End

There he is, a frail old man now, wispy hair clinging to his head, lying there, barely breathing.

He wants to live, still.  I see it in him, that throb of life.  It comes and goes, waxing and waning as he directs the last of his strength to the most vital of functions.

I am old, now, too, and I lean on my stick, supporting a new hip, another part of me artificial, but I’m still alive.

His eyes snap open.  I can see the milk rimmed orbs searching around for me.

“I’m here, father.”

“Good, good.”  He croaks out, but the effort is great and he closes his eyes again for a moment.  “I have something to say.”

“You always have something to say.”  He looks at me sharply, the endless battle between us its own power.

“Yes, I do, and do you listen?  No.”

“I always listen, father.”  I say patiently.

“You don’t always do what I say!”  The energy is gone and he closes his eyes again.  His breathing slows and I reach down for his hand, concerned.  When I am six inches away he withdraws it abruptly, and then reaches for me.

“Very sensitive now, son.”

“I know father.”  It is the first time anyone has touched him in fourteen years.  Even the bedsheets hover a millimetre from his parchment like skin.

“They all came you know, Son.”

“I know, father.”

And they had.

He was already ninety-something years when he came into the power, half blind, always in pain.  His answer was to work and to meditate, but it was not something that he would admit to, he would claim he was concentrating something.

This, focus, I came to call it, it was something that he’d been seeking for a long time and finally, when my brother and I moved him to a new house and helped him organise his life into rooms, he left one blank, just a thick carpet and nothing else.

“What’s it for, Dad?”  I’d asked.  One of the grandchildren, I forget which, was with me.

“It is a room in which to be.”  He’d said, using his most imperious tone.

“Beeeeeee!” Said grandchild running about the room.

“That’s right,” he said, smiling.  “To beeee.”

He spent a lot of time in that room.

Sometimes he put things in it.  A pebble.  A laptop, never on, probably broken.  Lego.  Strewn across the floor like a challenge.  Drawings of the family, crude and never completed.  Mostly though, it was just him and his chair, whatever was most comfortable at the time.  Eventually he took the door off, but none of us were ever allowed in.

I think, looking back, it was his first true interdiction.  He never said, but even the great-great grandchildren would not enter unless he specifically beckoned them.

The carpet never became marked in any way, and he vacuumed it for an hour a day without fail.

“You’re drifting, Son.”  I return to the moment as he has taught me.  I did not understand the value of his lessons until late in life.  “Have you been doing your exercises?”

This is the eternal question.

“Yes, father.  I practise every day now.”  He releases my hand.

“Good, good.”  His energy wanes a moment, and I wait, knowing that something more is to come.  I see his pulse slow in his throat, until I am counting on the fingers of one hand, and the minute is up before the little finger is extended behind my back.  His pulse becomes more rapid, that is to say, he doesn’t just die in front of my right at this moment.

“You get too worried.”

“I am worried, father.”

“How’s your mother?  Still enjoying eternal youth, is she?”

“She’s fine.”  She’s more than fine.  Whatever father’s secret is, she discovered long after they had parted and took to herself the story he told my brother.  She was on the cover of Vogue again, most glamourous great, great, grandmother.  It was a swimsuit issue.  I’m still seeing a therapist about it.  “Yes, she’s fine, you taught her well.”

“Finally.”

“Be nice, father.”  His eyes are closed, but he says,

“Still a cheeky bugger, I see.  How’s that bridge?”

It’s his eternal joke, that I’ve always got an answer, that I should be waiting for the three billy goats, and I live under a bridge now, so he’s still laughing about it long after it ceased to be funny.  Which was, frankly, about the time I had that goat problem on my roof.

“It’s fine now, father.”

“Still hilarious.”

“Yes, father.”

“You know I’m still going to be around, right?”

“So you have maintained.  But I do not see how it can be possible.”

“That is because, my son, you are still bound by the limits of what you believe.”

“You taught me to be a scientist, father.  I will not apologise for it.”  He rises up in the bed, I realise that I’ve absorbed enough of him to believe that he is doing by force of will alone, but then he releases the button.

“The world might be a place for the other one to stand, but your force of will is far greater.  Do not waste it.”

“I did discover how to control the weather you know, father.”  But the battle is joined.

“I’m not talking about all that saving the planet shit, you were always going to do that, Son.”

“Good plaudit, Dad.”

“You know what I mean.  You could have gotten us off the planet again.”

“By mystical means.”  It’s true, I could.  But it wouldn’t be ethical.

“I haven’t got time for that sort of thing, not any more.”

“We’re ok, father.”

“We’re not!”  This assertion leaves him weak again.  I wait a while, sitting my ancient feeling frame on the chair by the bed.  My beloved wife looks in, and I shake my head.  She is holding a grandchild and they wave through the window.  It’s only now that I notice that whatever child I had with me is gone.

He always absorbs me that much.  I’ve never been able to keep up, even as I see his shortcomings.  I don’t know why.  I feel sometimes as if I could know why it would open up what he is talking about half the time.  I don’t think anyone has understood him for years.

“There’s always time you know.”

“I know father, if we can fold it right.”

“It’s our perceptions that are awry.  Even with instruments and mathematics, we can only see what we can see, perceive what our minds will let us.”

This is an old mantra, much often repeated, until it is as an aphorism, and much meaning is lost from it.

I fear that he is stuck with it, a stutter, and the meaning of it will come in the distant future, even as it seems such a simple thing to say.

“I know, father, but glimpses don’t help us, we need to see properly.”

“Then take off the clouds around your minds.”

“You always say that.”

“Because I always mean it.”  I can see his pulse beating a lot harder in his throat now, and I know he is counting.

“Soon.”

I nod, unable to deal with it.  As much preparation as he has tried to give us, I am not ready, and I cannot be ready.

“You must uncloak, Son.  You’re the secret weapon.”

“You’ve said this before, Dad, I’m just a human being.”

“You’re so much more.”

“I can’t do what you can do, Dad.  YOU can’t do what you can do.”  He breaks physics.  Some how he breaks physics, and they all came to see him and he couldn’t explain it to their satisfaction, so they generated a sort of “not of this world” field around him and left him alone.  He gathered a following.  Mostly young women, so at least he’s been happy.  He’s said a couple of them have shown promise, but sometimes I think what they have shown is a nice cleavage.

“That’s cheap, Son.”

“We talked about this, father.  Private thoughts.”

“Even about me?”

“Especially.”  It’s been very difficult in the last few years, especially, as his mind seems to wander without restriction, and you can’t be sure it’s not wandering through yours.

“It was lonely before.”  When he could only hear her.

“I know, Dad, but you’re not very disciplined these days.”

“Why should I?”

“Because we all have a dark side?”

“You’re all too uptight.”

“Maybe we value our privacy.”  He gestures, at the window, my wife has bought another child to see the old man.  He beckons her in, but she shakes her head.  “She, especially, hates it when you do it to her.”

“I haven’t done it in years, you asked.”

“I know, Dad, but she doesn’t.  You can seem pretty prescient anyhow these days.”

“I’ve been observing human behaviour a long time, Son.  You get to know a thing or two.”

“Yes, true, but you could tone it down a bit.”  He gestures to his heart.

“It’ll be toned down all the way soon, Son.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I wasn’t being funny.”

There is silence a moment, he looks away, but I can see his face creasing up in frustration.  He takes a second, and then relaxes.

“I love you Son.”  He says, simply, turning back to face me.

“I love you too, Dad.  You’ve always been a good Dad.”

“I really haven’t but thanks, Son.  It means everything to me.”

“I know.”

“I wish I was at home.”

“I’m sorry.”  I can feel the tears welling up, and I take a handkerchief from my pocket and blow my nose.

“I know.”

“He’s coming.”  I look around.  I can feel the sense of his presence, occluding the others.  He stops to greet each and every one of them, absorbing them into his world and carrying them like a tide, their thoughts and emotions follow him down the corridor, and at last he is here, looking concerned at the porthole window in the door.  Incongruously he knocks.  I beckon him, and we brothers hug tightly.

“Dad,” he says, but he is already too choked up to continue.

“Calm yourself my Son.  I need you to be within yourself now.”

It is an effort of will for him, to draw himself within the confines of his own body.  It is interesting to watch, because he has never subscribed to our father’s disciplines, in fact any kind of discipline as far as I can see, but draws himself in with the power of his mind alone.  In this, he is truly our father’s son.  He has that talent in the raw that I feel I must work for.

Father says it’s never been like that really.  He says that I am my brother’s last mystery.

“It’s soon now.  I need you both.”

“I don’t understand father.”  I say, but my brother simply takes his hand on the other side of the bed, and bows his head.  I cannot tell what he is doing, praying or weeping, but he is still and silent as I have never seen him.

I realise that I am lost in my thoughts and I am probably not doing what I am supposed to be doing.

Like this Son.  His voice is in my mind.  He takes me to a place of darkness and I see again just the candle and the flame.

The flame has all the complexity of life, he says, while it is alight, I can be with you.

I don’t understand, father, where will you be?

With us in the flame, says my brother, don’t let it go out.  It’s that simple.

Alright.  I take a leap of faith, I resolve that this flame will not leave me.

Finally, my Son.

I open my eyes, the flame still there.

His pulse beats once, and then still.