How Long, This Moment

He waited for her to breathe. 

She was sprawled on the dirt of their home’s little courtyard, but she could be alive— should be alive. The men had stormed in from the street.  He hadn’t had time to push her inside before they swarmed him.  One of them had hit her, and she had crumpled.  She had to be unconscious.

He took a step.  Her eyes were open.  She seemed so relaxed, perhaps she had lost herself in a pleasant thought.  Her expression was intent, even yearning, as though she had caught sight of a bright bird flying over the cinder block wall and hoped to see its return.  She loved watching birds.

But it didn’t make sense that she would pause to enjoy a moment like this.  The walls were too high, and the light not nearly good enough.  She didn’t tend to linger on darkness; it just wasn’t in her nature.  Plus the ground was too rough and dusty.  It would make her sneeze.

“Get up,” he suggested, but she remained there, savoring the moment.  What was there to enjoy?  The broken door into the house?  The blood dripping from his knuckles?  The groans of the tangled pile of men he had left in the corner?  They were just annoying, like dogs barking before dawn.  And what was that awful smell?  It was sickening, and he wished she would get up and make ginger tea.

“Get up.”

Still her owl eyes examined the blank stretch of wall with unexpected intensity, as if she had reached complete comprehension of a thing of immense beauty—understanding its form, its meaning, its persistence.  As if there were so much to sense in this profound moment, she had no choice but to continue studying it.  Studying the wall and ignoring him.

“Get up,” he insisted. “Now!”

She didn’t move.  He had been waiting for her to breathe.  Waiting.  How long?  Had he been dreaming again?  Getting lost watching his beautiful wife go about her day?  If that were the case, she should be on with it.  Soon.  Quickly.  Why was she wasting this time?  She never wasted time.

“What the hell are you doing?” He shouted.  “Get up!”

A fly buzzed past his ear, distracting him.  He watched it sweep around the courtyard past the bloodied men.  It zoomed around the potted herbs, through the legs of an upturned chair, and over his wife’s body.  Cutting back, it landed on her lip.

He had seen her move.  He was sure of it.  His mind played a vision of her lip twitching and her hand rising reflexively to wave the fly from her face.

Except there was no buzz, and his eyes fought with his mind.  The fly still perched on the edge of her mouth, as frozen as her lips, cheeks, head, shoulders, arms, breast, hips, legs, and feet.  Frozen.  Its tiny opalescent body glimmered green and purple like her eyes… until the fly crawled into her mouth.

He choked, feeling the insect in the back of his own throat, and he expected her answering motion.  Surely she felt the small invader.  But his guts heaved, and he swallowed back the breakfast she had made him.  Could she outwill the delicate touch of those six miniscule legs on her tongue?  She did have great control over herself.  Great control.

A second fly appeared upon her nose, and the heavy stillness pressed his knees to the ground.  Did his head waver, or did the earth shift?  It had been too long since she had breathed.  Far too long.

He crawled to place his ear upon her chest.  Maybe her breathing was so shallow he couldn’t see it, but he would still be able to hear the familiar murmur of her heartbeat.  He knew just where to tuck his jaw between her breasts to listen.

But there was only stillness behind the buzzing of the flies disturbed by his movement.

He took her face in his hands and found her cheeks unusually soft.  Her eyes refused him, instead gazing with that strange comprehension upon the impoverished lime tree in the corner.  He moved her head again, and now she placed that piercing understanding upon the door that let on to the street.  Another small shift and her eyes finally landed upon his, but they were utterly empty, mocking him by withholding that penetrating clarity.  Why should she understand those things, but not her husband?  Did she love those objects more than she loved him?

He should have told her what he had done to buy this house for her.  But would she have understood?  He searched her face for forgiveness, for some sign that his eyes and ears and nose and hands had deceived him.  Why did she not acknowledge him?  Was this how her gentle soul assigned blame?

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, hoping to revive her like an enchanted princess, yet he received nothing but the stabbing memory of those same lips warm and pressing his in return.  He watched his own trembling fingers brush her eyelids closed, ending her perfect moment.

With the loss of her gaze, the agony of a lifetime of love’s secret terrors inundated him, washing away the merely physical pain of bruises and broken ribs.  His lungs sucked in air until he hoped he would explode.  Then they could be together again, their parting only as long as this interminable moment.  But his stubborn body refused to die.  The pressure, however, was real and insisted on being released. 

An animal roar wracked his body, searing his throat and scarring his ears.  It silenced the injured men, but their aching indignation could not compare to his agony.  They listened and some even wept, their small penance for having played a part in her death.

As the echoes of his cry were absorbed by the bricks and fibers of their home, a chorus of sirens called in the distance.  They promised an end, maybe even justice.  But was justice what he wanted?  Would putting that man in jail make him feel the same pain?  Would it make him regret every action and decision of his life because all those choices had led to this moment?

No.  Justice could play its part in his punishment, but that was not enough.

He laid his love down, arranging her arms and smoothing her hair.  Going into the house, he picked up a photograph and a knife, all the while shedding his hopes and dreams for the future like a ghost.

Her eyes still tormented him as he stalked up the back alley.  She hadn’t refused to acknowledge him, or to confer upon him that sacred insight she had shown the lime tree and the wall.  She had comprehended his existence with perfect clarity.  She had seen his death.

His resolve hardened as he turned toward the edge of town.  Memory was the only currency he had now.  Time, distance, and money.  He would acquire those things, and with them he would destroy the man who had destroyed his love.