Breath

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Paul Radcliffe

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        Death is the fifth point of the compass. Wherever it is thought a life is heading, everyone is pulled towards it, knowing or unknowing. It is a fixed point. It is indifferent to ignorance of its presence.     Death is an open border. It is a state, a constant. It comes as certainly as night. Prayers and reprieves go unheard. Would a prayer to the sun not to set be heard?  And yet the offers are made. They are made in churches, bowed heads and incense and solemn hymns. The pleas drift upward from battlefields and sinking ships, burning homes and in the seconds before collision when hope departs in less than a second. It is said that the whole of one’s life rushes before the eyes of a drowning man, a dying man. It does not. There is a fragment of broken hope and an onrushing blackness. Death, the final democracy where all are equal. There is no opposing view, no dissenting opinion voiced.

         Death is a good listener. It hears everything, and then continues to draw everyone towards it like iron to a magnet. It does what it has always done and always will do. It is not moved by tears, even the final one that is shed at the moment of death. Lacrima Mortis…the tear of death. It  is not known why this last tear dampens the face of the dying. Perhaps it is what they see as they are about to step across the border. No one can know, because none have returned to tell. The border is crossed. There is no way back. Ever. The chest ceases to rise and fall. With the final breath, the transition is complete. The ancient hymn asked a question, sung by the faithful, gazing upward in earnest supplication.

       ‘...Where, grave, thy victory?’ Everywhere is the answer, like it or otherwise.

     The answer lies in the rain on headstones, and in the lingering smoke above the crematorium blown by the wind till nothing remains. It is not the reply the congregation hoped for. Nor would they wish to hear about the barren wasteland between life and death when life support, such as it is, delays the inevitable. A man may be alive, his heart beating and his chest rising in rhythm with the ventilator that breathes for him, that will do what it is designed to do. The subtleties of the  machine are not designed to offer hope but they do, even when the brain stem is dead, and consciousness has departed forever.   And yet the chest moves gently upward, and the endless complexes of the cardiac ballet dance tirelessly across monitor screens. The man is alive. The beautiful  love of his life does not want to believe otherwise, as the ventilator sighs and the cardiac rhythm continues. The chest moves, the chest moves, the chest moves. Somewhere he is waiting, waiting to hold her again, to stroke her hair, to touch her pale skin. He is there. Perhaps there is another cause for why he lies there. Not enough oxygen reached his brain that day, but oxygen is reaching it now. She looks at the monitor. There it is. Oxygen saturation, a curving blue line.100%. She thinks he is wandering, a lost, blind pilgrim in the wasteland, stumbling into thorns, looking for her. Calling to her, calling for help. She leans closer to him.

        I am here. I am here. I am here.

        But death waits. He is brain dead. All that he was is gone. All that he might have been is gone. He is a memory, an inscription waiting to be written. Yet his chest still rises. Still falls. There must be something that can be done. There must be a reason. And if there is a reason, something can be done. Something. She remembers the arms that held her. Her initial on his shoulder, where she loved to lay her head.

       It had been explained, with sympathy, that tests would be done. No diagnostic stone would be left unturned. If there was something that could be treated it would be. If.

      And the tests began. She had insisted-insisted- on staying present as they were conducted. She thought she could hear him, calling across the scrub and the dunes, pleading as the night wrapped itself around him. There were two doctors in the room. Two, to leave no doubt. She hopes there is doubt. Hopes for a grey area. Another scan. Maybe.

      A torch is shone into his eyes. The pupils are fixed. They do not respond. They do not see the light. There is no light for him. A blind pilgrim, his staff lost and a storm threatening.

      Cotton wool is dragged across his staring eyes. Nothing results, no flicker of movement, no sliver. No faint star in the night. Nothing.

       The ventilator has been paused. His chest no longer rises. The active heart continues to announce itself on the screen. Carbon dioxide builds up in his bloodstream. It is the stimulus to breathe. It is measured. Without the ventilator, there is no breathing. No breath of the common wind, as unwelcome rain beats against the cubicle window. A storm is breaking above the pilgrim. A pilgrim she loves, slowly abandoning hope. Night falling.

        A breathing tube had been  placed down his throat. It was there to allow the ventilator to do its work. A doctor passed a thin suction tube down the man’s throat. There was a faint gurgling, rattling sound, but no cough. No gag, just the return of the ventilator, a gentle murmur in the room, barely noticed. The tests continued. She watched, sometimes, like an imagined ghost that was only a shadow, seeing things that were not there. Illusions borne of yearning. She saw them press against the bone of his eye sockets, rub his chest with their knuckles, and they applied pressure to his nails that made her wince to even watch. But nothing. She stroked his hair, as if to console him. It was she who was finding solace, though brief, in this gesture. Finally, one of the doctors picked up a large syringe. There was a small plastic pot with water in which ice cubes floated. The doctor injected the water into both ears, while the other watched intently. There was no response. With an old towel, she dabbed at his face to dry it. He had not been shaved, and the stubble felt rough beneath the towel. The two doctors looked at each other. Somewhere in the desperate wasteland, a pilgrim fell to his knees. In the room, there was only the sound of the ventilator.

           I am here. I am here. I am here.

        She whispered in his ear. Consciousness gone. Love departed. No indication for further scan. She heard the doctor’s conclusions. She already knew. The ventilator would be disconnected, and ‘sadly, nature will take its course…’

        Death waited. It had one more irony, one last dismissal of hope. The ventilator was disconnected. She remembered how he had held her, the feel of his arms around her. Gentle. Warm.

        The Lazarus Sign—In brain dead patients, a reflex movement causing the patient to raise their arms and cross them over their chest. It is thought to be caused by hypoxic stimulation of still functioning motor neurones.

        She was alone. The doctors had left. She had asked them to. The ventilator stood silent. She laid her head on his chest, as she had done so often. His arms suddenly flexed, as if he was putting an arm protectively around her. She would feel that last touch forever. In the territory of shifting borders between life and death, death waited.

         I am here I am here I am here

         She lay with her head on his chest. His heart was slowing. Agonal rhythm. The jagged complexes of a heart saying farewell. There would be no miracle for this Lazarus, no rolling away of the stone. But…in an uncharted wasteland, a pilgrim saw a glimmer of light and knew the storm had passed. He rose to his feet, and looked toward the light. The thunder crashed in the distance. Above the weeds, he moved forward now, toward the end. As he did so, he could see a face, a face he had loved and still loved, and eyes that held a world in their softness. And a familiar voice, as the wind calmed.

         I am here…I am here….I am here…

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       Paul Radcliffe is an Emergency RN. In the past, he worked in an area where children were sometimes afflicted with sickness of Gothic proportions. Some are ghosts now. As a child he visited an aunt in a haunted farmhouse. This explains a lot. Paul has worked in a variety of noisy places unlikely to be on anyone’s list of holiday destinations. He is also a highly suggestible subject for any cat requiring feeding and practicing hypnosis.

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         April Lafleur’s distinctive painting style is inspired by German Expressionism, emphasizing the artist’s deep-rooted feelings or ideas, evoking powerful reactions-abandoning reality, characterized by simplified shapes, bright colors, gestural marks and brush strokes. Masters like Kirshner and Marc come to mind when viewing April’s dynamic paintings.

April has earned an AFA at the Community College of Rhode Island, where she had the privilege of studying with Bob Judge, a masterful painter who has worked as an artist for over sixty years. Her studio is located at the Agawam Mill in Rhode Island.

 https://www.aprillafleurart.com/