Marvin's Eulogy-final chapter

I've never been good with funerals, mourning, or grief. I don't berate myself for that. But sitting at my desk, trying in vain to process how things are, versus how they might have been, versus how they were, I feel like I've missed something.

And so I turn back to the screen, where I'm dutifully doing my job, staring at line after line of text, trying to give the submissions that we've been sent "meaningful, yet critical feedback" (as the mission statement reads) and I know I'm done here. This isn't the work that I wanted. I went to school. I got a degree. I found a job, at least somewhat related to that degree. I've always said that I could do any job, no matter where, or what, and find happiness in it. I'm beginning to think that this is what grief does to us. And I turn to the last page of Marvin's story, placing the page I've finished reading in the upturned lid of the giant box it came in to the left of my keyboard, and staring down into the now seemingly cavernous box at the final page. It's barely half a page really, and it reads:

Sue stood over his plot, after the other few mourners had gone. She'd told Jennings that she'd meet him at home for supper. Reaching into the recesses of the dark woolen coat that she reserved for funerals, she found it, the small bit of paper, gently folded into quarters, and then quarters again, to reduce its size to virtually nothing. She had no more tears to shed, only resolute desire to let things be...to let things go...

Unfolding it, letting it grow between her wind-burned fingers, she strove to grasp it gently even though the strong winter winds threatened to tear it from her.

She read, quietly, barely aloud,

"You're a bird that's flown away.
You're the spiraling plume a smoke in the distance
You're the unexplained palm and fingers, too high up on the wall.
You're what no one thinks of, when they think of love.
It's not what I miss, but everything I dream."

And she let it go, letting the wind take it away, across the plots, twisting and dipping in the wind around the headstones, and into the countryside.

I had no comments for that page.

Later as I walked home, climbing the steps and finding my way to the living room, I understood, for perhaps the first time, grief, and mourning, and loss, and funerals, and dark woolen coats kept in the back of closets, under plastic, to only be worn for such moments. I don't own a coat like that. I refuse to. Instead I sat down at the piano that I hadn't touched, save to brush the dust off of it, since before I lived alone. It was the family piano--dad had moved out of the old house after I did, and didn't have the space, and so asked that I take it. Grudgingly at the time, as was the way that I did everything then, I engineered it's removal and replacement in my apartment.

And I played a waltz, like the ones that I'd heard grandma play at family gatherings when I was little, and I missed some notes, and then missed them on purpose the second time through, deciding to call it revision instead of mistake. And it went like this...

You're a bird that's flown away.
You're the spiraling plume a smoke in the distance
You're the unexplained palm and fingers, too high up on the wall.
You're what no one thinks of, when they think of love.
It's not what I miss, but everything I dream.

...

WIP...breathing.

Sitting there, listening to my father breathe on the other end of line.

All the references to breathing I've ever heard rustle through my head--Counting Crows, that drug song from Soul Asylum, waybackwhen, Tom Hanks and reminding himself to breathe, which I later ripped off in a song with my high school band. I remember in undergrad, when I took part in a "mindfulness" study. It was about relaxing, and quasi-meditational bullshit, or whatever. I fell asleep. They thought that was pretty good. I had a crush on the girl who was observing and giving me directions. I didn't tell her, and it probably wouldn't impress her to know that I fantasized about her instead of focusing on my breathing. Come on, though, it was a dark room with a recliner in a college study--I've seen porn that started off WAY worse than that.

I'm holding my breath, I realize, and let it out, as slowly as I can, like that "secret" way that you get rid of hiccups. My dad asks, "are you still there?"

"Yeah."

"So you hadn't heard the news yet? His mother just called. She said you'd want to know. I said I was sure someone would have notified his workplace. She said she was--"

"No, dad. No one said anything. No one but me even noticed he wasn't here." It wasn't quite true. I hadn't noticed Michael was gone either. Not because I didn't care, but because our cubicles weren't close, and I'd gotten to work semi-late, as usual. So, I'd stared at Marvin's story for the better part of two hours, when my phone rang, which i knew to be a bad sign. It was dad. He'd used, "Are you okay?" as his opener. It was a bad sign.

"Oh. I'm sorry son."

I breathed. Michael was dead. We held the line for another fifteen seconds. The only reason I know it was that particular length of time is because my computer, still logging my progress through the morning, beeped to tell me it was break time. The time when Michael and I would make, drink, and subsequently hate, the coffee. It's not like we're lovers, but we are...were, are, screw it...nerds. And we disliked most of our co-workers due to their inability to see us as humans.

"Thanks for calling dad. I appreciate it. Really. I gotta go."

"Yep. His mom said she'd love to hear from you."

"Okay."

We hung up. I said, to anyone who was within earshot, "I'm taking out the trash."

...

Taking out the trash, which is one of the few things that ALL of the people in our office understand, happens for two reasons. One, it needs to be done, and because the people in charge of us refuse to pay a cleaning service (waste of funds) we (underpaid copy editors) can do it. ("I mean, you've got college degrees right?") Bastards. It also happens, because someone is pissed off at someone else in the office, and under what appears to be an office-wide understanding, no one else makes any bones about it. (I have no idea what "making bones" might entail, but no one seems to care about that either).

I grabbed the two giant green trashcans, and wheeled them out the back door, taking very little pleasure in heaving them into the local dumpster. I would, actually, have to climb in to get them later. Walking behind the dumpster, I found the "office garden". It consisted of a ten by ten foot area of rocks and what appeared to be grass, and a single bench capable of fitting two normal-sized people. It was a replacement for the bench, which, two years ago, would not fit two normal-sized people. I hate this place.

I remembered the one and only time I'd been here with anyone, in this case, Michael. We had had the following conversation:

him: Dude, I think I'm in love.

me: Really?

him: Yeah, a girl.

me: Wow. That's a fairly new population for you to be considering. (Michael was in fact, not gay, but that didn't stop me from making jokes at his expense.)

him: Shut up. I'm serious. She's, she might be, I think she's, you know, the one.

me: That's pretty impressive. Does she know she's the one?

him: Yeah. We made out.

We then went back to work. It was nice that at least one of us got some that year. Michael and I had been friends for three years, as we had been hired during the same week. We also had in common that everyone else at the office either didn't notice us, didn't like us, or didn't care.

The girl had indeed been the one, I might add. It's not a brilliant story of unrequited love--it's certainly not the Marvin-Sue-Jennings love triangle, but it was love, and I both hated and loved him for it.

I miss him already.

Cleanliness...more from the middle

I hear people say they come unstuck in time, all the time. It's hard to think that sentence, let alone say it. Thank god this is all in my head. I know, it comes from that book. But as I lean, too heavily, perhaps, on the sink, and watch the water escape the faucet, covering my hands, catching the grain of my skin, turning to rivulets instead of rivers, and droplets instead of streams, I think I know what they mean. It's trite, and I'll not say that I have indeed come unstuck. That would be ridiculous.

...

I've come unstuck in time.


Serious. I wish I still smoked. Turning off the faucet and navigating the wreck that is our office restroom to find a suitable towel turns out to be a Herculean task. I opt instead for "drying" my hands in my just-this-side-of-too-long hair. Remember that country song, "I Don't Go Around Mirrors"? Charlie Pride? George Jones? Couldn't be Jones, but Pride...maybe. I couldn't even hum the tune at the moment, so I'm not really sure why it occurs to me that it should sound like Charlie Pride, but it does. I ascribe some sort of sweetness, some cleanliness, to him. So slick, so cool. And no, not because he's black. Because he had that calm delivery. Sam Cooke wasn't like that, right? Nope, even in the Soul Stirrer days, he brought the sex. Pride? I don't see it. Maybe I'm wrong. It's happened before; that one time.

It's the cleanliness that brings me back to Marvin. I've started washing my hands...a lot. It's a little odd, actually. Not like I'm headed for OCD-land or anything, but, it's also not that I'm THAT dirty. Marvin, however, is. And it's clear, if one reads in the way that the folks at my old institution trained us to read, that it means something that he's so dirty. Personally, I think that's bullshit. He's a damn mortician. He embalms dead bodies. And that's only after picking them up at the hospital, carting them back to his workplace, and laying them out on the table. It's a dirty job and I just don't see the meaning in overthinking everything about it.

I, on the other hand, am fairly clean. Unless you count the dirt in between the keyboard keys, and the layer of dust gracing the top of my computer monitor. Or the coffee pot. Gross. But I don't count those. They don't even compare to Marvin's work, even though we're both in an industry where we're paid to make people look good. The more I think about it, the more I think I'd rather be in his soft-soled patent leather oxfords, staring a dead body in the face, rather than dead prose. No one thinks Marvin can resurrect that body. He can only make it presentable. Here, they expect Jesus to rise with every stroke of my pen.

The faucet's dripping, and I'm leaving it that way.

Broken...

We struggled along, and it occurred to me, as it had with each step since we had breached the outer walls of the prison, that I could have left him behind. He was nothing to me, and was barely coherent enough to muster his name, when I had asked if he could walk. "Gram-" was what I had understood. I assumed it to be short for "gramps" or "grandpa", in that he must have been nearing seventy years, if not more.

We struggled along, or should I say, I struggled along for both of us, half-carrying, half-dragging his filthy, ragged robed frame. He was the only still obviously still living thing that I'd run across in my flight from the cell. He had been in the second cell from the outer door, slumped against the bars, and I would have slipped out (quite a lot easier I might add) had he not moaned, and had I not been too damned sentimental to not help.

We struggled along. I made good use of the darkness, and the cool rain and the sweltering heat, which made for a low lying fog. Utterly unconcerned with direction, I wanted distance. That was the only currency that I could deal in at the moment. I managed about three hours, slogging, still barefoot, through the ever-deepening mud of the undergrowth. Broken blade in one hand, the other gripping Gram's waist, I finally let myself sink among the roots of a what appeared to be a tree, slowing attempting to pull itself from the mire it was stuck in. The muddy ground was putting up a good fight, but the tree's roots were still a good four feet out of the ground. We settled in between them, both of us too wet to notice whether we were indeed safe in our newly found root-walled fortress. If I were honest, I would say that technically, my feet were so tired that I couldn't free them from the roots. Honesty, while a valued commodity, no doubt, is not, as I said, what I'm dealing in at the moment.

We struggled on, past consciousness, and into oblivion.

Character...

Just pasting a note, that I should revisit later.

"he was Mexican...from Colorado, I think"

Most of You...

most of you
C am G C am G am
and there was a time, when i was awed just by your steps, and your caress, but now that's history, and it fades like the bleeding heart, embroidered there, upon my sleeve

am C E am F
and I heard you say, "who are you....to tell me what i can and cannot do" and i
C E F G
thought the most of you..the most of you...

and into the day...into the best kept memories that i ever could have saved and in the morning sun, I'd drive just like you always said i never should have done...

am C E am F
and I heard you say, "who are you....to tell me what i can and cannot do" and i
C E F G G7
thought the most of you..the most of you...


F C G am F
and it's always been the mel--Ohhh - deeee that's been so hard to find, but now it's
am F G
been cruuuushhhh--ing me under it's heel, and I'm leaving you all behind...

solo verse
am C E am F
and I heard you say, "who are you....to tell me what i can and cannot do" and i
C E F G
thought the most of you..the most of you...

half verse
Spent alot of time, discussing wrong and right and black and white, and pictures of that night.

Can't Get Back...

Can't Get Back
C F C C G C
Come on moonshine, come on heartbreak keep your eyes on the white line, keep your foot near the break,
C Dm F G Am (2) am G G7
and drive...

C am Gsus4 G(2)
On a Southern road we came, we saw, we were unimpressed.
Although I'm certain you provided what you thought was your best.

F G C...F...G C
And I'm sure that we owe you another chance,
But there's nothing we've lost here, that we can't get back.

Off to the right, I'm sure I remember the blinking lights
All in a row, Telling us in no uncertain terms how high we could carefully go.

And I'm sure that we owe you another chance,
But there's nothing we've lost here, that we can't get back.

So we drive on, push away from the crowds that cling
Dust off, brush away the webs to find the true things, true things

C Dm F G Am (2) am G G7
La da da da's...

View From Below...

view from below
B
Every time I look up there, you look down
Smiling whether through tears or frowns

I've seen you crying, when you think you're fooling
But salt water's never been shower water for me

Laying my head upon your chest, sweaty nights
"Where are we going...?" sleepily swirling kites

And you reply, "We're going nowhere." I'm sure
You think I don't see the many many layers
E D#m7 C#m B
This is my view from below
Your tears fall freely
E D#m7 C#m F#
These days moreso
And I can always see

Trubloff...

Trubloff
E A
and the trouble with you is that sting in my shoulder where your brother punched me, last july.
And maybe you can pardon my bitterness, but he can rot in that jail cell for another night

And the trouble with taking your cowboy home is they always rouse when you take off their boots.
And I'd like to apologize, but it's fair to say you rarely look before you shoot.

And the trouble with all these lullabies that I sing is that they get me so damn tired.
And I'd offer you a tilt-a-whirl time, but I'm afraid the midway's closed tonight.

And the trouble with you is me.
And the trouble with me is you.

A & S... (unfinished)

A & S
A Dm C#m E
I see you standing there
it's dark, the parties over, letting down your hair
and you're still wearing a lazy smile, i bet i could make that last for quite a while
Sure your hips fit my hands, but we're so tired we can barely stand
And this wall is sturdy sure, but afflicted by what only that bed can cure

D A D A D A E
There was a time...there was atime....when you put your hand in mine....

Your mouth says all the things,
that i want to hear, that make my heart sing
But your eyes still apologize, and it's them that anesthetize
Shadows creep across the room, barely lit by a slivered moon
and dreaming now, your eyelids dancel, but nothing I couldn't rouse given half a chance

And there was a time...

Morning comes, blurry eyes and cotton mouth,
I couldn't care less, but i bet you'll send me out.
Covering up, suddenly so shy, you have to know, that I'm not that guy...
A snowglobe reflection on the way out the door
shows a future im wanting more and more
with your hair gone grey, but the sweetest smile
And I wilt against the closing door, and soak up the feeling for a while.

And remember that there was a time...

Houston...

Houston When You Change Your Mind
E
A E Bm A
Where you goin, boy? Where you been this time?
Bm E D E
Just punch that ticket, love, before I change my mind.

It's always Houston, when I find you in my line,
What's down there that's got you tangled up inside?

D A D A
Is it the way they walk? Like they've got nothin' more than time to kill?
D A E E7
Is it the way they talk? That Southern drawl that makes you stay so still?

solo

Be on your way now boy, you got a job to do
Houston's just through that door, a few steps, and you'll be through

Good luck in Houston, I hope she treats you kind
I'll be here anyway, if you change your mind--because I like

The way you walk, like you've got nothin' more than time to kill
They way you talk, that long southern drawl, that makes me sit so still...

REPEAT CHORUS

REPEAT V1
D E D E A
It's always Houston when you change your mind

Broken Blade, Gossamer Gag...

*it's been months since I sat down and wrote. I have a ton of stuff to do, and a ton more in my head that needs to be written. It's easter for 1 more minute of 2008, and several moments today struck me as fodder for fiction--midnight! let's see what comes out*

Looking down, eyes still watering from the after shocks, I barely heard the clang and click of the cell door. I wondered, hopefully not for the last time, when they'd stop asking me the same questions. One of my uncles would have said, "Take stock, know where you are and what you can use to stay alive". For him, I looked around my cell. By all appearances, it was about six feet on each side. Made of mortar and brick on the sides to the left and right, with iron bars, almost six inches apart making up the wall I faced. My chains were bolted to rings in the floor. I couldn't turn to survey the wall, but leaning against it made me think it was rock, although possibly not manmade. It was possible I was underground far enough that it could be bedrock. The floor had been laid with uneven cobblestones. They were uneven, and the upturned edges were both sharp, and covered with refuse--I didn't look close enough to ascertain what sort. Sorry uncle. They hadn't stripped me of my things. Another might think that a misstep on their part. I figured they just didn't care, given the items I was carrying. On my right hip, there was almost half a short sword. At this point, no longer than a hunting knife, the blade was jagged, and since I'd been chained to the floor, was presently digging into a very tender part of my backside. I shifted, trying in vain to find comfort. I still had my lockpicks, strapped to my left forearm, which would have been useful, had the door had a lock to be picked. From what I could see through hazy eyes, the door locked in some sort of intricate tongue and groove mechanism, with a lever in the hallway beyond for release.

My let hand twitched, and I looked down to find a spider, tiny and nervous, making its way across the back of my hand. It left a trail of silken, sticky thread, as it climbed what must have seemed like mountains up my left arm, over the folds of my jerkin. I tried in vain to stay still, not knowing if my movements would frighten or provoke it. It was tiny, yes, but I had a pretty good idea that anything in this place would turn out for the worst. I shrugged my shoulders against my will, as it stepped tentatively off my collar onto my neck. As I'd recently cut my hair short, for obvious reasons, there was nothing in its way. I could feel the webbing tracing across my neck, under my chin, as it spun, back and forth, busily creating a gag of pure silk. As I said, nothing had gone right in this place... yet. That "yet" must have come from my other uncle. He would have grinned, then said, "keep your chin up". And so I would. I looked up, finding the ceiling of my cell covered with spiderwebs. And among the webs, appearing to be rousing just now, spiders. Far larger than the one quickly gagging me. Perhaps this really was a better way to go.

I looked back down, trying in vain to find some way this could work for me. Under my mud and blood splattered jerkin, there was a light blue shirt, tucked into pants of the same color. The twin belts about my waist were currently crumpled under me, with my legs bent backwards, the backs of my thighs pressing against my calves, and my ankles, although safe from the chafing of the chains because of my heavy boots, were fighting off the spiky tingles from lack of blood flow. They really knew how to tie a girl down. Now there was a conundrum. I could probably get free if I made it clear that I was a woman. Of course, that would end in the way that girls in underground prisons usually ended up, and I had none of those desires.

The spider stopped directly under my chin. This would be my only chance, as far as I could see, to either kill it, or be smothered by whatever it was doing. My mother and sister might have had some sort of love for these critters, but as my chin trapped the little beast against my the top of breastbone, crushing it into mush, I was glad I hadn't caught the druid genes. Now, there needed to be a way to get free.

The pins and needles were almost unbearable. At once feeling both utterly numb, and on fire. I flexed them, on purpose, and got both a rush of new tears, filling the cuts in my cheeks with salty rivulets, as well as an unwanted cry of pain. GoDs, this would go poorly if they chose to come back now. Skittering feet above brought with it more unwanted issues. I could only figure that the scent of the little mound of goo under my chin had brought attention from the web-makers above me. I bit hard on my lip, flexing my calves in rapid succession, trying to get the blood moving. Forcing myself up against the chains around my ankles, there seemed to be just enough play to, maybe, slip out of my boots. A spider the size of a dinner plate landed directly between my breasts, peering up at me with what appeared to be a score of eyes. I wrenched both of my legs up hard, feeling the ankles catch, then slip past the boots and out onto the cobblestones. Tears falling against my will, I fought to an almost upright position, shaking the spider to the floor. It skittered to the left, and I kicked weakly in it's direction, clipping it, but more likely scaring it into a retreat. For a while at least. No footsteps from the hall. I tugged weakly at the chains binding me to the wall, and tried to reach my lockpicks with my teeth. No dice. Pulling my arm out of socket seemed an awful price to pay, if I couldn't get out anyway.

My broken blade hung at my side, but it couldn't do anything but shatter further on these chains, although I could actually reach it, if I doubled over just right. The next bastard who tried to torture me would have a much tougher time, that's for sure. Tough talk for a girl chained to a wall, eh? I hadn't been coherent enough to notice if they carried keys. Nor, apparently, had I been clearheaded enough to note that these chains held no locks. Brilliant. Fine, the left hand it would be. It was my off hand, and I could get it healed later, I suppose.

I leaned over, tugging the chain on my left wrist towards the floor until there was no slack left. Taught now, I slipped my left foot over to pin the links to the floor, and slowly, GoDs awful slowly, tugged my hand upward. Easy at first, the manacle stuck around halfway up my palm. Tight, very tight. Blood was trickling out, pooling in my folded palm, lubricating the whole process. I counted, slowly, to three, then jerked hard, my arm coming free, blood spraying an arc into the air in front of me, and biting through my bottom lip in the process. The only sounds I noticed were the chain crumpling atop my foot (a lucky break) and the spiders skittering down to investigate the blood. The newcomers were bigger than the other one. They seemed only interested in the liquid at the moment, instead of the fountain itself.

One limb to go, but I had one very useless hand to show for almost free from bondage. My left hand was still spasming, and I shoved it into the folds of my shirt to keep more blood from pooling at my feet. And then I realized my vision was spinning again. The walls of the cell were pulsating, rippling back and forth. I was well on my way to passing out. The only (vaguely) sensible explanation was the spider's blood or webbing on my neck, and, taking stock of my physical well being (thanks again, uncle) I could feel a serious burn happening under my chin. The corpse of the spider there was sizzling its way through the band of webbing... toxic little bastard. I bent over quickly, not wanting to waste a single bit of him. Shoving the chain links closest to my wrist under my chin, I felt what was left of the arachnid begin to cauterize the metal. This story, even my uncles wouldn't believe, if I ever got the chance to tell them.

As the links fell to the floor, more loudly this time, I heard the gutteral voices of my captors. The spiders too, found other places to be, quickly climbing walls and webs to hide in the labrynth of the ceiling. I knelt, arranging my body and the now useless chains as they had been before. I heard the sizzling of the rods they had been using to burn me, smelled the brimstone, mixed with my old blood. There were two this time. As I slipped my right hand over the familiar pommel of what had once been my best blade, I couldn't believe I'd ever carried anything longer. A good dagger, well, it was more useful than any long sword could have been.

The door unlatched, and swung open. Two sets of heavily booted feet were all I could see from my nearly prone position. One voice, and one I knew well from prior visits, growled, "ready to talk, boy?" He gave no time for answer, as the slim spike of metal moved up towards my face, shining almost white, ready to sear flesh from bone. It wavered, just for a moment, as his partner moved to grab my face. We had been here before, in these very positions, several times now. My scars were caked with old blood, and laced with new. This would be their last session, I hoped.

I twitched my head towards the bending figure, away from the poker. He grabbed my face, as he'd done before, and, between us, I reversed my hold on the sword-cum-dagger, and drove it up into his belly, aiming for lung and heart if I could reach it. He wheezed, looking towards his partner for help. I pulled back, feeling a rib break as I tugged the blade out, and hoping it pierced the other lung. Blood poured out on to my hand as I reversed the blade again, knocking the poker aside, and slicing across my would-be torturer's chest, cutting open the leather and animal skin mixture he was wearing, and drawing a decidedly not deep enough line of blood. He fell back, swinging the poker wildly, and retreating for the door. the flat of the poker caught my side, mostly below the heat line, but in my condition, any pain was too much. I cringed, trying to steady myself, and loosed my blade in a last ditch attempt to take him down. Falling atop his wheezing comrade, my vision swirled away, hearing what I thought was the door...

I awakened in the same position, except with a dead man under me. Easing up to a seated position, I saw my the hilt of my blade, extending from the back of the other body's neck. The door had swung shut, but his body blocked it from latching. I crawled into the hallway, shoving his body into the dark cell, figuring that the spiders would do the rest. Wiping the blade off on his collar, I tore the webbing from my throat and mouth, and slipped into the shadows. Nothing but my boots and blood lay in the cell behind me.