The Gargoyle

“Get into bed with me. You’ll be okay.”

  “You don’t understand. There’s a snake in my spine—”

  “Silly boy,” she said. “You should know better than to listen to snakes. They lie.”

  “You didn’t give me enough time to adjust to the idea,” I pleaded. “Tomorrow, I’ll quit, but give me a day—”

  I AM ALMOST HERE . . .

  “Suffering is good for the soul.”

  “No it isn’t!”

  “If you cannot love the pain”—she tried to put a positive spin on it—“you can at least love the lessons it teaches.”

  . . . AND THERE IS NOTHING . . .

  I preferred to remain uneducated. “I can get my prescription refilled and—”

  “I flushed it down the toilet,” she replied, “and Dr. Edwards won’t refill it again. And I’ve put your credit card on hold, so unless you’re going to rob me to buy street drugs, get into bed.”

  . . . YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

  “Sleep,” Marianne Engel said. “Just sleep.”

  Morphine comes from the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, and was first isolated in the early 1800s by the German pharmacist F.W.A. Sertürner. It is named for Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, and I can testify that that is most appropriate. Morphine has a nocturnal, delusional quality that had colored every aspect of my life since it first swam upstream in my veins.

  Though the primary use of morphine is to alleviate pain, it can also relieve fear and anxiety, decrease hunger, and produce euphoria. Whenever I injected, it flooded my body with a divine sweetness that made life bearable. Morphine also decreased my sexual drive, which, while perhaps not a desirable side effect for most, was a godsend for a man who lacks a penis but retains the ability to produce testosterone. As a negative, however, I was constantly constipated.

  But what the morphine really did for me—its absolutely most vital function—was keep the snake silent, at least for a while.

  When I first came to live with Marianne Engel, I was taking about one thousand milligrams a day. Over time my dosage had crept up with my tolerance and towards the end, I was taking that amount, times four.

  XXIX.

  YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, DON’T YOU?

  The blackness and my awareness arrived together. I was instantly awake, my eyes peeled wide, but I could see nothing. I could feel by the quality of the air (moist, massive) that I was in a constricted place. The atmosphere was almost too heavy for breathing, with the scent of rotting wood, and I was on my back. A feeling of smothered panic lay on top of me.

  I AM HERE.

  I could hear—no, feel—the glee in the snake’s voice; she was happier in my spine than she had ever been. The morphine had been keeping her in check but now, in this place, that protection had been lifted. The snake thrashed in celebration.

  THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

  I tried to extend my arms but my hands met a barrier on all sides, only inches away. Flat, smooth wood. A few feet across; a few feet deep; the length of my body. For a human, there is only one box of this size.

  YOU ARE IN A COFFIN.

  This was not real. I tried to remember everything I’d learned about morphine withdrawal, because that was the reality of my situation, not this imagined tomb. I had studied, like the student who prays the test will be canceled, about the weaning from the addiction. Cold-turkeying off morphine is not life-threatening, as it is with some other drugs, but it can result in strange visions. Clearly, this was one of them.

  There were so many reasons that this could not be real. How could I have been taken from the bedroom and buried without waking? If the wood of the coffin was already rotting, how could I have been underground that long? How could there still be oxygen? All this was impossible; therefore, I was hallucinating.

  But are people who hallucinate rational enough to realize it? Aren’t hallucinations supposed to be, by definition, irrational? I didn’t feel as if I’d lost touch with reality; in fact, this felt too much like reality. Do hallucinating people note air quality? Do they think about how long it takes before the wood of a coffin gives out, or how long before the worms find their way in? If I was really in withdrawal, why was I not craving my drug? So although I knew this experience couldn’t be real, I had to wonder why I was asking such logical questions.

  It was not long before I discovered that withdrawing addicts lose their composure in exactly the same manner that careless millionaires lose their money: gradually, then suddenly. After careful consideration, I instantly lost all control in what can best be called the opposite of an epiphany: instead of my thoughts coming together in a moment of clarity, they bolted from the center of my mind like victims trying to escape the epicenter of a disaster.

  Although there was clearly no room for leverage, I threw my fists around frantically, pounding at the wood weighted down with six feet of dirt. I clawed until my fingernails peeled back and screamed until my throat was emptied of all hope. I had believed, in the hospital, waiting for the next débridement session, that I knew fear. But that was bullshit; I’d known nothing. To wake alive in a coffin and know you’re waiting for the end? That’s fear.

  My hysterical little rebellion proved useless, of course. So I stopped. Even if I somehow managed to break through the wood, it would not change the fact of my death, only the means: rather than be killed by lack of oxygen, I’d be suffocated by the dirt that stormed the coffin. As hungry as I was for air, the earth is always more ravenous. And so, a hush fell on my box like a cadaver’s blanket. With nothing to do but wait, I made the decision to be dignified.

  My breath echoed, as if the coffin were a shabby little concert hall. I decided I would listen until I could listen no more, and then the very last, soft note of my final breath would trail out into the dark. I’d go gently, I promised myself, because I’d already—given the severity of my accident—managed to live much longer than I should have.

  Then I realized how incredibly foolish this was, all this thinking about dying in a hallucination. No problem. Steady. What had I taught Marianne Engel in Germany? It’s all about the breathing. You steady the weapon by slowing your breathing. In, out, in, out. Steady. Calm. I am the weapon, I told myself; a weapon of living, forged in fire, and unstoppable.

  And then. I felt. Something. And this something can only be described by a word I don’t want to use: a new-age, stupid word that I must bring into play because, unfortunately, it is the only correct word. I felt a presence. And it was right beside me. A woman. I don’t know how I knew it was a woman, but it was. It was not Marianne Engel, because the breathing was wrong. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I could identify her by the cadence of her breathing, but I could, and this wasn’t her. It occurred to me that perhaps the breath was coming from the snake. Perhaps the bitch had finally exited my spine for a direct confrontation. After all, you can only talk behind someone’s back for so long.

  But no, it was a human body calmly lying beside me. Which was ridiculous, because there was no room in the coffin—the imaginary coffin—for anyone else. Still, just in case, I snuggled against the wall on my side. Her breathing was relaxed, which somehow made it even more frightening.

  A hand touched mine. I jerked away. I was surprised that I could feel her flesh; I had assumed this entity was immaterial. Her fingers were tiny but she was still able to force her hand into mine.

  I tried to sound courageous while demanding to know who she was, but my voice broke. No answer. There was only the continuation of her breathing. Again: “Who are you?”

  Her fingers gripped a bit tighter, intertwining with mine. I asked another question. “What are you doing here?”

  There was still only the sound of her soft, relaxed breath. With every question she did not answer, I became a little less afraid. The way she clutched my hand was no longer menacing, but comforting, and soon I could feel myself lifting, almost—no, not almost: definitely—floating. My back began to lift away from the wood on which I lay.
r />   I felt like a levitating assistant whose hand was being held by the magician. I felt us moving through the lid of the coffin, and then we were traveling up through the soil. An orange glow spread across the insides of my eyelids as we got closer to the surface, and I was not even sure whether I was still breathing.

  I felt the tug of earth as I broke into the sunlight, and the color exploded. I was lifted upwards, a few inches above the surface of the ground. Soil trailed off my chest and I could feel it trickle down my ribs, falling from my sides. I was floating in the air unsupported; the woman did not break the grave’s surface with me. Only her hand came through, connecting me to the earth like a balloon on a string. Her hand held mine for perhaps a few seconds before it let go and was pulled back into the grave. It was then that I realized that she could not leave: she had not been a visitor to my coffin, I had been a visitor to hers.

  My body settled onto the mound of dirt. My eyes adjusted to the light. I was on a mountain and I could hear a river nearby. It was peaceful, just for a moment, until the ground beneath me started to move once more. For a panicked instant, I was worried that the silent woman had decided to pull me back down, but this was not what was happening. On all sides of me a hundred little eruptions began, like burrowing animals clawing their way out of the soil.

  There were, at first, only glints in the light. But then shapes began to emerge: flowers, with colorless petals. When I looked closer, I could see that they were made of glass. Lilies. Blooming everywhere were a thousand glass lilies, glowing with pulses of light that seemed to come from within.

  I reached out to pluck one. As soon as I touched it, it froze under my finger. Turning from glass into ice, all the thousands of flowers—as if they were connected by one soul—began to shatter in tiny explosions. With each came the release of a single word, in a woman’s whisper, and together they fashioned a symphony that sounded like pure love. Aishiteru, aishiteru, aishiteru.

  The bursting lilies raced down the mountain like dominoes detonating their way to the horizon. Underneath the joyous blanket of Aishiteru in the sky, the mountain itself shook and trembled and fell, flattening itself into tundra that unfolded everywhere. Just moments after it began, all around me the frozen shards of flower had become a field of ice that extended as far as my eyes could see.

  I stared into this vast icy wilderness and it stared mercilessly right back at me. The arctic wind whipped hard against my shaking body. I was now completely aware that I was naked, save for the angel coin necklace that never left my neck.

  The grave was gone—naturally, now that the entire mountain had disappeared—but there was a simple robe lying where it had been. When I picked up the garment to measure it against my body, flecks of dirt fell from it and were carried away by the powdery ballet of the blowing wind. The robe was much too small but because it was all I had, I put it on. I looked as ridiculous as you might imagine a burnt man in a tiny woman’s garment would look, but when you’re freezing there’s little profit in worrying about fashion sense.

  The robe was the same one that I had seen on the Japanese woman at the Halloween party. Without a doubt it, and the grave it had come out of, had belonged to Sei.

  The gleaming bleakness of this new world engulfed me. How complete was my change of venue: from the smallest and blackest space I could imagine, to the widest and whitest. For miles around I was the tallest object, enormous simply by virtue of possessing legs upon which to stand, and yet I felt dwarfed by the immensity of the sky. To stand on tundra is to feel concurrently grand and inconsequential.

  The thin robe was little protection against the cold, and the wind cut to my marrow. Something moved at the edge of my vision. I was already developing snow blindness, but I squinted to confirm the sight: a trudging bulk outlined against the vicious blankness. The figure seemed to be coming towards me, but it was hard to tell on such a flat surface. I headed towards it. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be any worse than standing still, awaiting hypothermia.

  After some time I realized that the object moving towards me was a man. He must help me, I thought, for to not help me would be to kill me. The first detail I could make out was his thick red locks, which stood out against the snow like bloodstains on a bedsheet. Next I could see that he was wrapped in heavy furs and wore thick boots. His pants were thickly strapped leather and his coat was an animal thing. Over his shoulder, he seemed to be carrying a parcel of pelts. Puffs of steam exited his mouth. Ice frosted his beard. He was close now. Deep creases lined the corners of his eyes and he looked older than I believe he actually was.

  When he arrived in front of me, he held out the package he’d been carrying on his shoulder and said, “Farðu í Þetta.” I understood what this meant: You will put these on.

  I unwrapped the package to find a full set of clothing, thick skins with fur that would protect me. I pulled them on as quickly as I could, and soon I felt the air between my body and the material starting to warm. “Hvað heitir Þú?” What is your name? I was shocked to hear Icelandic out of my mouth as well.

  “I am Sigurðr Sigurðsson, and you will come with me.” His answer confirmed the identity that I had guessed; but only hesitantly, because here—wherever here was—Sigurðr was unburned despite the way his life had ended. Which made me wonder why my body was still damaged.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “When will we get there?”

  “I don’t know.” He squinted against the horizon. “I’ve been traveling a long time. I must be getting close.”

  Around his waist Sigurðr wore a scabbard, the same one that had been clanging against Sei’s hips when they were dancing. He extracted Sigurðrsnautr by its serpent handle, and handed over his belt and sheath. “Put this on. You’ll need it.”

  I asked why. He answered that he didn’t know.

  I threw away Sei’s robe, thinking it useless now that I had the skins. Sigurðr picked it up and handed it back to me. “In Hel, you must use everything that you have.”

  I twisted the robe around my waist, as a second belt above the one that Sigurðr had just given me. I asked him how he could tell in which direction we should head.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. Sigurðr was quite a conversationalist. He used his sword as a walking stick, the blade cutting into the snow with each step. For a man who didn’t know where he was going, he took very resolute strides.

  “Is this a hallucination?” It struck me as supremely odd to be in a hallucination, asking whether it was a hallucination, in a language that I didn’t understand. (In fact, how many people in the entire world know the Icelandic word for “hallucination” is ofskynjun?) Sigurðr answered that he didn’t think it was an ofskynjun, but couldn’t be positive.

  We walked. And walked. And walked. For days, but the sun never set. Perhaps you think this an exaggeration, that I really mean we walked for hours, which seemed like days. But no, I mean days. We traveled in constant fatigue but we never came to the point of needing sleep, and despite my bad knee, I felt I could continue indefinitely. I thought of the places in the farthest northern reaches of the world where the sun remains in the sky for six months at a time. Would we have to march that long?

  Sigurðr remained a man of few, and confused, words; for the most part, the only sound that came from his body was a slightly musical clacking from under his pelts, around his neck. After a while I stopped talking to him, except to try to make him laugh. I never succeeded. Sometimes I stopped walking simply to break the monotony. I would beg Sigurðr to wait for just a minute but he would always state that there was no time for rest. When I asked why, he would answer, “Because we need to get there.”

  When I asked Sigurðr where “there” was, he didn’t know. So I told him that, given the fact he didn’t know, I could see no reason to continue to follow him. He would snort, say that I was allowed to make this stupid decision, and continue walking without me. Just when he was about to disappear fr
om view, I’d take off after him in a hobbling run. Because of course I needed him—what would I do in this place alone? And so we plodded ever onwards, heading to the place that he couldn’t define and I couldn’t imagine.

  Hallucinations should be better than this, I thought. Walking the tundra for days is boring and I was surprised I could hallucinate anything that mundane, for that long. The cold was too piercing; the patterns of snow were too perfectly random in their swirls; and my tiredness ached too honestly to be imagined. The only thing that didn’t seem realistic was my ability to continue with neither rest nor food.

  Of course it was a delusion. A damn fine, cold, protracted hallucination. Withdrawal should not be like this. Unless…

  “Sigurðr, did I die?”

  He finally laughed. “You’re just a visitor here.”

  If this place was Sigurðr’s, as the coffin had been Sei’s, I wanted to know more about it. About everything. I decided to abandon all subtlety. “That sound coming from around your neck—is it made by the treasure necklace that once belonged to Svanhildr?”

  He stopped walking, perhaps deciding whether to confirm. He did: “Yes.”

  “Do you have the arrowhead necklace, too?”

  “That went to Friðleifr.”

  “His name was changed to Sigurðr, you know.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few moments, until he answered in the softest voice I had heard him use. “Yes, I am aware. It was a great honor.”

  “Will you tell me about Einarr?”

  The question made him restart his stride. “That story is not for you.”

  “I’ve already heard it.”

  Sigurðr turned and leveled his eyes at me. “No. You’ve heard Marianne’s version of my story, which is a different thing. How do you dare to think you know my heart, when you don’t even understand your own?”

  Leave it to a Viking to disarm you with eloquence when you least expect it. I shut up and started walking again.