elizabethlevett

The most important things that happen to us, happen very slowly at first, and then suddenly. Birth is like that, so is love, so is death, so is illumination.  Time presides over everything in its purple robe of stars like a broad, beaming lord — perfect in its wisdom, never to be argued away. A whirling, soupy mix of darkness and light, clarity and confusion, redemption and despair dance together. It seems we are cast into all of this like dice; still we are connected to each other by threads of love and possibility. Fate appears in the dictionary very close to fathead. Sacrament is close to saint. Whether we are moving or sitting still, we’re always searching for the center.  Sometimes it’s very close, and we’d find it even in the dark. We just need help with the keys.  

    *  *  *

They moved slowly, and then in sudden jerks through the line in the hospital cafeteria. They passed jaundiced meats and forgotten noodles in un-namable sauces. Soft, pale broccoli lay wasting like tiny pietas in little ceramic dishes. It was the scariest place in the world. Even the Jello quivered from terror and mourning.

Upstairs, on the 6th floor, he lay between bleached sheets, in great pain, immeasurably sad, lost in a haze of sleep and random memento. For them it seemed that he’d become so much smaller. Hopeless and frightened, they moved along the shiny glass counter with all the other people in the line, slowly, and then in sudden jerks.

It was like that with his illness. Slow months of sadness and surrender went by as the disease creeped into every part of their lives. Fear waited in the wings like an unfavored relative at every gathering. She would lie down next to him to keep him warm or sit and quietly talk about past things, as fear skulked around them. At last there was a night when he lay in the arms of his wife, his sweetheart, giving out like a storm at sea. When it was over she called each one of them on the phone and told them everything, her sobs coming on in waves.

*  *  *

The night was very dark when they sat silently together in the van.  Something was moving slowly along the train tracks in the dark and they’d have to wait before they could cross. It must have been the old ballast tamper. It was one of those things we never think about, how they keep the track smooth so the train won’t startle along, heaving its bulk over bumps on the track. It moved in a line that would eventually cross right in front of them and then move on, and then they’d be able to go. They felt like witnesses to something huge and special and secret. As it moved, grinding slowly, it sent up a sudden corona of sparks into the night. Even more impressive was the sound of iron on iron–the impossible crying out of minerals in contest; irresistible force against inanimate object.  It was like the sound made by a great prehistoric animal giving birth.

She loved it. She loved him. She loved the incredible things that always seemed to happen only when they were together. 

“What did you say?” he asked her suddenly.

“I didn’t say anything.”

 “I thought you said something.  I heard you.”

 “Well, no, I was just thinking.”

  “You said everything’s going to be fine.”

  “That’s just what I was thinking.”

Suddenly the thing was gone and the night was quiet again. The van started slowly and then bumped along in sudden jerks. Soon they were in the dark again, lying in just the space it takes for two people who have to be right up against each other to sleep. Then love came over them as it always did, slowly at first and then all at once.  Everything was going to be fine.