The witness

(Prompts 12/5 - 12/13)

Digital alarms were all the rage these days, or so his great granddaughter June had told him, perhaps not in those exact words, as she set up Leonard's cellular phone to wake him for his morning medication a few months ago. He hated it at first, this terrifying machine, but now that he knew how to shut off the alarm instead of hearing it wail for a half hour, it wasn't so bad.

That was until last week when June had mucked with it again. Now, though his grand daughter Wendy insisted it was lovely, he was convinced that birds waking into song was the worst possible alarm choice of all time. Any Joe knows that a building cacophony of birdcall rising into a fast crescendo was nature's fire alarm, a forest in distress. He preferred something more human and mundane, like the pulse of radar, familiar from his navy days, or the slow clang of church bells. These banalities tugged at consciousness, not railed against it. For the past seven days Leonard arrived not gently into the morning but on high alert, dreading the encroaching day. 

Which wasn't normal. Leonard was used to enjoying his life. And from he could remember, he'd led a a good one. But with dementia setting in, worse every day now, there were really only 3 or 4 things Leonard could consistently remember about himself: 

1. By most measures, he was very old
2. There was no cure for that, or any other thing he had
3. He could think of no goal, deed, or desire left to pursue that his body or mind wouldn't betray him doing

He'd seen it all before. Assisted living was a slow decline. Just a month ago now, food had lost all taste and now even cream cheese on crackers, his favorite, had lost all pedestrian appeal. His bouncing, healthy family, lapfuls of great grandchildren, had started to blur around the edges and he knew it. Not that he had a place among them anymore. He was a decaying body, a burden they entertained. When he wanted to stay positive he pictured June's face, the easiest to hold on to, a porcelain version of himself, all sass and pistols. 

After the morning's alarm, Leonard tried to settle his racing heart by reaching over to finger the large teddy bear June had left him last Friday afternoon. She said she'd found it in the attic in a pile of boxes, and Wendy remembered it'd been Leonard's when he was a boy. She thought it might help bring back some stories, maybe job his memory. They brought it to him.  

In fact one of Leonard's first memories was with this bear: he'd sat on the floor in a pale green room, eye level with the stuffed animal, and his infant self examined its plastic nose, the embroidered mouth, and luscious brown fur as it probably was in those days though Leonard struggled to fill in the details. But he did remember how tall the bear seemed then, how it stood on hind legs and reached  arms out in a protective hug, his jolly friend.

The bear's fur was now comfortably matted, innards dense and lumpy, nearly a century old. Leonard couldn't quite believe it was here. Do not fall in love with any one ritual, he'd been telling himself, it doesn't matter how you go out. But when the bear showed up last week, the only remaining witness to his whole entire life, it wasn't hard to hear the quiet knock on deaths' door. 

On good days he fantasized about driving four miles out of town where the highway ends, where you had to go east to the river or west to the city but in his mind's eye Leonard would choose neither, entering the woods and peacefully falling off a branch, birdsong in his ear. But his legs were spindly, he was barely mobile and less so everyday.

He figured sleeping pills were the next best thing, and so for six months he'd skipped doses and stored them in the bottom of a tissue box, his aides none the wiser. From the first hour of Leonard's birth he'd been bullheaded and in death, too, he was resolute: he knew what he wanted. Quit-while-you're-ahead, while he still had stories. While he could still picture June's face. 

Today was Wendy and June's weekly visit but this time they brought the babies and Joe and great uncle George too, his younger brother. A full and boisterous house. The plaything stayed propped on the bed and they all cooed at it, regaling him with stories of their own adventures with Brown Bear, who'd made naps, night, and eventually growing up easier for several generations of Feldmans, despite intermittent shelving. 

Leonard did what he could to appear lively, to hold court, to hold off the blur. He said goodbye to June last, held her tightly in tangled hands, and told her that Brown Bear could be hers if she wanted him. Stubborn as always, she assured him that she was too old for stuffed animals, but sweetly she patted the doll's head as she left anyway.   

When the last guest had left, Leonard left his door ajar and settled into the conclave cave of his bed. He pulled out a fresh trash liner and set it next to him in case he woke up, if the job needed finishing. Nothing worth doing is easy he'd just said to June not an hour prior as she struggled to crank open his window. Because, he had to assume, his room smelled of death.

Leonard slid the handful of pills down his throat with gulps of water, and fingered Brown Bear's familiar, dusty pelt. He relaxed into the evening by recalling adventures spent with this loveable, furry comrade-in-arms, his omnipotent protector, history come-to-life. He listened for, and then heard, real, honest-to-goodness birdsong, not fast and rising but slowly over an hour, the kind that peppers the evening, that signals a beautiful sunset. Overcome with sleep, Leonard finally dove headfirst into a field of memories, dense and vivid as poppy's.

Feng shui

House plants. I kill them. Every time.

But the thing is, they almost always trick me into thinking I won't. They have this uncanny, almost sentient way of knowing exactly how long to stay alive, often a substantial period—weeks, months, even years!—in order to falsely lure me into complacency. So long in fact that I get comfortable in my success, cocksure, occasionally investing in even more house plants that eventually, most certainly, meet the same fate. They die.

But before they do, man, they thrive! Lush, bushy foliage convince me of a nascent green thumbery, a newfound knack for interior gardening that had, clearly until now, eluded me. Those other plants? Duds, lemons. But this one, this little beaut, this gorgeous, hearty thing, it will be the plant that LIVES!

How considerate it is, allowing me this fantasy, along with the time and space to master its exotic, finicky ways: the need to water just enough with the exact right cadence, and letting me fall in love with the way it goes just so with my decor.

But then I notice a slight tinge. Just a hint of color, the tip of one leaf, hardly a bruise, and dread descends. No, no, no, not again! I think. I was so good this time! I watered it! There was ample window light! I didn't even go on vacation! 

To anyone else this plant might look very much alive, a picture of health, but I know what's coming. It'll take months for that yellowing to spread but slowly, surely, some flesh-eating plant plague takes over and the drying, cracking, and shedding begins. From there it's only a matter of time. Often, I don't wait for the rest; I put the poor thing out of its misery and dump the whole clump in the trash, dirt and all, woefully mourning my efforts and vowing more diligence with the next attempt.

So what is a girl to do? When does this dying begin? Is it when the last leaf falls...or when that tiny malaise first sets in? Is it, as I have before feared, upon the first missed watering? Or what happens after, when an over-saturation tries to make up for lost time, the fussing and over-plucking that follows an unintentional, momentary lapse in attention?

Or, worst of all, my deepest anxiety: could it be sooner, the very first moment I bring that damn, ill-fated vine across the threshold of my home, the second I reach for the flora in the supermarket, still plucky and hopeful, unwittingly doomed for an abridged life of interment?

Despite my cruel, murderous tendencies, I remain committed to the cause: airy feng shui.

A hard freeze

It was an aching cold. The boy wanted to go out and see about the traps, but there was a cardinal sitting on the branch, staring at him—no way was he going to disturb it. The color was striking, the moment silent, breaking the spell seemed impossible. Who would move first?

After three frozen seconds, the bird quivered its feathers and startled the boy from his reverie. Shaking his head clear, the boy realized he'd just felt an entire three months go by, in that exact spot, as if their fates were sealed forever.

Three minutes of contemplating this vision, and tired from setting traps that failed to yield, the boy relaxed and rested there, considering carefully this bright and luminous creature, this bird who failed to fly south, who remained, rigid, considering him back, still as a frozen pond.

Three hours later and then three days of a hard freeze, both boy and bird sat silently, neither moving to breathe. In fact neither drew a breath at all, for the frost had set in quickly; the boy had fallen asleep, and the bird had finally starved in place.

Three months later, after that hard freeze thawed, the sun warmed and melted the ice that covered them both. Who would move first?  The spell, refusing to break, let nature take its intended course.