|
|
|
 Death
of Woman in Old Age:
The tide is out. How long have I been lying here?
Dimly I see grey. It must be light. I lie at the bottom of a grey
pool through which I see a dim light. I must try and move. The tide
has thrown up a heavy rock, it is lying on me, I am pinned down.
Mother, won’t you come and lift me up? She is hiding from me, all of
them, they want to frighten me, so I think I have been left behind.
It hurts. Somehow I must lift myself upward, out of this salty pool,
but I cannot move. I can taste the salt on my lips. I am hot, damp,
small trickles of sea-water run down my neck and in between my
thighs. That dim light, it must be the sun. I can hear a titter of
girlish laughter. They are hiding from me, so that if I call, nobody
will come help me. I must pull myself together, try and move, but I
cannot find my limbs. Perhaps I am buried in sand, it has silted up
overnight with that last tide, I will try and shift it. Please, come
somebody.
It is dark now, the tide is coming close. I hear the
sound of ocean murmurs, coming close now, did somebody whisper,
moan? No, I expect it is only the sounds of dark waves running
closer, I can feel a slight wind, cool on may face, it comes with
the dark, with the sea pounding against rocks, I can hear it rushing
in my head. Now I am tossed, thrown this way and that, I am in
terror of being thrown onto rough rocks, of being torn apart, about
the hollow in my head is filling with black liquid, gushing, moving
dark shadows come, waver, my son, I cry out, but before I can utter
two words he is swept away, And I am gasping for breath, trying to
push the water out of my eyes. Will he come back to me, is he
drowned? I see my daughter a small child fill her bucket in the dusk
and I want to ask, why are you out so late, is it true there is
nobody with you, but the black wave comes, now it is between us,
hissing, now my head is full of it, swirling, gurgling, it will not
come out, though I open my mouth nothing is heard.
 Now
I am back in the silence. The dim light. Is it morning? I hear
whispers, is it leaves stirring overhead, throwing their shadows on
the wall? But the walls seem to have gone, or perhaps they are
shining so much I do not see them now. I hear a cock crow, that was
the first sound which broke the silence. But I do not hear it now. I
have never heard it since. Perhaps a cock crows only once, at the
beginning, after which the silence begins to close in once more.
Yes, that would make sense. And if small birds twitter to the sound
of sunrise that would hardly disturb the silence. Mother, can I get
up? I cannot lift the bedclothes. How heavy they have become,
suddenly. Please come soon, or the grass and shadows will have dried
up outside before I have had a chance to run through them. Already I
am hot, too hot, and the walls have melted into light.
It is dim. The light is becoming dim. I should go
home now, the cold wind is blowing round my legs and my bucket is
heavy, full of damp sand, I cannot lift it now, it hurts each time I
try, I am gasping for breath and the air hurts as it goes in, sharp
as a knife stabbing, while the sky is dying, light fading to the
colour of metal, and in the silence, that queer little silence when
the wind stops for a moment and I know there is nobody nearby I hear
the whisper of the ocean, far distant but coming close, the sound is
all around, mother, I call, why did you not wait for me, but I am
not sure if I spoke and if so it was so faint the sound was lifted
off by the wind and drowned. And now it picks me up bodily, I am
tossed and turned in the black chaos, in my ears is silence, then
sound, rushing into spaces, I have just time to think why did you
leave me before the struggle becomes too much, I gasp for air, my
head bobs up for a moment, out of dark water, but the night is black
also, I am submerged, I must find my body which is helpless without
me, without my head which is gasping for air up in the night where I
thought I had just begun to make out a single star, a small point of
light, just a pinprick in the black, but each gasp brings a stab
down below, which will not do, I belong to whatever is left down
below in spite of the immense distances of blackness and moving
space which have begun to open in my head, and I can hear my lungs
gurgling, I must help them, I think, breathing hard, in spite of the
sharp stab on each occasion, or I will drown.
Flat grey light. The tide has gone out, and all is
very quiet. I am stretched out like flattened sand, damp and salty.
I listen in the silence for the far murmur of the ocean, but I hear
nothing. I think perhaps I have been ill, but now it is peaceful. I
am lying very still, hoping the sun will rise. Under my fingers I
feel sand, dry now, and I remember to sift them through my hands to
find by touch which of the grains could be crystal or diamond, ruby
or another tiny emerald. So much.
The walls have vanished. A blank white of sunlight
through fog where the wall use to be, and my old sticks of furniture
have also gone. Through the white room with no walls I hear voices,
sighs and whispers, things moving, stirring, and now the clear sound
of a cup ringing into its saucer.
Shadows of leaves, a whole forest of leaves stirring
around me, whispering, my head humming with hot insects while the
sound of birds singing comes from above, from the sky which is full
of leaf and branch. I dip my hand into the bucket, which is filled
with clear cool water, and close my hand round the firm pebble lying
on the bottom. It is hard in my palm, under the ring of water my arm
bends as though it had entered a queer world from which I am shut
out.
 Now
the light is fading. Is this air, or water? I would think it is the
evening tide, but if so the cool grey waves have crept around me
with such stealth, so quietly, that I heard no sound. But I have
known for some time that silence and the roar of the ocean were one
and the same thing so I am neither alarmed nor surprised. Night
falls above my head in the sky now that the ceiling is no longer
visible. Everything has been washed away in the last tide, no more
pain, now my body has been swept away I am light as a bird, no more
trying to find bits of myself, the ache of effort with each breath,
holding myself together like poor old dislocated doll, how many
years now, finding an arm, now a numb foot, pulling on aching
muscles and stiff hot joints on first waking? Admit it, the hollow
head, the mechanism for making the eyes open and shut could no
longer be connected to the rest of it. The illusion was shattered.
And now it has been washed away by the tide and I can float freely
on the black waves, though I still hear the plaintive cry, mamma,
each time it was tipped back, feeble but constant, unvarying in its
timbre. And though the night is cool and the tide is creeping
silently along the damp dark sand and I am not afraid, no, though
the wind is rising over the dark horizon, the small voice in my head
is crying mamma, why do you not come, why have you left me along on
the seashore with night coming in all round? But now I see a small
light bobbing in the dark, it quivers, trembles, is it a spirit, no,
the light of a fishing boat putting out to sea on the far horizon,
no, perhaps a single star, the north star, rising in the sky, but
no, it is coming nearer, she has come for me, she has not forgotten,
she holds a torch in her hand, mamma, she has come back to the
seashore and I am safe, now that she has come to fetch me, pick me
up and carry me home.
|
|