Two "air we breathe" drabbles
The breath my brain didn’t get defines me. More than the sound of my voice or my shouts of protest.My lungs were ready to work sooner than expected; looking at the world now, I wonder what they were in a hurry for, but that’s how my mother knew I was really gonna live. Talk about breathless anticipation. I wonder if anybody had this in the back of their minds, or if they were too busy exhaling. There are many people like me, changed by birth’s lost breath. “You are lucky to be here,” they say. “You are a survivor.”(I want my million dollars then, and I don’t want to eat rats.)
But mostly, I just want to breathe free.
In meditation once, we learned that it is all the same air. That I could breathe the same air that Cesar Chavez or Bobby Kennedy might have breathed(My understanding of the heroic is informed by being raised by a flower child who still wears flowers sometimes. My understanding of biology is...a real drawback in meditation, mostly.) But right now it means I shouldn’t miss you at all. How can I? We’re sharing a breath.
Sounds of Silence
I hear the breath rattle in your throat and I know it’s nearly over. The sheets of the hospital bed are tucked up under your chin and around your shoulders. Did they think you were cold when you came out of the operating room? Had the chill crept into your skin, already? Perhaps it was just “standard operating procedure.” I’ve been sitting here, holding my breath, waiting for you to breathe, again. There’s silence in the room as the chill sets in. Please, just one more, I need to breathe. We need to breathe to live. Was that…? Oh, no…
Thanks, Deb.
Wow, that was powerful as usual, Sail.
Ditto, erika. Your first one hits me quite a bit. My son was born with respiratory distress syndrom and was on oxygen for the first 5 days. He's mildy mentally retarded so I know how important those first breaths are. I would have written about that, but you said it so well.
Thanks. Was afraid it might be a thread-killer, though.
Nah. The thread doesn't live on oxygen.
Oh, and people reading R&RNF? I just sent out the entire Chapter 14. Another 2000 words.
There looks to be a Chapter 15 and epilogue to come - Bree spills her guts to the cops and John becomes aware that she think's she's failed him - and then, this book?
Done.
Four weeks come Thursday. 28 days.
Grief and Grieving
The air is dry. Thick. Rancid with lies and hurt. It’s tainted air. I hear him breathe in as I breathe out. As he exhales, I inhale his weakness. Across the phone line; Twenty-five hundred miles apart. Air of deceit, air of loss, air of love. “I play second fiddle to no one. You don’t deserve me.” Air of truth, air of anger, air of finally sticking up for myself. “You’re right”, he says. Air of defeat, air of grief, air of dishonesty finally catching up. “I just can’t love you anymore.” In. Out. We breathe the air of conclusion.
