Artists Unite Issue

Quiet is an original short story from Now:Here:This contributor and writer, Anya Szykitka. © 2006, Anya Szykitka. No part may be used without permission from the author.

Just then, she was standing at the sliding door, looking at the backyard. The laundry was hanging from three lines strung next to each other, from pole to pole, moving in the breeze. The sun was bright on large white squares of two sheets and small white rectangles of four pillowcases, white boxer shorts, white cotton socks—the shortest and stubbiest—each with its own pin, toes down. Then color: pastel anklets, darker knee-highs, and the abrupt line of green, blue, and grey t-shirts. An ordered progression by color and shape and size through shorts and pants and towels to its end with a few tattered rags.

Sophie’s gaze wandered along the clothes and lingered on what she had made. What was it about laundry on the line that was so beautiful and held her attention? Not just the flowing cloth, but the arrangement. Later she would get a different kind of order when she unclipped each sweet-smelling, slightly stiff piece and folded it and piled it in the basket. And it reminded her of things.

The white like linen, like old dresses. Tents billowing in the desert and sand blowing, the only sound. Down south, and long ago, and almost everywhere, clothing drying in the sun and the wind. Strings between the backsides of city buildings, layer on layer from pulleys. Women beating saffron garments soaked with water on the glistening rocks. Slap, slap. They’re twisted into short thick knots, then untwisted and unfurled, wrinkled. Floating gauze, a scarf rolling on the wind—yellow? Or red?—the only thing in the blue sky. One white cloud. A field of white clouds, evenly spaced, incessantly moving to the east. A stronger wind making everything climb to the horizontal: the sheets and pillowcases and clothes and towels and rags all holding parallel to the ground. An airplane wing in the blue, the cloud army below.

It was quiet now, the large windowed door closed. Her son Robert had gone out to the grocery store. All she could hear was the muffled sound of the wind. Her eyelids drooped slightly, she noticed her feet pressing into the floor.

The front door banged opened. It was her son. There was an explosion of cans and jars in plastic shopping bags hitting the kitchen counter behind her.

“What are you doing?” he said, opening and closing cupboards.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just looking at the backyard. I finished hanging out the wash.”

“Maybe we should go out and do something later,” he said. “Go to a movie.”

“That would be nice.” She hadn’t seen a movie in a long time, except for the ones she watched on television. But she felt like Robert was pushing her a little bit in some direction, as if he wanted something from her. He was visiting from New York, and they hadn’t seen each other in about two years, so maybe it was just that he wanted to spend time with her. But if that were the case, why couldn’t they stay home, maybe play a game or watch television together? Maybe he was bored.

She turned back towards the backyard for a moment, and then helped her son put away the groceries, although he had almost finished. He moved quickly.

That night they went to a movie. It was in a neighborhood that she didn’t usually go to, although she used to years ago. She remembered it had started getting rundown, a few stores had closed, their windows covered with plywood, but now the old movie theater was open again, and there was a coffee shop next door, and a small bookstore that had been the Hardware Hank. Afterwards, on the drive home, her son asked her about the movie.

“What did you think? Did you like it?”

She had enjoyed it. Sitting in the dark theater, the screen seemed enormous and magical. (How long had it been?) The rich colors and sound, the music. And the story had unfolded so slowly, delicately, with certain moments hanging on in her mind, feelings still running over her. She had not wanted to leave the theater until the credits were completely run and wished that they could have stayed in their seats for a little while and been served tea before they emerged into the traffic noise and street lights. And here were her son’s questions—not loud, but insistent, gently expectant, waiting.

What did she think? His question hung in the car. Did she like it?

“I liked it,” she said. Then she was quiet, looking ahead at the street.

“What did you like about it?” he asked.

The images came and went, a feeling she had, then another, a different scene, the ending.

“The music,” she said. “I liked the music.” And it was true.

“The music? What about the music?” Pushing a little, waiting.

“It was pretty.”

“Pretty?”

“I’d like to stop at the convenience store and get some ice cream.”

Her thoughts wandered back to the film and the scene of a man dying in a hospital. His spirit sat up with confusion and twisted to see his body, then was drawn upward into an orb of light. There was something interesting about it because she wasn’t sure what was being portrayed, but then she realized his soul was on its way to Heaven; later in the film some of the other characters weren’t so fortunate. As soon as she understood this premise, she sighed and became less intrigued by the story.

She immediately recalled when she was about sixteen and had wandered into an old dog-earred paperback book—where had she seen it? At a relative’s house some holiday when she was bored and poking around? Crudely reproduced colored drawings were framed with Bible scripture. And while some of the passages, and their pictures, were familiar to her from church, others were surprising.

There was one in particular: a young man on his knees, with his arms raised, fingers spread and curled, his shirt and pants in shreds—hanging from him as if melting, dripping in long ribbons—was surrounded by red and yellow flames. Just below it said, “…it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched…”

He was completely surrounded above, behind, on either side by fire. His knees were lost in a patch of little red and yellow flicks. His mouth twisted, open.

Sophie’s scalp had tightened. She had frozen. The fire that never shall be quenched. Eternal. Forever. Dizzy, her hands and armpits suddenly damp, she had closed the book and held it tightly in one hand, not knowing what to do next. She felt sick. Finally she set the book down, crossed her arms to stave off the sudden chill, and found herself in the bathroom. Behind the door, locked. She sat on the closed toilet. There was a faded pale green rug to stare at, but all she saw was the man in Hell. She was still there, with him, in shocked awareness. Standing up, shaking now, turning on the warm water in the sink, rubbing her hands under it, allowing the warmth to seep up her arms and across her chest; when it touched her heart, she started crying. Face scrunched, a sob of breath, and another.

She had stood and looked in the mirror for a long time with red face and swollen eyes.

It had all come clear. This is what people believed, maybe even the people who lived in this house. Her family. People she knew. Many people.

At the time she thought back to church, to what she remembered about Heaven—and especially about Hell. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Gaining the world: getting and having everything you wanted, all the things, fame and fortune, possibly while stepping on other people’s heads, their hearts. Losing your soul: no longer having anyone that loves you or that you love, no heart, whatever is meant by “lost soul” (a man living alone in a dreary place, wandering down a dark alley, disappearing into the night and strange sounds). That’s what she had always thought it meant.

But what she now understood was so simple, so straightforward, that she was both stupefied and incredulous that anyone believed it. Hadn’t she been paying attention?

For several days after her discovery she had trouble sleeping. Eyes wide in the dark, she saw an underworld of her own imagining. Once two nuns passed her on the street, talking and smiling, and she stopped and watched them. How can you believe this place exists? That people are in it? Right now. How do you do it?

It was as if they and everyone else had a choice; if you couldn’t live with it, then you didn’t have to believe it, and then it wasn’t true. But then she guessed it wasn’t like that for the nuns; it was true for them no matter how horrible they thought it was. For them it simply existed.

After all the years of thinking about it, the terror had faded. Yet there was a trace, a sore spot, where the fear had been. She had decided long ago she didn’t need to know if it was all real or not. It was too awful to be believed in, but it still might be true. No proofs one way or the other.

They got the ice cream and went home.

The next morning, Robert stretched and rolled on the sofa bed, creaking its metal joints. He wrapped a rope of sheet around his leg and lay on his side, looking out the glass door, with his head pillowed on two hands pressed together. The laundry was hanging straight now. Quiet. A squirrel bounded, stopped. Bounded. Stopped. All the way across the lawn. His mother was still asleep. Or maybe she was lying in bed awake, like him.

Leisurely, luxury, to lie in the quiet like this. It was usually that way here, and though he groused at the lacks—of stimulation, of culture, of news, of reading material—in a secret locale, somewhere in his stomach, he was very happy. He had slipped into some suburban pre-natal state. No, not pre-natal, pre-school, perhaps.

His cell rang. It was in his duffle bag next to the bed.

“Bob.” It was his brother.

“Yeah. Hi.”

“How you doing?”

“Okay. Just woke up. Mom’s still in bed.”

“Oh. Wow. The time thing. Should I call back?”

“No. No. It’s fine. Just looking at the backyard.”

“So how is she? How’s it going?”

“You know. Okay. We went to a movie last night. She was just standing staring out the back door at the yard…”

“Kind of like what you’re doing…”

“What? Yeah. No. Come on. I wanted to get her out. She just watches TV, or sits there.”

“Yeah. That’s it?”

“I think. At least, that’s how it seems whenever I’m here.”

Robert rubbed his eyes. What would the two of them do today? An observer of his inner monologue would have said he was planning, plotting even, to change his mother, but that is not what he would call it. It was only a parade of images, scenes in which he was victorious in having certain conversational interactions with her. (He: What did you think of the movie? She: It reminds me of that book you gave me to read by __________. I’ve never thought of that before. It’s so interesting.)

“Bob.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you guys gonna do today?”

Rub, rub. “We’ll see. Maybe we’ll go for a drive. She’s still having a hard time walking. Was she last time you were out here?”

“Yeah. Definitely. Stiff knees. Hard getting out of the chair, getting in the chair.”

“Yeah, it’s a bummer. She needs more exercise, not less.”

“I know, I know.”

“So what’s up out there?”

“It’s hot as hell. You’re missing it…”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

“We’ve all got the AC on all of a sudden. New York, you know.”

“Oh yeah, I know. Okay. I’m gonna get up now. I’ll give you a call later.”

“Okay. Have a good one. Give my love to Mom.”

“Yeah. Definitely. Talk to you later.”

“Okay. Bye.”

He folded the phone and put it on the coffee table. Sitting up in his shorts and t-shirt, he stared at the yard, another squirrel. It was slightly overcast, slightly grey. And so quiet, the birds muted by the closed door, the carpeting, the soft click of an electric clock in the kitchen, then the refrigerator starting, going silent.

He stood up and carefully slid the door open: fresh scent of grass. When he stepped out onto the small square of concrete, tiny bits of gravel pressed into the bottom of his feet. Then he was in the damp grass, walking slowly across the lawn towards a far row of trees and bushes: one tall white pine, some young birches, boxelders, and a few woody lilac bushes, their flowers brown and dry. The lawn was mowed all around, and under the lilacs, but beneath the shady pine a layer of old needles. Through the length of undergrowth was a sagging barbed-wire fence almost covered at places with thick tall grasses and berry bushes. And on the other side a sea of wild pasture—Queen Ann’s lace, black-eyed Susans, milkweed.

As he stood still under the pine tree, the birds started again. Then a first breeze came up and the birch leaves shimmered and a wave moved across the sea of grasses. He noticed he was chilly, his feet wet and goose bumps rising on his legs. He had to piss and, back to the house, let a stream into the weeds by one of the fence posts. Just above were damp spider webs, one a perfect wheel, others long strings stretched between blades.

Another breeze. The birds and pasture moved. He couldn’t see the end of it for the gradual downward slope to an old cow pond and then up again to the sky, a smooth long line, seemingly far off, sprouting a single elm tree.

The openness pulled at him, yet he didn’t move, but his thoughts followed an imaginary path out through the thigh-high grasses and flowers, down, and then up, climbing up, cresting the top to the elm, the expanse of farms beyond.

The light wind came and went now, the clouds moved slowly, showing some blue. When he turned to face the house his mother was standing in the back door, dressed and holding a white cup. How long had he been there?

She started walking across the lawn towards him. As she came she looked up, then left, right, down, gradually scanning the sky, trees, ground. Then he could hear her bare feet scraping through the grass and made out the words on her cup: “I’d rather be here now.” Did she get the reference, he wondered. They both stood facing the field, where the sun now moved across in bright patches.

“I like to stand out here,” she said. “There was that time out in the Dakotas, when I went with Mom and Dad, and it looked like pictures I’d seen of the ocean. There were no trees. It was completely flat. What would it be like to be in the middle of the ocean all alone? That’s what I thought.”

“Pretty scary,” he said.

“Sure,” she laughed. “But other things too.” She was looking straight ahead, took a sip of her coffee.

“That elm tree,” she said. “It makes everything else around here seem…”

“What?”

“I don’t know. But aren’t you getting hungry? I guess we should have some breakfast. I was going to make pancakes.”

“Yeah. Good,” he said, thinking about her weight, that she was too big. “What kind of pancakes?”

“Just the regular kind.”

After breakfast Robert made up the bed and pushed its cranky armature and thin twisted mattress down into the sofa. His mother was cleaning up the kitchen. Once again he investigated—the few books and magazines in a small shelf at the end of the sofa: some women’s magazines, Reader’s Digests, a dictionary, crossword puzzle books, the Bible. There were also the last few days’ newspapers—the local daily—stacked next to the table lamp.

“You’re getting the paper now,” he said.

“Oh yeah. It’s good to know what’s going on. And I look at their TV guide.”

“Do you watch quite a bit of television?” He knew she did, always had—at least as long as he’d remembered—but he wanted to get a discussion started about it, wanted to try, again, to get her to watch less. He saw the newspapers as a good sign, even if it weren’t the paper he would choose.

“Sure.”

“What have you been watching?”

“Pretty much everything, I guess. Movies, nature shows, the news, the talk shows sometimes, but they’re sort of silly.”

She thought he seemed satisfied with her answer. And he was: she didn’t really watch everything, she watched with some discrimination.

Why did he care? Certainly his mother wondered, but Robert didn’t. It was beyond explanation, self-evident. You get out and exercise, you don’t eat pancakes made from white flour, you read books, you have interesting conversations, and you certainly don’t sit around the house watching too much television.

Yes, she watched television, but there was also this ocean of silence. Did he know how uncomfortable it made him at certain moments? That’s when he wanted to bring what he saw as some life into his mother’s house, to chase away the depression that he thought was always there, but which he had actually brought himself.

The chunk of the morning after breakfast found Robert searching through his mind and his mother’s house for something to do. When he first awoke, the quiet beckoned, the backyard, the field, then breakfast was on…But now what? The silence and emptiness of the house were rising up as his mother slowly moved around the kitchen.

Finally: how can she live like this?! It was a repeating thought each time he visited, a constant background vibration, but it broke through now as he moved more and more quickly—ruffling the newspapers, checking the TV listing, opening the telephone directory, responding to his own discomfort.

“How about a game of Scrabble?” his mother said, standing in the kitchen facing him.

What?! Scrabble?! He stared at her from the middle of the living room, newspaper in hand.

“Um,” he swallowed, “um.” Thinking. “Sure.”

He folded the paper and laid it on the coffee table as his mother reached into a cupboard above the refrigerator and pulled down the brown box. They sat at the kitchen table, one on each side, as she unfolded the board, placed two wooden racks. They both turned the wooden tiles face down in the box lid.

They played. They only spoke to count scores or to say “good word” or “is that a word?”

Sophie smiled slightly, her eyelids drooping imperceptibly. Wood clicked softly against wood as they moved tiles and sat back, considered their racks. The letter groups became for her glowing things from another world. It was the uniform black letters themselves—so perfect—like the veins of a leaf, or a spiraled shell. But they were trying to say something. If you came from another planet and saw them, you would know what they were: something that means something else, a code that someone put together, a message. They cast a spell on her, moved left and right, jumping over each other, switching places, until she reached out to re-order them. A double word score.

More words molded themselves, filling up the board. Robert’s mind relaxed. He concentrated, and found himself in the state he’d been in earlier that morning. He looked at the clock; two hours had gone by. He glanced out the window for the first time since they’d sat down. The clouds were almost completely gone.

“That’s it,” said his mother. “That’s the end of the tiles.” He subtracted his remaining letters from his total, thinking she had almost certainly won. She had.