Segment 2

         “She’s dead . . .”
         And it’s your voice I hear, as clear as water trickling over the day. I open my eyes to darkness. I don’t remember closing them. I still can’t see anything. I’m cushioned in darkness and nothing feels right, I feel wrenched, every muscle throbbing but not here, all my pain has been shunted off to some faraway body and they’re beaming it all back to me over a bad signal. I’m a poor receiver, misinterpreting everything.
         “. . . it’s the first time I said it, that I was actually able to get it out and . . . oh God . . .”
         Definitely your voice. It’s muffled and something is off around the edge of the tone but I’d know the sound anywhere, a girlish pitch always hovering on the edges of a giddy squeal, an implied sharpness of a fast wit. I gasp but I can’t feel my breath. I have to focus. I’m trapped in the unfocused lens of a broken camera, my body bisected by the crack, trying to wriggle out of the photograph. But the edges of myself are all fuzzy and I keep threatening to slip away.
         “. . . because I keep waiting for it to hit me and I keep bracing myself for it and I keep dreading it and . . . yeah, I know, I have to just . . . yeah, let it happen, I know but, you know that’s . . . it’s easy to say . . .”
         I know this time. I can identify a year by smell, by the way it rustles around me, like a set of old clothes I can’t fully assimilate. Each one is different, a fingerprint pressing its whorls right into my body. My fingers curl into strands of thick carpet under me. The room is resolving into a room, a static setting with walls and windows that I can anchor myself with. The door must be behind me, because I can’t see it. There’s a window on the opposite wall and it must be night because the shade is drawn and the only thing peeking through is the ambient light pollution, moonlight proving to be nothing more than anemic sunshine. The sound of your voice is the only solid thing I can feel, the thing that keeps me here.
         “. . . it’s, I found out how easy it is to . . . to delude yourself, to pretend that everything is okay but not okay . . . no, that’s not what I mean, I’m just . . . crap, will just you just listen . . . I, when they first told me that she, that she died, I said okay, and I cried a little and I figured, I thought, that wasn’t so bad, I can accept this, it’s not so hard, I don’t know what everyone gets so excited about . . .”
         I’ve been here before, but not now. There’s a great looming wall in front of me and I think it’s a bed. It is. I know this place now, the contours are returning. I can’t see you, but I think I know where you are. Crawling, I find myself weighed down, I’m bereft of friction, running in place without moving. There’s a single green dot of light coming from a place above me, the glow shrouded and muted. I cling to it like a lighthouse, but I don’t think I have any mass to exert.
         “. . . it’s one thing to just, to tell yourself that you accept it and something else entirely to say that . . . yeah, that’s what I’m saying, that I . . . hm, ah, that’s . . . that’s the problem it, it doesn’t feel real, it doesn’t, when someone just tells you, it’s not different than someone telling you that it’s going to rain . . . that it’s, that’s right, I . . . I believed it and I didn’t and . . . tonight . . . yeah, that’s why . . . that’s, yeah . . .”
         I may have moved, I may not have gone anywhere. The bed is capped by a dome and I think you’re underneath it. I’ve been here before, but not yet. Not for a long time. You’re curled in a coccoon and I can’t see you and I very much want to because the last image I have of you now is too still and painful and it’s slowly burning its way into the core of myself and threatening to replace everything else I ever knew about you with that fatal second. I’m closer to the nightstand than I thought but you’re still invisible, a facet of a memory instead of the thing itself. But I’m inhabiting it, I’m inside, like falling down a tunnel coated in sandpaper, you feel every inch more acutely.
         “. . . yeah, I lost it tonight, I had to . . . I had to walk out, it wasn’t even all those people it was, I told myself that I was okay with everything, that I was fine and . . . it’s not the same to, to see it, when all you’ve been is told . . .”
         And I’ve never been here before. But I think I know what you’re talking about. You told me, in a time later than here, in a time long ago.
         “. . . oh God, I see it in my head and I just want to . . . ah, I saw her, right there in the casket and it . . . God, it was like being punched in the stomach, I couldn’t breathe, my mom warned me that . . . I didn’t listen, I shouldn’t have . . . I know, I know everyone has to eventually, I just . . . when you find out someone is dead you, you still have this mental image of them as, as alive and . . . they had these prayer cards, these cards with some words from a prayer or something and a picture of her . . . no, it wasn’t that old, it was, it was just like I remembered her and that’s . . . right, it’s, it’s what I carried in my head and then . . .”
         There’s posters on the walls, but I don’t remember who was on them. By the time I came in here, these ones were probably gone. I don’t remember what color the carpet was, even if I press my face right up against it. All the details are in my head and smeared, I’m too close to it, like an impressionist painting, if you let the distance fall too much you just lose all meaning. I have to get away. I can’t listen to your voice, recorded out of sequence. Who are you talking to? My fingers brush against the cord, maybe forcing it to tremble, connecting your phone to its base. The light is no nearer. Can you hear me, trying to breathe outside your bed?
         “. . . tonight just, I saw here there and it was all . . . she was there and she wasn’t moving and . . . God, I know, trust me, believe me, I know, it was all gone . . . I mean, I thought I knew what it was to be dead, but I . . . mm, God, I don’t know anything, to see it, to see her, not moving, just lying there and, oh God . . . I feel it, in my chest, every time I try to think about it . . . can you hear it, my voice, it’s shaking, still, how many hours later . . . dammit, I thought I’d be okay, I thought . . . I had to walk out, I did, I did walk out, I stood outside and I don’t think anyone knew I was out there, I just . . .”
         Who are you talking to, that I can’t hear? I can probably guess, if I could get my thoughts together. I’m fading out, phasing out, there’s loss in your words and it’s pushing me away, north pole meeting north pole, my grief slamming into yours and there’s no room for both in this frame, I’m being shoved out, I have no place here.
         “. . . I keep thinking that she’s gone and I, I can’t wrap my head around it, I keep . . . I keep expecting it to be like all the times she went into the hospital where I just, I wouldn’t see her for a few weeks and then she’d come out and things would be the same, I . . . maybe I could have convinced myself of that, if I hadn’t seen her . . . no, you’re right, I know, I had to, it had to be . . . but she’s just . . . that’s it, she was here and now she’s not and . . . God, I don’t know how my mother, how she can even, I mean it was her mother, I, I only knew her for like, fourteen years and I was a baby for most of it but my mother, this, this was the lady who raised her and now she’s . . . she’s gone and she’s not coming back I . . . it still doesn’t sound real, when I say it . . .”
         I remember your grandmother, before she died. She always called me by the wrong name and kept thinking I was your boyfriend because she was old fashioned and couldn’t imagine why someone would be just friends with a boy if they weren’t dating them. She had a kind voice and made a good sandwich, the few times you bothered to share it. There’s a pressure sitting on my chest, shoving me down into the floor, beyond it, to a place sideways to the room. I’m a transmission and I could be interrupted at any second.
         “. . . and you know how when you cry, when you do it for so long that it’s like you run out of tears and your nose won’t stop running and your eyes feel five sizes too large and . . . that’s right, that’s why my voice, it’s so hoarse, I . . . once you understand something you can’t get it out of your head . . . I keep thinking about how still she was, how she was my grandmother and she wasn’t and she’s not going to move ever again and I . . . I know, I know, deep breaths, it’ll be better but . . . that’s the thing that’s . . .”
         And I remember when she died and we didn’t see you for almost a week. I thought you were sick again. It never occurred to me to pick up a phone. I was always a bastard that way. And when I did see you again you didn’t look the same, there was something in your face that wasn’t right. I didn’t understand it then. I know it now, too late, years later and still caught in the moment.
         “. . . but as bad as it is, it hasn’t hit me yet, you know, like finally, for real, this is it and . . . I don’t know, I’m afraid, what . . . what is it going to feel like when I . . . I know, I worry too much, you’re right, just, I just have to go with it, but it’s just . . . thank you, I know, you guys are great, I . . .”
         This moment now, caught in your voice. There’s something added and there’s something missing and I know what it might take to replace it all. If I could, I’d go back and capture a jar of your grandmother’s voice and bring it to you so that you wouldn’t have to do this. I’m so close but you’re not here anymore, I’m trapped inside the recording. But no, you’re right, once the button’s been pressed there’s nothing any of us can do to make it unstick. I’m at the side of your bed, but I can’t pull myself up. And what would I say, if I could. If I did.
         “. . . I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be like this, I . . . I know I have a good reason but . . . I can’t go to sleep and I can’t lay here, all I could . . . listen, do you promise, really, I’m serious, what I’m going to say I don’t want anyone else to know . . . because I know how everyone gets, don’t tell me I can hear it . . .”
         How were we? I’m right here and I can’t remember. I know how you are and how you feel, the numbing ache, the sense that it won’t ever go away. I know all of it, but I wouldn’t know it until later and that does you no good now. And now that I do know I can’t help.
         “. . . it’s the thing, what’s keeping me up, when I close my eyes, I just . . . I know, don’t dwell on it, you don’t have to tell me that, I just, listen, okay, listen . . . what I’m saying, what I want to say is that . . . what’s been driving me crazy, about going tonight, about everything is that . . . God, I can’t even say it, I wish you could, my hands are shaking, they’re just . . .”
         Your head is buried under the covers, your voice is so far away, these words are mesages from someone crammed down the mine shaft, desperate to send signals up to the surface, not sure if anyone is there listening. I’m here, don’t you see? I don’t know how I got here but I made it and I want to tell you that I know, that I know how it feels. Three years from now, I would know. I know now. Everything loops on itself. There’s just a light. That I can’t reach.
         “. . . I, when I stood there, in front of the coffin, staring right at my grandmother, I just . . . ah, no, let me finish, don’t hang up yet, I know you don’t want to but please, I just . . . I looked at her and . . .”
         Your voice is heavy and thick and too far away. My insides are twisted, streaming toward another place. I’m holding on for all that I can, I don’t know why but I learned never to let go if I could avoid because it will get torn away soon enough. If you threw the covers off, would you see me? Am I here? In a place, in this place?
         “. . . I saw myself in there, that’s all I could . . . my face and my body, all, all done up in that fake makeup to make you look alive when you’re just not, you know how people say, oh they look good, I saw people staring at me and saying that as I laid there all still and dead and . . . I couldn’t handle it, I couldn’t breathe, I still can’t, I . . .”
         Your voice has been crackling, coming apart at the edges for the last few sentences, even as you’ve been trying to hold it all together. I knew the sound but I’m still surprised when your words dissolve into a series of brutal coughs, the kind that come from deep inside your lungs, like you’re trying to eject your stomach, to turn everything inside out, deep like the voice of an old bluesman. Your body spasms and jerks under the covers, the bed trembling like struck gelatin, the noise echoing like cannon fire in a too small space. It’s so familiar. I’ve forgotten already. Startled, I fall back and lose my balance and I don’t feel myself hit the floor and the ceiling just seems so far away, a sky where all the stars have gone out.
         And I’m falling and the percussion of your coughs are following me down and I think I hear for a second the sound of a distant voice, crying out and calling out, trying to see if you’re okay, trying to reach across a gap bridged only by technology and a wire, unable to hurt or help or do anything at all. It’s the last thing I hear and I try to carry it with me in all its desperate pleading, as a weight and a comfort, until it’s transfigured and becomes the arc of my voice, no matter what it used to sound like, or how it used to be. Gold into lead. I wasn’t here, I can’t leave a mark. But we stamp history with our memories, a handprint on the emptiness, regardless of how true it might be.