Emergency Room
Come into the emergency room. Feet first, if you can. I especially enjoy the surprising ways in which the color red makes its cunning leap from the spiraling ambulance light into the fluorescent world of the inside hospital. Cunning and subtle. The smell, only the smell of blood, which is of course brilliant red in the mind’s eye. I am like him around the eyes, the demon standing over by the television in the waiting room. I left a piece of myself out there with him. Much more than my eyes, I think. I am on my back now, in some impossible orientation, such that a river is coursing where the ceiling of the corridor should be. So swift is the advance in these treacherous waters. But I have been a guest here before. My body is still wet from the last immersion. And that demon, he’s laughing at me now, openly. What sort of familiarity could breed such contempt? Am I not a brother, after all. Perhaps it was that one occasion, so long ago. Yes, that must have been the moment of offense. The orderlies are running me faster down the corridor. We blow past doors, and they spring apart, I hear them explode against the pressure of my gurney. A missile, we are. But the demon still troubles me. If we begat children of the same woman, are we not brothers first? That was my understanding. Oh, the orderlies are excited now. They’re shouting commands of some sort. Battle field urgency. There’s that pesky red again. Now a tide, an awful wash. The river of the ceiling is running red, and even faster than our advance. There are swept and tumbled things, rolling miserably in the foamy red. A head, a bludgeoned face, specters from my past, the restless phantoms of my every misdeed. What service now, Elijah? What can I repent from this proximity? I am too close to your final gate, too far carried in this crimson flow, to give any flexion of remorse. Yes, I have killed, and the red which conducts me to my death is their spilled blood. But what can I achieve against the holes I’ve made? “Operating Room” … bloody letters at the final threshold.
We slow, the orderlies and me, we enter solemn and unhurried into our presence there, into that place of slaughter. And the air, so thick with tortured spirits, chokes hot as gauze into our throats. Forgive me, Tom and Blah, or whatever the fuck your name is under that white and red-spattered orderly’s uniform. Forgive me for being such a poor fare, oh my energetic, young taxi drivers. When I gave you these intstructions tonight, as I nightly do, there was no expectation of arrival in me. I was self deceived. As much as you. But here we are, arrived. Do not press against my chest, for the life you would save is not resident in me. Spare my throat the indignity of your perforation. I have already, and long ago, placed my oar inside the boat. This is only the final rapid, the part of the ride which earns its fame. And thank you, thank you for your testimony. Now come, stand with me a moment, Tom and Whatthefuck. Do you see that inconsistency over there, in that wall which separates us from the other place? Undo these silly IV drips, will you please. I can stand now. I can stand and walk, if feebly and with great humiliation. Come and give me a good wish for my departure. Even my friend, the demon, has deigned to give his attention to these proceedings. But hold fast to my hand, I am old beneath this guise. My flesh is tarred and ruined by my many sins. And so there is a slope, a grade of sufficient angle to play against that instinctive mortal fear of plummeting. Watch me as i go, as I slide into the flames. I will sing your names, and a thousand others, Tom and Whatthefuck, when my feet touch against the molten stone. I will scream your unanswered prayers directly into his mouth. I will kick and fist against his throat, and catch and tear. It is my right. I am no anonymous arrival. I am a brother, deposed, returning to take his place in the sulfurous throne room. Dead and rotting minions have announced this day. I am home.
22 May, 2001