Varúð

Varúð // Sigur Ròs

My hands trailed across the table like a pale fog looking for steadier ground. My palms were cramped, my feet were needled hooves prickling in pain and my chest creaked like an oak barrel. In a groggy haze my fingers fumbled for my glass and my body shook. The intoxication robbed me of a propped stance, and the pulsing pain in my hip scratched like a chalk board but I get up. I had to see here. It was her.


I hunched over in my cherry oak stool, like a child peering through a church railing of people I spied on her longing to be caught, longing to be rescued. There she was standing at the end of line holding a single beer in the air. Like a torch in the air her eyes lit up like the yellow orange flood lights of a ship and in the storm of people she was uttering something. She was peering straight at me, saying something. Her mouth moved like a colored pencil, only squiggles of sound entered my eyes as my ears fought to learn this new language. “What?” I screamed. “I… I can’t hear you”.


She lifted her chin higher and spoke again. And with the temperance of a papal sermon her whisper was cryptic, resounding with authority and parted the ocean. People began to clap. They began to scream and chant. My name, she was saying my name. My name became a drum beat and her voice was a sheering cymbal, crashing after each beat. The crowds feet made bellows of sound like waves swelling upon the hull of the empty vessel of my body. Their blended caws carried like the dismal echoes of a siren. I screamed louder and louder, “I can’t hear you…” but she still couldn’t hear me. The louder I screamed the more my body hurled in pain. No one could hear me. I screamed and screamed, and each time I scream blood pored from my arms. I collapsed on my stool to see a scarlet trail leading away from my cup to my arms. The railings lined back into place. All I could see were her eyes. I sat there as we inspected each other across the tide of bodies, waiting. I sat there waiting, waiting for my blood to run out.


I awoke before the light ever left her eyes. There I was in my hospital bed with a needle entering my arm. There was a dim yellow haze in my eyes. Momoke, the Mongolian nurse stood above me “Brady… Brady… Good morning Brady.” I looked up to find her with a small flash light in one hand and in the other she pumped blood out of me into a black bag. She was wearing scrubs with anchors sewn into the sleeves. Her eyes were filled with water.


"Is it raining outside?"


She sniffled, and snorted. She always thought I was making jokes. She pulled with the needle from my arm and a puddle of blood filled it’s crease. “Yes, yes it is you silly boy.”


"Why do you ask?", she stuttered, "Just a nice drizzle though, it’s been going all night. Must have helped you sleep." She wrapped my arm in a large orange bandage like tourniquet. I could see belly, my gowned was open. There were burn marks, red scrapes and welts from all the shots "micro-surgical" procedures.


"There we go." She smiled, then cupped her mouth. "Opps… let me get that off your pillow." She leaned over and picked up several chunks of my hair off my pillow. "Not as much as yesterday" She smiled again. I grabbed my gowned and cover my belly. "I only save it for you dear."


"Of course you do silly boy. That’s why you’re my favorite."


"I didn’t want to wake you but there is someone here to see you and I thought I’d go ahead and give you your medication. I’ll turn on the light so you they can see you."


"Please… leave the light off."


"Of course. I’ll send her in."


Momoke left the room and closed the door behind her. There I was, alone looking through the plastic dividers on the window. The rain gently kissing the glass, allowing the smallest refractions of light to enter. My room was covered with cards, pictures and stuffed animals. My people, I thought.


The rain then stopped kissing my window and started knocking. The door opened and an orange light poured in from the hallway,


"Brady…" she said, "… Oh Brady."