Falling Ash

Ethereal plumes of smoke danced in circles, in and out, away from the burning end of her cigarette. Their soft outlines traced the constellations above, as to entrance and entice the coming dawn. Her fingers were numb fixtures, ignoring the falling ash—left mired in her exhaustion.

She had eyes more captivating than beautiful—spotted blues, browns, and golds imbued the outlines of her pupils. Now they set, hypnotized, glaring into nothingness. Her outward gaze declared her own defeat. Her departing hope. Her last stand—and the end of any shred of decency within my own soul. She remained motionless, unaware I had come outside, as ash fell from her dying cigarette onto the ground below.

“How much time is there?” I asked, with the bluntness only a computer could imitate. She was not startled from her seat, but instead looked at me with only grace. Her eyebrows lowered, her glance met mine, and in near whisper, replied “Maybe a couple of months.” Her words trailed toward a wandering void, emotion lost in the darkness left of night.

Her eyes reddened, as her vacant stare became one of subtle concern. Her brows lowered still, pressing back the solitary drop of water forming at the cusp of her eyelid, hardened to coax any discontent from of my sight. It was not a worry for her own maladies—her own life, or ending existence. No, she had now completed her most soul-torturing feat: She had told me. She hadn’t much a care for her own future, instead—as selfless as only a mother can be— only my own. Those mystic blues, browns, and golds were never able to beguile me.

The dead cigarette still dangled between her fingers, and her stare, avoiding mine—the face of a boy whirling in a cascade of roaring emotion—grew still once more and shuffled away from view, listening to the call of an early golden bird. The sky turned a striking array of pinks and crimsons, as the sun began its inevitable, however undeserved, daily rise.

She adored the birds, calling the gold finch the carrier of my sister’s soul. Her face, even now, relaxed and looked up. She swallowed a deep breath of the cool, summer morning air, listening to my sister sing a song to her. Her birds could always steer her most heinous thoughts toward some sort of enviable peace, or even trance, which I have never managed to fathom.

I did not have birds. I had the quintessential human questions of God and fate, encircling memories of mom holding my hand along the shore the first time I saw a wave crash against a yellow sand under a barrage of gulls. I saw my mom cry and hug me through every conceivable—and too often unimaginable—childhood struggle, dilemma, failed math test. I saw her teaching me the names of trees and birds, when I had yet to learn the alphabet. All I saw was mom.

No matter how much I knew of her illness, how many countless and energy-starving hours of research and education—no matter how much I knew, all I wanted to utter was, “But…” I stood still, for however long it takes oneself to race between darting thoughts—sometimes horrific, others nostalgic—attempting to grasp the incomprehensible.

Lost in the torrents of sickening silence and the building ache in my gut, I sat beside her on the back porch, and lit a cigarette. Without a word, she pulled out another menthol as she listened to the orchestral display of waking birds, joined by summer crickets playing their miniature violins. Her face gazed outward, eyes closed with her chin held high, as to enjoy the morning opera in its entirety. She was calm. I often wondered whether she was calm for my own sake, as a means to protect her child, or if I was peddling to my own self-centeredness.

With birds chirping, and sunlight illuminating the green leaves born from two ancient oak trees guarding our backyard, my head was reeling to the ends of reason. Light pillows of fog retreated back into the forest, as dancing ghosts—rolling outward as faint harbingers of my ever-decreasing energy. I traced misshapen forms of nonsense, from yellow pollen residue along the glass surface of the patio table. I did not feel panic, rather a sense of stillness—like the air around me, growing thicker and heavier as the sun began to warm the dew drops left on the blades of grass, poking from the earth. My thoughts no longer raced through old and new memories. There were no more existential questions encircling my mind. Only emptiness. Mom sat firm, and had a gentle complacency to her expression. She was still listening to her montage of Gold Finches, Cardinals, and the Wrens—in her realm of solitude and quietness.

“What do we do now?” I asked, with flat inflection. I knew her response. I know where she wanted me to go. I knew her plan.

“You are going home this week.”

“This is my home.”

“No, where you need to be.”

Mom had not even wanted to tell me she was sick again. I found out the easy way: looking into those mystic eyes—her fireflies—which I inherited.