Still Moment of Meaning

     I ran my hand over the stones of the house; the rustling of branches overhead made the moonlight flicker softly over their irregular surfaces.  I had run away in the middle of the night from the town with its bustling, empty life because I wanted to lose myself in something more still and definite.  The world turned under my feet and I enjoyed knowing that no one knew I was on this particular piece of it, and I did not want that to end, I wanted to remain floating in this bit of space alone all night.  The blood stains had long faded from those spots beneath my fingers.  I wanted my own to take their place.  I wanted to say, “Here, I’ll be your successor.  I’ll leave my own piece of myself on top of yours and then that will fade away too, but at least I’ll be like you and fade away on this stone too, so we can share that if we don’t share something beyond this time and space and matter and energy.”  But, then, maybe they would never know about it.  Maybe they weren’t even anywhere, but, if that was the case then that was fine, too.  Dissipated, annihilated, oblivious in nonexistence, well, I’d be that too, just with my blood stains on this stone wall in this place called reality, but my real self would be just somewhere else, even nowhere else.  But one thing I knew I could be sure of: my blood would be right here, at least for a little while.  I only needed that one surety at the moment.  A common situation with some other human beings. 

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     The girls from the convent school.  I was in a field outside of Reims and the silence my ears perceived contrasted sharply with the roaring of my thoughts, the roaring of the machine guns, the screams of the girls, the sound of the glass breaking, hurting my teeth and my eyes and my ears and my heart all at the same time.  I felt the sound waves from their soft bodies being pushed against the hard stones.  I saw their white skin glowing in the sunlight, being penetrated by the bullets.  It hurt my stomach.  I wondered what it felt like to be there, 67 years ago, pushed against that wall.  I wondered if those girls were even now smiling at me because of my fervency about them, looking at me with warm eyes and hearts and wanting to be my friend despite the separation of our existences.  But where had they gone?  I looked up into the blackness.  Were they looking at me out of that?  Of course not.  Well, maybe.  If I wanted to think so badly enough, then yes.  I liked the idea so much that I stared at the sky until my tears started flowing incessantly, and I felt like I was looking into their eyes, all of their eyes.  I made the conversation--they did too because I did.  Reality is what we make it.

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     I wanted my blood to be spilled on top of theirs, I wanted to feel mine penetrate those same crevices as theirs did, so long, yet not so very long, ago.  I wanted to know that I was with them in that way if not in any other way.  Where had they gone?  I looked beyond the roses to where their bodies lay, resting in the cold earth as the moon looked down upon them.  But where had they gone?  Gently I let my footsteps fall near the graveyard.  Out of the right corner, then across, then to the left corner, I let my vision take in the sight, let it penetrate me with all of its details.  Rains had washed away the blood, but somehow their voices had remained in that space, because I heard them.  Time had been defeated for a brief moment.  My body operated within it, but my thoughts were beyond its reach.  I closed my eyes and placed my hands against the stones; let my head rest on my burning arms.  My whole body was warm with life, my heart pumping forcefully.  So very near their still ones.  The situation became suddenly desperate.  I was helpless.  No power I held could place me with them, in a mutual embrace.  The only connection was my thoughts--painfully invisible and maddeningly out of reach and enigmatic.  No subjectivity, no I wanted hard facts, no I didn't want imaginative fantasies, no I wanted undeniable assurance that I was with them, no I didn't want to be pulled back into the mundane world.  I wanted this piece of earth 67 years ago, I wanted to be with Lucie, with Cecilia, with Mary, with Claudette.  And, to tell you the truth, I don't even know why.  Or maybe it is all past articulation.