"You crashed."
These two words were repeated from a fog at my elbow as I regained consciousness. My wrist throbbed, and my car hissed behind me.
"You crashed."
"Yes, I know."
"But why are you out here?"
Lucidity came with pain. "I -- got out. Tripped over this planter." The last time I looked at the car clock it read 4:12am. My eyes had been too heavy. I woke with my head on the steering wheel, my Toyota crumpled against a concrete wall that jutted into the street. Sweet potato vines spilled over the edge.
"I heard you crash."
"Yeah. I'm sure it was loud." Next to me sat a man who seemed almost too massive to be real. His legs were crossed, and he smiled before he repeated that, yes, it was loud. "I think I hit my head on the sidewalk," I said.
"You're bleeding." When I didn't respond, he said, "You're bleeding."
"Yes."
"My name's Mark Gilbert. What's your name?"
I told him.
"Okay. Do you know what the day is?"
"Monday?"
"Oh. But I mean it's Quilt Day."
I looked at my new friend. Really looked. He smiled again so that his small eyes almost shut. He had a blanket -- a quilt, in fact -- draped over his shoulders and tied under his chin; he was sitting on part of it, and the remainder he held in his hands.
"Is that a Burger King crown?" I didn't have anything else to say. And when I focused on him, the pain was more tolerable.
"Yes."
I made a noise that suggested disgust, but mostly my head felt shattered.
"I like Burger King."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yes, I do." Then he leaned toward me and whispered, "Have you heard the quail songs in October?"
"Okay." I tried to get up and gasped. "I need my phone."
"It's smashed." He pointed. "There, see?"
Sure enough. The street light lit up a circle of asphalt, and in the center lay the remains of my phone.
"Why do you need it?"
"I need a doctor. Can't you see?" Frustration grabbed at me.
"Yes. I see you."
"Help me up, will you?"
He pulled himself to a standing position, using the aforementioned planter, took hold of my arm, and tugged me to my feet. The force brought us face to face. I gasped again. "There." His large smile was very large at this range. "What about the quail songs?"
"Huh?"
"Have you heard the quail songs in October?"
"It's August, isn't it?"
"They sing in October. But you can't see them. In the bushes, they hide but they sing loud."
"I never have, no." My wrist was definitely broken. But here I was, face to face with Mark Gilbert, on Quilt Day, talking about birds.
"Oh." His smile came and went in a flash. "Don't get blood on my cape, please." He stepped back, but only slightly. "When the sun comes up, we need to be at The Woods."
He turned to go and meant for me to follow. His quilt-cape fanned out masterfully, and my eye caught some of the bright squares before it fell. "Wait, I think I have some broken ribs, so slow down -- where, hey!"
"The Woods. There's nurses there. You need one of those."
We walked a few blocks, Mark Gilbert always ahead, when I began to laugh. It hurt, and I tried to stop. "Let's sit for a minute, okay?" I motioned toward a bench a few steps away.
"Okay."
We were on the same street, and I could still see the scene of my wreck. The streetlight blinked at the car and the planter. "That seems so far away."
"It's not."
"Yeah. No, that's -- " I looked at Mark Gilbert. His face was turned upward. The silence and his stillness made me talk. Made me want to talk. He sat there, his eyes closed, unmoving. "I've never been thankful for broken bones. It's better, though."
He didn't move. Or speak.
"Than other kinds of pain, you know? I've never even told my therapist a thing like that. Then again, I've never bled in her presence." I grimaced through the start of another laugh. "I've been running, Mark -- running from -- ."
"Mark Gilbert."
"Right. Mark Gilbert."
"My second name is for the fat man Grandad knew."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yes." He looked at me. "Are you like Jonah?"
"Jonah?" I knew what he meant.
"There's no running from God."
I didn't reply. But the thought that God might chase me seemed better than the idea of running from an empty death, the thought of no one noticing my absence.
He lifted his face back toward the stars and closed his eyes. The tips of my fingers began to shake, and I shivered. I felt the trickle of blood in the renewed silence. "Mark Gilbert, I think I'm in shock."
"The sun will be up soon." He said the words through an exhaled breath, then added, "And in October, out in the fields, the quail will sing."
"Why do you keep talking about those birds?" I leaned over and rested my elbows on my knees, tried to find the spot on my wrist where the bone had broken.
"Because they sing so pretty." He got up. "Okay," he said, and pulled one corner of his cape across his chest. "Okay -- what is your name?" I told him again. He said it. "Okay, we need to go. On Quilt Day, we are at The Woods when the sun shines in the window. Come on."
"Wait -- ah!" His hand slipped into my armpit. He lifted, and the pain made me swoon. "Hold on. Just a second -- I'll get up, just wait." He let me go. I breathed a few shallow breaths, and my head came back to me. I stood, my hand on the back of the bench, and said, "What's The Woods?"
"Jonathan lives there." He shot me a grin, and then walked on down the street.
"How far?" My feet started after him. "Did you say there were nurses?"
"It's Quilt Day!"
"Yeah," I said to the morning air. "It's Quilt Day."
It wasn't long after we began walking again that my protector stopped, hurried me to hide behind a nearby gas pump, and said, "Okay, be quiet."
"Wha -- " He put his whole hand over my face, and we squatted down while a car crept by.
Soon, all was clear. His hand back to himself, he looked at me and said, "Are you hurting?"
"I have broken bones, Mark Gilbert."
He pointed. "But you didn't do that before."
"I know." I shifted my weight. "I was thinking about dying alone and about my empty apartment -- "
"Oh. When you go back, it won't be empty." He showed me his teeth. "Then you don't have to be sad."
"I'm not going back."
A full minute passed before he said, "Oh."
"It's alright." After I said it, I decided I would never lie to Mark Gilbert again. A foolish desire caught me up then -- I wanted to reach out and cover myself with his blanket, ask for his forgiveness, let the tears really fall.
Mark Gilbert got up. "Okay. Come on." His eyes looked after the car, then east.
I opened my mouth to ask what that was about, but he turned away.
Now we jogged. My brain felt like jello, and my wrist flopped, but I wasn't feeling so much of the pain then; I just watched the moving quilt ahead of me and wondered when I'd pass out.
"This is The Woods?"
"Yes." Mark Gilbert exhaled and let me down. "Don't be loud."
The Woods was a long series of low brick buildings. At a more or less regular pattern, brown doors stood closed against the morning, their numbers still lit up by porch lights. I said something about trees, not really expecting a response.
"There's two pine trees."
"Sure enough," I said. In the middle of the drive, two tall pines reached up together toward the sky.
"Okay. We have to go."
"Right behind you." He stopped, and I ran into him. "No, just -- go. I'm following you."
"Yes. Okay."
Mark Gilbert knew what he was about. We walked past the pines and found a kind of alley; on the other end, there sat a somewhat longer structure. He said, "This is the rec."
I didn't say anything because it hurt to breathe.
"Now we have to get Jonathan."
My body put me down in the grass after he said those words, right under the sign that read Recreation Room. I thought about telling Mark Gilbert I couldn't walk without the edges of my sight closing in, but he was busy: He tapped quietly on the door to Apartment 11, then let himself in. Seconds later, he flew back out, pushing a man in a wheelchair.
"It's Quilt Day!" Mark Gilbert saw me on the ground. "Come in!"
All I saw of Jonathan was his gray hair thrown back and his eyes, which were open wide. There may have been terror in them. Or it may have been joy.
The door to the rec slammed after them. Laughter came for me then. With a knife to the ribs it came to end me, but I laughed anyway, on my side -- there in the grass, on Quilt Day!
Then Mark Gilbert was once again next to me. He said my name several times, and when I only laughed and rolled in agony, he put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me. "Do you want for me to pick you up?"
"Okay. Careful." I didn't move. One hand came under my neck, the other scooped up my legs. With this, all the hilarity of the morning dissolved, and I was left with the weight of one fact. "Mark Gilbert, where's your cape?"
"In here." We went in.
The room was tall and open so that it echoed. The overhead lights were off. He set me on the floor next to Jonathan. "Hi, Jonathan," I said. Jonathan gripped the side of his chair and pulled himself over to make eye contact, but he only squeaked a response.
"Here." Mark Gilbert pulled me into a chair.
Jonathan and I sat in front of a window. It was still dark, but along the edges a faint glow had begun. I heard a faint giggle behind me, and once again I thought of the cape. "Mark Gilbert, I don't see your cape. Where -- "
He shushed me. "This part we don't talk."
I looked over at Jonathan. He raised his eyebrows at me.
The darkness and the quiet allowed my pain to take center stage. I closed my eyes and tried to make my breathing as shallow as possible, but had to open them again because I felt myself slipping out of my chair. To avoid this, I leaned over on Jonathan. He didn't seem to mind. When I saw my apartment clear as the moment I left it, I began to worry. Tried to blink it away.
"Mark Gilbert!"
That worked for a second, but the blank walls and the folding chair and the yellow carpet everywhere soon came back. And I stood in the middle of my living room breathing hard, my heart in my throat, no light, now my knees bearing my weight.
I heard my name. It came from a long way off, but it was my name. There again, and a shooting fire up my side and in my hand.
The pain. The vision was gone with the pain.
"Now," Mark Gilbert said. "Now." He settled himself on the floor in front of us, crossed his legs, checked on his paper crown, adjusted it. The space across his shoulders expanded, and then he let his breath go. He whispered, "Quilt Day," and my mind recreated his smile as I had seen it so many times in the last few hours. He may have even chuckled to himself.
I opened my mouth to ask about the quilt-cape again, but shut it when I realized he'd hung it over the window. Sunlight now burned strong enough on the blanket to penetrate the shapes and colors, and then I was a quail squirming in a net with Jonathan and Mark Gilbert, a net of light patches of green and purple, orange and teal, and at the edges of my eyes the black was remade into a shining opalescence. I forgot how to breathe. All I had strength for was to look, to watch my giant of a friend rise and walk toward us in the new sunshine, the tail end of the blanket lifted over his head, wild freshness in his eyes. He draped the quilt over the chairs so all our heads were covered, and there we looked at one another in the kingdom Mark Gilbert had made in his conspiracy with the sun. It was the Kingdom of Kaleidoscopes. And it seemed I could die there, leaning on Jonathan, the kneeling Mark Gilbert's arms making steady our tent, our heads close -- and my death would be a gathering of friends and light and I would know joy in it.
These two words were repeated from a fog at my elbow as I regained consciousness. My wrist throbbed, and my car hissed behind me.
"You crashed."
"Yes, I know."
"But why are you out here?"
Lucidity came with pain. "I -- got out. Tripped over this planter." The last time I looked at the car clock it read 4:12am. My eyes had been too heavy. I woke with my head on the steering wheel, my Toyota crumpled against a concrete wall that jutted into the street. Sweet potato vines spilled over the edge.
"I heard you crash."
"Yeah. I'm sure it was loud." Next to me sat a man who seemed almost too massive to be real. His legs were crossed, and he smiled before he repeated that, yes, it was loud. "I think I hit my head on the sidewalk," I said.
"You're bleeding." When I didn't respond, he said, "You're bleeding."
"Yes."
"My name's Mark Gilbert. What's your name?"
I told him.
"Okay. Do you know what the day is?"
"Monday?"
"Oh. But I mean it's Quilt Day."
I looked at my new friend. Really looked. He smiled again so that his small eyes almost shut. He had a blanket -- a quilt, in fact -- draped over his shoulders and tied under his chin; he was sitting on part of it, and the remainder he held in his hands.
"Is that a Burger King crown?" I didn't have anything else to say. And when I focused on him, the pain was more tolerable.
"Yes."
I made a noise that suggested disgust, but mostly my head felt shattered.
"I like Burger King."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yes, I do." Then he leaned toward me and whispered, "Have you heard the quail songs in October?"
"Okay." I tried to get up and gasped. "I need my phone."
"It's smashed." He pointed. "There, see?"
Sure enough. The street light lit up a circle of asphalt, and in the center lay the remains of my phone.
"Why do you need it?"
"I need a doctor. Can't you see?" Frustration grabbed at me.
"Yes. I see you."
"Help me up, will you?"
He pulled himself to a standing position, using the aforementioned planter, took hold of my arm, and tugged me to my feet. The force brought us face to face. I gasped again. "There." His large smile was very large at this range. "What about the quail songs?"
"Huh?"
"Have you heard the quail songs in October?"
"It's August, isn't it?"
"They sing in October. But you can't see them. In the bushes, they hide but they sing loud."
"I never have, no." My wrist was definitely broken. But here I was, face to face with Mark Gilbert, on Quilt Day, talking about birds.
"Oh." His smile came and went in a flash. "Don't get blood on my cape, please." He stepped back, but only slightly. "When the sun comes up, we need to be at The Woods."
He turned to go and meant for me to follow. His quilt-cape fanned out masterfully, and my eye caught some of the bright squares before it fell. "Wait, I think I have some broken ribs, so slow down -- where, hey!"
"The Woods. There's nurses there. You need one of those."
We walked a few blocks, Mark Gilbert always ahead, when I began to laugh. It hurt, and I tried to stop. "Let's sit for a minute, okay?" I motioned toward a bench a few steps away.
"Okay."
We were on the same street, and I could still see the scene of my wreck. The streetlight blinked at the car and the planter. "That seems so far away."
"It's not."
"Yeah. No, that's -- " I looked at Mark Gilbert. His face was turned upward. The silence and his stillness made me talk. Made me want to talk. He sat there, his eyes closed, unmoving. "I've never been thankful for broken bones. It's better, though."
He didn't move. Or speak.
"Than other kinds of pain, you know? I've never even told my therapist a thing like that. Then again, I've never bled in her presence." I grimaced through the start of another laugh. "I've been running, Mark -- running from -- ."
"Mark Gilbert."
"Right. Mark Gilbert."
"My second name is for the fat man Grandad knew."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yes." He looked at me. "Are you like Jonah?"
"Jonah?" I knew what he meant.
"There's no running from God."
I didn't reply. But the thought that God might chase me seemed better than the idea of running from an empty death, the thought of no one noticing my absence.
He lifted his face back toward the stars and closed his eyes. The tips of my fingers began to shake, and I shivered. I felt the trickle of blood in the renewed silence. "Mark Gilbert, I think I'm in shock."
"The sun will be up soon." He said the words through an exhaled breath, then added, "And in October, out in the fields, the quail will sing."
"Why do you keep talking about those birds?" I leaned over and rested my elbows on my knees, tried to find the spot on my wrist where the bone had broken.
"Because they sing so pretty." He got up. "Okay," he said, and pulled one corner of his cape across his chest. "Okay -- what is your name?" I told him again. He said it. "Okay, we need to go. On Quilt Day, we are at The Woods when the sun shines in the window. Come on."
"Wait -- ah!" His hand slipped into my armpit. He lifted, and the pain made me swoon. "Hold on. Just a second -- I'll get up, just wait." He let me go. I breathed a few shallow breaths, and my head came back to me. I stood, my hand on the back of the bench, and said, "What's The Woods?"
"Jonathan lives there." He shot me a grin, and then walked on down the street.
"How far?" My feet started after him. "Did you say there were nurses?"
"It's Quilt Day!"
"Yeah," I said to the morning air. "It's Quilt Day."
***
It wasn't long after we began walking again that my protector stopped, hurried me to hide behind a nearby gas pump, and said, "Okay, be quiet."
"Wha -- " He put his whole hand over my face, and we squatted down while a car crept by.
Soon, all was clear. His hand back to himself, he looked at me and said, "Are you hurting?"
"I have broken bones, Mark Gilbert."
He pointed. "But you didn't do that before."
"I know." I shifted my weight. "I was thinking about dying alone and about my empty apartment -- "
"Oh. When you go back, it won't be empty." He showed me his teeth. "Then you don't have to be sad."
"I'm not going back."
A full minute passed before he said, "Oh."
"It's alright." After I said it, I decided I would never lie to Mark Gilbert again. A foolish desire caught me up then -- I wanted to reach out and cover myself with his blanket, ask for his forgiveness, let the tears really fall.
Mark Gilbert got up. "Okay. Come on." His eyes looked after the car, then east.
I opened my mouth to ask what that was about, but he turned away.
Now we jogged. My brain felt like jello, and my wrist flopped, but I wasn't feeling so much of the pain then; I just watched the moving quilt ahead of me and wondered when I'd pass out.
***
Mark Gilbert's face bobbed and his cheeks jiggled. His breath came hard through his nose. His brow furrowed with each step.
"Mark Gilbert. What happened to me, Mark Gilbert?"
"You went to sleep." His words came fast and short. "You fell and went to sleep."
"Put me down. I can walk."
"No. The sun will be up."
"Okay, Mark Gilbert."
I decided to order my thoughts rather than talk. It was Quilt Day, and I didn't want to make my new friend late. Mostly, though, I was distracted by the sound of the cape: It was held out on a breeze and snapped now and then. It was too dark to see any of the designs or the colors. It turned out, too, that my thoughts wouldn't be ordered, no matter how I tried. Pain splintered things away. I thought of the day I left. Waking by the Toyota. Falling face first. Driving farther and farther, the memory of what I left behind with me.
"I have to ask you a question," I said. "Do you have good friends?"
"Jonathan." His mouth moved again and he said, "And you."
"Me? We just met."
"No, I found you at the car."
"Right -- "
"And now."
"Okay," I said. I watched him for a moment. Then I closed my eyes and let myself smile.
***
"This is The Woods?"
"Yes." Mark Gilbert exhaled and let me down. "Don't be loud."
The Woods was a long series of low brick buildings. At a more or less regular pattern, brown doors stood closed against the morning, their numbers still lit up by porch lights. I said something about trees, not really expecting a response.
"There's two pine trees."
"Sure enough," I said. In the middle of the drive, two tall pines reached up together toward the sky.
"Okay. We have to go."
"Right behind you." He stopped, and I ran into him. "No, just -- go. I'm following you."
"Yes. Okay."
Mark Gilbert knew what he was about. We walked past the pines and found a kind of alley; on the other end, there sat a somewhat longer structure. He said, "This is the rec."
I didn't say anything because it hurt to breathe.
"Now we have to get Jonathan."
My body put me down in the grass after he said those words, right under the sign that read Recreation Room. I thought about telling Mark Gilbert I couldn't walk without the edges of my sight closing in, but he was busy: He tapped quietly on the door to Apartment 11, then let himself in. Seconds later, he flew back out, pushing a man in a wheelchair.
"It's Quilt Day!" Mark Gilbert saw me on the ground. "Come in!"
All I saw of Jonathan was his gray hair thrown back and his eyes, which were open wide. There may have been terror in them. Or it may have been joy.
The door to the rec slammed after them. Laughter came for me then. With a knife to the ribs it came to end me, but I laughed anyway, on my side -- there in the grass, on Quilt Day!
Then Mark Gilbert was once again next to me. He said my name several times, and when I only laughed and rolled in agony, he put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me. "Do you want for me to pick you up?"
"Okay. Careful." I didn't move. One hand came under my neck, the other scooped up my legs. With this, all the hilarity of the morning dissolved, and I was left with the weight of one fact. "Mark Gilbert, where's your cape?"
"In here." We went in.
The room was tall and open so that it echoed. The overhead lights were off. He set me on the floor next to Jonathan. "Hi, Jonathan," I said. Jonathan gripped the side of his chair and pulled himself over to make eye contact, but he only squeaked a response.
"Here." Mark Gilbert pulled me into a chair.
Jonathan and I sat in front of a window. It was still dark, but along the edges a faint glow had begun. I heard a faint giggle behind me, and once again I thought of the cape. "Mark Gilbert, I don't see your cape. Where -- "
He shushed me. "This part we don't talk."
I looked over at Jonathan. He raised his eyebrows at me.
The darkness and the quiet allowed my pain to take center stage. I closed my eyes and tried to make my breathing as shallow as possible, but had to open them again because I felt myself slipping out of my chair. To avoid this, I leaned over on Jonathan. He didn't seem to mind. When I saw my apartment clear as the moment I left it, I began to worry. Tried to blink it away.
"Mark Gilbert!"
That worked for a second, but the blank walls and the folding chair and the yellow carpet everywhere soon came back. And I stood in the middle of my living room breathing hard, my heart in my throat, no light, now my knees bearing my weight.
I heard my name. It came from a long way off, but it was my name. There again, and a shooting fire up my side and in my hand.
The pain. The vision was gone with the pain.
"Now," Mark Gilbert said. "Now." He settled himself on the floor in front of us, crossed his legs, checked on his paper crown, adjusted it. The space across his shoulders expanded, and then he let his breath go. He whispered, "Quilt Day," and my mind recreated his smile as I had seen it so many times in the last few hours. He may have even chuckled to himself.
I opened my mouth to ask about the quilt-cape again, but shut it when I realized he'd hung it over the window. Sunlight now burned strong enough on the blanket to penetrate the shapes and colors, and then I was a quail squirming in a net with Jonathan and Mark Gilbert, a net of light patches of green and purple, orange and teal, and at the edges of my eyes the black was remade into a shining opalescence. I forgot how to breathe. All I had strength for was to look, to watch my giant of a friend rise and walk toward us in the new sunshine, the tail end of the blanket lifted over his head, wild freshness in his eyes. He draped the quilt over the chairs so all our heads were covered, and there we looked at one another in the kingdom Mark Gilbert had made in his conspiracy with the sun. It was the Kingdom of Kaleidoscopes. And it seemed I could die there, leaning on Jonathan, the kneeling Mark Gilbert's arms making steady our tent, our heads close -- and my death would be a gathering of friends and light and I would know joy in it.
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