I haven't posted anything new for Life in a shamefully long time. Consider this story my penance and never shall I ignore my ginger zen-master again. Response to the dastardly shooting...
Enso
Quantifiable quiet.
It's an unlikely state; unnatural outside the moment's context and you think maybe chaos wears its tranquility mask too tightly. Enlightenment, you muse as your knees kiss expensive hardwood, is a talker's paradise. And for all the shushing being perfected in this partnership, you want to tell him it's alright to speak again.
There's an unsteady mound of unidentified fruit in a hand carved bowl and mail piling up beside it. Later, you decide, he'll open the envelopes with juice-slicked fingers. Later, but not today.
A voice begins to ramble in the sunlit foyer; only when your throat becomes parched is it apparent that the shaken babbling is your own. Pushing the foreign syllables of his first name past dry lips, you beg him to impart some Zen-ish wisdom as he silently bleeds out under your palms.
…………..
Someone actually sacrificed precious time to design this level of starkness.
The generic hospital look does its job because you're as numb as the bare white wall that failed to cushion your fist earlier. A single bowl of blissfully common fruit would improve the vibe but maybe that's the point, passing off the callous compression of emotions as 'care.'
When you're allowed in, you find a pale face that has lost its fresh-wound tension. He's bequeathed that to you. It's easy to forget what a damaged man your partner is, but the reminder comes when you inadvertently glimpse the girth of his medical file. Where he found time to unearth a spiritual awakening between inmate-bonding sessions is unclear but you've pulled the gown down a fraction, enough to see that the bowl in his kitchen isn't the only thing that's hand carved.
When the garage dweller arrives and remarks that it's unusual to catch him sleeping so peacefully, a prickle of sentiment trips behind your eyes. You don't even know why. The shifty man pretends not to notice and you dislike him a little less.
…………..
The first thing he does when he wakes is lie.
You need a massage and he needs a shave but he's not afraid to hold your gaze as he denies all plausibility. Not a single day of his incarceration has been forgotten, yet he can't remember a gun-wielding face he saw only yesterday. Had the bullet chosen his brain for its playground, the claim would be only slightly more believable. But you get nowhere because he's already fading and one of the many things Zen accomplishes is an impenetrable smokescreen of virtue.
The only thing that keeps your hand from slapping him is the flecks of red still clinging to the flesh beneath your nails. For your sanity, you tell him to sleep. The smile is thin, suspiciously apologetic. It seems that even while unconsciousness, he could still make up his mind to protect the one that ruined his floors.
His blood was on your hands because you wanted him to live. But that earned no new plateau of trust. And there's a face floating around in his enlightened head that you're prepared to carve out by force. Stepping carefully on newly stripped floors later, you steal the unknown fruit and methodically smash them against the driveway.
Enso: Circular symbol of enlightenment.