly than it has been in decades. The hill. Softer than any love, warmer than any embrace, greener than any image. My hill.

Decades…

‘What are they arguing about?’ Asks Emily.

I smile and look at her parents. ‘Funny, I hadn’t even noticed them yelling over there. Now I can’t see anything else.’

Her eyes open wide, as if I had performed some kind of ancient ritual: ‘How did you not see them? How do you do it?’

‘Well, I suppose it’s all these thoughts inside my head. All those things, those moments that try to escape the chaos, but they can’t…’

‘What’s chaos?’ She asks. I don’t answer. I can’t answer. How could I teach her such an awful word? I was that young, when I lost the hill. Her age, her wide eyes.

I painted it once. But I couldn’t get the shade of it right. That shade of green, it was like nothing I have seen since. All I can think about now is that one morning, when the sunlight hit that one drop of rosé du matin on a blade of grass so perfectly that it looked like a diamond. In fact, it looked so real that - little thing that I was back then - I tried to grab it thinking the diamond would make me rich. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It broke in my hands. I wish that time had made me wise enough not to grab everything like a baby anymore. Yet here I am, wishing, hoping, dying. 

I lied to you. Shame on me. You’re not even real, yet I still lied to you. About the painting. I told you that I had only tried to paint the hill once. Well I lied. I must have tried a thousand times. I even paid artists to do it. They asked what shade of green it was supposed to be. I said the most beautiful green you could ever possibly imagine. But none of them could imagine. None of them could see what was fleeting in my mind. Like the last breath of a setting sun, drowning a whole city in a bloody red gleam. It dawns on me. That shade of green is going to die with me. Then no one will ever know. You’re going to die along with me, too. With all my other thoughts, my memories, my tireless dreams and what little I have left of hopes. You’re going to die along with them and I lied to you. Shame on me.

But it was; is stronger than me, in the end. Some things you just get a hunger for. An inexplicable, undescribable,unescapable hunger that eats pieces of you. Every time you dream of it, every time you try to replicate it. Every time I tried to lie to myself and pretend that I could get it back somehow; it ate me a little more. And as I take my last breaths, I know that the hunger has eaten me.

I see it now, right ahead,

I see it in the walls,

through the windows

Through Emily’s wandering eyes

Green, and full of light

And full of hope

Every road

Leads

Back

To

Shaking. Cries. Yells. More cries.

I fall from the hill.

Beeps. Screams. Tears.

I open my eyes.

Amanda is clutching onto my hand. It would bleed, had there been enough blood left in me. Her eyes are flooding my bed. She holds onto me, cries out words that I can’t…

‘I can’t lose you’ That’s what she keeps on repeating. Amanda.

Her husband tries to pull her away from me, but she holds on. He never could do much, that one. Still can’t believe she married the idiot. And… No, it’s fine, my lips are shut. Oh thank goodness. Then why is Emily shaking me?

‘Granny, can I help them escape?’

‘What are you talking about, darling?’

‘The thoughts, granny. You said that the thoughts wanted to escape the ko… The Kay… ”

‘The chaos, sweetie. Well I suppose, there’s one that…’

The hill. That’s all there is left. The hill. Perfect hill. Blessed hill. My lips tremble. With a few words, the hill could fly from my mind into hers. Her eyes would forever know the truth. So why can’t my lips say a thing about it?

Even the hill is falling into the darkness now. The only thing left are little Emily’s eyes. Would they be a little less wide, less wandering, if she knew the truths?

I remember having eyes her age. Care-free eyes. She seems so light. Thoughts so heavy couldn’t, shouldn’t ever fly into her mind. My lips uttered other words instead.

‘Someday, Emily, you will see something so perfect that you’ll feel like… Nothing else exists. Don’t stop there. Grab everything that your eyes witness. Live it all, see it all. The one thing I wish for you, is to someday lay on your death bed and only hope to see one more day; because there is nothing that you love more than the life you live and the people that you cherish.’

Amanda holds my hand a little tighter still.

‘Is that how you feel?’ Asked Emily.

I think about the hill again. Was there anything in life but the hill? There was the hill, then dreams of the hill and shades of green on the hill, but was there ever anything other than the hill? I looked around the room. To that little girl who knew nothing of life. To her mother, who is still holding onto my hand so ridiculously tight; to her mother’s pitiful husband. Not so funny, is it? Not funny at all.

Is that how I feel, she asks. No, of course bloody not.

‘My life was meaningless’ are the words that I wish to utter, the words that beg to leave my mouth; yet my lips keep them sealed inside. So I want to shake my head, left to right over and over again, until my head spins and my thoughts go away, but my head only goes up and down, up and down. Up and down, until Emily smiles and Amanda cries of joy. Her mother lived a meaningful life, apparently. Her mother cared about her, apparently. It’s so easy, to believe a lie when we wish for it to be true. It’s even easier to believe a lie, when it should have been true.

My eyes close.

The hill is there.

Amanda cries some more, kisses my hand.

Then

Lets

Go.