Sanity

The cold cuts to my soul, the lack of light makes the shiver feel like it matches the landscape. I smell the wet dirt- that is all there is. There is no green anywhere. I always thought that there would be time. God, I miss it now. Those small things, a birdsong, trees, good smells coming from the kitchen. How long ago was that?

Those little things, Oh I am cold. Wait could those be gloves in my pocket?! Just when I really thought good could never happen again.

When I have been placed in different situations in the past, such as a hotel for three weeks for training. It always amazed me how a new reality is just something that you adapt to. You find where you need to be, how to get there what was expected and on day two it became your new normal. That was when sanity could be maintained, a touchstone, familiar like a well-worn overcoat. What was the story where the children had familiars that were actually part of them, and the evil villain was trying to separate them? Isn’t that how sanity was- just a part of us, I can’t quite remember.

How could we ever imagine this, this, never to be a new normal. The softness of the gloves reminds me of my Labrador Max’s velvet ear. I can almost feel his soft muzzle pushing me for a pat and a kiss, he would be warm, he would bring warm kisses.

Dan touches my arm pointing me to the fire, I see the warmth, but I know if the gloves are discovered they wouldn’t hesitate to dispatch me. Hard to think as I look at the crowd near the fire that we ever met with each other as friends- the thought colder than the bracing air makes my stomach seize.

My mind begins to wander to the days when I would go to the pool and my Grandmother said ” You need to eat to live, not live to eat!” I actually laugh to think about that now everyone making noise when they move for the bones. Dan brings me water which I greedily inhale, and I walk back to the shadows. My mind wanders to Max how easily his tail would wag.

In another lifetime my Mother tied a gold heart shaped locket to his collar for me to discover and Oh! My delight. Max’s big head just wanting a pat not understanding the excitement. I thought about sitting in my chair not realizing Dad had gone out, when Max’s head would come around the corner, his soft brown eyes would look at me with despair as if to say “Did you know that Dad has gone?”. He would slink to the garage door with his nose pressed under it waiting for the return. I instinctively feel my left hand for the gold no longer there, and then remember that dogs like people now, are something to be feared and distrusted. Would I soon lose those loving memories as well- as survival becomes the new reality?

I hear a clang, I’m thrust from the warm daydream, and I see the tall man with the basset hound face the hollows under his eyes are dark, he walks with his head hung down, but I know he has food and I smile.

My toes are numb, my nose numb I reluctantly plod toward the fire in self-defense. Someone nods and instinctively I nod back, then I remember where I am and what is at stake. The light cast long shadows across the field and up against the trees a fitting reflection for what now seems real. Up against the shadows I see a movement, an animal? For just a minute I think it could be Max. I know that can’t be real, but even that familiar outline makes my deflated spirit rise. I put my hand back in my pocket just to imagine that soft Ear, and I stop. I feel something different, something hard, smooth, small. It can’t be? I feel the locket in my pocket and just for an instant I pretend to believe in miracles.