Act of Love

 

He can no longer tolerate the balanced motion of the practice bags.

He spends his days out in the garden, smiling as he pushes his fingers into the cool soil. He spends hours loosening the black earth around the plants. He does not think of this as work, but as an act of love. Sometimes, an old woman who lives next door watches him run his hands through the soil and remembers how her husband worked in their garden for years, digging his way into the hard earth. How he would come in after working in the dirt for hours and touch her face, his hands covered with the coolness of the underworld. He would whisper to her then, as though she were one of his plants. Later, his hands would pass over her body as though she were the earth itself.

 

Watching her neighbor dig in his garden, she can barely stand the thought of going back inside. She wants to walk between the bushes and lie down on the dark earth in front of him and pull his hands onto her ancient body. She knows it would be beautiful. Instead she calls to her cat and goes inside to turn on her television for the evening.

 

When his wife comes home from work his hands are cleaned of the garden. They sit in front of the television and watch shows that make them laugh or cry. His wife goes to bed alone, and is asleep before he lies beside her body in the dark room. He is becoming less certain of everything. Some nights, during the commercials, he looks across the room and does not recognize his wife. Only by reading her notes can he still find her for certain.

 

When he stays up late he looks through his wife's collection of art books. One work in particular fascinates him and he spends hours each night staring at Goya's "The Fates." In his practice room, he stares at the etching, whispering the litanies of the mirror. This comforts him, for while there is no comfort in the appearance of Goya's hags, he finds hope in their balance and the fact that they are removed from the earth. The darkest Fate looks down and her face is the face of the woman he saw fall. Not her face as she fell, but later, in a performance with no net, when she stood on the almost invisible wire and he saw her look down. It is that uncertainty he sees in Goya's hag.

 

This morning the note seems like a threat. THERE IS AN ABSENCE IN YOUR CHEST. PLANT SOMETHING CAREFULLY IN THE RED SOIL THERE. YOUR WIFE. It is raining as he reads the note and he can hear the storm worsening. "There'll be no gardening today," he thinks, and lies on the couch and listens to the rain and sleeps.

 

He is not in his own garden but the plants are beautiful. The soil around their roots is clay-red and packed too tightly. He kneels beside one of the flowering bushes and breaks the red soil with his bare hands, singing the last message from his wife. He caresses the roots as though they were his wife's legs. Then he touches a hand that is digging up from the deep earth. There are two hands reaching into the air and waving like the hands of a drowning person. He grabs the wrists and pulls. It is his wife rising out of the dirt. When her head is free of the red soil she looks up and asks,

"Why can't I watch?"

 

He wanders the empty house listening to the storm. From the window

he can see his garden drowning. Birds hop in the mud, their feathers too wet for flight. He can hear the beans splitting and the artichokes drowning, their green, inhuman heartbeats going silent under the soil.

 

He won't go out to the garden even after the storm is through. He is not yet ready to face death on such a grand scale. He does not want to hold the silent green hearts in his hands. He turns on the TV and listens to lives falling apart as he walks through the house, pausing occasionally to touch something.

 

When his wife comes home he is already in bed asleep. The television is still on and she turns it off just as someone wins an all­expenses-paid trip to some foreign country. She has never won anything or gone anywhere. Her husband knows all the small towns, the dark and quiet places. She only knows she is tired. She undresses and lies down next to the body of her husband. Outside, the birds are finally flying.

 

Necessary Rhythms

 

His hands are covered with the wet, black earth. Almost everything is lost. The beans are scattered across the ground, the pods bursting open all around him. The artichokes slip easily from the wet soil, bruised and dripping. He holds the soggy green hearts in his hands and cries. Earlier he had found another note on the mirror. His naked body had shivered as he read it. THERE IS FAR TOO MUCH DEATH HERE NOW. PLEASE LET LIFE PULSE FROM YOUR HANDS AGAIN. YOUR WIFE.

 

The earth is dark and pulls at his feet as he walks, through the ruins and

finds, brilliant against the dark death, three miraculously unbruised tomatoes. He picks them up and holds them the way he would hold his practice bags in front of his wife before lifting the first into the air and beginning the necessary rhythm. He smiles as he throws the first plump heart into the air. "The Fates" hover above him. The darkest looks down to him and her expression has changed. She whispers in the voice of his wife. "I want to watch," she says. He laughs, his feet sinking in the mud, the ripe red hearts leaping from his open palms into a cool wind, rising.