Monday, May 17, 2010

The Dying Wildabeast

Beep.

Beep.

I crack open one of my eyes to see that I'm in a hospital. It's now daylight -- my shoulder is killing me. Aunt Nancy stands and walks over to me as I try to open my other eye.

"They've got you doped up on painkillers, lucky thing," she says and then begins to pour me a glass of water.

"Here, drink -- you must be thirsty." She says.

Aunt Nancy fidgets with the remote for the bed; she's trying to figure out how to use it. "Shit," she says and begins to laugh as she pulls the remote away from her so she can read the fine print, "I forgot my glasses...oh wait...no...oh, yep. One second..."

A moment later my bed begins to rise and I'm in an upright position.

I drink my water. I am thirsty. Really thirsty.

"You were lucky," Aunt Nancy tells me as she opens the curtains and lets the daylight pour in, "that amulet of yours is what saved your life. It blocked the bullet and sent it to the right of your heart. Crazy son-of-a--"

"How's the cottage?" I ask and cut her off. I'm more concerned about whether or not the cottage is alright.

"Ah," she says and sits down across from me, "poor Hanky Poo Poo. When we pulled up the fire had gotten in the walls and all you could hear was garbled Neil Diamond melting as the walls burned up. Poor thing. He's devastated. He loved those built in speakers. But I told him that we can always build another cottage; we can't build another niece!" she says and gives me a big smile.

I feel awful. "Is there anything left?" I ask her.

"Oh yeah -- just mostly damage to the first floor. To be honest, after what happened there, I kinda wish the whole thing did just burn down to the ground. I don't want to go back there, knowing there was some crazy man in there that killed himself and tried to kill you. It's nuts!" she says and laughs nervously.

"I'm sorry," I tell her.

"What do you have to be sorry about? It's not your fault Nutso went bazerk. I'm just glad that you're ok -- and that little boy is ok. You should have seen the look on his mother's face when she got him back. Poor thing, must have been a nightmare for her knowing her crazy Ex had taken him. And can you believe he shot himself? I can't believe there are people that crazy in this world. It's nuts. The world is flippin' nuts!" she says and walks over to fill up my water glass for me.

I can't stop drinking.

"Now, I told Hank that I specifically told you not to burn the place down -- but I guess you didn't want to listen!" she says and tries to make me laugh. It's true. The note did say 'don't burn the place down.'

"I'm so sorry!" I tell her again, but she shoos away my apology with her hand.

A moment later there is a knock on the door, and Linda pops her head in. She walks over and gives me a gentle hug before starting to speak. She takes a moment to catch herself. I can see that she's holding back tears.

"I'm so glad you're alright. I didn't feel right letting you walk over there by yourself, so I followed and as soon as I got inside, I saw the little boy -- and then there was a gunshot; and Ralph was there and he said he'd take care of it, and for me to take the boy...and oh! You poor thing!" she says and grabs my hand.

"I'm fine," I tell her. "The amulet turned out to be lucky after all."

Aunt Nancy fills her in on how the amulet re-directed the bullet, and Linda's eyes widen with amazement.

"Unbelievable," she says and just shakes her head in disbelief.

I try to shrug; but I can't. My right upper side is in a lot of pain.

"Owww..." I whine. My shoulder is really hurting.

"They got the bullet out fairly easily," Aunt Nancy tells us. The doctors say you'll be fine -- just sore for a while. Where the hell are they anyhow? Don't they know that you're awake? You're hooked up to enough flippin' wires -- you think they'd have a whole team in here by now. Don't you stress, I'll go find them," she says and stomps out of the room with purpose.

Linda smiles. Aunt Nancy does offer a lot of comic relief.

"Your Aunt didn't want you inundated with lots of people, but there is someone here who wants to say something to you -- if that's alright."

I nod. I have no idea who it is.

Just then Aunt Nancy marches back in with two nurses and a doctor, "Now see -- she's been awake for a whole five minutes," she says as the nurses begin to check me and the doctor approaches the bedside.

"I'll wait outside until your done," says Linda who gives me a waive and walks out.

The doctor checks my heart, and my eyes. I tell him I'm really thirsty and he explains that it's a reaction to the anesthesia; and to just continue to drink water and it will eventually go away. Aunt Nancy asks him about a hundred questions, and I gulp down my water like a good little heroine. The nurses check my blood pressure and make notes on my file, and I try my best to appreciate the moment. To stay real.

I'm alive. And that is all that matters. But part of me died in that fire -- the part of myself I was pouring into the movie. That is now gone forever. Even if I do try and rewrite it, it will never be the same. I could never get back to that same headspace I was in when I originally was writing it.

It's gone...

Tears start to form in my eyes, and Aunt Nancy nods as if to tell me that it's ok for me to cry. It's a lot to try and keep in.

As the doctor and nurses exit the room, I am overcome by a flood of sadness.

And as Aunt Nancy pats my head and tries to comfort me, I wail. I wail for my movie and all the intentions I had poured into it. I don't care about my shoulder or the fact that I almost died. None of that matters.

Right now I'm completely devastated because my words are gone and I don't know if I'll ever be able to get them back.

I let Aunt Nancy think I'm crying about other things, because it really is all the same. Grief. Sadness. Despair. It doesn't matter where it comes from. Pain is pain. Maybe some of it is a release of everything that has happened in the last few months... maybe not.

As I turn into a puddle of snot and tears, I lean into Aunt Nancy's chest and wail louder than I ever have before.

I wail, and wail, and wail.

Then I heave, and wail some more.

Deep animalistic sounds escape from the depths of my gut, and just when I think I will never be able to stop, Aunt Nancy speaks:

"Jesus kid! You sound like a dying wildabeast," she says from a place of shock.

I raise my head and look at her through my blurry eyes. The snot extends from nose and forces Aunt Nancy to hand me a box of Kleenex -- which I snap up and use to clean myself.

As balls of Kleenex start to form a fortress around me, my thoughts drift away from the loss of my movie and back into the present -- and so, between the heaving, I look Aunt Nancy square in the eyes and say the only logical thing I can think of in this moment;

"How the hell would you know what a friggen wildabeast sounds like?"

And a moment later we're laughing. We laugh until I can't breath -- and new tears start to fall from my eyes; but these ones are welcome. They propell me forward, a one-way trajectory away from my grief.

And I realize as I wipe away these new tears, that I am starting to feel much better.