the song of the redbird

Therefore, in a word, all that the soul undertakes and endures, if directed by wisdom ends in happiness, but if directed by ignorance, it ends in the opposite? - Socrates

...

Stephen, I have a confession to make....

Hell's literal gates rise out of the misty abstraction of my thoughts, the ruinous alleyway veiled in late afternoon shadow, wraiths cloaked in the guise of morally bankrupted men collapsed in a nearby doorway and reeking of fresh vomit.

Shuffling absently from my car, my eyes lead my unfeeling feet across the broken pavement, a smelly, intoxicated phantom stopping me to try and bum loose change by offering to watch my car. I decline with a quick shake of my head while walking past strip joints and adult bookstores lining a broken and pitted sidewalk.

Inside a darkened doorway a girl beckons, her eyes yawning caverns whose depths whisper of lost innocence. How old is she? Fifteen? Sixteen? Her shear low-cut halter top exposes her adolescent breasts and pierced navel, her hip-hugger jeans revealing more than they conceal. She asks if I want to turn a trick and I gaze in a moment of dumb incomprehension.

Overcome by an intense bout of sexual longing, I imagine ripping off her jeans and roughly mounting her youthful pink flesh in the doorway, the thought no sooner entering my mind than nausea shoots violently through my guts.

Is this who I truly am?

Backing away in horror, my eyes fill with tears before turning and fleeing through the desolate neighborhood. When I finally reach the outskirts of Hell, I duck into a little English pub out of breath, my legs rubbery with exhaustion.

Sitting by myself at the bar, I order a Guinness that I will not drink, other patrons lounging in darkened booths quietly talking or playing billiards in the rear of the establishment. But Maggie's words follow me into the pub, their remembered agony piercing my stomach like a blunt knife, the beating of my heart sounding palpably in my ears.

Stephen, I have a confession to make.

I had lived with her for twenty-five years and thought I knew her, but the images and feelings born of that horrible realization course painfully through my consciousness like my heightened awareness of the blood rhythmically pumping through my rapidly beating heart.

Shortly before her sudden need to burden my soul by unburdening her own, I had mused out loud about my best friend's twenty-five-year silence. Enough was enough. I had tried many times over the years to contact Philip and patch things up, but he never answered my emails and the one letter I mailed was returned address unknown.

I'll find no forgiveness now, I think, he went to his death bearing that grudge. He introduced me to Maggie when they were still an item, never thinking I would betray him and take her away.

Yesterday I finally asked her, Aren't you the least bit curious about what happened to Philip after all these years?

His name is Christian, she answered quietly. He asked you to call him Christian. Why do you still insist on calling him Philip?

I looked at her in stupefied silence. He's dead, I finally answered in exasperation, what difference does it make now?

I saw behind her eyes the storm clouds gathering and I immediately regretted both the question and my tone. My nausea returning, I rush to the Pub's restroom where I retch into the commode, my stomach convulsing painfully as stomach acid and spit exit my throat.

At the sink, I make the mistake of looking at my reflection and stare in horror at my ghostlike face. I remember the pills in my pocket and wonder if I have taken them already and all of this is simply the miasma of hallucination before slipping into the oblivion of death. I see in my own needy reflection the little whore's imploring countenance before closing my eyes in dismay.

Stephen, I have a confession to make.

I know what happened to Christian during those lost years. I know everything.

You Know? I whispered in surprise, How?

But in the moment, a vision from our wedding night appears before my disbelieving eyes. Maggie's youthful, alabaster skin reappearing, I'm swept back in time to her slender naked back facing me as she trembled in our wedding bed and I lay behind her shaking helplessly with confusion and desire.

She tried to back out of the marriage at the last minute, but her father bullied her into going through with ceremony, more afraid of his own potential embarrassment than for his daughter's future happiness.

Laying silently in bed together she finally leaned out of the bed and turned off the light. Her voice, seemingly muffled and faraway in the sudden darkness, whispered Hold me, and I gently pulled her trembling flesh into my close embrace, my left arm draped over the sensuous curve of her hip and my other pushed between her right arm and side, my palm pressed lightly against her bare midriff. She began to softly weep, and I held her gently through the night, drifting in and out of dreamless sleep.

In the morning when the sun began to slip surreptitiously into our room, she turned and faced me in the light's soft glow, naked and unashamed, collapsing happily into my arms. Teasingly she bit my lower lip, before murmuring I am bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh and I blinked with surprise.

Say it, she purred, say it!

Say what, silly goose?

Say I am bone of your bone.

Burying my face in her tousled hair, I inhaled deeply, breathing in its animal musk before gliding down her cheek and gently kissing her throat.

Say it, she giggled.

You're bone of my bone, I growled.

Say it all!

You are flesh of my flesh ... I will call you WOE-man.

Woe-man! she giggled, I am WOE-man, hear me roar!

We laughed and teased and made love over and over again that morning. But the end of the memory is more painful than Maggie's whispered admission from the day before, Stephen, I have a confession to make.

In the beginning loving was artless and easy, before our story began encumbering the unfettered expression of our physical intimacy, and years of resentment and hurt made it an emotional and psychological impossibility.

The sound of Philip's death sounded like a thunderclap. Truman Capote once wrote that the only unforgivable sin is deliberate cruelty. And I believe it with all my heart. But I never wept for the betrayal of my best friend till I saw Maggie with his letter in one hand, the other pressed in horror over her mouth.

In the moment, I fear the reckoning, the remembered echo of his shocked expression slowly transforming to anger, my own eyes going black like a candle snuffed in a dark room.

Although his spine was twisted by scoliosis, his face seemed contorted with more than his usual pain. His golden amber eyes stared pleadingly into mine till I turned my own shamefully away.

You already had everything. Why take what little I had away?

I never possessed Philip's intellectual heft or depth. I saw the intensity in Maggie's gaze grow whenever they conversed and could hear the excitement in her voice when she matched him wit for wit. But I also recognized the hunger flashing in her dark eyes for something more than mere words.

I took Maggie from him because she wanted to be taken. Her desire for an attractive mate was mitigated by intellectual stimulation but not governed by it. She wanted love to transcend pity. She wanted a reason for physical passion, something Philip could never give her.

There was never any question about it. His virtuous qualities were expendable and that was her sin. Oh yes, I saw it in her eyes the very first time we met. I took her from Philip because her heart was there for the taking.

But having read the letters they wrote one another during all those silent years, I feel the ache of the love they each still had for the other. Did Maggie only marry me for my body while still loving Philip for his soul? She married me. I won. So why does her confession hurt so badly?

...

Sometimes you seem like no more than a dream, a lovely figment, like a ghost of my weary imaginings. At others I remember you sitting in the solarium again, as if made real, motes of angel dust suspended in the light embracing your lonely frame, your face wreathed in shadow. Where has my Maggie gone and why can I no longer remember your face?

...

We never saw Philip again living. But it did not matter. Like an unwelcome guest he went everywhere with us, did everything with us, his pitiful specter always at the periphery of our thoughts and actions. His reproof hung over our marriage like a cloud that only got darker and more dangerous with the passing decades.

In the fullness of time it bore its poisonous fruit, my relationship with the woman I could not live without failed to its utter core.

What is regret, if not the desperate clinging to the what ifs, the inability to accept the way things are, the unwillingness to release the consequences of decisions made at life-changing crossroads? But even today with the benefit of hindsight as foresight I know if given the opportunity I would steal her away all over again.

Even now, I cannot be wise.

Yesterday I awakened from a nap to Maggie entering the room and gazing at me with reddened eyes.

Stephen, I have a confession to make.

I knew I should have said something, anything, but my mind was blank with terror.

Do you still love me? she asked, turning away in embarrassment.

My heart sunk. Yes, of course I do. But I didn't say the word, couldn't say the word. Why couldn't I say it?

Then why won't you talk to me? Why won't you listen to me? Turning toward me with explosive exasperation, she slammed her fist violently into her breast, saying with emotion, I hurt! Don't you understand? Everyone in my life depends on me, but who can I depend on? I take time to listen to everyone in my life, but who has time to listen to me? If not you, then who, Stephen?

She pounded her breast a second time, her anger escalating, tears flowing freely from her eyes. I hurt! she wailed, raw emotion overthrowing her ability to communicate, the single unspoken question, Why won't you love me? immersed in a flooding torrent of bitter tears.

...

I sometimes dream you still love me, imagining as I often do the trajectory our life might have followed if we had stayed together. Is it wrong for me to hope impossible things?

...

Philip's specter rose invisibly between us. He had listened ... he had loved her, and I had not.

I did not experience compassion when Maggie covered her sobbing face in her hands. I felt jealous rage. Her body was faithful, but her heart still belonged to Philip. Now in his absence, why did she think I could somehow replace him or even want too?

But I do not want to think about it, and I do not want to think about him. He's dead. It is high time to finally bury his miserable ass.

Instead, I remember the storm before the letter arrived announcing Philip's demise, the sky abruptly darkening and the power going out after a great crash of thunder and the rain began falling in sheets. Maggie walked to our sliding glass door to watch the fireworks, exclaiming, You should see this! The oak's branches waved violently in the gale, appearing and disappearing whenever a bright flash lit up the sky.

A mighty stroke of lightening illuminating the whole of our back yard, the frightened shadows from the oak's thrashing limbs scattered across the sheen of our wet lawn. Look at the terrifying power! she shouted over the storm, a crash of thunder like the command of God causing us both to crouch in terror.

Eventually, the lightning, wind and rumbling thunder passed, leaving only the drumming rain as we continued to gaze in wonder out our door. A few minutes later Maggie opened it to step briefly out. When she returned, she held out her hands in supplication, a red feathered radiance glowing in her open palms, softly murmuring, the storm ... the storm killed the redbird.

We had heard its song at the dawning only a few hours before. I stared open-mouthed at its little shattered body, my larynx crushed, it's neck askew and beak parted as if dying while singing its own dirge.

The tears filling my eyes, I looked into Maggie's unashamedly, my body speaking the words my lips failed to form, her eyes speaking in turn as she stood with the offering in her hands. Incongruently, I thought in that moment that there still might be hope for us.

But that was before Stephen, I have a confession to make, before I read twenty-five years' worth of letters she had exchanged with Philip, before I came to this little pub on the edge of a misbegotten Hell. Leaning on the sink in its restroom, I finally realize I have no memory of leaving our home, no memory of parking the car and no reason to be here at all.

That's when the restroom door opens and Philip steps through as I stare at him in horror. Everything dies eventually, he whispers, even love.

I thought you were dead, I whisper hoarsely.

What makes you think I'm not?

Then where are we?

He shrugs his shoulders. Who knows. Limbo? The anteroom to eternity? Maybe your asleep and this is all a dream. Or maybe you already took those sleeping pills hidden in your pocket and you're crossing the gossamer bridge separating life and death.

Frantically, I dig the bottle out of my pocket and am horrified to find it empty. But Philip begins to fade, his familiar sad smile and twisted face no more than a ghostly vapor. Goodbye Stephen, his disembodied voice whispers. It's time to wake up.

Then ……..everything……..goes……..black.

Stephen ... wake up!

But Philip's voice has changed. My eyes don't work at first, flickering defensively in the unexpected brightness.

Stephen, can you hear me?

Yes, I croak. Lifting a hand to cover my eyes, I am surprised to feel bandages brush roughly across my cheek.

I try to sit up, before groaning in pain. Maggie gently presses my shoulder back to the pillow. Take it easy, baby, she murmurs.

Where am I?

The hospital. I thought I was going to lose you.

Why am I here? I ask in surprise. My eyes finally focused, I see the tears spilling over Maggie's cheeks in the afternoon sunlight.

Because I need you, she whispers before gently caressing my cheek with a gesture that feels a lot like love.

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Suicide is quickly becoming a nationwide epidemic. If needed, reach out to the national suicide hot line by dialing or texting 9-8-8. Please don't be afraid to ask for help.