“Home,” I thought. I stopped. “I wonder: ‘if I’m going to be safe.’ I wonder: ‘if I can make it up these stairs.’ I wonder: ‘if I can stand upright anymore.’ I wonder: ‘if I’m able to do this.’ I wonder: ‘how I’m going to do this.’ I wonder: if you’re ever coming home. I wonder: ‘if I’m ever going to be able to come home.’”
I eject backwards to present-dusk at the snapping of a branch only 3 meters away. Feeling as if a car crashed into my chest…stabbing my lungs with shards in shredded, labored breaths, upon the inhale—without mercy—is never satisfied. Upon the exhale, however,...it is always punished.
“Which one,” I thought in and among the ragged pains ripping through each searing organ. “Was worse,” I concluded.
“Okay!” I let Lily loose to lengthen the distance between our tail, literally dragging their foot, and her. I can manage just fine on my own for the moment.
“Okay.” I sigh, turning to face him. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
I remove the driftwood crook from my pack, ever so gently. Carefully moving so as not to disturb the creature. Minding the zipper’s edge in a steady, but troubled motion. Keeping the distance between us at a not-so-long-enough-4-foot length. Still, I remember to still my breathing. Relax into my bones, though they scream in all possible sensory directions. In turn, numbs my mind. Muscles icing over like a bridge buried beneath endless salt and snow. Eyes watering in ash and sand. Glass-like grit in each crevice, joint, and bolster in the brutal remainders of remaining grace. Left up to whatever entity still guards this place, if any.
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“Just…there.” Pirouetting around the barely defined mess, sidestepping the groggy forward, back, and to a singular right-side. Crook gently placed, pushing the air 3-inches-thick, before the gelatinous neck of his failing form. At all times memorizing the routine in his choreography. Always the same, and yet, stage fright at the unwilling waltz. Shuddering at the damp atmosphere surrounding who I used to know as the neighbor.
“What’s up, Brandon. You feelin’ alright?”
As we near the next sequence in our duet, I take the last turn to pummel forward the 2-inches-wide barrier from wood to skin. Pulsing forward in an upturned momentum. Brandon’s chin floats towards the sky in a flash. Momentarily, softly stunning him giving a staggered start to the imminent phrase. A skip. And…1.
Time to go. Now to climb.*
*in admirable acknowledgement of the one, Shirley Jackson ad nauseam.