Home for the Aged

Behind the windshield my eyes swim in a sea of blue as my father spins through suburbia. We are going to visit his mother. I watch the white and yellow streaks on the pavement fade in and out – a feeling of lost time creeps up out of nowhere. Where did that come from? There must be something sacred about travelling without moving, moving without a sound. My father and I do not use many words on these journeys. I pretend there is some form of unspoken communication, but it’s not that. We’re thinking of different things. A heavy lulling sensation hangs like fog in the car. I reach out, wave and flap my hands around fanatically, desperately slicing through the cloud of quiet. After I stop, he looks at me, silently amused and confused. In the dream again, I am sinking into the gentle motion of the wheels.
In my half-conscious state we dip into a parking lot. Abandon all hope ye who enter here, for this is the Cummer Lodge Home For The Aged. I see a large wooden cabin, looming over the empty spaces. This log cottage holds together the ancients, waiting for disposal, unwritten depositions, forgetting they are already forgotten ashes. We pass through its majestic arches and electronic entrance (keeps ‘em from runnin’) arriving at a wide red door fitted with a security code. A cavernous room, actually a hallway with bad lighting, extends out into other passages, small and narrow, with individual rooms which contain individual artefacts. We don’t have to go that way. Here there are plush green couches, loveseats, clutched by old bones and leathered skin. Famous prints of paintings on the walls. Pastoral, scenic, soothing. Why don't they let them paint their own walls? Mental graffiti sprawling everywhere, instead of this pacified art. They don’t have a say because they mumble too much.
A few limp about here and there, scattered around like a party slowly sobering near dawn. The TV hangs suspended in the absolute centre; loud, deliberately turned up maybe, blasting crude Fox entertainment that flickers through squinting eyes. As these explicit images are opened and closed, they go tumbling out of glassy eyes and get discarded through open mouths. Removed from the trance, a woman approaches me and touched my shoulder. She looks at me and gave me a wordless singsong hex, chuckling with hanging spittle, merciless. The moments here are epic spiritual confrontations.
It suddenly occurs to me they know no more then we do.
I am happy to see Darryl, a tall gangly black man with a toothless wild smile, someone with enough life to overpower the zonked. He sees my dad making contact with grandma, and he yells, ecstatic, breathless: “Is that yo mama! Hee hee! Oh that is a good one!” He cackles some more and slaps his knee. Full of soul and the holy spirit. He clutches his ribs to muffle his laughter and has to sit down. Someone in white informs us that if he becomes bothersome, he can be restrained.
We see her before she sees us. My grandmother faces our harmless questions, but, refusing or unable to concentrate, instead listens attentively to the gruff man beside her, who speaks an endless stream of his foreign tongue (something Slavic, maybe Ukrainian?). She answers his nonsense in equally nonsensical English and then, searching for a word only to find it in Yiddish, shrugs and offers up a look of “Why not?” and soldiers on, plodding through their exchange in broken Yiddish.
Trying to reach out to his mother, my father reveals something else every time, and this is partly why I join him. I’m sure guilt and fear and love are in there somewhere. He might get upset, turn away, as his hands fall limp to his side. He might dance, hit himself, who knows. There are no expectations. He just wants a reaction, some justification, some reason to take part in this silent reunion. It is sad and beautiful, as I wonder how I will cope with the slow decay of my parents, as I wonder whether my friends will come see me drift away from life and reason and still find ways to make me laugh. Maybe it will be easier, I think to myself, as I watch.
Her eyes are bright and blue.

Sound of Silence

Your little brother and father are watching Charlie Chaplin films. You hear them laughing for what seems like the first time. Mother is lying down reading, fading in and out of consciousness, and you hear the occasional scratch of turning pages. They all go to bed. If you could sleep forever, would you still dream? You wonder. The faint hum of the fridge signals a change. You open the screen door and step outside into the blackness, but you are standing in between two lights. On your right, high in the trees, there are wooden planks illuminated by a green lantern, something you have never seen before. A patio in the sky. On your left there is a light, attracting countless moths. Cloaked in the darkness, dancing circles in the neon glow. The insect nightlife is vibrant, full of quiet excitement surrounded by the still night. There is a gentle wind rushing through the leaves. There always is a breeze, sweeping sadly through the silence. You hear the faraway horn of a train, the never-ending train that passes by every twenty-one minutes or so. This is the only measure of distance; here you step outside of time, immersed in a moment. The melancholy howl of the loon, the wailing in the night, does not make an appearance. With eyes closed, you feel the leaves rustling in a tender sway that makes your bones shiver. You reach under your shirt, and clutch your flesh in that familiar way, making sure you exist. Completely alone in the night, the woods listen and watch your every move. You pull your limbs around the deck, trying not to disturb them. There is no one around you in every direction; only one soul deserted in the wilderness. Of course, the family lives asleep behind you, but they are as far as the moon. Up above, the dark clear air speckled with stars reminds you of something unreal. You open the screen door and step back inside to sleep.