Journeys

A small cemetery, cradled in the indifference of elevated highways and turnpikes, keeps still a family of tombs all resting in varying states of decay. A six-foot fence wraps around them like a stainless steel pall. Before a polished headstone stands a pale woman in a paler dress. She tilts her head to gaze at the name engraved there. She reads, Ig Natius.

“Hi, Iggie. It’s me, Una.” She waves at the stone with expectancy. She expects him to see her, but she cannot be certain.

“It took me only twenty minutes to get here today. Traffic is always light this early in the evening.” She lifts her tiny voice above the traffic’s din. “I can’t believe I’ve been coming here every day for nearly a year.”

Eleven months, fourteen days, but then who’s counting?

“It feels like you’re with me sometimes. At night especially.” She smiles. “When the lights are off, I swear you’re in the bed next to me. Sometimes I hold my breath so that I can hear yours, but there’s only quiet now.”

You have to like that–I snored a lot. You once said I sounded like a motorcycle revving the ignition.

“I remember the oddest things about you. While you slept you always hopped into the air to roll over, dragging the blankets with you. When I pulled them back, you rolled back just like a yo-yo.” Averting her eyes she peeks through the links of the fence, but only for a moment. “Sometimes in the morning, when I’m just waking, I hear your feet slapping against the bathroom floor, and I imagine that you’re shaving.”

Ah, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single, bare-footed step on cold linoleum; and who’d have known how many times you’d need to use the toilet along the way? Hey, I am a toilet! Ha, this six foot hole’s the bowl; this headstone, the lid left up. Do you remember me doing that? You probably do. Remember all the times you yelled at me for it? And by the way, the string on this yo-yo broke a long time ago, when my car rolled off that exit ramp.

“I miss your… humour.” Una’s smile wanes.

No you don’t.

“I’m sure death hasn’t changed that.” Thoughts crease her gentle features. She hugs herself tightly and glares at the stone. She trembles.

“I’m so afraid, Iggie,” she nearly sobs. “I see your name there and I try to see your face in my mind, and I can’t. I just see someone that looks like you, but it’s not you. I see your name there, and I wonder: will you be there waiting for me when it’s my turn to pass over?”

I’ve been tempted to leave, sweetie. You can’t know this, but there’s something here that urges me toward some weird and wonderful place. It’s so tempting.

“You’ll go without me, won’t you? You’re probably gone already.”

This place, it keeps a promise. You now the situation; it’s the one where your car stalls in the middle of a thunderstorm, and the only shelter around is a lit-up house? This place, it’s like this. It beckons to me with the promise of warmth.

“You can’t be gone. This just can’t be. We’re supposed to be a part of each other, but you’re there and I’m here. How can that be if we’re supposed to be a part of each other? Until the end, except your end’s come before mine.”

But I couldn’t go, because of you.“I hate when I’m like this,” Una complains. She wrings her pale hands until they whiten. “I just want to dig into the earth–dig and dig until I can touch your coffin. Then I would claw through the wood until I could wrap myself around you. I just want to hold you again. I don’t care if you’re nothing but a skeleton. I’d hug you and pretend that your body is of warm flesh. I’d rest my head against your chest and pretend to hear you heartbeat. Your heartbeat with my heartbeat. Then I wouldn’t be alone anymore.”Clenched jaws sharpen Una’s delicate face. Her eyes narrow.“It isn’t fair! Oh, I just want to yell.”Yes! Shout and scream and yell. “I want to yell loud enough so that you can hear me.”Please, yell anything. Make those phantom vehicles shut the hell up. All of them!“I have to yell because there’s something I need to tell you. There’s something I need you to hear.”Those trucks and those cars driven by zombies going nowhere too fuckin’ fast. Get off those roads, Una! You should hurry along. Be with me now. I’m waiting for you.“I hate you!”We should be together. Not being together isn’t right. And don’t let anyone tell you it’s wrong. Remember? Us? We were gong to go place together? Here, those places never disappear and we have forever to get where we’re going. Wait! What did you say?

“That’s right. I hate you. I hate you for dying. I hate you for driving too damned fast that night.”

We were going to that restaurant at the southwest turn-off. We ate there the last night of our honeymoon. Contractors were going to tear the place down, so we thought we’d go one last time. We had to make reservations. I was late.

“I feel better for having said that,” she whispers. A deep breath calms her.

A-are you sure?

“I shouldn’t say this, but I’ve considered… you know, being with you. I couldn’t do it.” She peers through the steel fence and wearily watches cars glide by. “It’s not all bad being without you.”

It isn’t, is it?

“At least I don’t have to worry about the toilet seat being left up.” A gentle smile lifts the corner of her pale lips. “I just don’t think I can do this anymore. I think I want to stay in the world of the living a little while longer. I don’t think my feelings will go away, but they may lose their intensity. They may become enmeshed with all the other things I say and do every day, like getting dressed or brushing my teeth. They’re labours I have to do to get on with the rest of the day.”

Like using the toilet?

“I know I’d be happy with you,” she pauses, “if for some reason I passed over, but I can’t go. I just can’t abandon our friends and our families. And as much as I want you to wait, I can’t ask you to do that.”

After seven years of marriage, you still won’t tell it to me straight.

“I just can’t come here anymore, not if I’m going to live my life.”

Is this… is this goodbye?

“I have to go.” She frowns. “I’m going to live with Mother. I want to spend time with her before she dies.” She waves farewell to the headstone. Crimson flushes her cheeks as she turns away and briskly walks toward the gate. She darts behind the steel fence and out onto the shoulder of the highway.

Drive safely.

Originally published in White Wall Review, 21^st Edition, 1996.
© by Cathrene Gehue, 1996