Bright Light Ascending

A short story by Kristi Schirtzinger

He tells me a  purple woman hovers in the corner of his room every night above the whiteboard that has his name, his nurses, and his meds on it.

I look where he’s pointing, “I don’t see her.”

The room is dark except for the lambent, dancing lines of his monitor.

“Well, she’s not really there.”

“Maybe she’s your guardian angel.”

“It’s ICU delirium.”

“Maybe she’s mine.” A kiss on the forehead, "Goodnight, Superman,” I say, and go to the spouse's sleeping quarters, a nook behind a curtain.

On a springed contraption that goes from a recliner to a bed with one click, I settle in until 1:14 a.m. when I hear him cry out. I hold him, but I’m powerless against the pain demon that thrashes him. The charge nurse, an exorcist of confident efficiency, comes in, administers morphine, then leaves. We ride it out together until his eyes close.

Back behind the curtain, I muffle my sobs in the antimicrobial pillow that came with the room.

My morning trek follows the reflective floors between the ICU and the cafeteria.  To keep us subdued, they pump some kind of fragrance through the air that’s a subtle mixture of rose petals and chocolate. From the land of unwavering 60 degrees, I step into the broiling courtyard bedecked for the Fourth of July.

I peel off three layers and sit at a concrete table covered in bird shit. From a tower of Tupperware, an Amish family unpacks a three-course meal. I make a mental note to befriend them by tomorrow so I can eat something other than a hummus wrap. By day, I can hobnob with the Amish, and by night, I can hobnob with the raucous bunch who play Cards Against Humanity in the refugee camp called the visitors’ waiting room.

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I allot myself 30 minutes daily to play the highlights reel: Aspen, a random I love you on the ski lift; Sarasota, one hundred newborn sea turtles running toward the waves; Route 71, James Taylor’s How Sweet it Is out the open windows; every morning, Cool Waters aftershave with a goodbye kiss.

Back at the ICU, I pass exactly six windows of supine patients under fluorescent lights. My husband, the seventh, is the only one who speaks. When I enter his room, he stares straight ahead among a network of tubes - a forlorn marionette waiting to become a real boy.                  “Wanna watch fireworks tonight?” I say. “I can ask the nurses.”

“The team needs to meet with us.”

I take his hand and pull it to my lips. I breathe in his scent and close my eyes against this place and all its impotent projects. “I’m sorry for crying,” I say.

“Ask the nurses about fireworks,” he says. “I think we should.”

Gowned patients pushing IV poles like helium balloon vendors fill the courtyard. All our faces light up in a surreal kaleidoscope under the exploding lights above. I have contraband sparklers, so I suggest we quit the courtyard full of oxygen tanks for an abandoned alley. He’s been freed from his IV pole – freed, at last, from the need for maintenance drugs. Freed from the question: When?

The noise fades behind us. I push him between two brick buildings and hand him a familiar object, his Superman lighter – the lighter of birthday cakes, grills, and cigars.

He gives me an accusing look.

“I’ll quit again. I promise.”

I hand him a sparkler, and with one flame, he lights mine too. In our private darkness, we sketch the air until the last sparkler flashes, then fades.

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Kristi Schirtzinger holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Ashland University. She grew up in rural Ohio, where she and many family members still reside. Her work has been featured in The Black Fork Review, The International Feminism and Rhetoric Conference, Drunk Monkeys, Wild Greens Magazine, and others. Her fascination with Celtic history has inspired folktale retellings, short stories, and a novel about the Boudiccan rebellion of 60 AD entitled Three Summer Moons. Find Kristi’s published work at https://www.gravelroadtales.com/ 

Image:

Sparkers by Ian Schneider