Aaron, remember Silvia? She’s been in the hospital since Monday—three days now. Today is Thursday. You finally found the hospital’s number—God bless Mario—and called her. Joe was in the room and it was raining, Amii sat in the corner by the fridge, and Trenton was at the computer with his back to us, but he could hear you. Ryu was on the floor, and every now and then Nick would come in and walk to his spot and then walk out to his other spot. You got through to Silvia smoothly, and she sounded beat as hell. All life and love was gone—betrayed by people. Betrayed by misunderstanding. Betrayed by humankind’s greatest flaws: dominance and laziness. Maybe that last part is a bit too wordy. I don’t know, these thoughts are hard to group together.
But she answered and the whole room listened in on the conversation.
Hey, Silvia!
Hey.
How are you?
I’m ok.
Pause. Long, long pause.
How was your morning?
It was ok. I didn’t sleep so good.
I can imagine. It must be scary.
Yeah. I don’t know anyone.
I understand. Has your social worker visited you?
No.
Has your public guardian visited you?
No.
That’s what I thought.
How long am I going to be here?
I don’t know. I wish I could tell you.
I need to go home. I don’t want to be here.
I understand. Me and Laurie are trying to light the fire under people’s asses.
Please do. Hold a candle under them if you have to.
I’m doing just that. I’m trying to annoy the hell out of them.
Haha. Good.
I have some updates for you.
Ok.
We’re going to meet—me, Laurie, Lesley—with your new social worker and guardian, and your group home managers Tuesday. We want to get you out of the hospital as soon as possible.
Do you know when?
Tuesday.
No, when I’ll get out of the hospital.
I don’t know until the meeting happens. I hope it’s soon. And I hope to God you’re invited to the meeting.
Me too.
-Pause-
I have a special guest for you.
Ok.
Here’s Joe:
Hey, baby. What have you been up to? Are you ok? What do you do all day? Uh-huh. I understand. I heard a rumor that you’d be back by next week. I hope so. Uh-huh. Ok. Are you watching TV? Ok. I understand. I love you, baby. Love. Ok. Hope you’re out soon. Love you. Love you. Aaron wants to talk to you again.
What do you do all day?
Nothing. Just TV.
Sounds boring.
Yeah, I don’t even have magazines to read when I get bored.
No magazines?
No! The ones they have are old and falling apart.
I’ll try to visit you this weekend. I’ll bring you some magazines just in case you have to stay the weekend.
I hope I don’t have to stay the weekend!
Me too.
When do I get out?
I don’t know. I really wish I could tell you.
Ok.
Ok, Silvia, I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.
Ok.
Love you.
Love you, too.
Ok, have a good day, Silvia.
Ok.
Bye.
Bye.
And then I don’t know what to do, so I cry. I walk out of the room and into the empty room across the hall and just unload in the darkness. Mehrin comes to me and says Do you feel bad? I say I don’t feel bad, but I feel very, very sad. She says Oh, do you need a tissue? So I cry some more because the people I work for are the nicest people you could ever hope to experience. So much love and thought and caring and you can see the hope for humanity right before you and in that moment I can’t stand the injustice and I fall down and weep like I’ve never experienced before.
This pain is too overwhelming, it surrounds—it’s present in every interaction on every corner in every part of the world. The Great, Great Misunderstanding. The injustice done. The pain. The constant fear and an inability to control one’s life. The most adaptable species on the planet is resistant to change. And it’s change to stupid stuff, like missteps in the daily routine.
One time, I set my sights on a destination far into the distance. I said, “I’m going to run there and back.” I pushed off along the shore—
this was on the beach and the sun was setting.
Purples and oranges and yellows and blues. And the water slowly reflected the grey of twilight. The mist and sparkles and wavering, shimmering, rolling reflection of everything in the sky within the wake. And running, and footfalls and the snowy plovers chasing after brine shrimp and crabs. All these things within my peripheral as I locked onto the Cliff House in the distance. I ran and ran and ran, everything in synch, each breath easy and cool and crisp and fresh upon my tongue. I ran past families, and lonely walkers, and dog walkers, and sitters, and people who stood upon the cliff like statues completely taken by the scene—and it’s true, it was beautiful, it was like God’s hand upon the land—and hundreds and hundreds of seagulls and plovers and shrimp and crab, all—all of them—doing their thing upon the shore. I ran past picnics, and surfers, and crumbling sand castles, and trash, and shells and rocks and sand got into my shoe and I got so fucking mad I had to stop. And then I focused again and ran. But the closer I got, the longer the stretch was. I crested the slope I could barely tell I was running up and realized that this gentle hill had blocked my view from so far away, and that the distance I was to run was much greater than I had prepared for. But I ran, and kites flew up into the air as the sun made everything gold, then purple, then black, and slowly the people disappeared and I was alone in twilight when I touched the cliff.
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