Iris

         

Iris          / 10

There are empty bottles everywhere, some standing up, some lying on their sides as if too tired to carry on. There are about a hundred ashtrays, overflowing onto their resting places on tables and floor.
         You don't even bother to hide your stashes, anymore, babe: bags of pot and pills left wherever you'd last had need of them--on the kitchenette counter; on the secondhand coffee table with its recent stains and ancient-looking cigarette burns; on the hideous paisley sofa we'd bought together--the first piece of new furniture I had ever owned.
         It's seen some wild days and nights, that sofa. And now, like everything else we'd ever had together, it's gone completely to shit.
         I linger at the lintel for a moment, surveying the damage that no amount of cleaning or promises ever seems to remedy then I step inside the open door. The apartment stinks of your bad habits and current addictions, and the uncomfortable reminders of my own.
         "Liz, you here, babe? It's me," I call after a moment of hesitation. A familiar one, in which I reassure myself, as always, that I won't be running out of here screaming, not as long as I still have ties to this place. "Liz?"
         I drift around the edges of the living room, toward the kitchenette. There's weeks' worth of mail dumped on the counter, along with empty baggies, and some not-so-empty baggies. I zero in on one of the not-so-empties and peer in. It's been awhile, and I don't recognize the little pink pills which rattle around inside. But like all purveyors of illicit narcotics, past and present, I know that the smaller the pill, the bigger the oomph.
         "Jesus Christ, Liz," I mutter. It's my worries about those oomphs that keep me coming back here, even though I swear that each time will be the last. That I'll finally give up the ghost, and try and find whatever peace is left to me.
         I turn away from the piles of unopened correspondence and pills. Not for the first time, I wonder how you live. How you're still alive.
          "Baby?" I move toward the only other room in the apartment, besides the bathroom. I don't want to go into the bedroom, but as always, you've left the door ajar. I have no excuse. So I slip past the opening that's just wide enough to admit me, and take a deep, unneeded breath, preparing myself for what I know I'll see.
         Unlike the rest of the apartment, the bedroom is a photograph. A shrine, really, to days that are long dead. Everything is still exactly the same as it was when I left. The same pictures, the same furniture, the same everything. The large closet--the thing that had sold you on this apartment as opposed to the one with the fireplace--is open and I can see all my old clothes in there, hung obsessively neat on what was once my side of the closet. On your side, clothes hang off hangers haphazardly, litter the floor underneath, and make a trail of light-colored fabric toward what was once our bed.
         Now, it seems like it's barely yours, for as infrequently as you can bring yourself to sleep in it.
         But tonight is one of those rare nights, I suppose, because there you are, curled up like a sickly, skeletal angel on the edge of the left side--my old side--clutching my pillow in your too-skinny arms.
         If I unfocus my eyes, I can pretend those arms aren't covered in track marks and razor scars . . . all the evidence of what I taught you to do to yourself.
         If I unfocus my eyes, I can pretend that I'm not at fault.
         I cross the room and kneel next to the bed, reach out . . . but I stop just short of brushing your hair away from your peaked, pale face. I couldn't do it, anyway--I'd only be torturing myself. I can't offer you comfort or help of any kind. All I can do is bear witness to your destruction.
         "Liz, sweetie, can you wake up for me?" I ask around a throat full of absent tears. That's one of the worst parts about my situation . . . not being able to cry anymore. Not being able to turn loose the grief and worry and anger and guilt. "Liz, wake up."
         You don't so much as stir, and fear thrills through me like electric current. You've never been so deep that I couldn't get to you. Couldn't coax you out of whatever limbo you float in these days for long enough to call yourself an ambulance.
         "Liz? Liz! Elizabeth!" I repeat, each time louder than the last, and still you don't stir, don't twitch, don't even take a slightly deeper breath.
         Are you even breathing?
         You're lying so still I can't tell. I remember all the damned hospital dramas we used to watch while we got drunk and high. How we used to take each other's wrists and search for our pulses and laugh. I'd give anything to be able to do that now. But it's too late, isn't it? I've got nothing left to give. Nothing anyone wants or needs--not even you.
         "Liz, honey, please wake up for me." I lean in close to murmur in your ear, trying to keep the panic out of my voice, and all the fears that I never had for myself--only for you, only ever for you--from choking me into silence. "Open those beautiful eyes, baby."
         Nothing.
         I clasp my hands together and do something I haven't done since I was young enough to believe there was actually a God. I pray:
         "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,/ Bless the bed I lay upon./ One to watch and one to pray,/ And two to bear my soul away. . . ."
It's not really the appropriate prayer for the situation, but it's the only one I ever knew. I can't even remember who taught it to me, just that once upon a time, it had made me feel safe.
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,/ Bless the--"
         Suddenly you take a deep breath and shudder, your eyes rolling sluggishly behind paper-thin lids. I laugh, and wish I could kiss you awake, like Sleeping Beauty's prince. I wish I could wake you from this hateful, dangerous slumber faster, and make you well again. Whole again. The way you must have been before you met me.
         You cough rackingly, your entire body shaking with the force of it, and no, I don't like the sound of that cough one bit. It's too deep, too hoarse, too wet.
God, babe, how long has it been since you last brought me here? What've you been doing to yourself in the meantime?
The coughs turn into wheezes and retches as I sit by helplessly. Eventually, your eyes flutter open, still that same startling ice-blue, and meet mine, empty and unrecognizing. Then you're groaning and retching up bile the color of fetid swamp water, not even cogent enough to lean over the side of the bed.
I think of all the times you nursed me through similar situations, and how much I'd loved you for it. . . .
The retching stops quickly enough--becomes dry heaves that leave you moaning and sobbing, and half-laying in the puddle of vomit soaking into the sheets.
         I want to smooth your hair and kiss your face, and tell you everything will be alright, but we both know I'd be lying. I'm proof that nothing's ever alright.
         So I just croon any old nonsense and keep vigil by your bedside until the dry heaves pass and the sobbing is nothing more than the weeping of a frightened, tired child.
         I love you.
I've never loved anyone else, and I suppose now I never will.
"Baby, why do you keep doing this to yourself?" Though we both know the answer. I just keep hoping that it'll change. That you'll say something that doesn't leave me gutted and utterly defenseless.
You open deeply bloodshot eyes and regard me dully.
"Wanna be with you," you husk, your voice scraped raw, yet soft as faded silk. "Can't do it no more. Don't wanna do it no more . . . just wanna rest. Why . . . won' you lemme rest?"
"Lizzie, sweetheart--"
"Don't belong here, no more. Nothin' left for me." You wipe at the bile on your face and neck then try to sit up on shaky arms. "But you keep pushin' me away . . . makin' me stay in this lonely, awful shithole . . . why?"
"Because I love you, and I want to see you happy," I say, noticing I still have my hands clasped together. I hastily let them go, then realize I have nowhere to put them and nothing to do with them. "You have a full life ahead of you--a life filled with love and happiness, if you'll just let it in. If you'll just. . . ."
"Move on? Like you?" Liz snorts quietly and tries to smile. Her teeth are almost mossy, her lower lip split and starting to droozle bright red. "How's movin' on been workin' for you?"
Stung, I sit back a little. You exhale a little plume of visible breath. The air between us is cold and sterile. "I'm not the one who has any choices left, remember? I blew it--it's too late for me, but not for you. You . . . you've got a whole life to live!"
You shake your head wearily, but when I look into your eyes, they're almost blazing, now, with awareness and a strange ferocity. "Not a life I want."
         "But you're not even trying, goddamnit!" I burst out, and you flinch away, one limp hand fluttering to your forehead. I lower my voice and try to keep it as neutral as possible, which isn't very. "You're not even giving yourself a chance to live and love and, yeah, move on. You only get one life and you're wasting it!"
         Your eyes meet mine like pretty, blue-glass walls before you roll onto your other side. "'S my damn life to live the way I want. To waste, if I want, or to throw it away."
         "Liz, I'm begging you not to. Please."
         "I remember the way it felt to just cuddle up in bed with you . . . let you hold me till I fell asleep. I miss that. Guess I always will," you add, apropos of nothing and everything. It breaks the heart I no longer have to hear you speak in that lost, brittle tone.
         "Not always," I promise. "In time, there'll be someone else--"
         "Don't want someone else . . . I want you. To be wherever you are."
         "Baby, I'm nowhere. I'm nothing. . . ."
         Another laugh, as broken and dry as my lost heart. "You're everywhere an' everything! I can't fuckin' get away from you, an' I don't want to! An' I don' want this half-way bullshit, anymore." You glance over your shoulder at me. Your eyes are still wet, the lashes still weighed down by tears. "We can be together again . . . forever. Quit fighting it!"
         I shake my head. You just don't understand. "Did you ever stop to think I don't deserve forever with you? That maybe this . . . limbo . . . is my punishment for what I did to you?"
         You look away then sit up after a few moments. "You didn' force the pills down my throat or needles in my arm."
         "But I damn sure didn't try to stop you, did I? No, I was too busy pouring pills down my own throat, and sticking needles into my own arm." I watch you swing your legs over the side of the bed and try to stand. It's a pathetic sight--the only sight more pathetic is me hurrying to your side when we both know I can't catch you if you fall.
         I don't think I've ever been able to do that. If I had been . . . if I'd only been stronger. . . .
         You finally make it to your feet, swaying and unsteady, and shuffle slowly around the edge of the room, hand trailing the wall for support. I follow closely behind, fretting and wanting nothing more than to scoop you up and carry you back to bed.
         But before too long, you're at the vanity table, sitting down heavily, your breath coming in deep, arrhythmic puffs. You avoid the mirror--in a way that's entirely too practiced--and open the top right drawer. You feel your way past all the accumulated junk from our life together, and make a delighted little noise when you find what you're looking for.
         "Where did you get that?" I ask through numb lips as you hold up the large caliber pistol like it's the Holy Grail. It doesn't even look like your wrist should be able to support its weight.
         "Doesn' matter." You look up at me and smile the sweetest, most fragile smile I've ever seen. "I dunno how it all works, or even if we'll be together if I go out this way, but I'd rather die tryin' than live like I have been."
         "Don't say that." Neither of us can take our eyes off the gun, but for very different reasons. "Don't fucking say that!"
         "Well, it's true." And you laugh, bright and excited. "Soon, we'll be together, baby. That should make you happy."
         "You, dead, will never, in any way, shape, or form, make me happy, Lizzie. You know that."
Your eyes flick to mine for a moment, fond and determined.
"See ya on the other side."
And the words are barely out of your mouth before they're replaced by the gun, quicker than I can even follow, let alone prevent, had I the ability.
         "No!" I scream, but it's too late . . . too fucking late. There's a spray of blood, bone, and brain, and your body topples to the side, sliding out of the chair and to the floor like a dead snake.
         "Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!" I forget myself and reach out to you, to your twitching hands, to your doll's face and staring blue eyes . . . I reach out to touch your hand, and when my fingers are close enough to feel your body heat ebbing quickly away, they meet no resistance and pass right through you, just as they always do.
         I jerk my hand away, horrified.
         There's nothing to do but wait to disappear--for keeps, this time, since there's no one and nothing to call me back here from . . . wherever it is I go when you don't need me around to save your life.
         I suddenly feel detached and very tired. There's nothing to do but wait to finally finish dying completely. And to be quite honest, without you, I welcome Limbo or whatever final dissolution awaits me. Welcome a chance for it to be all over.
         Darkness nibbles away at the edges of my vision and the room seems to be receding away from me. It's as if I'm being whisked down a long, dark tunnel. Soon, the light of the world is a distant pinprick of white.
         And then . . . I stop. In the darkness I am stopped. I am surrounded by walls that pulse and throb and beat. It's as if I've been stashed inside a massive heart. I kick and flail, trying to find a way out. As soon as I start trying, this . . . force starts to push against me, shoving me upward as the walls of my heart-prison contract around me.
         It feels like the entire universe is trying to push me out, and not wanting to be in, I roll with it, shoving myself in the direction I'm being pushed. But I must lose consciousness, because the next thing I know, after so long in close darkness, is roomy, riotous light that hurts my eyes and even my skin. It's so bright I can't see, only wriggle and squirm helplessly in the hands--for that's what they are, giant, eerily smooth hands--that hold me up, wet and cold, in the icy air. A loud, siren of a wail breaks the delicate, quivering silence I've emerged into.
         I've been smacked--not hard, but firmly--on the ass, and that startles a brief wail out of me. The icy air rushes into my lungs and I cough out warm, bitter liquid, still trying my best to cry out--to scream out between coughs. Not that it makes any difference: I'm swept up and efficiently wiped down with something cool and rough, and then snugly wrapped in something warm and soft. By the end of that process I'm exhausted, and too weak to struggle anymore. I'm so tired . . . all I want is to close my eyes, and sleep. But all around me are voices, saying things I can't understand.
         "Que c'est beau!"
         "Tellement parfait!"
"Regardez ces yeux! Il a tes yeux!"
I'm passed around like a tray of hors d'oeuvres, gazing up into one huge blue-masked face then another, until I'm imprisoned in arms that are as unfamiliar as the latest face my vision has adapted enough for me to see. Wet, enormous green eyes in a large, pale, freckled face stare into my own. An intimidatingly wide mouth with bitten, slightly chapped lips, busses my forehead lingeringly, curving into a smile as they touch my skin.
And all of a sudden, it hits me. I understand. Oh, God, I understand: what's happened and what's happening, and I weep uncontrollably. You were wrong, after all, though part of me had held out some hope that we might, through some miracle, be together again. But even now, I can barely remember how it felt to love and be loved by you. All I can remember clearly is your eyes, and the keenest sense of loss I've ever known, like a knife twisting in my heart without killing me.
You were wrong, Liz, and I'll never be with you again.
I cry. I cry until I'm hoarse, until it hurts to keep on crying. Then I cry some more, because . . . I can't remember what color your eyes were, anymore, only that I've lost you forever.
Is this how it's going to be, then? This slipping away of who I was and what I had with you, until my tabula is completely rasa, and I'm a perfect palimpsest-child, ready to be written upon?
"Bienvenue dans le monde, David. Je t'aime," the bitten lips mouth in a shaky whisper as they fill my vision. My . . . mother . . . kisses me on the nose. "Je t'aime."
I wish I knew what she was saying.
I wish I could keep my eyes open, but it's so bright in here.
I wish . . . I wish I could remember why I'm crying. . . .
I wish--

END