Outloud

Damn. She’s gone. Just like that, she’s gone. The wind whips through my clothes and the mist that seems to hang in the air speckles my glasses, making everything seem to be underwater. Or is that just the tears I can feel welling in my eyes? 2

I stagger through the automatic doors, my head down; but whether it’s to keep myself warm or to hide the tears streaming down my face, I don’t know. I slump in the corner under the overhang, trying to block myself from the world. On the other side of this glass door is the hospital. If I turn around, I can see the polished white walls and the scuffed floors, the crappy green carpeting and the old airline-terminal style chairs. I suppose if I looked hard enough, I could see the emergency room where they took us when we came limping into the hospital – my right leg swollen to hell, her shirt stained red with blood, both of us pale as ghosts.3

Hell, maybe if I look REALLY HARD, I can see the freezer room where they put her body; that vibrant girl I loved, shoved into a drawer like so much cordwood. 4

Next to me, as if to provide a horrible ironic contrast, is a trash can overflowing with fast food wrappers and old bottles – a coat check of gluttony and greed for the ill. The vicious wind howls through the street, and I am treated to a downpour of McDonald’s bags and old French fries to go along with the freezing rain that seems to have materialized from nowhere.5

Tilting my head up, I can see the sky deepening into gray and dark as the rain intensifies, a miserable twilight that does nothing to sooth my grief. God, but that sounds trite. As if sensing my thoughts, the sky becomes darker still, and I raise my fist to give the Almighty that glorious one-fingered salute, screaming up at the sky. 6

I stay like that for a minute, but whatever it is that I’m waiting for – a booming voice asking me what the hell I’m doing, or a bolt of lightning that smites me where I stand – doesn’t happen, and I drop my arm down, letting it smack lazily against my thigh. I hear something crackle in my pocket, and I reach into my jeans with the hand that flipped off God to pull out a half-empty pack of cigarettes and a lighter – one of those crappy plastic ones you can pick up at Wal-Mart for a dollar. 7

I don’t smoke; the pack is (was, dammit, was!) hers, and I must have grabbed it and the lighter from her things when I limped out of that horrible waiting room. It’s funny. I don’t even remember doing it. Why would I take just these two things and leave all the rest of her stuff – her purse, that blood-stained clothing – behind in that building that stank of death and lemon-scented cleaning fluid?8

I pull out one of the cigarettes and let it rest in my palm; I have never made a habit of smoking –I don’t like the taste, I guess – but now seems like a hell of a good time to start. Flicking the lighter’s wheel, I produce a tiny orange flame and light the coffin nail behind my cupped hand. 9

I breathe in, holding the smoke in my mouth - I can’t stand to inhale, but that might soon change - and blowing it out in puffs. That familiar acrid smell fills my nose and at that moment, I love that smell, because it reminds me so powerfully of her. Memories of her flood into my mind, like someone watching TV commercials set to play at 4x speed – us flinging snowballs at each other in the middle of a blizzard, watching movies together on our beat up couch, her laughing at some joke I told, lying in bed with our arms wrapped around each other, us at the veterinary clinic when her dog had to be put down, her driving in this cursed wet weather, glancing over at me at just the wrong moment, never seeing the truck that cut in front of us and immediately slowed down, dooming her, me sitting in the waiting room while some idiot doctor tells me that they couldn’t stop the bleeding because the wound had gone too deep, and oh, by the way, the only woman you ever loved is dead.10

The cigarette singeing my lips snaps me back to the present. Looking around, I can see that the rain has stopped. In its place has come a shower of snow; white tears that I can feel soaking into my skin. I shove the cigarette into the ash tray on the garbage can, and I stand there for a moment, staring out at the curtain of white that has engulfed the world. A snatch of some song (her favorite song) drifts through my head, and it remains there, echoing painfully. 11

Head down, shoulders slumped, I trudge along the sidewalk, feeling the snow crunching under me. I disengage my brain, letting my feet take over as I smoke one of her cigarettes, and they carry me slowly through the city, wandering aimlessly. All around the city, traffic clogs the street, and the sidewalks are choked with people. None of them care. 12

None of them care. 13

After what must have been hours, I realize that I’m standing outside our apartment, and on the door is taped a package of cigarettes and a crappy lighter, with a piece of paper on top that says goodbye.14

Would you be the wind 15
To blow me home? 16
Would be a dream 17
On the wings of a poem? 18
And if we are walking through a crowd, 19
Well you know I'd be proud 20
If you'd call my name out loud*21