The Abiding Room

THE ABIDING ROOM


When I entered the Abiding Room summer had already expired. The life- size trees that stretched to the ceiling were tall sticks standing one-legged in puddles of friable leaves. There was a nip in the air, indicative of an incipient winter.

I slipped into the only chair and hugged myself for warmth. I leaned over and took my mother’s hand. It was warm in spite of the falling temperatures which was always the case with the moribund. The room, after all, was designed for the living. It was constructed to portray the status of the dying loved one on the bed; a symbol of their progress as they battled, like the seasons, against Time.

Along the walls were neighborhoods where people knelt and planted posies, anxious hands slammed car doors, and chucka-booted children launched themselves into lumps of crunchy leaves that exploded in the crispy air.

Lifelike houses rose behind lawns bound by picket fences while the equally lifelike sounds of the traffic on the streets, the lawn mowers, and the barking dogs carried on, all very quietly, of course, in respect for the patient that lay perishing upon the bed.

Maybe it was odd to find an outdoor scene inside an otherwise normal hospital room, and, perhaps, one might have expected to find walls of lights and fancy components, with flashing messages and alarms, set up from corner to corner, for what I was about to do. Yet, the only odd thing to account for the deed ahead of me, besides the chilly autumn scene around me, was the pocket-sized Communicator the room supplied on the bedside table.

I picked it up in my trembling hands. I gazed at it for a moment, wondering how such a tiny thing could possibly accomplish the feat it was designed to do.

I settled back and examined my mother.

As her resting eyelids fluttered, birds rustled high overhead somewhere in the upper-branches of the surrounding trees, and the odorophonics blew the rusty smell of souring apples and smoky earth across the browning grass to my chair.

Admiration for the electronic genius who had fabricated the true-to-life atmosphere and had mechanically adhered everything so realistically together, filled me with awe.

To control the pain, my mother was heavily sedated. I was told I could talk to her, but she was no longer able to respond to me in any way as long as her spirit remained in her body.

The Communicator was left to the whims of the room itself, through the hidden computer that controlled the semiconductor diode in the walls, and processed the data that was transmitted by the special electronics within the hospital bed.

Still, knowing all this, I couldn’t help myself. I began to speak. I started out slowly, mentioning memories I had of us together when I was a child touching upon those very things I knew she had valued most.

The neighborhood around me stirred. A terrier chased a squirrel up a tree. Did that mean my mother had heard me?

Encouraged, I went on and on, knowing I would never have this opportunity again, until, eventually, I ended with permission for her to go; it was okay for her to leave me now, that there was no need for her to hang on any longer.

Suddenly, the device in my hand began to vibrate. I looked down at the tiny screen as my mother’s face appeared. She opened her mouth to speak, and even though she remained motionless upon the bed, her voice came over the small speaker loud and true.

“I know my time is near.”

“Oh, Mom,” I sobbed.

There was still so much to say. I had to fight the tears that were choking me.

“I love you, Mom,” I simply said.

I watched her labored breathing while a taxi pulled away from the curb nearby, and a bicycle pedaled past with sunshine on its glistening spokes.

The air was growing colder.

In my hand, my mother sighed.

“What are you feeling, what do you see?” I asked my mother through the insensible machine.

Suddenly I heard a muffled sound. Above, the sky was darkening, and from the automatized infinity a leaf fluttered down. A vehicle swerved just then, and came careening towards us with a sense of feverish reality. I nearly bolted from my chair before I realized it was only a trick of the technological gymnastics behind the manufactured walls.

“My senses are weakening and I can barely see anything,” came my mother’s voice. “All is very quiet. I am so full of drugs I cannot make out one breath from another and sometimes it feels like the next one will never come.”

I squeezed her sparrow hand, and not able to help myself, sobbed unabashedly.

“Mom,” I suddenly thought to ask, “Is there anything you want me to say . . . perhaps a special message to someone?”

The answer came swiftly.

“Just be happy. Take care of Buddy, and love him,” she said, referring to my husband.

“I will.”

My throat tightened painfully.

“Is there one last thing you would like me to do for you?” I asked.

“Yes, there is one thing.” Her voice came across the speaker strong and clear, belying the inert body that lay beside me, a relaxed puppet, to which at dawn, no finger would return.

I leaned forward, although it was totally unnecessary.

“Remember that problems arise to occupy your time. They mean nothing more, and nothing less. Don’t focus all your attention on them. Time will pass either way, so learn what you can from them, than let them go.”

A gale clattered in the high branches overhead, and I suddenly jumped as the elms swayed in the wind. I had to remind myself that it was only a crystal wall, no matter how real everything appeared. It was all dimensional, super-reactionary, supersensitive color film and supersonics behind nothing more than just mere glass screens.

My mother’s voice continued.

“Fill your mind with things that are beneficial to your salubrity. Surround yourself with people who challenge your intellect. Pass your time doing the things you enjoy, and keep doing them until you absolutely have to stop.”

The tears were streaming down my face. The ache in my heart was incredible. My sobbing grew louder and I could no longer control my tears.

“Chris.” My mother’s voice stopped me, and I wiped my eyes and blew my nose. “I don’t have much longer. Would you like me to tell you what it’s like?”

I looked into my mother’s face inside the screen.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“It’s a lot like moving underwater, like everything is gradually letting go, slowly easing away. Stress is mitigating. Gravity? Mollifying like a balloon in the air. It’s bright like hot July on chrome fenders . . . and it feels like shirt sleeves on wrists, pant cuffs against ankles, just the right length and material and color. It’s like laughter amidst splashing water, vinyl colors, and bubbles. It’s sweet, Chris. For every fear, there’s hope to cushion it, and for every stab of pain that leaks through, there’s peace waiting for it on the other side.”

The image on the screen closed her tired eyes. I stared at my mother in silent wonder, holding back the flood I did not dare release.

“Mom,” I whispered within the crystalline confines of the walls that were now blowing earthen litter like cornflakes against the curb sides. My voice caused a whirlpool of wind to rattle the barren branches above, echoing the rattling of my mother’s equally brittle lungs. “I’m here, Mom, you’re going to be alright.”

Somewhere a shutter slammed against a clapboard siding.

“You’re going to be alright,” I repeated, as if to convince myself.

“I just want to go home already,” my mother mumbled softly. “I’m tired of this.”

To emphasize her statement, a pile of leaves jumped up just then and skittered across the pavement. The opal season was in the throes of deaths’ grip. It’s icy fingers running over every object like a child at a flea market, unable to leave anything untouched.

Clouds raced in the greying sky as my helpless mother raced to her finish line.

“I’m going now,” she whispered. “I feel light, very light and happy, Chris.”

My mother took her last labored breath, and then nothing.

“I love you, Mom.”

Snow began to fall.

In my mother’s voice, the room replied.

“I love you, too.”

One last leaf twitched and fluttered to the frosty floor. The cloves of the elms and maples were already filling with snow.

Soon it would be spring.





THE END