Chapter Eight

The car rumbled quietly down and over the road. Newer construction and a freshly paved section of roadway caused small chunks of asphalt to be kicked up as the car rolled on in indifference. It sounded almost like crunching snow mixed into wet gravel. Nate wiped at his face, his eyes felt so puffy and hurt a little. “Sorry,” he started to say, before he coughing and going on, “For ruining the party. It seemed like it was going well. I hope-”

John let out a pained sigh over several seconds, and scoffed with a sense of disgust. “What. Are. You. On about? Who cares, man? This takes way more priority.”

“I know. But-”

“Look. If you keep feeling sorry for yourself here, then who is going to mourn for your aunt? Relax about the party. Ashley understands. She’s awesome like that. Once the party winds down and everyone is out of the apartment the girls will join us at the hospital. Now stop whining at me, I’m trying to drive. These morons put in another stupid roundabout. I get that it’s for the new development over there. This place won’t be built for like what, another four years? So now we get to suffer this stupid addition, just because they- Jesus christ…It’s a yield you moron! Not a stop! A yield!” John gave the driver, with out of state plates, a one finger salute. Normally he’d have honked. This time he didn’t. John seemed to be saving the car’s breathe, and his own.

“That seems fair.” Nate mumbled.

“A what now?” John asked, then seeing the rain cloud rolling in fast from the east. He huffed; with the corner of his mouth twitching. “Would you prefer it any other way?”

Nate didn’t have anything to say, so he stayed quiet. The rest of the drive was a quick twenty minutes, with the only things slowing them down being other drivers and the quick red lights that felt like speed bumps.

The lady at the front desk of the hospital was waiting for them when they walked through the automatic doors. She’d seemed to have already been appraised of the situation and led them to an elevator behind her desk. It was hidden away by the employee entrance that they had also not noticed before. She looked different, something about her hair, maybe? “Go that way. There are a few people on the floor waiting for you both. I’ll phone ahead to let them know you’re here, they’re expecting you.” She ushered them along, leaving them once she pushed the elevator button for them. Before the doors closed Nate saw she was watching him. Her eyes were puffy and red. This must be the hard part of her job, he thought, ferrying folks alongside one another in an elevator instead of a boat across a river filled with red water.

After the door reopened, someone ushered them along to where they needed to be. Nate didn’t notice if he’d seen them before or not. Not that it mattered anyways. They were brought to Nate’s aunt’s room in a matter of moments that slid by quick and unnoticed.

She had had been moved to another wing of the building, a different part that was better suited for the needs of the hospital’s end of life patients. To give them the last bit of care that the hospital and its busy staff could spare to provide. Neither of Nate nor John minded the change. The new room and wing were like any other part of any other hospital building.

John sat down in the chair by the window, while Nate remained standing by the bed. He stood, watching his aunt breathe. She was taking shallow little breathes that made her chest rise a little, before falling back down again. Little breathes that made her seem false, almost unreal even. A China doll in a museum of wax mannequins came to Nate’s mind.

Someone was talking to him, explaining something, it sounded important. He didn’t hear what they were saying. Or couldn’t focus enough to be able to do such. It didn’t feel like it mattered much anyways. Aunt June was dying. The machine’s were unplugged, save for the heart monitor that beeped along to the ticking of the overhead analogue clock.

She looked so peaceful. All of the wires and machinery had been pulled away, utterly disconnected. She was on her own, aside from the beeping and the soft clatter of hospital personnel walking past the room with a cart or two every now and again. If only she’d wake up. All she needed to do was wake up and she would be alright. Everything would be alright if she did that. Nothing would change. Everything would be okay and the same as it had always been before she had gotten sick. If only she would just-

“Nate!”

Please wake up. I’m not ready for this. It’s all just too much. It’s all too fast and too soon. Please, just, don’t do this. I’m not ready for any of this to happen. Not this soon…

“Nate? Buddy! Hey, come over here.” John led him over to a chair and eased him down into it. John then talked to the man with the clipboard. Nate didn’t understand most of it, or any of it at all really. The room felt smaller, all the noises and air inside of it were being compressed, and pressed onto him. He leaned back against the chair and focused on his breathing. Trying to control himself, one breathe at a time. The clock and monitor ticked and beeped ever onwards and away from him.

John was looking at Nate between sentences with the man, his arms remaining crossed. He always talked with his hands when he was upset or stressed, or even when he became excited. John generally remained animated and noncommittal with his body language from what Nate could usually tell, now he barely recognized John, he seemed or rather looked, so much older. He felt and sounded so adult as he was talking with this other stranger. This bearer of horrible news that was beyond their own control, from anyone’s control. All they could do was deliver other people’s bad things to them and offer up condolences in leu of payment for delivery services rendered. Nate felt himself say something, not sure what it was. John turned and asked, “What was that, buddy?”

“How long does she have now?” Nate repeated, not recognizing his own voice. It twisted and crackled against his tongue and teeth. Dancing around in a way he was not used to hearing it move about and from him.

John turned back to the man with the clipboard, who merely shrugged and shook his head, “Could be anywhere from five minutes, to being hours from now. There is no way to gauge this part of the process.” The man admitted, he adjusted his glasses and stroked at his beard.

“I see,” Nate said to the floor. He couldn’t hear anything else the man said to them, just the door that closed behind him. Leaving John, himself, and his aunt alone together at last. The clock on the wall ticked steadily above the window again. Tick, tick, tick, tick. It felt louder than it should have been. And taking up more space than it would ever have needed to take under normal circumstances.

“Nate?”

“What, John?”

“You’re muttering again.” John eyed Nate from the wall he was leaning against. “Stop it, man. You’re freaking me out. Just breathe.”

“Oh,” Nate adjusted in the chair, awkwardly sitting with his fingers intertwined. “Sorry. Didn’t know I was thinking out loud again. Sorry.”

“You’re good, man. Just, you were mumbling something about the clock. Couldn’t hear you. And, it’ll be okay. I promise. One way or another, it will be okay.”

Nate looked up at the time. It was so late, when did that happen? It was a quarter after one already. “Didn’t realize it was already so late…You don’t have to stay, you know?”

“Nate, what in the stupid are you talking about now? I already texted out of work, and Ashley and Julie are worried about you. If you don’t want me here, then, too bad, man. Someone has to be here. If not for you, then for her. She was always nice to me. Least I can do…”, his voice broke, nearly wavered after each word spoken aloud, “…look, I’m here with you in this, Nate. Whether I need to be or not is beside the point. I mean this in a nicest way possible, but, it’s not always about you. Nate, some people care for what they want to do too. You know? Not that, Jesus…this just sucks. I need to leave for a little bit. I know what I just said, so don’t even think of getting lippy with me about it. I’m going to go for a quick little walk. And I need something to drink; the hospital air hurts my throat. It’s so dry here. You want something too, a water or something? I’m going to see if they have some orange soda. Or coffee. Coffee sounds like what we need here in this room.”

“Water. If they have it. Need my card?”, Nate offered. He fumbled with the wallet in his pocket. Stupid fingers weren’t working for him, for some reason…

“Stuff your card back into your pocket. I’ll be right back in a minute.” Then John was gone. Nate knew he’d be back after a smoke. John would have needed one after that little speech, it would calm his nerves. Nate felt he might need a smoke too. He realized that it was a little bit funny to have that feeling too. He never smoked. Only once or twice when he was stressed out he’d bummed a cigarette off of John. Hypothetically both times John had stared at him like he was a ghost of something beyond mortal reckonings. It took a lot of not so normal stress to push Nate that far. Over the top the world on fire…type of…stress…

“I’m upset,” he told the room. “Aunt June, you’ve been gone for a while now, haven’t you?” Nate rubbed at his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “This sucks, and I’m upset. There’s no easy way out of that. This. Jesus. I wish you would have just gotten better. I wouldn’t need to learn how to deal with this. At least not now, not so soon. Most people really only deal with this later on. Right? When they’re older and, more ready for it.” Nate attempted to smile at his sleeping Aunt. She looked so peaceful, more so with each passing moment.

“I’m not ready for this.” He stood up and stretched out his arms and legs. He walked over and turned his attention away from the room, instead watching the view from the window. After a minute of looking out of it absently, Nate realized it was steadily raining outside. He had entirely forgotten that it was going to rain soon. Or had it already been raining when they arrived at the hospital? It must have been going pretty steady for a while now; it didn’t just start, did it? He shook the train of thought out of his head.

Aunt June had always liked the rain. Liked wasn’t the correct word for it. She had always loved the rain. That much was always self-evident from how much a few drops from the sky could make her smile widen so much. She would have left some of the plants out from past the overhang, on a day like this one. That way the plants wouldn’t have needed to have been watered for the next few days. And from what conventional wisdom had told them, rainwater was good for her plants. If this was true or not was unimportant, least of all to the plants themselves.

They’d uncurl their leaves out, once they had soaked up enough water. Aunt June was always so proud of herself; always explaining something or little importance or usage to Nate, and it was always something that he didn’t know. This was especially the case if it had been some new information about her garden. Ever so much so, that was her biggest pride and joy. Aside from the misadventures with Margo the puppydog, naturally.

Nate knew that he’d need to take better care of her garden now. He had promised her that much after all. He knew better than to promise to keep her smorgasbord of creeping and crawling things alive, though he could water and point them towards sunlight, to the best of his abilities that is.

Nate turned and looked at his Aunt again. Her breathing hadn’t changed any from what he could tell, as far as since they had arrived there, steady and shallow. As always, it bothered him that Aunt June continued to remain looking so damn peaceful. She never looking stressed, always laughing, always trying to help. Always trying…

“Nate?” John suddenly reappeared beside Nate. He hadn’t heard him sneak into the room. The door closed itself lazily behind him after he said something. “Got you a soda, man. They were out of water bottles.”

“Thanks. Get caught in the rain? You’ve got some water dripping from your hair there.”

“What? Oh, yeah. A little.” John examined himself and slicked back his hair so that it was out of his eyes. “Had to bum a lighter off of one of the orderlies. Poor shmuck was so smug about it too. Muttering something sharp and jutting at me. Hurt my feelings and everything. So rude.”

Nate smirked, “They let you keep the lighter?”

“No. Should I have asked? Damn, I didn’t even think that was an option. You’re totally right they would have probably just let me keep it. They were so nice, actually, when I talked with them for a bit. Where were you on that one, man? Always full of useful and good ideas long after the facts have been spent up.” John grinned and shrugged. His reference, whatever it may have been, had flown clear over Nate’s attention. Looking at Aunt June he asked, “Hey, Nate?”

“Yeah?”

“Mind if I sit by the window? I might doze off for a bit if I don’t sit down soon. At least for a little bit. I’ve been up since five this morning.”

“Yeah, lay down. I’m sure they have some dry blankets or something around here somewhere. I’ll go ask. No, I’ll be right back. I need to use the bathroom anyways.” Nate closed the door and stepped out into the hallway. It felt cold, with the sterile air draping over each breathe he tried to take. Some of the hospital staff walked on past him, not paying him any attention or mind. All of their lives looked so busy and full of other pressing things that needed to be done or doing. Ever so moving about with rushed feet, hand full of purpose, yet their eyes remained focused on whatever they were doing. The hallway itself was so small, with only a few orderlies moving about after the staff had moved past and vanished a moment earlier.

A woman walked by Nate pushing a cart, and a man was handing out tiny things of bottled water to someone outreaching from within one of the other rooms. Someone else that was probably not having good day either. It felt like both a good day for it, and the safest of bets given the overwhelming silence around them all.

Nate came back to the room about six minutes later with both a blanket and a rough looking pillow that felt freshly cleaned and or pressed. He entered the room quietly, making sure the door didn’t slam behind him. John was fast asleep in his chair by the window, breathing softly with his jacket sprawled over his chest and arms. Nate covered him with the blanket and gently wedged the pillow under his head between the chair and the wall.

Nate stood there, watching John for a moment. Before he pried the crushed pack of cigarettes out of the jacket pocket and walked downstairs to the nearest exit and walked outside the hospital.

It was still raining outside of the building. Each droplet rang out with a little thud noise that would sometimes sing a different note, it all hinged on what they landed on. If it was a car the thudding would drum differently than if the rain fell on the aluminum overhanging sections by the entry points of the hospital building.

Out near the parking lot, huddled a few people that were standing around in the designated smoking area. They eyed him a moment, with unintentional caution, before returning to watching the rain coming down around them. The smoking area was sectioned off next to the loading docks, on the southside side of the building. An overhanging section kept most of the rain away from the area, and the rain had changed direction so that it was pouring in from the other direction. These facts made it so that it was more or less nice and dry. A kind older man who had no business to be outside smoking in the rain, let alone smoking at all let Nate borrow a lighter with minimal convincing. He nodded and smiled, a thin wisp of smoke drifted out after he took a drag before he’d asked how Nate was doing.

Nate didn’t know how to reply, so instead of explaining that, he simply smiled and said he was alright, before thanking the man and walking off into the parking lot. And into the falling rain.

Most of the parking spots had remained vacant, with only the areas towards the front of the building being occupied. Nate walked along the outer edges of the lot at a steady pace, letting the now soft rain occupy his thoughts. His clothes and jacket were quickly drenched; he didn’t rightfully care.

Passing cars on the main road near the hospital splashed up pools of water as they drove by. Each time Nate could see it coming from where the headlights would zip past and be gone again a splash later. The sounds this all made, the tires on wet asphalt that needed dire replacing, and the puddles being thrown about over and over again, it all reminded Nate of water falling into a warm pan that had been heating up on a stove. That soft grizzle of sound that bit into the air around it, letting everyone know far to stay away, lest it would burn them. But that was only in his imagination, this, this night felt, and was, painfully real.

Nate inhaled, filling his lungs with a scratchy warmness he was unaccustomed to tasting. He watched the tip of the cigarette chew itself closer towards him. Reaching out in a thin line of fire that came closer and closer to burning him.

He hated the smell of cigarettes. He hated the awful ways the smoke had of worming itself into his eyes. Only having smoked, what was it now? Maybe twice before this night? This cigarette in the falling rain was a refreshing reminder of why he hated smoking. And why he was likely never, to ever, have another one ever again. As long as another Aunt didn’t die…

Nate coughed; the taste of smoke seared itself into the inside of his nose. The cigarette fell into a growing puddle at his feet. Nate saw the wisp at the end of it go out with an instant hiss. He shook his head, and with a faint smile around his lips, continued on with his walk around the parking lot.

Under a medium sized oak tree he found a dry spot to stand for a moment, some of the misted rain drifted in and fell at odd angles to reach at him. It was as nice a place as any other to take a little break from stepping in puddles. Nate pulled out his phone to check the time. It had remained dry despite the rain soaking through his clothes. Two missed calls, and three unanswered texts were all on the notifications tab, and all had been from Julie.

He smiled and shivered a shrug to himself. He put the phone away. “John probably got the same messages.” He said aloud to himself, and to no one else in particular. He kicked at a loose thing on the ground, probably a branch from the way it sounded when it broke apart on landing. Before walking on back to the hospital in the far soggy distance.

The attendant waved him in, and he had no troubles in returning back to his aunt’s room. It was right where he left it after all. John was still snoring softly away in the chair where Nate had left him.

Nate placed the now, very much soggy and damp, pack of cigarettes on the window sill. Placing it beside John’s head, right where he would see them when he woke up. He’d probably be frustrated with Nate about it, but that was a worry later. For future Nate and John to deal with then. And not a moment before then, whenever then turned out to being.

Nate then walked over and kissed his aunt on her forehead. “Goodbye Aunt June,” he gave her a small broken smile before leaving the room, and walked out into the humid rain filled night beyond it.

The tree had also been right where he had left it. The same place it had been rooted in for the last twenty-seven years that he could recall of it being there. It was older than that, and he knew this, yet it would always be as old as he could recall it to be. After all it was his tree.

The banyan’s branches were intertwining and long, shooting off into the darkness of the leaves above them while other branches dived, or rather oozed down into the ground beneath and around the stockier sections of the banyan’s trunk. Without having seen one before, imagine a tree that resembled a spilled bowl of spaghetti, or rather spaghetti made out of octopus tentacles. Both are horrid examples for such a wonderful creation found within nature.

Nate loved banyans. Each one he had seen reminded him of statues made out from a huge block of wax, carved with such fine details that were so intricate that you would never have been able to recognize them again once they had started to melt apart once the sun had found them unawares. When he was little that’s what he thought had happened to this tree. His tree. His silent banyan.

The park was quiet, with several lights being left on in the baseball fields a short distance and a short thirty-foot fence away. The still ambient lights radiated outwards, mixing in with the stray light emanating from poles that stood flickering near the playground and along the roads that cut in and out of the park. Every section of this place had been added onto, and all without tearing too much of it down from how it had started from over the years. Roads moved along with the ground of the park, following its turning and twisting sections as it was expanded upon. Some of these roads had already grown old with tree roots jutted up and through them in unmanaged sections, long since forgotten and ignored. The rest were new and unsoiled by time; the rest were not Nate’s favorite part of the park.

His tree, the lone banyan in the far most corner of the park. Hidden away behind a secret playground that had been there likely since the park was founded. The silhouette of the tree stood amongst a backdrop of soft leaking moonlight that drifted outwards between the broken rain clouds rushing lazily overhead.

The drizzling rain had let up a lot on the walk over to the park. Nate didn’t care nor mind it either way. It made no difference with how he was feeling. He wiped his hands on the back of his already wet pants and grabbed upwards at a branch. Pulling himself up with ease. The tree was peaceful to climb; it always was for him. Especially here on this rain filled night. No one rushed him while he was climbing. Only yelling at him to get down for one reason or another.

His mom had yelled at him, it was his oldest memory of her, she told him to get down or a bird would swoop in and fly him away to their nest. Raising him with their own babies, she had added to his dismay, that he’d have to get used to eating worms. She had smiled at the face he had made, before helping him ease himself down. He always had a hard time with that part of climbing, the dismount. The actual getting down part had always seemed to have been alluded him when he climbed. Not knowing how far the ground was without looking back and seeing it. Always the hardest part, not seeing where he was going to go next. And now her sister was in the hospital. Dying, one breathe at a time.

Nate wiped his face, slicking his hair back and brushing it behind his ears. His hair was by no means as long as John’s was, but it was getting there. Loose strands tickled the lobe of his ear. He did his best to ignore them, to ignore everything. To just find a spot on the tree to stand on and peek out at the world through the jigsaw picture made entirely out of wet leaves and broken branches. And he found it, with his foot nearly slipping twice getting to it. But he had a good hold on a branch and kept himself steadily in place till he found a new spot to stand on. He peeked beyond the interwoven mess of the tree.

The road was visible from where he stood, the main drag connecting the southern and northernmost parts of the town. Both ran at odd angled before joining together towards the entrance of the park. The road connecting everything also ran parallel to where the hospital was, about six blocks north of the western entrance to the park. Everything connected in this place. All of the roads in the small town ran in an exaggerated grid, running parallel and perpendicular to each other, crossing in the worst of places.

Nate’s right hand slipped when he shifted his stance to go down, his foot landed in a knotted section of the tree, just between two branches, and he was able to catch himself. Feeling better of the thought of staying there, he continued to climb down towards the hollow of the tree. Near the tree’s center, at its heart as it were was where he used to nap.

As kids, he and John, and a few others that he had all but forgotten the names and faces of, had all made it their mission in life to dig out the rotted sections in the center of the tree, casting them aside so that all that remained was alive and attempting to keep itself so. Their logic had been that it was just like a rotted leaf on the edge of a plant. You needed to pull the dead sections away so that the rest of the plant could continue to grow healthy and unabated of the rotted areas. You can’t hold onto the dead forever; it was never healthy for anyone to do so was the common sense logic of it. Even as children they had all been able to accept this as a granted truth in life. Something that everyone, at least on some innate level, had understood. Whether they accepted it or not was another matter altogether.

Nate zipped his jacket closed as he leaned back against the tree. He was now standing in the small hollowed center of the banyan. His breath etch outwards as he exhaled, it moved across the streak of moonlight that was cutting its way across the leaves and the looser twisted branches around them. The air was growing colder; the temperature had dropped all the more with how much it had rained. And as always, the area needed it, in more ways than one. Nate felt that he needed this downpouring of rain as well. Even if it brought a chill of death along behind it. Maybe that was needed as well…

Rain pooled down into the hollow, filling slowly into a basin around his already soaked boots. Each time Nate moved about, the tree felt mushy against his body. Even through clothes it felt like it was trying to reach out and hold onto him. Not wanting to let him go. To keep him in this place forever.

He had read, some time ago, about how Odin the Allfather of Norse mythology had hung himself from a tree to gain further wisdom. Hanging from it for nine days and nights. Nate suspected that all he had to do was stand there, just inside of a tree, and the world would pour knowledge through him. Telling him, or helping to show him rather, what he both wanted and needed to know. If only Odin had enough patience to not hang himself for wisdom…

This was the last thought Nate had before he drifted off. His head dipping forward as he slumped down into a dream…

Chapter Eight

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