What to Say to Someone Who's Dying
__________
Stories by Chanel Earl
What to Say to Someone Who's Dying
Smashwords Edition
Chanel Earl
Copyright 2011 Chanel Earl
"One Hundred Breaths" first appeared in Revolution House 1.2, September 2011.
An earlier version of "What to Say to Someone Who's Dying" first appeared as "Evie's Story" in sine cera: Two Old Guys From Brooklyn 5.2, December 2007
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Contact: chanelearl@yahoo.com or visit chanelstory.blogspot.com for more information.
Book cover designed by Ben Crowder
Ex Libris (print edition) by Stacey McDonald asspocketproductions.etsy.com
First Edition: September 15, 2011
What to Say to Someone Who's Dying
I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying.
Neil Gaiman
What Justin knew as a park, used to be a minefield.
Men spent three weeks combing the field. They looked for every last mine with instruments and bodies, both highly sensitive to the explosives. They found nine mines, only one of which exploded after Lance Corporal Ronny Grimes stepped lightly on just the wrong weedy patch of dirt.
The explosion was softer than the workers expected. Most of them didn't even hear it. Only those closest to Ronny turned their heads in time to see the ground shoot up and out around him as the dirt attacked involuntarily. He didn't have time to scream.
After that, the five Grimes children, who lived only a few blocks away, were not allowed to play in the park. Mrs. Grimes, who seemed far too young to be mother to so many, didn't trust it. She said that what had happened to their father could happen to them, and that any mother who allowed her children to play there was a murderer. "Someday," she said every time she walked down the road adjacent to the park, "and probably soon— Death."
Justin Grimes, a fearless seven-year-old with two missing teeth, played in the park anyway whenever his mother wasn't watching. His two older sisters were more obedient and stayed away. Justin's younger siblings, twins, were not yet walking. They didn't understand that their daddy died, or that they were not allowed to play in the park, and they spent most of their time crying and sleeping.
Sometimes when Justin played with his friends, they played war. They pretended the field was still full of mines, the empty ditch a foxhole, and that the one large tree still standing, a black walnut, was their fort. The walnuts were grenades. The playground sand was quicksand. Sticks became poisonous snakes, behind every bush was a dangerous enemy, and every plane, or cloud, or bird, dropped bombs on them from above.
The game never ended because each child had an infinite number of lives. Justin died at least three times a day, usually because a mine exploded underneath him. Every time he died he lay on his back with his eyes closed and breathed in and out one hundred times.
One spring day after Justin fell to the ground dead, he took four thousand, three hundred and ninety-two breaths. That was the longest he had ever been dead and the largest number he had ever counted to. He wouldn't have stopped counting if he hadn't heard the distant call of his mother from the front porch—a call back to life.
"Aren't you scared that what got your pop will get you?" Justin's best friend once asked him. "Don't you ever wonder if there're any mines left?"
Justin rarely spoke. Instead he communicated through movement. To answer this question he ran around the park once, twice, then three times. Again and again he spiraled through the fields and playgrounds, stepping on all of the spots where nobody ever stepped. He searched for new places to step, and then, after he had jumped on the last patch of grass, he died for one hundred breaths.
"I'm not scared either," his friend said, catching up to him.
Justin opened his eyes and smiled.
When he left the park that day he wondered, for the first time, if there might be any mines left. He wasn't a worrier, just a curious boy who couldn't ignore the possibilities—any possibilities.
Also when he left the park, his mother saw him. She had always suspected his disobedience, but had ignored her own feelings. Prohibition alone is not enough, she thought, I have to think of something else…for his own good.
That evening after dinner the Grimes family sat in the front room together. Justin and his mother were reading on opposite ends of the room. His sisters sat on the floor between them, doing their homework, and the twins, who also sat on the floor, were busy looking for things to put in their mouths.
"Justin," Mrs. Grimes said as she looked up from her book. She had dimmed the lights, lit several candles, and tried to make their small and comfortable living room look as eerie as possible. "I heard something today you might find interesting," she began as all of her children turned to listen. "Today at work I was talking to a friend who lives next to the old minefield," she never called it a park, it was always a minefield to her, "and he told me that he was thinking of moving away."
"Why?" Justin's sisters asked. He asked too, but silently, with a raise of his eyebrows.
"Well," their mother continued, pausing for dramatic effect, "A lot of people died in that field, more people than just your father. It was a war zone for decades, and even though nobody knows how many people died, they expect it was close to five thousand." She made that number up, but didn't think the kids would catch her.
Justin raised his eyebrows higher and one of his sisters translated, "Why is he thinking of moving away?"
"He wants to move to get away from the ghosts." She paused again, this time to let the idea sink into the minds of her imaginative children. "He says that they are always causing trouble for him. Some of them blame him for their deaths, because he was a soldier in the war and fought against them. They come out at night and get into his house."
The children sat spellbound. Her daughters were even leaning toward her, waiting for more.
"But," she continued, "my friend says the worst ones are those who were killed by the mines. They have deep cuts on their bodies. They have shocked looks on their faces. They are disgusting and bloody and they wander around confused about what happened to them.
"I'm so glad that you kids stay away from there. I would hate to see anything happen to you, and I don't want you running into any ghosts. Who knows what they would do?"
At that, she went back to reading a big heavy book she had picked out for the occasion. The book looked old, like it could be—and she hoped her children would think it was—full of ghost stories. It was actually full of census records.
The twins began to rattle some old heavy keys Mrs. Grimes had given them. They clanked like rusty chains, and as she listened, she smiled victoriously. I am a theatrical genius, she thought. This is going to work. None of my children will dare set foot in the minefield after this.
Justin's usual silence was now pervasive. His chatterbox sisters sat and scribbled at their homework without so much as a gasp, while his mother pretended to read without so much as a sneeze. Justin sat ponderously for a good ten minutes without returning to his book. He waited for more stories, for his mother to tell him about what the ghosts said and did, and who they were, and whether or not his own father was among them. He waited for a more detailed description of what they looked like, an accounting of how many there were, and a reason not to seek them. He waited, and waited, and imagined the mangled bodies of men, women, and even children who had died in the park and had never stopped counting, never stood back up.
He waited in vain. Mrs. Grimes, although very inventive, had nothing on Justin. In his mind the story grew to span lives and decades. He created ghost after ghost and each of them had a face, a name, a history. They didn't scare him—they fascinated him—and though he would rather not have to ask about them, he had to know more:
"Mother, do they come out every night?"
Mrs. Grimes was surprised to hear her son's voice, but not noticeably so. Always a fast thinker, she came up with a quick answer and gave it with authority, "Yes, every night and sometimes during the day, although they are difficult to see during the day because the sun shines right through them."
Justin had more questions but decided to take the rest of them directly to the source. He excused himself to his room with a nod of his head.
"Good night," his mother said to him as he walked away, "Sleep well."
Justin had no intention of sleeping; he was going to the park. He had never been in the park at night, had never considered it, but his mother's story had captured his imagination and he was set. He was going tonight. He was going to meet a ghost—multiple ghosts—ghosts who had been in the war—who had been killed by mines—maybe even his father. His mind raced. As he lay in bed waiting for the house to quiet, he wondered and imagined, and then, after the last light dimmed, Justin crept out the front door without notice.
It was a foggy night, following a day of spring rain and mist. Justin ran down the wet streets until he reached the park, where he slowed to a walk. The ground sank beneath his feet, which silently carried him toward the playground. The only sound was the soft thrum of water settling around him: a drip from the slide, an echo from beneath the gutters. Justin walked more slowly, scanning for ghosts.
He saw a figure, a lone man sitting on one of the swings. The figure was dressed in a shabby army uniform. He wore fingerless gloves and leather boots. His hair was short and his fingers were dirty. He wasn't swinging on the swing, just sitting on it, motionless, staring at Justin, who approached him slowly.