And it was orange juice that Leslie found splattered on the kitchen floor, next to the figure of her fallen, unconscious father, when she came to water the fern. She scrambled to his side, calling him from the tides in which he drifted. ABC, she thought. She checked his airway, first, as he had taught her, to be certain he had not choked. He was breathing, still. Then she felt his pulse…weak, she thought; perhaps it was just poor circulation. She fumbled the phone in her lap when she first tried to call emergency services—then she tried to calm herself, timed her breaths for five second intervals. With steadier fingers she dialed.
It was also orange juice that was left on the tile when the EMT’s and ambulance crew had loaded her and her father and sped off to the hospital. It was orange juice in customers’ glasses which reflected the flashing blues and reds of the ambulance through the restaurants’ interiors as the vehicle rushed through the streets. Orange juice cramped in a cardboard box was sucked through a bendable plastic straw by a boy with a splinted arm in the emergency room. And orange juice was the first thing the nurse with the gorgeous blue eyes could offer her while she waited for the doctor’s preliminary report.
And midway through her cup of orange juice, she tried to remember what she had to do—short of waiting; nothing came to mind. Her stomach had twisted inside with the thought of losing her father—it had been difficult enough watching her mother die. She had fought, to the end of her strength, Leslie remembered her father saying of her mother. Would he? Surely, he would, if only for her. But death seemed a serpent coiled before her—if she had a spade she would lunge at it, hack its head off in a frightened vengeance. But nature had not equipped her with any such tool. Here she stood, watching, waiting, worrying. The w’s ate at her. Especially the w questions. Why her father? When would she know? Who could she turn to if…? What had happened? Where could she go if…? Would he be okay?
She sipped at her orange juice and picked up a cooking magazine. The arrangement of a Christmas ham reminded her of Uncle Stetson. She had completely forgotten to call him—how terrible. His own brother, hospitalized without his notification. She chastised herself, perhaps more harshly than another could have, and asked the nurse with the eyes of the ocean if she could use a phone. The nurse’s eyes smiled the answer before it came to her lips. “Why of course, honey. Right this way.”
Stet’s number, she contemplated, eyeing an irritating picture of sunflowers. When mom first found out, I was 12, dad was 37—the last part of his number. Area code’s same. Brighton is, what is Brighton a 205 or 520,250, 502. She decided to ask the nurse. “Excuse me,” she waved a finger. “
“520” came the reply. Ah! I knew it, she celebrated and dialed. The phone rang five times. On the sixth, an answer: “Hola.” It was her uncle’s gravely voice. Cheery for 11:00 in the morning, she thought.
“Uncle Stet, it’s Les,” she said in a quivering voice that didn’t seem her own, “Dad’s in the hospital, in the emergency room.”
“Ho! Is he okay? What happened?”
“I don’t know; I’m waiting for the doctor,” she said straining not to sob. I’m stronger than this, she thought, breathe deep, calm down.
“Hey, hey. Don’t worry—I’ll be right there. You at Mercy Medical?” he asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Alright, Les. You hang in there, I’m coming.” He sounded distant, like he had the phone pressed to his shoulder with his ear. “No, my brother’s in the hospital! Yeah, come back next week. We’ll finish the painting then. Okay.” Then more clearly he addressed Leslie again. “I’ll be over in fifteen. You’ll be okay ‘till then?”
“Yeah,” she replied, nodding for some unknown reason, but unsure what he would have done had she answered negatively.
“Alright. See you in a few.”
She hung up, walked to the couch and collapsed into it. The gray leather was soft, cool. She took a feeble breath. Just explaining the situation to Stetson had taxed the limits of her emotional composure. There she sat, eyes fixed on that same giant unnerving painting of sunflowers. Its imbalanced hues of gold and orange, splattered about a sea of green faded in her field of vision; her eyes were fixed on some infinite point within the black-speckled center of a single flower. She stared, to relieve her consciousness of any thought. Her other senses betrayed her—she existed, but fluidly.
Twinges of necessity bypassed her—she felt nothing. Trancelike, she sat, amazed at the disappearance of the painting as her vision blurred. Sensual input seemed to cease altogether. Soon, she could quit breathing and be free—godlike. She didn’t even dare to think; her mind was quiet, somewhere beyond the yellow-green smear on the white in front of her. It moved, a serpentine head, yellow, tilted, opened black eyes. She stared, without blinking, into those infinite black eyes shining from the yellow head; she let herself slip further behind her eyes. They held the flower-snake’s gaze, testing, waiting.
Then something fell between them, a curtain. No, hair. Her hair. A breath of fresh air touched her cheek. Something rode the wind. Sounds. Ssssssss. Like the serpent. She focused her gaze on the yellow-green. Sunflowers, again. Disproportionate, like before. Before what? “Leslie!” and footsteps she heard. Her name. She shivered, eyeing the picture. Warm hands on her shoulders—she exhaled, blinked, regained mortality. She breathed again. Refreshing, like waking from an afternoon nap in the sun. Like a lazy, yawning, stretching cat. She smiled. “Are you okay?”
She glanced up and to her right. There was her bearded uncle, anguish clouding his bright eyes. She shook off her lethargy, bade him to sit down, and reminded herself where she was. Orange juice on the end table—on the tile in the kitchen, next to father. The ambulance ride, yes. The nurse, the phone call, the painting. Yes, now she could face her uncle.
“What happened? Tell me everything? You sure you’re okay?” His questions barraged her shore of consciousness while he moved around the couch to sit next to her.
“I’m alright,” she said with amazing clarity. She paused to collect her facts and glanced somewhere beyond his sympathetic gaze. “He had a headache this morning, when I woke him. He slept past his lecture, too. I heard him come downstairs and microwave his oatmeal. He said something about it, I think. When I remembered I needed to water the fern, I heard a crash and found him unconscious on the floor. The EMT’s said it was a head injury or something after that manner. But the doctor’s haven’t said anything, yet. I’ve just been waiting, here. Waiting, worrying, wondering. I mean, what if…” she stumbled on the phrase. “What if, like mom, he…” she left the inevitable unvoiced, as if they were unsaid, that possibility wouldn’t exist.
Stetson wrapped his arm around her and brushed her hair behind her ear, away from the tears emerging on her cheeks. “Now, now; you’re father will pull through. He must—he knows you love him too much. I’m sure God has a reason for this tragedy.”
“Don’t bring religion into it Uncle Stet,” she stammered.
“But it’s absolutely essential to acknowledge the spiritual powers at work here. It’s too much engrained in human nature; times like this test our ties, our faith in Him.”
“But why? Why after mom? If there was a God, why?”
“Death must find us all some time. How we react to death is what matters; how we shape our lives in its face,” he explained.
“You act as if he’s already gone, but he’s not. And while he’s still alive I want to think of him that way! Okay?” she pleaded.
“Do you want to pray with me?” he asked plainly.
“No, Uncle Stet, I don’t…”
“You are de-centered, Les. Let God help you regain that balance. In the days of Ancient Israel, the outer walls of the tabernacle were tied on both sides,” he began. She did not feel like hearing another of his lectures, but she was too exasperated to stop him. “Lines staked to the ground on the inside and outside to keep it taught, to keep it from falling to one side or the other. One tied to holy ground, the other to earthly ground. This is how we must be, centered. If we lose either of our ties, we will be de-centered and ineffective in our attempts at love, mercy, justice, etc. We must be tied to the holiness of God, else we lose ourselves in the darkness of this world. But we must not neglect our ties with our physical life within the world, else we fall into delusion and illusion of spiritual or emotional highs. You must take care to keep ties with the spiritual realm, Les, remember that, okay?” he encouraged.
She had her eyes shut, and kept them that way. She could not stand to look at him—the last thing she wanted was religious advice. It was not a part of her life, he knew that. Religion was for the elderly: talkative, wrinkled widows and pale-faced, quiet bachelors who could no longer evade the stark eventuality of death. If they found comfort in confronting their ends in religious appeal, good for them. But she knew science had easily overcome the function of religion—in explaining the mysteries of this world. And government had assumed the function of the church. Social programs fed the homeless, aided the elderly, provided for the widows, and public schools trained up the children in the way they should go. Why did people cling to religion so? She found no benefit in it at all—unless, it’s as the old proverb claimed: ignorance is bliss.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a flash of glass doors opening and a man in a powder-blue uniform striding purposefully towards them. She straightened, her ears perked, anticipating news. He looked at her with a hawk’s disaffection—a professional distancing himself from the response. Her heart was wreathed with a sudden black mist. “Leslie?” he questioned her. She nodded.
“And this is Stetson, his brother,” she added. His eyes darted to the bearded man momentarily as he shook his hand, then rested back on Leslie.
“Arthur is not well. He has a sizeable brain tumor on the frontal lobe. It’s caused that part of the brain to hemorrhage. We have to do surgery immediately to remove the tumor and release the built-up pressure.” He stopped and looked at a clipboard he carried. “The success rate of surgeries of this type is mildly successful. But the likelihood of permanent damage already done to the frontal lobe, however, is high. While I believe he’ll survive the surgery, I think that there will be a significant amount of brain damage, but I cannot tell what forms exactly this will take until after the surgery has finished.”
Leslie nodded and bit her lip. The doctor asked Stetson to accompany him to the desk for a moment. She fell back into her spot on the couch. It was still warm. Her eyelids clamped shut, like an oysters shell, holding back liquid. Her lips, her chest, her body quivered as she breathed. The painting glared at her, as if accusing her of all imperfections. She retreated deeper—behind the veil of blurry eyes—away from the vacant, black eyes in the field of green and yellow.
She pried her eyes from the picture and buried them inwards, into the endless blue of an inner sky—a vast expanse, ocean or sky she knew not. The pure color of emotion embraced her. It was beautiful, the immense planes of blue through which she fell. Fell or sank or plunged headfirst. She forgot time and locality, spiraling deeper, higher. Away from the yellow and green and black demon which had been glaring at her. Creatures of light, of beauty swam, flew beside her with pearlescent wings, diamond fins—all glowing with a cool azure flame. Faces—watching her dive, wishing her to rise—below, above her. With such grand wings, such brilliant scales. Hippocampus, Pegasi, soaring, gazing after her. On she went, pushing herself onwards, breathing freely, deeply.
And then, with a final effort, she moved beyond the blue; she was weightless, drifting in blackness. Pinpricks of light dazzled her: starlight—luminous, flickering specks within a swiftly consuming darkness. She relaxed in the chill of the vacancy; she floated beyond herself, into nothingness. Even the faint points of light faded. She rested.
