The Sea-Wave (15 page)

H
e sometimes makes these beast sounds. It's this throat-whistling like a dog that's struggling to get comfortable. I'd say he's nervous or in pain. Maybe if you get nervous enough and hurt bad enough you lose it.

This all makes sense to him, I guess. It
means
something. Hopefully it does because my own life has been meaningless. I haven't been anything to anyone.

But to the old man . . .

It's sad, but I guess I might be something.

I
could barely see it in the moonlight but I'm pretty sure the sign I scratched my arm against read: “GREEN ACRES.”

Green Acres looked much more like a large, dark forest. When it comes to children entering forests, good things don't generally happen.

The second time I fell out of my chair, I hit my head on a tree trunk. I didn't hit it that hard but . . . My brain is the only thing I have going for me. I wouldn't mind, really, being a brain in a jar. As long as I could still read
David Copperfield.

I couldn't see anything in the forest. All I could hear was the squealing of my wheels and the crunchy cereal things they were crushing. All I could think of was the birds and squirrels leaning out of their tree holes and staring. What they were probably thinking was “better her than us.”

The old man slowed down a bit.

He stopped.

There was some kind of building just ahead. It had a doorway but no door. The old man pushed me through it.

It was black inside. The old man wheeled me a few feet then turned me around so I faced the door hole.

There was a clunk like he'd thrown down his walking stick. Then a crunch like he was lying down in leaves. Pretty soon he was snoring.

I stared at the doorway for a long time. When the moon went behind a cloud, the doorway disappeared.

I'm never going to see anyone ever again.

W
hen I woke up at dawn, I was lying on the floor beside my wheelchair.

It was an old shack full of leaves.

The old man was gone. So was his stick.

A raccoon ran out of the room.

I squirmed a bit and got my memorandum book out of the side pouch and a pen.

I wrote until I passed out.

When I woke up, I was in my chair and the chair was moving. My memorandum book was on my lap. I kept tipping forward and almost falling out and the old man kept stopping and pulling me back.

I held on tight to my memorandum book.

I passed out again.

B
ut nothing in life surprises. Truly. Not even . . . the extraordinary thing. It is only a page. One page. There will still be another, and another. A thrilling page, an awful. They will all, as stems of grass, bend over. For our poet lies dreaming. With his dreaming book. On the green lawn. It lays . . . on his breastbone, open. The book. And the wind —
he is dreaming —
takes his words away. They turn to ash seed. And they blow away.

T
here's so much to live for.

I just haven't figured out what.

I
have prayed this living was a dream.

I have even prayed.

H
e was pushing me slowly. It was so windy.

A leaf fell in my hair.

The old man fell.

I thought he was running. I moved so fast. He was falling.

My chair tipped back and slammed hard on the ground. My head slid back off my headrest over I think his walking-stick. The old man's face slammed right onto my face. My nose fit right between his nose and his lips. His breath fogged up my glasses and smelled like death. I could only see fog.

Then I felt his one hand sliding down my arm. He was maybe trying to grab my hand. But then he just stopped moving.

He made a soft noise.

Then my glasses unfogged.

T
he old man's throat is a black hole.

When I look down, I can see his eyes.

I try not to look down.

I moved my head back and forth until his head fell off me and onto the ground beside me. Then I reached for my memorandum book.

There's still a few pages left.

T
his wasn't what I pictured. When I pictured the end of the story.

It's the end of the story.

I haven't been okay in a long time. I've been hurting for a long, long time. When you're suffering . . .

Suffering ends. One way or the other.

It had to happen.

It's happening.

Y
ou think of things differently. You do. You can be sad when you're dying, but you can't hate yourself. You're barely there. You can't hate vapour or a rare mineral. Whoever you were isn't there.

I'm turning to leaves. It feels like. I feel so light.

I'll turn to leaves.

Then I'll blow away.