BTT #58: Knowledge

 

Knowledge

·

The room was stark and gray, with only a cot and a bench and a metal desk framing a firm tall gentleman in crisp shirt and dull blue tie regarding me with sad and patient eyes.  I sat on the bench. “I am sorry sir,” he said and then told me that it was time, the evidence was irrefutable, and the sentence not rescinded.  I noted my pervasive calm, although my jaw was set in silent protest and l had arguments about the fairness of my circumstance.  I had tried to save the boy, I didn’t mean for it to happen, but somehow the child had died and the family and prosecutor and all the roundings of the world had demanded that I be killed.  If I had any protestations or pleadings they had already been spent and I now just breathed silently as he showed me the papers and motioned me to stand.  I moved to the cot and the straps were placed carefully, as if draped like linen. There was a sharpness and a cool rivulet opened in my arm.  In my life as a physician I had often thought that every life unavoidably exacts a draught of courage at some critical point.  As for me, my only apprehension was if there would be pain, I understood the drugs and that there should be no outward signs, but knew nothing about the mystery each person carries in this corner.

I was actually surprised by the pain.  It started as an icy paresthesia in my limbs slumping now into lassitude.   My attendant said he thought I was gone, but I could still panic that my wife and children still did not know where I was. I tried forcefully to beg that they be told my fate and that I loved them, but the sounds could not find any air.  The pain swelled and flowed toward my vision circling inward, as sharp stabbings and blood-red fires exploded in a net of synchrony and I realized these were neurons exploding and going dark, so the pain made no sense at all and there was no anesthetic to dim the searing cycling supernova of 100 billion suns.  Still the pain flew like knives grappling as I crouched alone now in the corner of a room with red walls and pale filing cabinets.  I heard voices calling, hidden behind the bright smoked glass of the door, shadows were pounding with open palms on this crystal veil, shouting for me to answer, each call trying to reach me and each strike leaving a bloody hand print on the glass.  The blood seeped through and I found my own hands were sharp and bloody from scratching at the wood and glass.  The cacophony found its way to my center and grew like a tide taking shape in cadence pleading, desperate and sure, “Lona! We all love you, we love all of you… we all love you, we love all of you!  Lona!  We all love you, we love all of you…”

·

I leaned in now softly against the door, which then was no more, and I was standing in the summer hay with hickory and maples ringing the edges of the golden field.  A strong arm brushed me gently and the pain dissipated into warmth.  A tall familiar lady with cascades of golden hair stood billowing in front of me.  The voices continued as I saw her approach smiling.  She cupped first my face and then my tears in her gentle hands as I awakened motionless in the Amarillo hotel bed, my family still resting and breathing in the silent darkness.  The warmth and the voices continued in my mind as I carefully pressed and stroked my living hands along the coolness of my slender arms.  Tears were spilling as the echoes still sounded in my ears and I muffled grateful sobs into my pillow, so as not to awaken my sleeping wife and children.

 

Purple thistle blooms

Where gentle breezes whisper,

“We love you daughter.”

 ^{Posted for Merril’s dVerse Haibun Prompt:}

Haibun Monday–Lost and Found: Nature’s Magic

I had this dream last night, it was vivid and real.  I think it fits with the prompt.  Thank You Merril.

All rights reserved for text to Lona Gynt, June 2019.  the first two images are from Pixaby, used with permisssion.  The third image is by Lona Gynt all rights reserved to Lona Gynt.