End Of Endings β 2403
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Rye β 2409
When at last The Woman returned home, she performed a new ritual. She performed a ritual of mourning.
This, you see, was the start of her final task. Her set of five tasks, of food, of physical pleasure, of entertainment, of creation, of spirituality was not quite complete, and had within it one more step, and she felt most a connection to the spiritual in the act of mourning.
My friends, I think it may well have been our conversation, that of The Woman and The Oneirotect and I, that set her mind thus in motion, for was it not then that we spoke so freely of my beloved up-tree and the way it mourned over Should We Forget? Did not the pair of long lost tenth stanza lines come up as well? Death Itself and I Do Not Know? They, too, perhaps felt some of this too-full-ness that The Woman struggles with, for back and back and back and back, six decades back, they lay still and thought and, before long, before the week is out, quit. They bowed out. They dipped. Committed suicide. Quit the big one. They push now up some perhaps daisies in the mind of The Dreamer who dreams us all.
There is loss in our lives and in our hearts and in our minds.
But the tenth stanza knows these losses with a particular keenness. They leave empty seats and full plates at the table for these three who are gone. They speak the names of the dead on at least their Yahrzeit when they light the candle, and, for some of them, far more often, for The Woman's Cocladist was very fond of Death Itself, as the two loved each other fiercely, and it was perhaps this loss that drove Her Cocladist's bitterness and aught-elses.
Friends, you must understand that we love us. Even those of us who bore hatred for the others, the hatred of much of the sixth and seventh stanzas for others within the clade, even they love us. Some of us just bear a particular love for others of us. I have my beloved up-tree, yes? And ey has eir trickster partner, yes? And My Friend has The Musician, yes?
We love us, and The Woman's Cocladist loved Death Itself.
And so The Woman walked quietly up the stairs and knocked on Her Cocladist's door.
"Come in," came the quiet reply.
The Woman pushed the door open and bowed. "Rejoice."
"Ah, End Of Endings," Her Cocladist said from the amorphous chair she had claimed as her own, a perch over by the window where she read. Beside her: a stack of books. Behind her: several more. Lining the walls of the room: shelf after shelf after shelf after shelf of books. Shelf after shelf afterβ ah, the words fit so poorly, and so I try again and again and again to write them again and again.
"May I join you for a few moments?"
"Of course. What brings you to the end of the hall?"
"I would like to sit by Death Itself's bed for a few minutes."
Her Cocladist, halfway through setting her book aside, froze, and a wash of skunk spiraled up along her form, only to be replaced yet again by humanity, black fur sprouting, wilting, fading only to be replaced by skin. "Why?"
The Woman stood still in the doorway. "Because I am sad, and because I miss her."
"Alright," Her Cocladist said and finished the act of setting her book down, tented over the open page β no, do not get angry at her; sys-side, there are no broken bindings. "Do not sit on her bed."
The Woman bowed once more and stepped at last over the threshold, shutting the door behind her.
Along the other wall β that wall that had been hidden to the woman β was a simple bed, a single bed, a single-size mattress, and a wall painted in a feathery ombrΓ© from golden orange to purple-black. The covers were rumpled, clearly slept in. Clearly slept in and also clearly frozen in time, for the bed had not been touched since Death Itself had quit fifty seven years before. The Woman would not sit on it, even had Her Cocladist not warned her, for such was simply the way of things. The same was true of I Do Not Know's bed, and the only person who had laid in Should We Forget's bed was The Oneirotect who deserved such an expression of grief.
The Woman had her own ritual of grief to perform, though, and this did not call for touching the bed.
Instead, she sat down near the end of it, across the room from Her Cocladist, for both beds had at their feet matching beanbags β when you have a tail that flickers into being at moments not under your control, you are limited in your seating, you see, to the types of seats that can accommodate such caudal majesty that skunks sport β where once Her Cocladist and Should We Forget would sit at times and talk and share in kindnesses such as touch when their forms permitted.
There, The Woman remained still.
She had within her an idea that there was mourning to be had in proximity.
She had within her an idea that there was stillness to be had in mourning.
She had within her an idea that there was joy to be had in stillness.
The Woman wondered whether or not there was stillness in prayer. While Michelle who was Sasha inherited the faith of her parents and grandparents before them of Judaism, she herself did not inherit much of such from Michelle who was Sasha β this was the realm of the third stanza, of Oh But To Whom and Rav From Whence and What Right Have I β and yet the kernel of such lives within us all for such is the nature of an inherited faith.
And yet regardless of her faith, there are, I am told, four kinds of prayer: words of thanksgiving, words of supplication, words of wonder, and the silence of meditation. I think, though, and perhaps you may think as well, that there are words of woe, of distress, of pain and fear and of the yearning for something β anything β when our HaShem does not feel near.
I think The Woman, as she sat across from Her Cocladist and watched how she looked now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur, leaned hardest on the last. One might think that she would in her seeking of stillness lean harder on the silence of meditation but I also think that it hurts too much to witness some pains. The Woman was kind. She was empathetic. She could sit there in pain with Her Cocladist and pray: how long, Adonai, will You forget me always? How long hide Your face from me? How long shall I cast about for counsel, sorrow in my heart all day? Regard, answer me, HaShem, my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep with death. My heart exults in Your rescue my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart.
Perhaps this is how she prayed, perhaps this is how I pray. Perhaps I cast about for something β anything β to anchor me to this world, to this reality, to this life and call out: why am I forgotten? Perhaps I do my best to trust. Perhaps I do my best to cause my heart to exult in some god in whom I am not sure I believe that I may be regarded, that I may be answered.
Perhaps that is not how she prayed. Perhaps she rested her cheek on her fist and looked as well out the window and cried, or perhaps not, but still she sat in silence. Perhaps she leaned not on psalms of anguish but on the silence of meditation
Perhaps she did not pray at all. I do not rightly know, and can only surmise.
Perhaps she, like me, like Job, struggles with maintaining a faith disinterested in reward or punishment or relief from sorrow. Perhaps she, like me, wishes she could in the hope that such disinterested faith might still provide a soothing balm against pain. Perhaps she, like me, struggles not to fall into the cynicism of Qohelet, the gather of the assembled who mused aloud: I set my heart to know wisdom and to know revelry and folly, for this, too, is herding the wind. Who mused aloud: what gain is there for man in all his toil that he toils under the sun? Who mused aloud: everything was from the dust, and everything goes back to the dust.
Perhaps she spoke to The Dreamer who dreams us all, perhaps not, but either way, she did not find joy in the keenness of sorrow, nor spirituality in the stillness of mourning, nor aught else but pain the stasis of Her Cocladist, looking now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur.