Orphans

38

38 “Just lie back, relax, we are preparing to leave,” the calming voice says, a voice I have come to love, a voice that will lead me to sleep, and dream as I’m slowly surfing across the universe. I close my eyes and think about how easy things become when you stop fighting everything and everyone, and wonder that maybe this is what calm is really about— embracing every moment and every relationship for what they are, not what you want them to be? “You will soon be asleep,” the voice continues, now making love to me, lifting me and stroking my senses. The voice again reminds me of my mother, but today, now, my thoughts shoot from my mother’s wispy hair and creamy loving mien to my father, his leaving, that smile. Why didn’t I remember that smile before, and what does it mean, about him, about me, and what Joey will remember about this time in his life when someday he looks back as well? “Close your eyes, relax, think good things, happy things,” the voice says sensing, knowing I am not relaxed, can’t relax. I think of Shalla and how I am going to make things right when I get home, reeling in my anxieties, but listening , being there, here, there, and in the moment, she deserves that. “You’re doing great, just take a deep breath,” the voice says as the engines on the shuttle come to life with an enormous hiccup of electricity and fire and life, the now familiar scent of ethanol wafting past me and wiping out O R P H A N S 136 any lingering vestiges of vanilla as I settle back even further into my bed. I take a deep breath, and then another, my father’s long-ago image fading into the far recesses of my brain as I am drifting away, my eyelids growing heavy and sinking together. I picture myself out at Kanas Lake, paddling on my kite-board as the sun, all orange and streaky red, rises over the gray waters and gray skies, the endless nothingness stretching farther than I can possibly see. There is movement below me and around me, a slight hum, some grinding, and there is life, the sense of being pushed from below and above all at once, compressed between invisible hands, flattened and stretched—breathe, think good things, surfing, making love to Shalla, chewing SynthKhat on the beach, holding Joey. And now there is floating and spinning and spinning and floating, weightless and tired, so very tired, but left with one last thought, one last vapor trail and vestige of the day. I can talk calm and peace with myself, Lebowski and Morg, and I can keep saying I’m cool, and all good. I can pretend that I am managing my feelings, but I’m dying here. That’s real, its truth. I am fucking wracked with guilt, and I do not want this, I would prefer not to, and that’s that, and it won’t change, not now, not ever. ...