In the mornings, his typing was one of the chorus of things that would bring her out of sleep, along with the rising sun and bird song. It often made her smile, knowing that he had been up since before dawn, working on his obsessions.
The sound of his typing sometimes went like a freight train, a fast and rhythmic clatter that would change in intensity as it took a long corner or climbed a difficult hill. Other times, it was like an excited commuter in morning traffic, rushing from one point to the next, coming to sudden, ponderous stops, only to accelerate again at some hidden signal. Even others, it reminded her of an old pet chicken on her parents’ farm in Pueblo, quick to skitter, stopping to peck, peck, peck, searching for the worm of the perfect word.
The disappearance of the sound was one of the first things she noticed, its absence a hole in the simple pleasures of a morning routine. Even his beloved cat, Sam, had noticed, no longer satisfied to sleepily watch him work, but instead waking her by pawing her face. One morning, so rudely awakened, knowing that he disliked being interrupted, but not hearing any sound issuing forth, she tip-toed to his study to find him bathed in the morning light of the eastern window. She smiled to see him so at peace until she noticed that his hands weren’t posed above the keyboard, but hung slack at his sides. She watched him for a long moment before abandoning any pretense of stealth and walked in to say his name gently, like a question. “Husni?”
The golden light of the morning couldn’t wash the gray out of his skin as he turned to her. His eyes swam in rheumy waters she had never seen before as his jaw worked, uttering nothing. At this sight, a fear weld up inside her until she spoke to him as if he had been struck blind instead of dumb. “It’s Litsa.”
That brought him back to her and he snapped to awareness to hug her tight. He didn’t cry then, and she had been too shocked to, but they both did after the diagnosis.
The beast that the doctor’s named was like something from her grandmother’s stories, an invisible creature that stalked her Husni, slowly sapping away his essence, stealing him bit by bit. It was small at first, moments like the first, but as the shroud over his mind expanded, the stain it left grew in time, each moment of his absence becoming longer.
Litsa heard horror stories from loose-lipped nurses and tearful support group members, of parents and spouses that became unstuck in time, forgetting where they were or becoming obsessed with events or objects from long ago. In a way that made her feel terribly guilty, she was grateful her and Husni were spared this, the predation by his own beast only stealing him away for longer and longer periods of time. When it struck, she would guide him to sitting and then sit with him, holding his hand, hoping that it would help him find his way home.
Even with oblivion knocking on the door, she would sometimes find herself waking to the sound of his old keyboard clacking away. Sometimes this made her jealous, knowing that the morning was when he was most cognizant, most himself, and she wished that he would take these moments to be with her. But then the sun would rise through the window and the birds would begin to sing.
Rising, she’d find he had tidied the kitchen from the night before, fed their animals, and performed a dozen small chores that she had never noticed he had always done, clearing her path for the morning while the beast was yet unable to rob him of it.
She would put on coffee. She would resist the urge to look at her phone, instead watching the sun rise, listening to him beat out his heart into words.
Around the time when the light began to warm the kitchen, he would emerge to drink coffee with her. They would speak of any dreams they had the night before, plan their coming day around the growing holes in his brain and, eventually, he would rise to make them breakfast. While it the midst of his culinary fussing, knowing enough time had passed between his imaginary world and the entrance into the kitchen, she would ask him how his morning had been. It was then that he would humbly ask her to read his ever diminishing words. She would smile and say, “Of course.”
This was their time together.
See the author’s published work here.
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Beautiful!
Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.