Canyons (497 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by thaumaturge (View user info) at 2004-10-07 13:43:17 EDT
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"I'd never trade my Wade Boggs for your Mattingly, so forget it, loser."
"He's doing it again!!" yelled Dr. Stevenson. "Get Jason... he's looking for Jason!"
My brother Matt fell comatose nearly six months ago, and each day, diligently, I have visited him in his hospice. Today, more so than any other day over the past few weeks, has been especially trying for me. The 'experts' tell me there has been some progress, however it seems to come only with my immediate presence. For reasons unbeknownst, Matt seems to have chosen me as the sole emissary of his subconscious.
My older brother Matt and I shared a bedroom at my parent's bungalow until he left for college last fall. Since we were very young, Matt and I were each other's best friend and worst enemy simultaneously, as I'm sure any brother could easily attest. We were incredibly competitive with one another, but put us together and we would die before the other went down. As we grew, we became conspirators of various schemes to avoid punishment from our parents. By the end of high school, we were your regular suburban version of 'Tango and Cash'. Up until he left, we were the dynamic duo of good times.
Spring training had just begun and reading week promised a visit home from Matt. A game or two of 'twenty-one up' was definitely in our agenda, as it was every year before the season starts. His bus arrived early and he decided to walk the short distance to my parent's bungalow.
The car that hit Matt had neither dent nor scratch as he lay beside the curb. Next to Matt, on the bloody pavement was the same old catchers mitt we shared in house league a few short years before.
"Yes Dr. Stevenson, I was getting a Coke, what is it?"
"Matt is talking again, he seems to be arguing about baseball cards... does that sound familiar to you?"
I sighed aloud and told her "We collected until we were teenagers."
Matt's new room at the hospice has a window that overlooks an old stagnant river that we used to ride our banana-seat bikes to get at, when our parents thought we were at our cousins house playing Contra. We would sneak out to the river and try to build a dam; a dam that we'd imagine would flood the city, forcing everyone to evacuate in the throes of panic. Impossible to achieve, but the chaos of it all was irresistible for us.
"Get 'em Jay!! Get 'em quick, he's the guy who stole your bike from our dam!!"
"Matt, listen to me..."
"He's getting away! Mom's going to have a fit!"
I can only sigh. A sigh so hollow, it feels as though every part of my body has sunk deeper into my vinyl hospital chair.
Matt only speaks when I am with him. From one instant to the next, Matt will melt from frozen slumber into an animated frenzy, reliving an event of random time and place from our childhood together. At first I tried to play along, hoping to integrate the present situation into our charade, but as quick as the "scenario" begins, it's lost, re-shelved in the tunnels and quarries of his mind.
I can't even begin to explain how much I miss him. I mean, I see him every day, but my trivial contact with him makes it all the more difficult for me. I have vowed to solve the enigma of his mind, believing that there truly is an algorithm, a solution to these outbursts of his that will bring him back home.
Today, as mentioned before, has been the most difficult since it began. I was about to go home and eat dinner when my heart jumped:
"Jay! You didn't tell me you were coming to visit! I'm coming home for spring break in a few days!"
'In a few days'... he had never played out a recent memory before. I played along.
"Matt! I'm here to make sure that Sarah girl you've been boasting about isn't a hag like the last one!"
"Man, you wouldn't believe this girl, she's wild. I'm telling you, get your ass in college!"
"Yes... Matt, can you do me a favor?"
"Sure buddy, anything."
"Don't take the bus home Matt, I have a bad feeling about it."
No longer did it take for me to finish my request when Matt began the most intense and horrific convulsions I have ever witnessed. He looked at me without the typical glassy eyes I had become accustomed to for the first time since the tragedy. He was aware. He then became invariably still and his face became frozen with horror, his eyes rolling far back into his head. To watch my brother relive his own accident left me shivering with sorrow.
Matt dutifully resumed his state of coma. Dr. Stevenson tells me that it's a form of veiled progress, however I fear that our conversation presented my brother with nothing more than the hopeless reality and awareness of his condition. This fact haunts me to no end.
Although it is predicted that having knowledge of his condition will cause Matt to resign himself to the fact he is in a coma, I still sense that he will fight back. He knows that I am there with him.
Someday, I can only hope to have my brother back in the land of the conscious, to share a conversation about girls, and cheer on our favorite team over pints at the local pub. Matt and I have always looked out for each other and this time is no different. I will be there to help him search. He must trudge through the valleys and rivers of his psyche, and battle his way through this odyssey. Upon looking at him, the struggle between his mind and body is evident. Now that he is aware of his condition, I truly believe that it's only a matter of time before he solves whatever equation he has been locked inside with, and when he does, the game will be on and the beer will be cold.
...For now, he is bound to perpetually sift through the dark and narrow canyons of his mind.
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Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 12:06:21 EST (#)
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