a story be Frank J. Mueller III (Fjm)

They Were Only Words . . .



They were only words, but her difficulty comprehending them, and then the sadness, with which they left him, caused his soul to ache. He didn’t know words could do that. But here they were, these words that were so painful to read.

“What do we have here?" the attendant had said.

He was so tired of that phrase, but he had heard it so often it now seemed part of the lexicon of this place.

This time, though, his understanding of the question was wrenchingly obvious. Miranda was one of his lost souls, true enough, and as such his concern for her should be no more or no less than for any of his patients. But “patient” was a eupheumism, and sometimes an inexplicable one. He often wondered at the injustice that led her to be here with him. Sadness, he thought, begat sadness, and he didn’t like that.

He again looked at the words she had written, his pain no less severe on this second occasion,

Alone,
And all around me are clouds,
And a faint
Glimmer
Of light.

More than just the words, it was their structure that gave him his ache. Each a single line, a single thought. Simplicity in contrast to the life going on behind these walls. Days, and nights to a lesser degree, were segmented here. Everything had its proper time and every person his proper place.

Miranda was refreshing, and this was why these words were so troubling. She had exhibited none of the physical or mental problems that some of his family had – his family because here he really did feel part of one. But, evidently, Miranda had disguised herself well. Up to this time, anyway.

Time standing still was a cliché that had lost all of its meaning in this place, but its sense of endlessness was made more tolerable because of Miranda. If anything served to console between these walls, it was that the suffering here was universal; patient and doctor alike sometimes vying for the privilege of untroubled days. This place had its own spirit, and it was the spirit of decay.

Into all this had come Miranda. Bringer of joyful life and renewed hope. And expert at the building of facades. The shattering of illusion had not come quickly, if it had he might have weathered it. But he had let Miranda’s youth and attractiveness work on him for too many days and too many nights. Now, these words, and he wished those days had been shortened. But he, like everyone in this place, loved her. He thought his “patients” were better for having Miranda with them. He thought of what she had given him – hell, what she was giving him even now. She was part of his family, a very beautiful part that made his life easier. He actually looked forward to some of his days now and that certainly had its merits. But, these words … Alone, Clouds, Faint glimmer of light. Maybe just words. Maybe something more. This was certainly not the Miranda he wanted to know.

The effect of these words would somehow be less troubling to him if his mind were full of questions; but, there was really just one. That answer, the why of these words, he hoped, would not prove too elusive. Seldom had reason or curiosity given him recourse to reacquaint himself with the records of a member of his “family,” but he did so now.

The most significant portion of Miranda’s file was written in her hand, a hand very sure of itself. Something he could find relief in. No haphazard writing for her.
He read. No disturbances for him now. This was time to be spent with Miranda. And perhaps a reason for the words she had written.

My name is Miranda. I’ve come to you hoping you might be able to help me. To tell me who I am. Because I don’t think I know anymore.

The same could be said for any number of his patients. His family. He did believe in what he thought as the very real power of hope. It was the one constant of his days here. For some, hope was just something to be prayed for. He hadn’t thought Miranda would be among them.

There were paragraphs that followed, that provided useful pieces of information, but not enough to command special notice. He read with great interest and concern those that were.

I might as well be consigned to the earth as though I were dead, for that is how I feel. A person of no use, a thing really, noticed as an object of no consequence.
I’m used to this. I have to convince myself that I am. It’s not so hard to do. With all this, I do have a question, an echo from my family’s confusions: Why? Like them, I wonder if an answer will ever be forthcoming. My parents have grown more apologetic toward those who deprived of us so much. Now, after having lived through years that have been so unkind to them, they should know something more than the continuance of this thing that has been so much like death to them. I worry about them. I wonder about the memories they have; the memories I hope they have, about times that were more joyous, when appreciation was given to them by people of good will, their goodness after a time shown to be false.

He read these words with greater significance than he had initially, perhaps because they were only words then, certainly not what they now appeared to be. Which was what? A pleading? A cry of pain? That was so trite it almost seemed laughable. But what, beyond what was written in her file, did he really know about Miranda? And, though that was a little unsettling, what did he want to know.
He read on,

Does it make sense to further my confusions by dwelling on them? I don’t think so. But then I think of the senselessness of this whole thing, and ask and wait for an answer that doesn’t exist. Not an agreeable one, anyway, because people just don’t forget about people, do they?

Sometimes, I don’t want to think about anything. At all. But then the old day fades and a new one begins, and I realize there are other things to occupy myself with. What happened happened. That’s it.
What I hope to find here is another matter altogether. There are souls who really need help here. I suppose I am to be considered one of them, though the thought brings me no comfort. What it does bring me is acceptance. This, after all, is something.

The significant portion of what he wanted to read ended here. As enlightening as this was, his concern for Miranda was greater now after having read it. He couldn’t imagine someone being “forgotten” in this day. How something like that would feel.
It was shameful that Miranda had to indure such a thing. Through her strength, she had come to be accepting of it, and because of it she had his admiration.
Now, because of a few words, even her strength was coming into question. He didn’t want to alter what he knew of Miranda, now he was afraid this choice was being taken from him.

When he was away from these halls, from what some days were very hard for him, he would spend time picturing Miranda as a young woman whose happiness had been taken from her by uncaring people, people who were undeserving of any of their own. He could imagine his anger welling against the thought of this injustice to Miranda. And he wondered why he should feel such anger for people he didn’t know, because anger for these people apparently was something Miranda didn’t possess, or had come to distrust.

What, then, of trust, the portion he was supposed to have in himself? He had never felt good about asking himself questions, it was like losing faith in part of himself, but seldom had he been in a situation where doing so seemed to be exactly the thing to do. And he had put himself in it. He could have regarded the words Miranda had written without concern. He could have, while looking at those words, seen Miranda as just another patient. He could have remained unemotional.

Could have and maybe should have. What it was within him that caused him to overlook his “professionalism” he could only guess at, and it was this guess that gave his self-questioning its very much unwanted status. Because the truth of the matter was that he liked her, and she was suffering, what else was he to understand from her words? At a time when his objectivity should be paramount, he was letting his compassion show through.

This then, was it.

2

She was alone, the clouds around her friendly to her, not expecting anything from her. She had been all right with this for a long time now.
She would sleep, knowing that her words were discovered and thought over, for this was precisely why she had written them. And she would dream her usual dream of salvation, the dream she stayed alive for.

Eyes closed. Light of clarity breaking through clouds, her self imposed vale of protection. Dreaming begins anew.

She sees trees swaying to the gentle rhythms of evening song, in harmony with a spirit freeing itself from past indifferences. See sees the blossoming of life. She hears the songs of evening skies, and in them a certain peace.

In the midst of all this, something was waiting for her, maybe calling her to something, though she could not be certain of this. Before her stood the woman she thought she recognized, but it had been so long; how could she be sure, anyway? Could she be sure of anything? She could of a few things. Her name was Miranda. She, and her family, had been made to feel dead, and no reason for this had been offered; any reason now consigned to the immaterial. She was living here, was a member of a new family. Who loved her, yes, but because of being here, she could not blame herself for feeling that some of that love was a little forced.

The woman was clearly holding a rope of some thickness in her hand.

“For you,” she said, and Miranda knew without understanding she did not have to be afraid.

“Your gift for me.” And, she loved the repetition of that, the confirmation. The promise.

The woman smiled, and the hint of recognition was a little stronger, though still far away. The feeling was also with her now that if she would stay with this woman, she would reach this place.

The woman took her hand and led her, and maybe it was a trust, or a love, that was telling her that knowledge of where she was being taken she did not need to know. Walking with this woman, sharing this intimacy, memories returned to her, memories far removed from regret, but remembered now with the passion of a childhood that was confusing, but hers to try to understand. She thought she understood much more of this than she did. Now, she was not so certain.

The dream shifted, the rope fashioning itself into a noose, her means of deliverance.

The woman’s voice was music. “Where?”

“There.” She said, the ethereal quality of her voice a soothing strangeness. The sweep of her chosen tree’s branches, and the thickness of its trunk, were good, she thought. She thought of stability, once threatened and then lost. She thought of memories unsolicited, as the woman put the noose around her head, as the woman spread her hair and tightened its knot.

Another shifting, and she was hanging from the tree, feeling things that had hurt her begin to leave.

The pains her parents were forced to suffer . . . leaving.

Their questions that no one would answer . . . leaving.

Her own inability to understand, and when that understanding came, to comprehend . . . leaving.

She felt herself dying, and throughout it all, a new confusion, because she should be happy, because she wanted this so much, because the choking she felt as her neck began to break brought with it a pain she only wanted to go away. Hadn’t she suffered enough? Hadn’t her parents suffered enough? Was this, then, a final answer, a hurt she was not meant to escape from?

Her breath escaping. Her legs beginning their twitch. Muscles relaxing, and she looked at the woman, feeling the things that were so much a part of her life, the things she had to suffer, making their escape, too.

And then, everything stopped.

3

When everything started again, when morning offered its welcome, the world hadn't changed. The place where she was, its walls providing her a home that was friendly and protective, hadn’t changed. The memories of displacement and ensuing questions hadn’t changed. But the dream, the smiling woman at its center, the woman who had reminded her so strangely of herself, had taught her something. Reinforced really. She had once thought that what had been done to her and her family, being ignored without explanation, had been beyond her forgiveness. Now, she thought of the words she had written. There was no loneliness. There were no clouds. And light, that wonderful facilitator of hope, was much more than a glimmer.





-- Frank J. Mueller III