Twenty Six, { Blown Away}

Our existence and ideas are marquees made of emptiness.
In place of our love, a house is build in a field,
Where your soul is dressed in a green endlessness;
And I stand thinking of the word "YIELD".
*
Your life was the price of my kiss.
And our existence was predestined with that bargain.
We both hear the applause of the world in that abyss;
What a price, that was just a drain!
*
We thought we can't talk about any case.
So we talked about you and me
But do the words "YOU AND ME" have any grace,
When all other empty words are blown free?
*
Sinking deeply into the chair of the waiting room in the hospital, Anna was overpowered by Steve's shadow sitting on the sofa just the day before, and listening to her playing the piano. As his face was changing in her image, then she saw him quietly in his blood and struggling for his life, while she was deep in sleep and was having the nightmare with the wolf. Then she saw him collapsing on the floor, like an old movie she suddenly remembered; while it was obvious that he had not done anything to save himself and he was found on the bed. Then he pictured both of them in the airplane flying to Hawaii for their honeymoon. Then she had this pierce sensation that she could have stopped this offense before happening if she had not taken the sleeping pill. Why couldn't she? Why couldn't she stop it before he was ravaged?
They were in a same hospital that she worked. Everybody knew her. She knew them and the hospital; however, its smell clung to her body. Her state of awareness was an alternate one. She was alert yet unaware. The world beyond her mind and imagination was a frenzy one.
When she was allowed into his room, she stood by his bed still and motionless. Looking at him, she did not see him. She thought his stagnancy and soundlessness were untouchable. She wanted to touch him but she stopped her hand before reaching his yellow face. Instead, she touched the supporting metal rail, surrounding his bed. Its cold sensation almost burned her hand. She looked at all those machines around the room which somehow were connected to his body, and her knowledge of nursing went completely blank.
Her life had turned inside out entirely in the last few hours. Gazing into space, she recalled her frantic call to the police. The woman on the other side of the line had had a hard time to understand her. In less than ten minutes, her house had filled with policemen, firefighters, and paramedics. One of them bumped against the suitcases in the living room. Anna apologetically cried: "We were going for our honeymoon this morning."
A detective asked her many questions, and bewildered Anna had no idea what had happened. She had not heard anything. Then she overheard them saying that the intruder had probably used a silencer. She did not know what a "silencer" was.
When she answered their question of where Steve worked, she saw a shocking glare in their eyes. She was certain that the assault had something to do with his job. As far as she knew there was nothing missing in their apartment. She had read stories and watched too many movies about CIA.
A young detective, she remembered, had been extremely kind to her. He had asked her to go and change to street clothes. Anna frantically asked him: "Is he dead?"
"No,... But we're taking him to the hospital."
She conjured up Steve's motionless body was put on a stretcher. She screamed when they put him in the ambulance. "I want to be with him." The young detective got hold of frantic Anna in the street. "I take you in my car to the hospital."
Their car had followed the ambulance. Anna looking at bright morning sun, was dried out of tears. Somehow she felt that all these were part of her dream. How could she stop that dreadful dream? Occasionally, the young detective asked her a question but when he realized her state of mind, he stopped.
In the hospital, she remembered, everyone was running. They rolled the stretcher to the emergency room. People were talking to her. They knew her. She thought that she knew them, too; but she couldn't recall that she worked in the same hospital. She wanted to run after the stretcher, where ever they were taking it; but just like her dream, she was unable to walk or run. A nurse that calling her by name, helped her inside and and asked her to sit and wait. Another nurse brought her a blanket and a cup of coffee. Then the young detective who had given her a ride, showed up.
"I know how you feel but I must ask you some questions!"
She nodded her head for yes.
"First is there anyone we need to call?"
She had forgotten completely about Steve's family, father, mother, Stacy... "Stacy,..." She said.
"Who is Stacy?"
"My friend, his sister,"
"What is her number?"
Anna could not remember the telephone number that had also been hers for a long time.
"What is her last name?"
"Williams,"
"Okay, who else?"
"Stacy, she..."
"Okay, I understand. She calls everyone."
Anna nodded her head.
As she was gazing at those despicable machines, which were supposed to help her husband, she saw nothing good in them when in came to her husband's survival. She remembered telling the young officer her frenzied story of the two men in the parking garage next to her car previous morning.
Many people, women and men, with white and blue uniform were in the room and disturbing her peaceful moment with Steve. She recognized the man with white uniform. "He is the surgeon." She knew him. She wanted to ask him what Steve's chances were, but the knot in her throat was so big and so poisonous that she could not talk. The doctor patted her shoulder and hugged her head. She thought, "He probably knows that I want to talk to him." Then she she saw Stacy and Charlie. Stacy was screaming. "Oh, Steve, oh, Steve..." Anna wondered why her friend was so very delirious! All she wanted at that moment was to be alone with Steve, to be in peace with him, to travel where he was traveling, to take the same path he was taking. It seemed so unusual to see him that quiet, that stagnant. No, that was not him. How could it be? She looked into the marching pictures again, all those images and shadows. Then she looked into his indefinite and faint face, closed eyes. She could see no expression. A man without expression! Nothing was there. She was not sure if that face had ever had a gesture! Then she collapsed, fainted, traveled into a ferocious sleep, hoping to dream that everything was a lie, an illusion.
In her dream, she was inside his body and could see his life was easing out fast. There was no gratitude, no fighting back. She was screaming at him, in her dream, "Fight back. Don't die." Then she wept. Slowly she opened her eyes. She knew it was over.
She still did not want to touch him; however, she knew if she did, his flesh would be icy, cold, and motionless. Her eyes burned; nevertheless, she could see that his entire existence was without life, laughter, tear, luster, love, and hope.
Suddenly she was not furious anymore but resentful, indigent, and offended. She was not frightened anymore but felt victimized; she was not vindictive but hopeless. She grimaced with a loud sigh. Her firm body and placid soul suddenly shivered by the ragging and savage journey she had taken with Steve, and then had left him and returned alone. She felt, how could she endure the unendurable? For the last time, she looked at his pale and yellow face and noticed a muscle in his face moved . Then life and pain both eased out of his ravaged body.
*

To Be Continued