Grand Profession

“but now alas,
All measure, and all language, I should pass,
Should I tell what a miracle she was”
-John Donne

He was old. Dry, chapped lips, lines along his face, dimmed eyes with faded colours, grey hairs, outgrown hair peaking from his nostrils, flapping skin hanging loosely above his worn out skeleton, covered shamefully by fine clothing. He needed glasses, but refused to wear them. He had lost much of the control over his body only a few years ago. Yet, he felt lucid every day. His thoughts were clear. He was certain of his feelings. He was not ready to die. He still held the vigour of youth. But his body had failed him. He was old.

He sat on the cold bench during a windy spring day, watching the little pond in the park. The wind extended to occasionally violent surges, and he felt a rapid shiver run through his body. He tried to shrug off the signs of his age. He had grown up by a lake. He loved water, and was intent on remembering today as a beautiful day by the water.

She sat next to him. She always did, and had for a number of years already. In his private thoughts, he had nicknamed her Sylvia. That was not her name, but her daily presence in his life was “the one solid the spaces” of his long, empty days leaned on. She was that one foundation, he believed, that still kept something that was young and good within him alive, whilst his own body was fading away with each blink of the eye.

She was young. Her lips still held the colour of life; her eyes shone bright and observed the world with keen interest. Her hair, which was now blowing in the wind, had a trace of mahogany. Her skin seemed, to his eyes, lively and smooth. She was a beacon of all the youthful enthusiasm that was good in the world. He was convinced he loved her.

He was deep in thought as he looked on to the pond in front of him. Only occasionally did his eyes wander toward her face. She was looking directly at him, of course. She always did when she took him outside. She talked about her home, her thoughts or amusing little anecdotes about going to the market, eating apple pie or waking up during an early morning sunrise. She spoke like lesser people painted. He could actually see all the little scenes of her life reflect on the water of the pond when she spoke.

His thoughts returned to the bench. He looked at her, and smiled. His smile felt straining on his dry lips. He did not smile very often, and was painfully aware of how his face stretched when he did. Her returned smile bore no sights of such woes. He looked at her face, and it seemed to him that in every way, she was his better. Youth enables us to bloom so radiantly.

He had asked her to bring him to the pond today in order to talk about his feelings. He had woken up in the middle of the night, and despite all the medication he was forced to take, his mind felt incredibly active. He was as convinced of her importance as he was of his love on the day he asked his first wife to marry him. He thought not of impossibilities that infested his feelings, but only of the weight of his emotions. So, when she came around his apartment shortly before noon, and asked what he wanted to do during the day, he announced his desire to walk around the pond in the park. She had protested over the cold, and rightly so. He would not admit it, but the wind pained him each time he shivered. He tried to control his rebellious body, and looked at her.

“Are you ok?” She asked out of the blue.

His body must have given away some sign. Surely he could not be sitting here, his heart that visibly obvious. His mind, at once so vigorous, felt like replying with something beautiful. All his life had been spent as a typically mild-mannered academic, whose only beauty of words was in the poetry he recited. Yet, no verse that he recollected suited his thoughts and feelings. There was no fiery passion, no fierce urges, but only a calm, almost religious love that he felt. He could only think of the concluding lines of John Donne’s ‘The Relic’. It seemed so fitting: he as an old relic, wishing to find a strand of her youthful hair around his dry hands.

“I’m fine. I’m glad we came to the park” was all he replied. Not a sight of beauty, from John Donne or anyone else, was detectable. As he spoke, he was painfully aware that his words jumped out of his mouth, flapped their wings clumsily and then fell far short from the soaring beauty he sought. He quickly tried to speak more, if only to patch the havoc of his first response. “Should something be wrong? Do I seem strange?”

“Well, no. You just seem anxious, I was worried if there was some ailment overcoming you”. She reached her arm toward him, gently touching his shoulder with concern. Right at that moment, he shivered. He was unsure whether that was because of the cold wind, or from her touch. He hoped that it was her touch. If her gentle hand could make him shiver so vigorously, his worn-out body might still be able to feel some stirrings of love.

“Oh, don’t worry. I might be a bit anxious, but it is nothing to worry about”. This was perfect, he thought. Now would be such an opportune time to follow this train of thought and tell her how much her presence meant to him. He would have to choose his words carefully. He fully understood how impossible his words could sound. He equally understood how true his words felt to him. He would just have to speak honestly.

“Are you sure?” She asked, her bright eyes looking at him with an eye marked with concern.

“Yes…I…” his words suddenly froze. He had planned to simply tell her how much he cared. That it was her youth that still made him young. That she was his one solid guard of safety in a world where death deemed all else elusive. Now he felt as if all these thoughts he wanted to express were a current streaming fast against him. He tried to gain ground and stand against this river.

“…I…”

Still, he stuttered. His sensations were even stranger now. His words were reluctant to fall from his mouth. They were lost, stuck in some unimaginable place within his old body. He felt the chills increasingly now. He was sure she could visibly see his body shaking. He tried his best to hide it. She noticed his shivers regardless, and calmingly took his hands to hers. This one touch calmed his hands, but he still felt the cold shivers run through his spine. He would have to speak quickly now.

“…I…”

Now his chin itself shook from his shivers. His eyes felt blurry too. He could not quite focus at her. Was he looking her to her eyes? He was not sure. He just tried to fix his gaze on her youthful face. Even this youth seemed blurred behind the dim mist he now found in front of his vision. He should have to say it at this very instant.

“…I…”

His shivers were violent, and they reduced him to the verge of tears. He realised now that his chin did not shake from the cold shivers, but from his efforts to fight back the tears. Now he felt a wet line run on his wrinkled cheeks. His eyes had begun crying. In his mind trying to pace toward youth, he felt no inclination to cry. Yet his body was reducing to a sobbing mess in front of her radiant eyes at this very moment. He was unable to control his own body.

A tremendous sadness overcame him. The love he had sought to profess not only seemed distant and intangible. It seemed as if it had never been there. His eyes were still blurry and he could not see the clear, young face that kept looking at him with anticipation and concern. He wanted it to be a glance of love, but thought it certain that she looked at him only out of moral obligation. He could not be sure of this, in either case. His body had failed him. He was old.

“…I…I’m afraid I might need to use the lavatories, nurse”

By JPV

Copyright June 2006