Supernova

Knowledge liberates a person. The truth shall set one free, it goes something like that and all my life my mind was held hostage by a thought, or a nocturnal vision of a masculine silhouette that terrified my five year old form as I lay with my mother in our only bed.
Our rented cottage was a typical dank residence situated in the backyard of a vast Victorian terrace house and although the shack paled in comparison to the two storey three bedroom monstrosity that blocked the afternoon sun, it was too good for my widowed mother to reject. Council flats were hard to come by in inner city Sydney and this tiny residence offered not only a small backyard it also offered privacy. Each afternoon I would run home from school, toss my mini-briefcase on the bed and made a quick dash to the outhouse. This would be followed by imagined safaris in the backyard. I would wade through ferns and tread on a few azaleas in a bid to glimpse an imaginary lion with a billowing golden mane. I was successful some days. Mr Gaynes’ felines would often prance about in his backyard and if I was quiet enough I would often see about eight or nine of them - I lost count - either scratching their flea bitten fur, laying in their favourite spots or stalking innocent sparrows who bounced about his backyard. Such was life for a fatherless five year old girl and I didn’t mind it one bit until the night in question. A day like any other, I returned home and ate my customary bean soup. I then pottered around the yard and spied one of the feral cats swallowing what looked to be a maimed mouse. I returned to our little abode, gathered my pyjamas and had an outhouse bath in record time. A five year old little girl never anticipates seeing anything unpleasant. In spite of dear old dad’s departure to the hallowed heavens I was content with the idea that he somehow watched over me and according to my mother this was the case. Who was I to argue?

The dark enveloped me and I sailed into the world of dreams. What happened thereafter is something that is still singed into my mind. My eyelids flutter, I am jarred awake and a short distance away, within the confines of our small kitchen, a dark shadow looms. It slowly unfurls and is completely amorphous to my eyes but it then takes on a familiar shape. As the crescent moon partially illuminates our little corner of the world the black diaphanous plume morphs into the silhouette of a man who reminded me of Sherlock Holmes. He wears a long cape that stops just below his knees and in his right hand he holds a cane. I blink in disbelief. This could not be. My body is pinned to the bed, not that I would want to move or raise myself from the bed and my eyes scan the silhouette in the same cunning manner they scan Mr Gaynes’ cat troupe. I don’t want it to see me yet the darkness knows no bounds. In one fleeting second I feel my heart tremble and the silhouette lifts its right arm to wave at me. Senor Silhouette arrived in a purposeful manner and upon sighting its sociable nature I squeezed my eyelids shut and kept them that way until dawn.


“I had a bad dream last night.” I said to my mother.
She rubbed the sleep from her hazel eyes stared at me with concern that expanded to form two parallel creases between her brows.
“I had a bad dream as well.” She said. Her dream differed to mine. In her dream a large bird, larger than an Andean Condor, flew above us as we ran in some faraway unknown land. My mother, well aware of its dark intentions, tried to protect me from its barbed talons but failed at the very last minute and the bird succeeded, taking me away to an unknown place.
“Why didn’t you wake up? I woke up.”
What is a five year old supposed to say?
Mother shrugged her slight shoulders and I began telling her about my dream, which wasn’t really a dream but my mother preferred it remain a dream.

At the age of eleven, the day my mother decided to plummet fourteen storeys to her death I remembered the vision, I remembered the friendly wave and realised that the silhouette was death incarnate who somehow thought it would be quaint if they tagged along for the ride.

Death then became my mission. It’s difficult to ignore when it graces one’s path twice before one’s standard lifetime is out, then again standard is an understatement where death is concerned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I try to outrun the reaper but I am only fooling myself. The Italian bakery a few doors from me is my morning pit stop. I wake, shower, dress and trudge down the stairs of my duplex apartment and buy the first batch of warm Vienna bread that exits Alfredo’s oven. My days are pleasant and in the land of the present the past ceases to matter. Mum and dad are so far away and although I do spare a thought during those few quiet moments of each day I am an adult living within a modern world who seeks to carve a life for themselves. Patrice, Alfredo’s wife always greets me first. She is a lustrous woman of forty who always wears a pleasant smile. Her auburn hair is tied into a tight pony tail and her accent reminds me so very much of my mother it’s almost frightening. But this morning is accompanied with a crisp air that gradually needles its way through my light sweater. Winter is well on its way and I can’t dispute this as I feel the tip of my nose engaging the soft chill.

The bakery, from the distance, appears to be closed. This cannot possibly be, not at eight in the morning, so I quicken my step and find myself in front of the barren shop. There are no homely aromas emanating from the ovens, no loaves line the wicker baskets and it is then that my eye notices a white piece of paper taped on the inside window.

Shop closed due to death in the family.

I return home as my mind ponders the notice. Within a week I am told, by a friend of a friend, that Alfredo died in his sleep. It was a peaceful death, a silent passage over the solemn waters of the River Styx and his wife, Patrice, had no idea until she woke up to the singing alarm clock at three in the morning. If one needs a cavity filled, one needs to make an appointment with one’s dentist. When purchasing items on lay away, one needs to pay the balance owing within a certain period of time. Once a foetus satisfies life’s opening equation during those first nine months oxytocin is secreted to change the tide for the baby enter the world after this set time. When the lights go out forever one never truly knows when the invisible hand flicks the off switch.

Each morning as I pass Alfredo’s bakery, which is now Patrice’s, I never stop by and I purchase my bread from a Vietnamese baker around the corner. As I spy Patrice’s sallow face I am racked with guilt. Her gaunt face is a reminder of the spectre who came to whisk Alfredo away into the land of Wherever and I find it difficult to console her for I know the feeling of losing something that cannot be regained. No words lessen the pain. Condolences exiting the mouths of family and strangers can never act like necromancers to resuscitate the dearly departed. My feet keep on walking and I am relieved that I don’t have to apologise for something that is totally beyond my comprehension.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everyone eventually fades from my mind on a typical working day. My parents are in another place, as is Alfredo, and my life continues. Adapting to each morning shift has been difficult as I am not a morning person and as I slowly shuffle through my hallway I notice that the sun has not crossed the distant horizon. Alone in a wintry apartment, I shiver as I step onto the icy tiled bathroom floor and my teeth clatter as I stare into the mirror. The yellowish light radiates through the bathroom and my complexion is draped with an orange tinge. Clinically quiet, the bathroom takes on a different shape the second I spy my leaning toothbrush. In slow motion, the glass that houses it tumbles onto the tiles and shatters, spraying small fragments all around my feet.

“What am I here?”
My mind recalls the dream that woke me before my bleeping alarm. I was transported to the distant past and my mother, who hadn’t aged one year, quietly sat on our maroon velour three seated sofa dragging on a cigarette that burned for far too long. Compelled to grab the nearby blue glass ashtray and place it underneath the cylindrical column of ash I see that my mother is watching me, oblivious to the ash that’s about to fall on her faux Persian rug. I ask her the question and she remains silent.

“Why am I here? You’re not supposed to be here.” I then say.

Her hair is all pinned and lacquered into a fashionable bee-hive circa Sixties, a style I had nearly forgotten but as my eyes scan her lustrous chestnut hair I remember our outings at the local fair, my numerous rides on the carousel and her waving at me as the ornate fun ride completed each revolution.

“But I am here, I will always be here.”
“You can’t be here. You’re dead.”
“I am not dead. What makes you think such a thing?”
Her lips spread into a pleasant grin.

I think my stomach contracted in a violent manner, so much so that my vocal chords were paralysed while my mother calmly looked on as I struggled to form a word. Her eyes, it was always her stare, riveted into my own and it was then that my eyelids fluttered open in a manner reminiscent of a knocked out cartoon character who saw twinkling stars dance about their head.

You’re dead, that’s what you are and forever will be.
The mirror has no words to say, it’s silver sheen captures my red rimmed eyes and I turn away with rising embarrassment, remembering how I recoiled with rising nausea the second my mother protested her status. I have never seen it up close, death that is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The morning rush obliterates any thoughts I may have concerning my own mortality. When I first began at White Oaks Nursing Home I was shocked but I pushed it all aside to earn money for my tuition. All my life I was accustomed to seeing women with coiffed blue rinsed hair and men with elegant walking canes. White Oaks opened another gateway and once I stepped inside was difficult to escape. Bodies wearily shuffled down lonely corridors, sat motionless or sagged within mattresses. Spent, after a lifetime of pure animation, each body featured extreme, in my mind, wear and tear. Skin, once bursting with joie de vivre, was mottled with liver spots and glowed with a eerie translucence that spoke of one reaching one’s use by date. Each human became a ‘perishable’ and so would I when the time arrived. So many people, many residents whose names are numerous. I feel like a vampire as I snatch time and find a seat on a nearby chair or the edge of their beds. Many are pleased to have the occasional listening ear that wants to hear of their odysseys and I am always happy to oblige. Each small room is identical to the next. All feature generic single beds and customary nearby visitor chair, usually upholstered in vinyl orange to match a beige vinyl floor that can be easily cleaned.

Mary Bloomingdale boasts a vivid history at a spry eighty five. Not many can top Mary. Her life began as a department store model, a nearby silver frame confirms this by way of a black and white glamour shot that reminds me of the Ziegfeld Follies musicals of the forties I grew up watching on television as a child. Modeling introduced Mary to many noted celebrities of her time, many of which play acted on radio, who numbered the vintage Australian who’s who of entertainment. This was the golden era before television according to Mary. Numerous loves and equal amounts of heartbreak duly followed Mary who also broke her fair share of hearts but she was an unknown quantity for males of her era. Her third and final marriage to the love of her life meant that she married a near pauper, a railway worker, and the fateful moment arrived when a work accident took him to heaven. Childless at the age of thirty five, with little hope of remarriage in a world that considered her a dried up spinster, Mary’s fine bone structure and elegant posture clinched yet another deal. She transformed into a Madam and managed the finest bordello in Kings Cross.

“You got around.” I say.
“When you’ve got it, flaunt it love.” She would add. Life was too short to worry over minor peccadilloes, according to Mary. Seated in her leather recliner, almost enveloped by the sheer bulk of the chair, she would always offer a smile and chat for what could have been hours. Her rose soufflé shaded lipstick was an essential staple, as was her mauve nail polish and I would help her adorn her face and nails each day.

When winter decided to gnash its teeth, Mary took a turn for the worse. The doctor diagnosed influenza but I knew better. Mary was tired and her sparkling turquoise eyes lost their glimmer. Her emotions unravelled during a slow afternoon when she realized that she outlived everyone from her own era.

“They’re all dead you know. All except me.”
It was difficult to reply to such a statement. I continued painting her fingernails to the tune of a whirring floor polisher a nearby cleaner steered in the nearby hall.
“You have a way to go yet Mary.”
“I’m tired love.”
It was then that I knew. She was calling Mr Reaper and there was nothing I could do to convince her otherwise.

Within a week Mary was no longer with me and I was called away from my break by the head nurse to come and prepare Mary for our mortuary and the undertaker who would arrive in the morning to pick her up - like a perishable. I am paired with Juanita, my evening shift partner, a vintage nurses aide who is teetering on the edge of fifty and she is my tour guide to institutional death. We begin the ritual, slowly freeing Mary from her wool flannel skirt and silk blouse. My virgin experience with death close up is my own silent secret and I avert my eyes as Juanita hastily raises Mary’s right arm to remove Mary’s favorite blue silk blouse. Inanimate, Mary’s arms are floppy. I remind myself to keep a firm hold of her left arm as I work on raising Mary’s undershirt. Juanita, her ginger fringe clinging to her forehead, is just about to begin the sponge bath when she realizes she is a flannel short. Her time away, to retrieve a flannel and an additional towel, pits me against a nameless void. I elevate Mary’s arm and let go to only see it drop. My eyes scan her once smiling face and I happen upon her eyes, which are partially open. Fear grips me the instant my thumb gently peels back her right eyelid. She is no longer there.
Where has she gone?
No one can really answer such questions even if they, like me, are literally touching death. Her pale skin turns toward the grey and each limb is no longer pulsating with blood.
“Hurry up.” Juanita orders.
But..
“We don’t have all day Katrina.”
“She’s dead.” I say.
“Did you figure that out now?” Juanita says. Each roll of blubber, from Juanita’s chin to the lower half of her abdomen trembles as she howls with laughter.
“It’s not funny.”
“When you’ve been here as long as I have Kat you get used to it.” She says in a matter of fact tone.

Mary wears a fresh nightgown and we transfer her onto a cool steel gurney. Juanita assigns herself the honour of wheeling Mary out of her room. As the wheels turn I can hear a light screech from a wonky rusted wheel but Juanita continues to transfer Mary out of the room, down the hall, through the home’s back exit, down the ramp until she reaches White Oaks’ mortuary. Juanita, as absurd as it sounds, reminds me of the ferryman who will only transport people to the other side for a price.

When my shift ends I return home to face a quiet evening of reflection. I channel surf, eat a TV dinner, shower and climb into bed with full knowledge that the sun will glance through the horizon. After the sun wearies it will make way for the moon at the close of the day and at a later point the sun will step in. It’s a continual cycle where one day blends into the next.

Where did people go?
I didn’t exactly know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Laboratories are cold sterile places that lack spiritual sparks. This place was my next destination and although my efforts to outrun death fail at each turn at least I found a place that reserved a dress circle seat for the reaper. People here learned from the bodies of generous benefactors who didn’t want to immediately be immersed in soil.
“Imagine. This hand once held the hand of another.”
I adjusted my white lab coat and began chewing the inside of my cheek. The last thing I needed was a sentimental student in my fifth year tutoring virgin medical students who generally selected this field in order to gain some ideal lifestyle.
“We’re not here to be sentimental over a prosected specimen Jasmin, today’s lab concerns itself with the anterior muscles of the forearm.”
My voice is stern as I walk over to her hunched form. The hand in question was a bit part in the overall scheme. It was attached to a solo arm made up of radius, ulna, humerus, carpals and featured numerous muscles, fascia, blood vessels and nerves. I spy Jasmin’s gloved hand holding its long dead pickled counterpart. An overhead fan silently whirs and everyone sits up straighter on their metal stool.
“Jasmin!”
Her head jerks upward and I’m relieved to see her disengage her hand.
Questions begin to arrive from nowhere.
-How do you come by the specimens?
-Do people donate their bodies?
-How do you prepare them?
“We creep into cemeteries in the middle of the night and dig up fresh graves.” I say in jest.
“Aw, come on Katrina.” Someone says.
“I’m here to tutor gross anatomy not wax lyrical over embalming techniques. You’re here to become doctors not morticians.”
My replies are pure defense mechanisms that are custom designed for I refuse to dance with such topics and adhere to macroscopic objects I can touch.
“When do you graduate?” Asks Jasmin.
“Two more years to go.” I reply.
“Doesn’t it upset you to see dead or sick people?” She continues.
“You have seven more years and an attitude like that isn’t going to get you anywhere if you don’t put it in its rightful place.”
She tilts her head to face the lifeless arm on the slab.

All the students form study pairs and I watch them take out slim metal probes that they will use to track muscle attachments and vessel pathways. I stroll in circles and my stomach begins growling in anticipation. I haven’t eaten breakfast and I’m so damned hungry. If a bunch of students weren’t hovering over stainless steel tables I could very well fish out my muesli breakfast bar and take many bites, arm or no arm.


I, like many, prefer to begin from the inside and work my way out. There is a reason behind this logic. One begins to work from the very frame that works to animate the body. The skeleton acts as a multi-purpose machine that absorbs and exerts force. The bony framework also houses many intricate wires that are connected to a central processor which is nestled within the bony calvarium. Layers are then added to robe the individual. All muscles are attached to bones in a proximal and distal sense. Major blood vessels, such as elastic arteries and flaccid veins, lay hidden within each striated muscle like hidden jewels. The aorta, vena cava, pulmonary artery and vein, in addition to the femoral vessels -I could go on - all act, as they branch out forming life’s tree, to transport nutrients throughout the microcosm of the human body and there are many other non layered systems that lay within cavities that are comprised of organs such as the stomach, kidney, liver, large and small intestine (which continually undulate). The most efficient method of exploration is by first stripping away the outermost layer that is dominated by emotion.
It’s all very mechanical, precise and each system runs independent of conscious thought. I don’t have to consciously instruct my stomach to digest each morsel of food, my inbuilt circadian rhythm will signal my body and tell it to sleep at some point and urges, such as the need to empty one’s bladder, are implicitly controlled by the electrical switchboard within our skull. In spite of the brain’s implicit or automatic functions I do suspect that one’s identity lies somewhere within the myelin mesh. Neurons zap forth impulses faster than the speed of light and daily things such as thought, memory, emotion and various other drives are switched on or off in a fleeting manner.

After Mary, many others followed. Juanita was correct. I did adapt.
My time at this institution has seen me teach many a student and my hands have graced many cadavers but I have yet to find the primordial place that houses the individual and on some reflective days, usually when silver rivulets fall from the downcast sky, I think I hear the reaper-man softly laugh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A part of me did expect to live through to a ripe retirement. The morning mirror or aptly titled vanity, greets me on a fine spring morning and my hair, although a still-rich chestnut, features random white strands that sprout from my widow’s peak. Laughter lines, that’s what I prefer to term them, crop up as I smile that personal smile and I push the years aside as I squeeze toothpaste onto my cobalt blue toothbrush.
“At least you have all your teeth love.” I say to myself.

In the present day and age life expectancy is taken for granted by people such as myself who know the ins and outs of just about every illness. At the palliative care unit where I worked we would see as many as four people bid a permanent adieu per night. As for the reason behind my preference of being the final tour guide for those who assigned terminal sentences, as opposed to finding cures or scalpel slicing my way to create miracles, I thought it necessary. We, after all, see death walk through corridors and we are privileged to see death first hand after the electrical impulses obey a ceasefire of sorts. I may walk through these sterile corridors, as I have for the last decade or so, but I still outrun my childhood memory each time a man, woman or child asks me what their final journey may be like.
How am I to know?
‘But you have seen death.’ Many say.
That I have but I have limited access to the individual’s thoughts once the reaper drapes one hand over one’s body to signify the permanent shut down or countdown. As callous as it may sound, it is not altogether different to switching off a television set or experiencing that urgent power surge before the fuse blows.

In spite of tales that speak of premonitions and omens, I decided to take a detour and walk past Alfredo’s old bakery. Three decades have passed and Alfredo’s has morphed into a neon lit pawn shop but the heavenly scent of freshly baked bread still sits in my mind. Funny how aromas remain and rewind one back to a distant moment. I stepped into the past, my early morning visits for my crispy croissants and remembered Alfredo’s smiling face. His hands would gently pick up loaves in a loving manner and transfer them into paper bags. If only humans were handled with such devotion.

I don’t remember blacking out per se but I do remember opening my eyes to a vision of white. People, clad in familiar uniforms, hovered over me to check my stats and I didn’t worry over the occasional jab or prod. My heart rate was steady and just as well because one of my cardiac arteries, the left descending artery, boasted a couple of fatty plaques. Too many croissants or customary cigarettes after someone flat lined perhaps? My supreme muscle gave out. It was a mechanical problem and they sought to fix it the second my test results were revealed the following morning. Even I could have told them, after my decades of getting up close and personal, that ghosts resided within the machine of my heart. They all fought for supremacy and there was only one way to put an end to the riot. The physicians and nurses were all satisfied that my other systems functioned and they comfortably exited my room, leaving me attached to a suave machine that counted each beat. As the sun prepared to hand over the day to the moon I was greeted with a familiar whisper. My visitor arrived or wafted about before settling at my near right and as the visitor extended one hand the chain reaction began in earnest.

The silhouette ignites my mind in a whispering second and the merry-go-round begins to take flight as it spins into my core. Memories are all whirring about. Past, present and future all embrace as one as the pulsations in the physiological centres hum along. Jettisoning through rivers that branch out into definitive yet vast tributaries, each image contained within the memory that once breathed speaks of the infinitesimal.

All roads never converge, they may take turns to converge after diverging. What was masked as a crossroads is a pit stop - a mental truck stop. After the inspection or retrospection, the gears are then engaged and the truck moves forth, keeping in mind that it has a wealth of images, sounds and thoughts that are all derived from the origin of the point or the first derivative which was inherited from my progenitor.

Sweeping through what can be the soul are mirrors that are miniscule. Perhaps they are sub atomic and act as mini reflectors that cast shadows along the nerve infused walls which then form convoluted corridors with infinite doors, or passageways, that can never be counted - not with the ‘electron’ eye, never mind the human eye or mind itself. In this passageway, or doorway all senses collide or they may be filtered. The alchemist within begins to work on the secret formula weaving the spell of happiness or content. Invocations are soothingly stated, orated almost. Sometimes these are sung or recited in order to affirm and reaffirm the very reason of existence. It is within this corridor that I find myself entertained in various ways for I know that there is never a guaranteed resultant. The journey may be pitted with tribulations and misdemeanours. Pleasure may collide with pain or ignorance. The coldness may stifle the passions and keep them at bay until the sun rises or an eclipse occurs during a particular wisp of a moment or planetary alignment.

As I walk through the corridors and peek through the doors I do wonder whether some items may be permanently disposed of. What use is there to retain items that are never used or will never be used after their use by date? But that is the essence of the memory my dear, according to my visitor. Do I question or completely ignore the final tug of war and deliver my eternal trust to my self ?

Befuddled and no wiser than before, the eternal slumber awaits as my visitor observes my fading light. To an outside observer the final act is simple, almost sublime. One closes one’s eyes and disappears at a speed that would have perplexed Einstein. For me, as I end life’s journey, one succinct word can describe the climactic end as one’s life energy dissolves.

Supernova.