The Weight Within
The package on my doorstep had my name, but I definitely didn’t order it - as after my accident, the only words, or letters even, I can recognize are my name.
The black print of my almost unknowable name sat centered in a sea of indistinguishable characters teasing me, coy with its origin. Inclining, my vertebrae playing a popcorn symphony, incompatible scents of cardboard must and lilacs leaked out. The creases, dents and furious scratches showed, undoubtedly, that this package had wandered, had tried several times to find a home - its home - and now it arrived here. Lilacs…
From the unused tiled kitchen my oven timer gave up its weak ring - that would have to wait.
Spilling out of the ever-on security monitor which mournfully adorned my entryway, dim light cast a slice of shadow on the six by six inch box now set in the quarantine of the front bench - the box screamed danger.
I watched the monitor for a few minutes, patiently observing. No one walked by, nothing seemed to change, leaves didn’t even rustle. Painfully I brought the package in and
The weight and freedom of movement of the object in the box unnerved me.
I ran my crooked hand through the misaligned tufts of my hair, gaining another hint of the fragrance. Sweat gained prominence amongst my palms. Even with the deadbolt secured, I felt watched, no longer alone.
No presence was there; I scanned, no sounds came forth, I listened - the package pulled at me, a prickly terror picked my skin. I feared its undefined power, I feared the weight within. I inched toward it. Slow and penitent.
Cane, wobbly and worn to a nub, leading my hunchbacked body, my mind flit from staircase to staircase, trapped in an Escher drawing. Its weight felt trivial to my hands yet there was some incredible power leaching out, throwing vaporous manacles at my wrists.
The second ring came snapping me out of the aura. Damn it, the oven. I turned towards it.
Lame leg caught in its mouth, the lip of the kitchen bit me, spewing my cane from under me. The white tiled counter edge raked my scar ridden side as a bin of frames broke under my mass, splinters of wood scurrying away. My hip bled a thin line. Pain showered my body but my mind didn’t oblige, it had stayed with the package, restricted from me.
Weak and trembling my body called for respite, to be unmoved like a boulder of agony. I had laid sprawled awkward, rigid on this floor before so I let the literal dust settle on my frail body while I stared sideways at the thing that brought this pain.
The oven gave it’s fourth ding ten minutes later after I had regained what was left of strength and stability. I shut it off not caring for a heating pad that had no doubt lost its purpose through time, and shuffled successfully to the couch. The lengthy recovery gave my mind time; the time needed to pick and pry the rusty lock of lilacs.
In fitful dreams, on top of hospital blue vinyl therapy tables, in smoke and toxin ridden taxis, the smell abused me like a child who never knew which version of their parent would come to dinner. Something fuzzed at the front of my brain - bandages, a small silhouette against a doorway, beeps and hums, a large empty room.
The gravity began to emanate again, feeling its pulses in my core.
Skin creasing around dry knuckles which screamed white around the worn out pommel of my cane, I stared at it.
It stared back at me.
Seconds bled into minutes. My crooked back grew taught and fitful.
It undermined me.
Showers of pain ran down my lame leg.
Images appeared and popped, light then dark. My head strained, aching, feverish.
I grabbed a knife.
Sweet perfume turned acrid and violent.
My nose began to trickle iron-sweet droplets, eyes leaking.
I sliced again.
Damn, fucking Lilac! Lilac, Lilac, Lilac!
My hands trembled, knowing what I couldn’t.
As I pried the final flap open, my body listed dropping me to my elbows.
Origami birds, dozens of them, and nestled within, a finely carved wooden cane head stared up at me. The same… My head teetered. The same as the one that crashed silently to the floor.
The flood came. The flood of a lifetime.
I was stripped bare.
The weight within swallowed me whole.
***
(Ten years earlier)
I looked like the Elephant Man brought to life in an ill-fitted suit; a wretch blessed to have survived leprosy. My eyes had grown pink and gray, my teeth had become a dotted forest. For weeks few in the courtroom made eye contact; their eyes having found every nook, every laden manila folder, every tie, every shoe instead of taking in my physical presence. Representing myself, this proved to be particularly difficult for the jurors, but they too struggled to cast only brief glances as the proceedings went on. This day was the exception. This day all eyes were fixed on me and the blown up prints of my dead future wife.
“They took my life away. And that life wasn’t even mine, I am still here, she is not.”
My lawyer held them up. Every juror pushed away tears, staring.
“Three men, killed her. Three men, snuffed out a beautiful life dedicated to helping, dedicated to… finding the best in us. But these three men, jacked up on cocaine, ran a smuggling ring, a smuggling ring that penetrated teen social rings, schools and even churches - in our literal backyard. They just happened to extinguish the life of Beth Lilly and… cripple… and strip me away from any kind of normalcy. I can’t read, write, or make sense of most patterns.” Only the faint scratchings of the court sketch artist could be heard. My lawyer raised the next card.
“Colors,” I said against the blood splattered backdrop of the enlarged crash scene. “I am only left with colors to convey feelings, ideas and my existence. I cannot process, recognize or learn letters, words or numbers. These symbols the world takes for granted, reflects the life taken for granted by these men.”
“Black. Black, are the hearts of these men, black, permanent and unchanging, this is where their so called consciousness resides - their consciousnesses don’t live, if they did they could never do such a horrible thing and claim innocence. Each man in that car chose to do massive amounts of cocaine. Each man chose to join the TK_name gang/cartel. Each man chose to try and buy off cop after cop upon being arrested for theft, arson, grand theft auto. Each man gambled with the lives of others. And now, ladies and gentlemen, their gamble will payoff. Death. It is time for them to meet the same spectral agent who took my wife.”
“Listen, again. This time do not forget.”
“Look, again. Do not forget - I won’t.” I said, my last words lingered on as my gnarled finger lowered from the photo of my wife.
The audio recording recovered from their phones played. Mothers pull their children close in crushing, protective embraces, news reporters scribbled and clacked hollowly. No other sound is emitted, the silence drowned the room in a cold Titanic embrace.
Until, the smallest of sobs began.
Small, skinny shoulders heaved swaying deep black hair across a delicate face. Her shuddered breaths had grabbed the whole room. One by one, the crowded courtroom drew their attention to the back bench of the audience.
Damn it. I’ve lost them, I lost the damn jury over some sobbing child.
Grunting, I faced the girl.
“Young miss…” I said, my words couldn’t find her.
“Miss?
“I… Maricella?”
The third man’s daughter, Maricella Arroyo, picked her wet chin up and shot a gaze leaden with despair; an invisible cloud, it swam against the rows of benches, caring not for sides or pleas, its tendrils reaching around me, they smelled of dried lilacs.
Breathless, my body began to degrade - a vinyl record being melted never to be made whole again. A trickle of blood crept down my forehead mixing with tears, called towards the memory of that smell, her smell. Beth’s final moment flashed - A thunderous crack broke open in my head leaving a relentless, numbing buzz. Thick acid lurched through my esophagus, cemented and crusted my eyes swallowed the room in front of me - a pool of black falling around me, sucking me down. I collapsed.
*
Together with my bruised face and battered ego, I arrived at the courtroom the following morning an hour early determined to fix this mess. Piss and vinegar held no weight compared to the ire I brought with me. If I was lucky I would be offered a minute or less to re-address the jury as my collapse cut short my closing statement. If I was unlucky, my partners and I would pull the entire weight of our firm to condemn those three men.
What I hadn’t counted on, was meeting Maricella, a girl of just nine, alone in the courtroom.
***
Blink… Blink! My eyelids moved but my eyes didn’t reveal the world to me. Scrambling through the carpet, my fingers found wood splinters and splotches of lukewarm tea. The coffee table had broken my fall. Having no strength, my chest strained underneath me, breaths ragged, a streak of dried blood licked the edge of my lips. Spine screaming, I hurled myself to sit back against the coach opposite the upturned box, cranes scattered.
The head of the cane had clattered to the entrance way - that would have to wait.
I saw jagged corners of red and yellow lines hiding under a fold of the paper crane.
An accordion of folded squares dangled from my hand, each square had a picture; hand drawn with vibrant colors. A child by a tree, faithful dog longing upwards; a sunset bathing a small stucco house in sherbet orange and pink; a young woman dressed in soft white ruffles stepping into her first heels; a man reading in a library, a lone light caressing his short cropped hair amidst varying shades of blackness…
I stopped.
The ladder of paper swished to the floor.
I knew that child. I knew that house.
I knew that girl and that library.
Maricella…
My hands trembled, remembering the slow descent from the marble pillars into a lonely autumn day.
Maricella.
Disbarred, disfigured and dislodged from reality I would spend months reeling over our exchange.
Forgiveness. She asked for forgiveness.
The days of anger, the weeks of the hollowness boring though me. I had become a grotesque caterpillar cannibalizing myself to spin an empty cocoon from which there would be no grand exit - nothingness could take no form.
Her small hand, unsure had grabbed my three fingered left hand. She said, no one in the world had the power to forgive her father, no one but me.
On and off opiates, I would tear down my life and burn every bridge and end every relationship. And he would still live.
She said, if no one forgives, then no one can really live free. We would all just be dull canaries trapped in iron cages.
The only visitors I had seen in the past two years were EMS, saving me because they had to.
At last she said, If I didn’t forgive her father, she would understand and still forgive me.
Wiping the tears from my bumpy face, I picked up her scenes. Square after square were attached in a ladder that could stretch for weeks. Smiling for the first time that I could remember, I counted. 520 scenes.
A motherless child whose father was incarcerated for life, had created a scene a week for the last ten years. For me.
My ragged fingers flowed over the colorful scenes dotted with fresh tears, reading as if for the first time in my life. Each one shouted out feelings stronger than anything I had ever felt; a first love, despair, the loss of my wife. Those were my feelings, my thoughts - for me alone. No one could ever have understood.
These, these precious colors and hues painted something no painter could capture - they held within parts of our souls. The scenes seemed to glow brighter - friendship, laughter, love, loss, anxiety, fear, bravery, courage. The pain in my fingers, hands and arms evaporated with each tear, tears coming clearer and clearer.
Flipping faster, swells of memories grew out of the pages lighting the room around me.
Awe, joy, relief, anger, admiration, promise, disgust, surprise.
Strands of light began to weave in front of me pulsing blue and white.
Shame, confidence, envy, wonder, forgiveness.
A body coalesced, igniting the room.
Pride, patience, devotion, forgiveness.
Her face, clear and soft. Beth.
My wretched body emptied save for one light.
Naked, stripped clean, bathed in the river of her light, my soul reached for her. Her smile seemed as wide as sunrise.
She said, “I forgive you.”