(A short story suite)
- Except for Love
When I WhatsApped my mother earlier today, she did something she hadn’t done for years, ever since the onset of her dementia. She was trying to recite a poem. This poem was older than even her ninety-three hard years. She began to struggle after the first line. I helped her when she seemed to give up. I recited the first stanza in my best artistic voice until I discovered that I didn’t remember anything further. So, I invented the second stanza.
Everything fades.
Even people,
Even mountains,
Even sunshine.
Except for love…
I struggled to continue, but she mercifully stopped me, asking about my grandkids.
When I hung up, I googled the poem and re-read it aloud several times. The real second stanza was better than my invention.
“What are you doing?” my wife asked.
“Getting ready for my 90th birthday.”
“It’s twenty years away,” she said. “You better help me with the grandkids.”
“You used to like poetry,” I said.
“I’ll have time to enjoy it when I’m less busy.”
Less busy is never, but I didn’t say that.
I read a fairytale to the grandkids. It was about a little girl carrying a basket with pies to her grandmother through the forest. I knew this story by heart. The whole thing. So far.
It seemed strange to me that she walked alone. Her parents should’ve walked with her. I will re-write this story one day when I’m less busy. I love to write. In the long run, nothing remains of you except for love.
- To My Timeless Lover
I’m turning five hundred today, or maybe a year from now. You are ten years younger. Or maybe twenty years older. Time is no longer the sand in an hourglass as it used to be back when we first met. It’s not even light on the smartphone in my pocket. Time is the ashes of the yet-unborn stars.
You sit in our bedroom, in a chair like a throne, looking out the window. You get up only once a year. Or maybe once in a century. You are not in a hurry. Ravens the size of eagles, with wings of cold flame caw outside. Our garden is their home. Unlike us, they will live here until the Sun turns dark. We have only half of that time. Or maybe one-tenth. I mean, you have. My time is more limited.
I cough. You don’t turn. I call your name. You don’t turn. You used to turn whenever I called you when I was the prince of the world. Now, I’m only the king. Do you remember that? You don’t answer. The last time you answered was a year ago. Or a millennium.
I know I’m deceiving myself and you, my love, hoping that long after my death I will still live in the marble mausoleum of your vanishing memory.
- What is Real
The wife sits in a chair next to her husband’s bed. His eyes are closed. How old is he, really? His papers say 90. But he looks 120.
The nurse comes over. “We’ll take his tubes out soon.”
“What’s next?” the wife asked.
“We’ll take him downstairs to the morgue. The funeral home will get in touch with you.”
Later that night, at home, the wife is in her own bed. She’s used to sleeping alone. Her husband’s conjugal visits have become increasingly rare over the years. It was the usual ladder descending (or ascending) to the next world: a cane, walker, wheelchair, and wheelchair with oxygen.
She doesn’t cry. She falls asleep. Her husband comes over in her dream. He wears his wedding suit. He looks about 25.
“Are you real?” she asks.
He grins. “Of course. If I were surreal, I’d wear a white angelic robe.”
“Another daddy joke. Will you ever stop?”
“I’m a daddy, grand-daddy, and great-grandaddy. You can’t take that away from me.”
She agrees. She always agrees in the end. This chain of agreements started with his wedding proposal.
She wonders how old she looks. She’s about to ask him when a phone call wakes her up. It must be the funeral home. Or maybe she doesn’t wake up. She dreams again. Or maybe not. In this dream, they walk hand-in-hand over the clouds, wearing white robes. She knows it’s real this time. But she has been mistaken before.
~
Mark Budman is a refugee from Moldova who learned English as an adult. Counterpoint Press published his novel My Life at First Try. His work features in publications such as Catapult and The Mississippi Review. One anthology he coedited was the 2022 Foreword Indies winner. Kirkus Reviews awarded his latest short story collection a starred review and named it one of the best books of 2023.