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(I wrote this a on New Year's Eve a year after my lover died. I haven't written anything since. I don't know how good or even bad this is but at least it's something.
I'm not a storyteller. I wish I had that in me although I have do have stroies to tell. Do you? I'd like to read them, whether biographical or fiction.
I'm not sure if this is the proper area to place this.)
WINTER WALTZ
I love you. His last words.
Winter is here. A New Year.
Cold envelopes me. My heart warm
Memories emblaze my body as we dance round and round; he was a dancer and taught me one, two, three, and the deep plunge and lift so enamored by this most exciting and tender of dances. Then the other dances with patterns tended by slow slow and quick quick and the erotic hip movements of Cuban Motion. He beamed on the dance floor, an inner light suddenly turned on when he took his partner in his arms. He danced with young and old and gave them life, adding a spark with a quickstep that skipped like a shiney smooth rock over water.
Sometimes you don’t pick up on what someone is trying to tell you because the thought never enters your head.
He was worried. That I knew. I never knew he was worried about me.
“You should get out more,“ he would say. “Make some new friends. Try and meet more people.“
It was always the two of us. “Why?” I asked.
“You need to have more people around you,” he said.
Strange. We both never liked crowds. He wouldn’t even go into a department store because “It’s too busy,” he said.
I laughed because I felt the same, neither of us admitting that crowds were scary and crowds made us want to run home and be alone together.
His attempts to warn me of an impending end to his touch slipped out of my mind like wine from bottle to glass. Although sick, it would pass and I would be the one to go first.
Slowly, I saw him age. Tired, then slow and unable to take me in his arms and spin around the floor, a shout ran out. “Something’s wrong!”
I ran downstairs. He was slumped over the sink in the bathroom. I put my arms around him and walked him to the living room and sat him down and held him to me.
911.
He was in the hospital for several days. Five stents were placed in his heart. When I took him home, we both were joyous as he was mended. We would have years together.
Three days later, two stents collapsed.
Again, 911. He said nothing as the emergency crew took him away. Just a vacant stare. I followed in our car. In the emergency room, pale and almost grey he said nothing. Frail, not the man I once knew but the man I had loved for years and years.
I was imploding. Everything within me in a knot. Trying to imagine what he was going through only made it worse.
His room was still, just the electric green and erratic lines of his heart monitor like waves on the sea.
When his doctor called me into a private room and told me survival was fity-fifty, uncontrollable spasms ran through me. Beginning like the first tremors of an earthquake, they built to a crescendo of noise, blocking out any further warnings. Should I run to the door-frame? That’s a safe harbor from the ceiling cracking and falling and crushing me.
Laying still with tubes like arms emitting from his body, the lines of electric green lost power.
“He’s gone,” the nurse said.
“But his mouth is moving”, I said. I understood nothing, not realizing artificial life gave rise to those sudden clicks and opening and closing of his mouth.
Later, I could see his big hands had shrunk to that of a child, an act unreal and cruel, like those Sci_films you see where the alien dies and shrinks to the unrecognizable.
“That happens when die”, the nurse said.
One last kiss.
Cold envelopes me. My heart warm
Winter is here. A New Year.
I love you. His last words.
I'm not a storyteller. I wish I had that in me although I have do have stroies to tell. Do you? I'd like to read them, whether biographical or fiction.
I'm not sure if this is the proper area to place this.)
WINTER WALTZ
I love you. His last words.
Winter is here. A New Year.
Cold envelopes me. My heart warm
Memories emblaze my body as we dance round and round; he was a dancer and taught me one, two, three, and the deep plunge and lift so enamored by this most exciting and tender of dances. Then the other dances with patterns tended by slow slow and quick quick and the erotic hip movements of Cuban Motion. He beamed on the dance floor, an inner light suddenly turned on when he took his partner in his arms. He danced with young and old and gave them life, adding a spark with a quickstep that skipped like a shiney smooth rock over water.
Sometimes you don’t pick up on what someone is trying to tell you because the thought never enters your head.
He was worried. That I knew. I never knew he was worried about me.
“You should get out more,“ he would say. “Make some new friends. Try and meet more people.“
It was always the two of us. “Why?” I asked.
“You need to have more people around you,” he said.
Strange. We both never liked crowds. He wouldn’t even go into a department store because “It’s too busy,” he said.
I laughed because I felt the same, neither of us admitting that crowds were scary and crowds made us want to run home and be alone together.
His attempts to warn me of an impending end to his touch slipped out of my mind like wine from bottle to glass. Although sick, it would pass and I would be the one to go first.
Slowly, I saw him age. Tired, then slow and unable to take me in his arms and spin around the floor, a shout ran out. “Something’s wrong!”
I ran downstairs. He was slumped over the sink in the bathroom. I put my arms around him and walked him to the living room and sat him down and held him to me.
911.
He was in the hospital for several days. Five stents were placed in his heart. When I took him home, we both were joyous as he was mended. We would have years together.
Three days later, two stents collapsed.
Again, 911. He said nothing as the emergency crew took him away. Just a vacant stare. I followed in our car. In the emergency room, pale and almost grey he said nothing. Frail, not the man I once knew but the man I had loved for years and years.
I was imploding. Everything within me in a knot. Trying to imagine what he was going through only made it worse.
His room was still, just the electric green and erratic lines of his heart monitor like waves on the sea.
When his doctor called me into a private room and told me survival was fity-fifty, uncontrollable spasms ran through me. Beginning like the first tremors of an earthquake, they built to a crescendo of noise, blocking out any further warnings. Should I run to the door-frame? That’s a safe harbor from the ceiling cracking and falling and crushing me.
Laying still with tubes like arms emitting from his body, the lines of electric green lost power.
“He’s gone,” the nurse said.
“But his mouth is moving”, I said. I understood nothing, not realizing artificial life gave rise to those sudden clicks and opening and closing of his mouth.
Later, I could see his big hands had shrunk to that of a child, an act unreal and cruel, like those Sci_films you see where the alien dies and shrinks to the unrecognizable.
“That happens when die”, the nurse said.
One last kiss.
Cold envelopes me. My heart warm
Winter is here. A New Year.
I love you. His last words.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Donald Anderson on -
Very sad, but nice writing.
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Permalink Reply by Steamboater on -
Thank you. I haven't written anything in so long, I wasn't sure if if I should even post this. Makes me feel a little better knowing it's not so bad.
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Permalink Reply by Patricia Mayorga on -
Your story is very sad, yet very well written. I am sorry for your loss, time does not heal, it just provides us the opportunity to learn to live differently and to appreciate that we had the opportunity to love and to be loved. Take care and do look for new doors to walk through because you are still very much alive.
Pat Mayorga
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Permalink Reply by Steamboater on
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That's very true--'time does not heal". After I lost him, people would say, "He's in a better place" and I got so angry because the best place for him was with me. Now, I'm adjusting much better because it's been a while and I know he wouldn't want me to dwell on the end. Still, theer are those moments when I find myslef walking down the aisle of a supermarket and see couples together, whether gay or straight, and that pang hits me and I have to just stop and stand there and take a deep breath. Thanks.
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Permalink Reply by bikedive on -
Thank you for the story, this is as proper a place as any, since most of us here love to read, and most of us love to write. I am sorry for your loss. I hear or read somewhere that there is only two ways to end a relationship, you leave them or they leave you. I always tried to remember what happens in between. Try taking something out of your story, like the dancing - - - and make another memory, like a humorous trip over the bass drum during an erotic tango and write another story, before you died. We would like to get to know you better. Thank you, Bikedive
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Permalink Reply by Steamboater on
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Thanks bikedive. When I was preoccupied with writing, I wrote humorous pieces or spoofs. I enjoyed that and thought I had knack for it. I don' t laugh that much any more however so I need to work myself back to that place.
The dance business can be a hoot, with both students and teachers yearning for star-turns. Sometimes it's pathetic, often very funny and usually delightful. I always enjoyed dancing with my partner but honestly, I never really liked to teach. Wives always wanted lessons but husbands were always antagonistic and a trial. It's easy to teach someone if they really want it, but when you have half of the couple hating every minute of it, you don't even want to walk into the studio.
Jealousy, gossip, deep concentration, accidents, arguments and willpower make up this world. The best time however is when you have someone who takes lesssons and doesn't know the left foot from the right and gradually becomes someone who can move around the dance floor with ease, not someone who will ever win even third place in a competition but someone who has gained a barrel of self-esteem. That makes all the headaches worth while.
I did write a spoof of the film, "Mildred Pierce" when I lived in Tennessee but before moving to California, I threw all my writings in the trash. I wish I had kept that one story though. Stupid me. When I can get back in the mood, I'll rewrite it.
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Permalink Reply by bikedive on
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I hope you can, I can't recall even half the stories I was writing when my hard drive crashed ten years ago. The dancing is fun, I started taking a short class just over a year ago, it is off and on. My partner and I were just getttng the hang of a few of the steps then she got sick. Then I got sick, then she got hurt . . . Then the holidays came . . . then she got sick. Miss it though. Keep writing, the humor comes out even when we aren't expecting it to. That is why I suggested picking out a part of your story that might have some something better to remember than the just the end. bikedive
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