ChasingAndCatching by Reuel McFarland
There was simply no warning.
Except the Captains. And all too late we knew that the flight was doomed.
There’s still this overwhelming sense of loss- and an abrupt vacuum left to colour even my dreams. I wake up to it; pillow my head on it at night. There is no other way to say it than just to say it.
I’m still unpacking what I’d so valiantly tried to keep in order within, yet I’m found face to face with what no human can shoulder solo. There is no just getting past it (as I’ve been frequently admonished).
Other than that, Mrs. Kennedy, how was the parade? Right?
In fact, there’s this persistent reel that plays in my head, at times sending me reeling - beginning predictably with the calm just before everything in my life took on Picaso brush strokes. It’s a frame-by-frame rehashing of the details, and a forever absconding with status quo in the form of "what if’s".
Everything seen seems through this filtre of privation. As hunger might silently attend every meal for the Auschwitz survivor. Also I’ve since had what I’ll call retroactive premonitions- the irrationality of hindsight bias- unheeded omens about flying that particular time into Paris- the type of thinking which makes reasonable men mad.
* * *
An admonition of calm against every indication to the contrary, the pilot’s voice was of the kind of strain that is unmistakably counter to what’s actually being said. What you’d hear in an effort to eulogize someone murdered- a kosher sedative vs. the austerity of the truth. I’ve pitied him for having to simultaneously bear the heft of relaying what no one could believe, and being in command of that which would not be controlled.
Without warning we’d lost altitude sufficient to produce a brief weightlessness (ironically the last time I can recall feeling carefree), and impromptu platitudes from the cockpit. Yet shortly thereafter, we were urgently alerted to the need to store loose items for our safety. Imagine the paradox- being protected from our luggage by the airlines. I’d later wonder what it would take to save me from my baggage.
Our ordinarily effervescent flight attendant, Sheri-with-an-"i", said enough in saying nothing, born again rattled from the cockpit. She made good on her training, meticulously mechanically checking row after row and securing latches on overhead bins. She broke a manicured red nail, continuing her task unmoved- as if wood-hewn. Her voice faltered as she dutifully rerepeated regulation procedures and needful compliance- Seats up, and heads down, for all. Our last seconds are to be lived in this uncomfortable posture to appease bureaucrats who always fly charter comfort, I remember thinking. It all seemed inane as blood rushed to brain- a bizarre rearrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic.
Final instructions for crash landing over water ensued like Last Rites.
And then we waited.
In dread silence.
I’d never before experienced such a profound hush.
I have a thousand times in as many Gothic cathedrals since.
We banked hard to the right, and palpable terror made its way up the fuselage. As stealthy and steady as a python it crept. You could sense it in the seat ahead, feel it course through you, and into the back of the aircraft, suffocating everyone in its relentlessness. Weird things percolate to mind at such moments- in minute details. Does the dog have enough water? Did I pay the water bill this month?
Next to me, Edie firmly held my trembling hand. This has somehow stayed with me, preserved through the weirdness and angst- an upside to it all, in that I continue to relive her last movements toward me- graceful, sweeping- slow motion of course- ludicrously juxtaposed against an upside-down backdrop of impending doom. It was as if prophetic of seeds still to bloom in my life- security amidst confusion.
See, she had already made light of death– it was in her eyes. She was cheating the inevitability of it all in a peace that I profoundly coveted more obviously than ever before. I could see through and into her like a prism, and as never before. In fact I was jealous of her lucidity in those dreadful moments- and more than anything I wanted to go with her, but knew that I could not.
We both knew.
The way a woman knows when she’s with child, or that the dog’s going to vomit if it eats grass.
A last compulsory speech was offered only seconds before impact: Folks, I’m not going to lie to you- this… this is going to be… rough. The Captain and his message were breaking apart. Fear has that effect. Like lemurs, most seemed to follow suit. People who had before simply lacked etiquette, suddenly lacked reason, and became marionettes on nervous strings. And panic sprang up to reign as if by coup- uncontested.
Our cartoonish nose dive into the frozen channel below began as a slow pitch forward, mirroring a sense of being incredibly heavy in a world where gravity is Potentate. In such scenario, the mouth goes particularly dry. Breathing becomes conscious; even effort. Every shudder of the craft seemed to sift to the skeleton. It was like being ground to powder.
Ashes to ashes; dust to dust…
Sound was at first just ubiquitous, ultimately, deafening. New priorities were realised in tragic and tardy retrospect, as people began to bemoan their sins and woes in a truly horrific chorus. Though I was certain this was Hell, how very wrong I was…
And yet I was anesthetised as long as I could fixate on her jade eyes. We couldn’t hear each other over offended engines in howling protest, but we didn’t need to speak to be understood. This was our way anyhow. The subliminal communication our friends regarded as uncanny, we shared as would twins. Then, as if on queue, she nodded her porcelain head down, simply stealing away from this world and me in an instant.
She was at peace before she was at rest- before it all ended.
Before it all began...
* * *
In a deafening peal, my world became liquid darkness, India ink, horrifying. And the terror about me seemed drinkable. I grappled like a saturated cat clawing to stay afloat, attempting to make sense of the underwater nightmare, as if baptized into the river Styx. Quite by chance, I resurfaced, shards of ice carving into my face in the undulating, burning, freezing fluid. All senses were at full trauma overload. In screams and cries, I began to map out what lay before me- like playing Marco-Polo with Dante in his icy boil. I had only what I could hear. Blinded by the petrol, my eyes refused to yield upon even desperate command. But then there was no light or really making sense of things.
I kept meeting and remeeting fear- like the bully on the playground. Cold chewed at me as if resentful for Summers I’d enjoyed, and though I’d never viewed water as protagonist, Poseidon now lobbied to engorge my lungs. I went down thrashing into this cauldron, came up screaming for Edie until hoarse, down again, certain it was for the last time, and then heard her…
* * *
Hallelujah! she triumphed. I’ve done it again! I can’t believe it- it worked this time!
What? I screamed, tearing from the bedroom clothed solely in my socks, and coming in second place behind our dog, Upholstery, who’d honed in on her high frequency. She had finally managed to get her overfilled suitcase shut. Yahoooo! I did it! She shot victory pitches in the air, sauntering about in mock parade, as if having cornered the market, or having achieved world peace. She wheeled promptly around to see me in my birthday suit, and fell over the suitcase in a burst of laughter and depressurized garments. I dove in and we wrestled on the floor, skivvies and screams of laugher flying, as Upholstery joined the fray, barking wildly. It took forever to get that damn thing relatched.
Hey, don’t forget to get you packed. I’ve laid out things so you don’t forget them. Yip, this is it, babe, everything we’ve saved for. She silly-kissed me on both sides of my face -as would the French- she said. Edie, why not use the luggage your Mom bought? It looks a hell of a lot better than this piece of… Yip!!! I’ve told you- you leave Old Faithful be! I hated that damn suitcase. It mocked me when she wasn’t around, challenging my "maleness". It had a thrice-fixed mother of pearl handle, duct taped corners, and at least one squeal wheel that made the dog howl. I was always secretly humiliated to carry it on trips because it always seemed to fall apart without warning, and somehow betrayed an intolerable weakness that I loathed.
She was unmoved by my many protestations; I was unnerved by her provincial thinking, but knew when to keep the peace.
Don’t even think of it, Yip! I heard her call from the washroom as I painstakingly almost sufficiently quietly opened the oven. Her apple rhubarb tart was perfection. You either, mister! She turned to her canine protector already in anticipatory Pavlovian slobber. It’s for Donna whenever she gets here- for watching things while we’re gone. Least I could do. Just like her to be so generous. She never ceased to give. Or give up.
On me.
Everything seemed to fall ripe into Edie’s lap in the kitchen and in life and I knew her to be mine. As a kid, I knew dinner was ready a la the smoke alarm. I thought toast was made with a knife to scrape it until I met her.
Unbeknownst to her, I would sometimes watch as she busied herself in the midday light that betrays suspended dust particles. She would almost glow in it. It seemed in those moments that I was somehow impervious to misfortune, as she had always been. And why not?
I was a lucky man in love.
Being next to her made you stand straighter somehow.
It really was unfair to the rest of the women of the world- how unpretentiously beautiful she was. Maybe it was that lack of pretension that first drew me to her. I was weak, but never less aware of it than when I was with her. It never hit me, never even occurred at all to me, until it caved me in from within that Edie wasn’t immortal. She was so crucial to my own formation, so much so that I had internalised her. In fact I had built my life around her. This contemporary idolatry, as she called it, would find me out one day.
It’s not about me, Yip!!! What you are looking for is God.
As usual her religious admonitions were met with incredulity or dismissal. I had developed a coping mechanism that simply eventually tuned her out as I had God. He- whoever "He" was, was for little kids or old grandmotherly women in Italy.
Our lives meshed in ways that would at times, seem story line in irony. Same hamlet; different postal codes, if you will. But this never diminished unlike opinions, mind you.
Or altercations.
We fought.
We word-sparred from the first.
I would later accuse her of doing it so that we could, after-the-fact. She wasn’t convinced, but just in case, we fought some more- and always for the last word.
And she always won. Or I’d win the sofa. But I let her win anyhow.
She could feel pain the way politicians professed to and seemed to exist to comfort those who had paid their dues in tears and blood. I never knew her not to open a door for the homeless. She would emphasise homeless persons, certain that delusion overpowered many because they were living ghosts. No one ever seems to ever look directly into their eyes… she would say …just beyond them- it’s enough to make anyone mad, never mind bad luck. We fought often on such issues- and always along party lines. And always about religion. Religion was a crutch for the weak in my head. But something about her let me see otherwise.
But I just didn’t get it…
One thing I knew for certain though- with her it was all about respect. Perhaps it was the Florence Nightengale in her that had caused her to take pity on me- the pity that I’d disparage others. Maybe she was to be a Mother Theresa type in my life. Yip, you’re all about intellect! What about your heart? she’d always say. Why don’t you let God in?
Until our fateful encounter, I basically believed that there were no good people, and that everyone was in it for themselves; that anyone could make it on their own, that no one needed anyone when it came right down to it. I had earned this perspective in the city. Urban life was rough and I always had to step up to bat for myself. But Edie spoiled my sardonic ways forever. And she bested me with vulnerability, ultimately making me say "uncle" to insecurities that men are loath to relinquish.
Unlike me, she was always looking out for potential for good in others. It was weird. But endearing, mind you. I just didn’t understand the source of it all in her. As if selfishness had a sworn enemy. And an aggressive one, she seemed flanked by those who would’ve stood doubles in any Dicken’s flic. She really cared. She credited God. I blamed Him. I couldn’t have cared less for the weak because I despised my own imperfections. But then she was fallible, in fact, fragile at times too. Too often I had come down too hard on her. I knew I was breaking her heart, but had to be real with what I didn’t feel.
We both knew that she’d be better off in her world. The simplist among us could readily discern that I was leagues her junior. She came from money, from stability.
* * *
I was jostled out of my respite by the next stop and station call. Florescent glare is not the kind of light you’d want to wake up to anywhere- particularly not pre-dawn in a subway tunnel. It seems to make prisoners of everyone in its gape- an aggregate reduction. Bleached and emotionless complexions stared at me from empty eyes and hollow souls, swaying back and forth in lifeless compliance to the forward-and-stop motion of the train. Florescence and urban life always are symbiotic, I thought to myself.
Another night of wandering throughout Paris- alone except for my thoughts.
It had been a year now.
Acquaintances, all well-meaning, had left my side months ago, because I insisted upon it for my own good. Friends could only seem to conjure pity anyway, I reasoned. And it’s true. I wanted so badly to be taken seriously in my grief, but it is a language that few speak in a culture of things taken for granted. There’s sympathy, and then there’s empathy. No, I had to regain these legs myself. No pity. Nothing would do, save to aggressively stave off this winter depression single-handedly.
And though I was breathing on my own, it wasn’t oxygen anymore.
And it was pitiful.
She had been my best friend.
And mans’ best friend, Upholstery, remembered her in whimpers. We moped about a lot together. Edie’s parents had brought him over after the funeral which I couldn’t attend in hospice.
* * *
No one knew how I had been saved. Ironically, I was found on the beach at Normandy, where her Grandfather had been gunned down just before Edie’s Father was born. I had been somewhat phenomenally if not miraculously preserved in the sub-zero waters, long enough to be rescued by the very sea who’d been so greedy to gobble up so much. I was found unconscious, broken, frozen, bleeding, but alive- if barely. It was all so random - that an unidentified stranger had taken me to the hospital- itself a miracle. There was nothing but questions: Who was he or she? How could I have possibly survived a crash 20 kilometres out in heavy seas? Why had I lived? Dammit, I’m not going there again with circular logic!
Yet all that I could seem to collect from the experience was negative.
Loneliness seemed to rename itself in every street sign.
* * *
Though I hid behind it, I now know that it wasn’t just about Edie anymore. I’ve been afraid to look too deeply within for as long as I could remember- to exhaustively plumb me and to really grieve loss on a greater scale. I had to confront the pit in my soul that had taken on the characteristics of all the physical pain I’d endured in recovery. There is a place within us deeper than human jurisdiction. It’s similar to the smallness one feels when peering over a cliff, or looking up into the nighttime vastness of space. It’s a hollowness that, left unfilled, compels one toward passive suicide.
It’s easier to escape. To remain nowhere more than briefly, because there are always alternatives to dealing with reality. But my dread was always that if the music stopped, I’d again be left without a chair.
And that is how I’d lived.
Existed really.
Until today.
Somehow today is different.
I awoke so fragmented that it dropped me to the carpet like being fired out of a cannon. I’d been clamping down on high-voltage lines that were killing me. I couldn’t let go until something, someone outside, insulated, intervened.
It came to a critical head today. But I lacked the strength. I collapsed into God for the first time since shutting that door as a kid. There has to come this absolute Tabula Rasa, so that one can be written upon again. Something stalwart disintegrated within, and I sobbed for the first time from my gut. It was uncontrollable. And uncontrollably good. It meant that I wasn’t in charge anymore. And this time, it was o.k.
I’ve tried to characterise grief as one might a more tangible thing- for my own healing, but I find that nothing can truly prepare the heart for its coldness. By the same token I’ve attempted to catch hope with a butterfly net and ended up in bleakness. But for the first time ever, I’ve woken up to something so pure that to intellectualise it is to demean it. They say this is where faith begins. I don’t know, having never been there before.
But upon return to my flat, a battered, weathered suitcase greeted me at the steps, sitting next to Upholstery…
