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There are times when a hard-won
satisfaction prevails
When work, or books, or films, or games
Bring a measure of contentment, or at
least distraction
And then there are times when it strike
you
Like a shaft of moonlight tearing
through the clouds--
A flawless figure innocently walking
A momentary glimpse of beautiful eyes
in crowd
Or even a couple smiling and holding
hands--
And in a shock of longing the
contentment disappears
And you are so alone you could hold
yourself and weep for the pain.
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| One was offered for the sins of
many--
Christ died that we might
"Wash ourselves in the
precious cleaning blood of the Lamb."
And the Word became
cliché
As cherished as the memory of Grandma's
fried chicken,
As satisfying as Sunday lunch at
Cracker Barrel
(Gift shop and all),
“The old gospel story”--namely,
That immortal God assumed mortality
For the redemption of mankind--
Given the same inflection as “country
fried steak”:
Immediate, satisfied, and nothing
beyond
A full belly and the Sinner's Prayer.
Christ is risen, we with Him
Take a Sunday nap and leave your life
of sin.
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In a part of me i had desired to
Scale the cold heights of beauty
wrapped in strength as a glacier draped
across a mountainside
in careless, jumbled majesty of
arrested white rapids crashing over inner crystal blue
and stand upon jagged summits of truth
as a conqueror
feeling in the alpine winds a personal
challenge or acclamation
fancying myself the creator
of that which at my highest i had only
just begun to discover
let alone reveal.
Failing conquest, I had desired love--
Not the attendant frippery which I
still despise, but
the warmth of an embrace in which two
bodies join
and become a world from which the real
world drops away
as ragged scales from eyes that truly
behold another
by love granted the barest glimpse of
the beauty of a soul redeemed.
But redemption is a dusty road, and
between every fleeting vision
Of what could be, there interpose
A thousand disconnections and turnings
away
Until one begins to doubt that the
visions were ever real.
I saw the dew on a black rose
And clouds that hung from the moon like
a wedding veil
I saw eternity through human eyes
But it has not been seen through mine.
| | |
| "No,
no, nothing like that.”
“But have you read The Lord of
the Rings?” asked Dr. Scott.
“Well who hasn’t?” replied the
black-haired patient on his couch, rhetorically.
“But did you read it before or after
you came up with this idea?”
“It’s the end of the world we’re
talking about Doctor, and the best you can do is to call it ‘this
idea’? If that’s the case then the end is even more overdue than
I had suspected. And don’t talk about me ‘coming up with it’
as if I was some high school student singing his girlfriend a song
that he wrote all by himself. I didn’t ‘come up with’
anything. The Fates have spoken. I have heard and obey.”
“Do you believe in Fate, then?”
asked Scott, hoping that this would prove another angle he might use
to understand this patient. The man—he couldn’t have been more
than twenty-four, but he was certainly no boy—suffered from one of
the more complex delusions that he had so far encountered, and in
this their second session he was only beginning to plumb the depths.
“Only those pretentious enough to
claim credit for something that was beyond their power do not.”
“That’s not always true. Look at
me—I chose this path, and through hard work and dedication I became
what I am today.” Scott was aware of the slip even as he said
it—the rules were to keep the conversation on the patient and away
from the therapist—but he had made more slips in his two interviews
with this patient than in the last two months combined.
“Are you under the impression that
that opinion in some way contradicts mine, Doctor?” asked the
patient, and though Dr. Scott couldn’t see his face he could hear
the bitterly ironic smile in his voice.
“Now just a minute—I could have
been anything that I wanted, but I chose this profession, I stuck to
it, and I am what I am because of the choices that I made.”
“Really?” asked the patient,
twisting himself around on the couch so that his dark burning eyes
locked onto Scott’s. “Did you choose to be born here? Did you
chose to be white, male, intelligent, to have the benefits of
mandatory if decaying public education? Did you suppose that your
profession, or the institutions whose degrees you plaster on your
walls, exist for your sole benefit? Or, to move to the present
moment, can you chose to become President, or a Senator, or a
Hispanic? Or could you chose to become a garbageman? I think not.
But here’s the real test, Doctor—can you choose not to
die? For all their vainglorious prattling about choice, everyone
dies. Fate always wins, Doctor—the only happiness is what Fate
brings, the only contentment is acceptance, the only end is Death.”
“Then why do you talk about decay
with such contempt?” asked Scott. “If everything is fated, how
can you blame people? You said that the world was all messed up and
that it had to be destroyed, but if everything is fated then where’s
the justice in destroying people for what they couldn’t help?”
“Who said anything about justice?”
the patient snorted with contempt. “The phoenix must die to be
reborn—is that ‘just’ Doctor? The thread of the tapestry
reaches its end, the fruit rots that the seed might be scattered, the
mother dies and her daughter finds a mate. The world is a circle—a
ring, if you will—and the time has come for the circle to close.”
When he mentioned the ring, he held up his right hand and spread his
fingers to better display the ring that he wore on his middle finger.
It was pretty, Scot thought to himself, if a bit gaudy: the band was
crafted in the likeness of a serpent with emerald eyes and onyx
nostrils above a mouth that devoured its tale—the crest was formed
of its head in the center of three loops of its body which served as
the setting for three gems—an exceptionally large ruby in the
right, a perfect blue sapphire with a flawless white star in the
left, and nothing but the empty fitting in the forward one. Scott
idly wondered where the patient had picked it up, and if it were
real.
“That’s a nice ring,” he said,
though he himself would never have worn anything like it. “Is it
the Ring that you keep talking about?”
“Yes,” said the patient, and his
voice was far away. “The Ring. Three stones, three ages now
complete. The giant, the gods, and man, and what will follow man I
wonder?”
His voice trailed off and Scott asked,
“Where did you get it?”
The patient twisted around again and
said, “Even if you thought I was stark raving mad, you might have
known that something that looks like this cannot be ‘gotten’ any
more except made of plastic in some revolting ‘fantasy’ magazine.
No, there was a time even in our age when man made things of beauty,
but that time is long past. If a thing of beauty or power is needed,
it must be made.”
“You made it yourself?” This
elicited no response but a change in expression from wistfulness to
condescension. “If you really made it, you should consider working
for one of those fantasy places—you could make excellent money
there.”
“So blind,” said the patient,
turning back around.
“Don’t tell me that I’m
blind!” Scott snapped. “You’re the one who thinks that that
ring is going to bring about the end of the world.” The patient
was silent so he continued. “If you’re the man who’s going to
bring about Armageddon—”
“Ragnarok,” the patient corrected.
“Ragnarok, then,” said Scott,
frustrated, “If you’re the one who’s going to bring about
Ragnarok, then what are you doing in a mental institution? Was it
your ‘fate’ to come here? Was it ‘meant to be’?” He knew
that he was breaking rules by taunting: though he was supposed to
help patients confront their delusions, he should have proceeded far
more gently, and he knew it, and it frustrated him all the more.
“I’m here because the spell that
bound the sapphire to the ring very nearly undid me. The ruby was
for the blood of the gods, of course—the age before our own, and
therefore not so foreign. But the ice of the primeval world before
Wotan slew the great giant and took command, ah, such … power,
such strange and twisting will, such purposes long forgotten, such
seething, inscrutable … well, man can comprehend the gods, or at
least try, even as we control fire, but that which comes before the
gods … the ice proved more deadly than the flame. I was insensate
for a long time—I awoke here with no memory of arrival, though I
had accomplished the deed as you can see.”
“But if the ring is so powerful,
then why do you stay?” asked Scott, pressing and condescending.
“Why shouldn’t I stay?” asked
the patient. “It serves my purposes to be here. I have recovered
my strength, or nearly so, and the ring now has such power that I no
longer need to be attuned to a vortice to find the final gem. Food
and shelter are provided, and the only distractions from my search
are these chats wherein I can give in to the temptation to a
villain’s exposition to my heart’s content and never be taken
seriously, let alone have any attempt made to stop me.”
“I think you might be twisting
reality to match up to your expectations,” said Scott.
“My point exactly, my dear Doctor!”
exclaimed the patient. “My point exactly!
“I think,” Scott said, gently but
firmly, “That the real reason you don’t leave is because you
can’t.”
“What you think has nothing to do
with it, Doctor. I will leave when it is no longer convenient for me
to be here—when I have found the final gem, and set out to retrieve
it.”
“All right then,” said Scott.
“I’ll tell you what. If you give me a demonstration of your
power, I will be convinced. I’ll become a believer. Just show me
what you can do, and I’ll even help you on your little project.”
“As if I needed your help! Such
condescension could only come from someone vain enough to believe in
his own free will,” the patient snorted. “As for a
demonstration, it’s not my task to show you anything—nor, I
think, is it your Fate to see even if I were to do so. You are but a
small creature in this Twilight of Man; night is falling, you are
blind, and will see the darkness only at the end. Still,” he
continued after a slight pause, cutting off Scott’s next comment,
“still, to show myself again what I have known for so long, one
more proof, one more link in the chain, one more step along the
circle—my soul is empty, for I see, and none share my sight. It
was thus that the Fates prepared me for the task ahead, for fire and
ice and … and for that final power that shall unite with them in
the completion of the circle and bring this Age to its end. I do not
take this path because I chose it—if there was a choice a thousand
times I would have chosen another, in every step down this road there
was a longing like a rope of thorns around my breast but there was no
turning back, and now that I have arrived I would not, choice
or no, for in the end I embraced the black destiny—I am the death
that was decreed for this Age before it came to be, the night that
will claim these twilit fools as a reaper with his scythe!”
He
stood as he was speaking and began pacing the room in the ferocious
energy of his outburst, and grew he tall and fell, a grim, gaunt
figure of unfathomable power and malice. The light in the room faded
until only he could be seen, illumined with a dull red glare, his
hair flowing behind him in an unearthly wind, his eyes ablaze with a
reflection of sulfurous fire, the Ring itself pulsing with a cold
hate and a hot rage. Scott watched in horror, not daring to move
until the patient noticed him again. The dread figure extended the
hand which wore the ring, pointing at Scott as if he were the Angel
of Death come to take his soul. “Kneel,” he commanded, and Scott
obeyed, compelled by a will a thousand thousand times his match, even
if all thought of resistance had not been banished in his terror.
“Remember this before you die, that once you saw the truth, and
turned away.”
The
darkness faded, and Scott found himself back in his seat, and his
patient on the couch saying, “Even so, I lack the power … but a
while yet and it shall be mine. The third gem, and then … the
world ends.”
Scott
sat silently for a moment, then said, “Well, I … I think we’re
done for today. A pleasant session, certainly. Ah … I’ll …
I’ll just have the guards escort you back to your room.”
“As
you wish, Doctor.” | | |
| When I first met Viktoria, we had taken one of our week-long mission teams to the home where she was a new arrival—she was a sad girl, but very beautiful, and she cheered up for the party hats, sladkishi, and, best of all, gosti. She had a heart-breaking story, and you realized at once why she was so sad: she and her brother had been taken away from her mother by the state for long abuse that culminated in the prostitute mother hitting her child on the head with a length of pipe. I felt sorry for her, of course, but Vlado and Stefka, two of our translators, seemed to have taken a real liking to her and she to them—in fact, that day Vlado took the only pictures that I've ever seen of her smiling—and with two translators already making friends and twenty more of The Cutest Kids in the World® jumping on me to get hugs, attention, candy, cookies, pictures and anything else I had to offer, I didn't have much chance to get to know her on that visit.
It was the next time around that we really made friends—we had brought a somewhat smaller team of doctors and nurses who were doing physical check-ups and administering the flu vaccines that we had purchased for the home. Between the Americans, our other translator, my dad, and the English-speaking Bulgarian medical personnel, they seemed to have things under control in the sleeping-area that they were using for this purpose, so I wandered out into the playroom to see the kids.
I got mobbed, of course. That's what I love about working with young kids: they're never afraid to show, demand, and respond to affection. Especially these kids. If you ever want to feel good about yourself, go make a kid happy. There are a lot of moments of boring, thankless work, and then there are moments when the sheer joy almost makes you wonder if you're just doing it for yourself after all. “Gosti!†one little blue-eyed five-year-old addressed me, as if “Guests†were my first name, “Will you come back tomorrow?†The eternal question, along with “When are you coming back to see me?â€--and they don't just ask it as you're leaving, either. As soon as you walk in the door--â€Will you come back tomorrow?â€
As I said, I got mobbed by fifteen toddlers--â€Pick me up!†“Tickle me!†“I saw a squirrel!â€--and I loved it. But Viki didn't join in. She stayed sitting on her banged-up toddler-sized chair, saying nothing, staring at the floor. She looked up at me once as I came in, and in that split second before she looked back down I saw more sadness than I had ever felt in my twenty-three years looking out at me from those deep, round eyes. I don't believe in moments or forever, but her look in that moment will haunt me forever.
I gingerly walked over to her chair, doing my best to avoid stepping on the dozen or so preschoolers grabbing onto my legs or holding out their arms and bouncing so that I would pick them up, and plopped down next to her cross-legged. She looked at me blankly as I did so, and I put a hand on her back and said, “Hey, Viki! Remember me?†Nothing. No smile, no joy, no response—she didn't even blink. Two more questions--â€Are you starting first grade soon?†“Do you have many friends here?â€, and to second she simply said, “No.†The one I wanted most to reach was the only one in the whole room who wasn't gleefully chirping at me. She didn't feel like talking, and, deep down, I understood. The is no sadder time than when surrounded by joy. “It's all right,†I told her, though I knew that nothing in my power could ever make it “all right†for her.
I turned back to the other kids, who were swarming all over me, but I kept my right arm around her in the only gesture of love I could think of. By this point there were around five on my lap—sometimes as many as six, sometimes as few as three, depending on how successful they had been in pushing each other off—and at least two neck-locking me from behind, though it could have been four. All the bright little faces, so desperate for a touch, and such eyes and smiles they had ... I tried my best to look at them all, to touch each one and meet their eyes and smile. I have my favorites, of course, but I really do love them all.
We had been sitting like this for a few minutes—me doing my best to pay attention to all of them, and they in turn giving me adorably breathless accounts of their doings, play times, and animal sightings while alternately holding on to me and fighting the others off their place—when Viki actually got up off her chair and sat down on my knee, which at the time was the only free spot. She didn't say anything, just looked at me with her same sad eyes, but now there was not only sadness but longing and hope, and in my surprise I felt a thrill of hope as well. I scooted some of the others around—who kept chattering and giggling as I tickled them in the process—and pulled her up next to me, holding her close as she silently clung to me.
When it was her turn to go in and see the doctors I went with her and hovered over the proceedings. She cried when she got her flu shot and I rubbed her back and told her it was okay. She kept crying, but held on to me tightly when I picked her up to carry her back out with the others. She was one of the last ones to go in, and after we got done with all the kids and the medical team—Americans and Bulgarians—started talking with the staff of the home about the things that teams always talk with the workers about--â€how many children?†“how old are they?†“why are they here?†By that point the translation was fairly one dimensional and we had brought enough volunteer teams to this home that I could fill in both sides of the conversation from memory, so I went back to see the kids, who were playing outside. I got swarmed again, but this time Viki was with the others. I picked her up, walked over to a bench and sat down, tucking her next to me to leave enough space on my lap for three or four more, depending on how the territorial struggles were going. There really is nothing in the world that can compare to ten or fifteen of the cutest preschoolers imaginable mobbing you for love and attention—the combination of your own exquisite joy reflected in their shining eyes and the knife-blade realization that you are incapable of giving even one of them half the love and joy that they deserve is indescribable.
Viki occasionally chirped at me to offer the story of someone's falling down or being punished, or in occasional answer to a question, but she mostly just leaned against me and held on—that, and fought the others off her spot. For all her sweetness, she can swat with the best of them—I actually had to tell her not to hit, that I had no intention of letting anyone take her place. After that she calmed down, and seemed content to simply lean against me, looking out at the others from the depths of her sad blue eyes, thinking I knew not what. Did she see in me a surrogate for the mother who had hit her, but for whom she still cried? Was I the father she had never known, or just a “batkoâ€, a big brother, or simply a friendly stranger in whom she sensed understanding for her forsakenness, a gentle touch in a harsh world that for her held only sadness and fear? I couldn't say—I still can't say—but if in those moments that I held her and she held on to me she found a comfort for the pain that no one, least of all a child, should have to bear, then my life will have been worthwhile.
I had to go back inside for a while before we left, but when we finally headed out to the vans, Viki came tearing across the playground to hug me goodbye. “When will you come back?†“As soon as I can,†I promised her. When I finally let go and started walking to the van I heard my Dad telling the team members Viki's story behind my back—I pretended not to hear, and when we finally got home at the end of the week, my mom said, “It's good that you made friends with Viki. She doesn't open up to many people ...†then trailed off, looking for more. “Yeah ...†I said, trailing off my voice as well. “She's cute, though.†“Yes, she is,†mom agreed, perhaps—or did I imagine it?--disappointedly.
We actually made it back to the home in about two weeks—which is not a long time, considering it's a two-hour drive away. Before we went in, I got sent back to the car to get something—one of the endless stream of documents necessary for charitable giving—and so I missed the first few minutes as the kids jumped on the “gosti†who had come to see them. They told me later that when everyone first came in, Viki had looked around anxiously for me, then when I wasn't there had sat back down in her chair on the verge of tears. That was how she was sitting when I first came in—another translator, one of the ones from the first time, was with her, trying to no avail to get her to cheer up or at least look up. “Viki,†I said with an questioning joy, almost misting up myself.
When she saw me she jumped up out of her chair and dashed across the room towards me, then jumped into my arms—I'm over six feet, but I didn't lift her so much as just catch her. And she held on. Legs, arms, and head, she held me tighter and longer than I ever thought a child her age could grip. It was ten full minutes before she lifted her head off my shoulder, and that only briefly. For the entire time we were there, she simply did not let go. “How did you get her to trust you?†asked Stefka, shaking her head in disbelief.
I told her the story—that we had been there a couple weeks before, and that I sat for a while with my arm around her after which she had crawled up onto my lap—but even as I related it, it seemed incomplete. I hugged her for a few minutes and now she loves me? Others had done that, even made her smile and laugh where I hadn't. Maybe I really do have a gift like they tell me, maybe it was that when she saw in me the same loneliness and sadness that I saw in her, maybe it was that she simply decided to trust, or that at that moment the isolation had been too much and she had just latched on to the only one present. Maybe I had won her by NOT trying to make her smile—there is after all no worse time to be truly sad than when surrounded by cheerful people, and perhaps she saw in the simple gesture of an arm around her understanding and love without demanding that she be happy when she was not. Maybe it was all those things, or something else. I don't claim to know. All I had known was that I loved her, and that I wanted, more than anything, to show her that love.
And now she loves me, too, as so rarely happens in this world. In every all-too-rare visit we find each other, and she just holds on. She doesn't smile, she doesn't talk, she doesn't even look up—she just holds on. Whenever I come the staff tell me, “Oh, Viki will be so happy!†I am certainly happy, but I wonder if 'happy' is the right word for what she feels after all ... perhaps “solace†would be more accurate than “joy.†I could tell more stories, of course—about the time that I came in the afternoon after her mother had come in the morning and only been allowed to see her through the window, and how she did nothing but sit on the verge of tears for the entire visit; I could tell you about the time the other little kids saw me and the first thing they said was “Why don't you go see Viki?â€--but the real story has already been told: in a home in a dying village in northern Bulgaria, there is a child who loves me, and that I love, and who, on our every meeting and parting, asks the same question like a clenching in my heart: “Will you come back tomorrow?†| | |
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