The Blackbird Sings

I can't sleep.

   Owl-eyed, I watch the dark, dragging its black body through the night.

I let my ears wander the house. Somewhere, I hear a quiet murmur and imagine a hummingbird struggling softly against a window. Down the corridor, a tiny conductor taps lightly on a music stand. Outside in the garden, my mind sees an old man gently creaking his rocking chair.

And next to me, I hear faint waves running in and out over a pebbled shore: my wife lies deeply sleeping. Her body is an island under the blankets; her hair cast on the pillow.

I can't stop my brain from imagining; from wandering a world of wonder and disillusion. It rises and falls with my breathing. Sometimes, like my restless breath, my ungraspable thoughts fly from my hand and soar among clouds of ideas, yearning for beautiful memories, sun-ridden landscapes and the closeness of affection. At other moments in the night, my mind is a worm, burying itself in the earth, looking for the hard grit of failures, of tunnels not taken.

I can't sleep. I can't quiet the restlessness in my head. It's so tiring, and I'm so tired of being tired. 

Tomorrow (when is that exactly?) she'll take my wretched body to the hospital. 

Tomorrow, they'll take weapons, which I can't bear to think about, and fruitlessly attack my life-poisoning diagnosis. 

And, tomorrow, I know I'll never leave that place.

The room is so very dark: blackout blinds and no lights anywhere; we even leave our phones downstairs. I roll out of the covers and drop my feet to the floor, knowing from habit where my slippers are. I stand up and slip on my dressing gown. The room, or my body, wobbles with pain so I sit back on the bed again and let the wave pass before making my way to our bedroom door.

I leave my wife to her dreams, whatever they are, wherever she is.

The cool fresh air of the landing catches me by surprise, as it always does, reminding me how warm and ill-smelling is our bedroom; the room in which I've spent too long wallowing.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, I'm welcomed by a constellation of small, coloured lights; they gleam from the microwave, the cooker, the thermostat on the wall - so many. What star sign do they describe,? What future do they reveal? My playful mind still reaches out for meanings. There are no blinds or curtains on the kitchen window and it's night beyond. I can tell, if only from the oven clock, that dawn is not too far off. 

The window glass is turned into a mirror by the blackness outside. I can see the thin ghost of myself hovering in the gloom: an agitated old man with sparse, white hair; gaunt in his oversized dressing gown; dark rings under eyes creased with anxiety.

The road to tomorrow started so long ago that I can hardly remember that first, shared smile with my wife. But I do remember it, and many more smiles along the road, which sets my switch-back mind off again: Picnics by the lake. Shared living in our small bed-sit. Our wedding, and the way we saw the future. The new house. Work. Friends. Laughter - lots of laughter. On and on. Clouds of memory roil across the glass in front of me. My ghostly face twitches into smiles. Images so bright, and so exhausting to remember. 

Then my tomorrow-road suddenly dips. My mind pants after even clearer, newer memories like a dog scenting new, wet bones: The sudden, intolerable pain. The ignorance. The fear. Weakness like extra gravity pulling me into the earth. White coats, so many, poking and divining. Then... Revelation. Weeping. Both of us weeping. 

I'm running downhill. All the way down. Tears sliding down my cheeks. I find myself on the kitchen floor, drained, and with my back against a cupboard door, my head in my hands. 

I don't know how long I remain here, a crumpled soul. Eventually, however, the wave of self-pity, fear and grief recedes and I find the kitchen has succumbed to a grey light flowing from the window. My hands grasp the edge of the kitchen sink and I haul myself up. Dawn has just broken over the hills.

The new light calms me.

So here I am, where I never expected to be, at the end of a road I never knew I was on. 

Of a sudden, I laugh. Why am I surprised? It's never been a mystery, never been hidden: the switch-back road, up or down but never level for long. Beginnings and endings. My restless mind always knew - deep, deep within, don't we always know? - that it's there: change. Beginnings have endings. Yet my mind has been acting surprised, affronted at some perceived unfairness. The eye-opening ridiculousness of it all has an almost hysterical edge.

I open the back door and step into the garden. It's cold and I walk through clouds of my breath, careful on the frosty paving - how ironic to fall!

In the distance a band of tight, blood-orange light crests the hills. The dark autumn trees pick up the sun along their leaf edges. I watch clusters of crows fly across a pale blue sky and listen to the rich dawn song of a blackbird pouring out its confident heart to the morning.

I stand motionless for a long while, amazed at the ordinary brilliance of what I am seeing. What is that? To hear the blackbird, or to see the sun lighting up the air for the billionth time, the earth turning on its heels? To be breathing. To feel my heart beating. To love and have been loved.

I'm struck at the sheer unlikeliness of being here, now - ever. Of having lived a life, any life. This life. The joy of my having had - at all - fills the bottomless sadness of my losing, of my ending. 

I start to shiver in the cold air: a delicious feeling, as if sensed for the first time. I take long, slow breaths and listen one more time to the blackbird, look one more time at the dawn, and then turn and walk quietly back inside.

It's warmer in here. I fill the kettle over by the kitchen sink and pull out mugs from the top cupboard, mine, and hers. I watch myself find the tea bags and take out the milk. 

Ordinary things once routine, now somehow miraculous. 

I'll make her a last cup of tea, in her favourite mug, and share a morning smile before we leave.