Part I: The Bridge [III]

This would be how he would remember her, he thought, as this empty vessel of spasm and crooked posture, and held himself up, if only in fear that his movements would rouse her.

It was two days prior that Rhamiel had taken the white, cotton sheet from his own bed and had placed it over his sister’s body, the body that had, until this moment, been lifeless and still. Disease, they said. Born with it, they said. Lailah had always been a sick child, suffering from constant bouts of coughing and fever. Rhamiel had been jealous of her in a way that he could not explain, but when he watched the sunlight fall red through the smoky clouds, he could imagine in what ways he might have been. Lailah had suffered her entire life, but she had spent much of her time in the pages of her books, and had never once sat down through an entire sunset and wished for something different. She didn’t care for nature, as she had never been allowed to experience it.

Now, drenched in sweat and standing weak-kneed against the wall, he could find no words, and he stared, dumbfounded, wishing to close his eyes again.

Lailah flinched, and her relaxed, a balloon deflating, her eyes settling back into knowing. Life.

The body that had once belonged to Lailah inhaled, then exhaled, and it blinked, sight having been driven back from the reaches of space and lay fixed, admiring the ceiling of Lailah’s bedroom. Her head tossed, assessing the rough wood paneling as though it were a mystery. The floors, the bookshelf the walls all became objects of her attention until finally, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted him. Her vision cleared, and for a moment any emotion that she was feeling could not be read. She remained still, lips straightened into an emotionless frown, her eyes aware, but uncomprehending. Lailah’s body sat up, and Rhamiel started, pushing himself farther into the wall. He covered his eyes.

“Lailah, stop!” She stopped. “Don’t move. Stay there.” She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She obeyed, watching him quietly. Rhamiel took a few deep breaths, lips trembling. “Don’t be scared,” he said, and found that the words, intended to pacify only himself, pacified no one at all. “Everything’s going to be all right. I’m going to get you a doctor right now. Please, stay here.”

“For what?” Her voice was Lailah’s, but the tone in which she spoke was not.

His fist hit the wall, every part of him shaking ferociously, and again, quiet shook the room. “Be quiet. Lay down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Lailah’s body said nothing, and Rahmiel dug the butts of his palms into his eyes, squeezing. Darkness did not assist him. There, Lailah coughed and came up with blood, hands cupped, eyes closed, wheezing in great sobs that threw her forward. There, she pressed her back against him, and she was warm, and he was warm, and the earth was warm, and there was no evil, and no hate, and Death did not present himself. Death was without body, without spirit, and had lingered some place quite far away. Death was across the sea, past the great spires. There, Death came softly, but touched no one, and yet, there, behind his eyelids, he knew pain, and even this was good. Yes, even pain walked hand in hand with life. There was no aspect of life that came without pain, and he howled with it now, opening his mouth wide to throw these images from his mind and the feelings from his stomach. Out. Purging. Out.

He realized he had screamed when he noticed the silence, that somehow, the room had grown so eerily quiet. Rhamiel watched the floor between his knees, fingers gripping his hair at the roots, and he could not bring himself to look up at what had become of her, that deflating balloon, the woman (she was not a woman) who had spoken to him so articulately, in a tone to which the body clearly did not belong.

He heard the sheets rustle and fall onto the floor, footsteps slowly making their way toward his crumpled form, and he held his breath, waiting. The sounds grew closer, and stopped. The tips of her toes could be seen now, and he watched them. They moved, clenching to grip the floor, and then, she spoke.

“You have a visitor.”

Rhamiel did not want to look up. Looking up into her eyes to find awareness, knowledge, life, the thought turned his stomach, and yet this statement struck him in such a way. His head tilted upward, and found that Lailah’s eyes were directed not at him, but at the door. He followed her eyes, and found the Messenger watching Lailah from the doorway with a slow, steady gaze. The candlelight licked his pale face, and finally, after a long, uneasy time had passed, he opened his mouth.

“Bridge located.”