The Gargoyle

a godsend for a man who lacks a penis but retains the ability to produce testosterone. As a negative, however, I was constantly constipated.

But what the morphine really did for me-its absolutely most vital function-was keep the snake silent, at least for a while.

When I first came to live with Marianne Engel, I was taking about one thousand milligrams a day. Over time my dosage had crept up with my tolerance and towards the end, I was taking that amount, times four.

XXIX.

YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, DON’T YOU?

The blackness and my awareness arrived together. I was instantly awake, my eyes peeled wide, but I could see nothing. I could feel by the quality of the air (moist, massive) that I was in a constricted place. The atmosphere was almost too heavy for breathing, with the scent of rotting wood, and I was on my back. A feeling of smothered panic lay on top of me.

I AM HERE.

I could hear-no, feel-the glee in the snake’s voice; she was happier in my spine than she had ever been. The morphine had been keeping her in check but now, in this place, that protection had been lifted. The snake thrashed in celebration.

THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

I tried to extend my arms but my hands met a barrier on all sides, only inches away. Flat, smooth wood. A few feet across; a few feet deep; the length of my body. For a human, there is only one box of this size.

YOU ARE IN A COFFIN.

This was not real. I tried to remember everything I’d learned about morphine withdrawal, because that was the reality of my situation, not this imagined tomb. I had studied, like the student who prays the test will be canceled, about the weaning from the addiction. Cold-turkeying off morphine is not life-threatening, as it is with some other drugs, but it can result in strange visions. Clearly, this was one of them.

There were so many reasons that this could not be real. How could I have been taken from the bedroom and buried without waking? If the wood of the coffin was already rotting, how could I have been underground that long? How could there still be oxygen? All this was impossible; therefore, I was hallucinating.

But are people who hallucinate rational enough to realize it? Aren’t hallucinations supposed to be, by definition, irrational? I didn’t feel as if I’d lost touch with reality; in fact, this felt too much like reality. Do hallucinating people note air quality? Do they think about how long it takes before the wood of a coffin gives out, or how long before the worms find their way in? If I was really in withdrawal, why was I not craving my drug? So although I knew this experience couldn’t be real, I had to wonder why I was asking such logical questions.

It was not long before I discovered that withdrawing addicts lose their composure in exactly the same manner that careless millionaires lose their money: gradually, then suddenly. After careful consideration, I instantly lost all control in what can best be called the opposite of an epiphany: instead of my thoughts coming together in a moment of clarity, they bolted from the center of my mind like victims trying to escape the epicenter of a disaster.

Although there was clearly no room for leverage, I threw my fists around frantically, pounding at the wood weighted down with six feet of dirt. I clawed until my fingernails peeled back and screamed until my throat was emptied of all hope. I had believed, in the hospital, waiting for the next dйbridement session, that I knew fear. But that was bullshit; I’d known nothing. To wake alive in a coffin and know you’re waiting for the end? That’s fear.

My hysterical little rebellion proved useless, of course. So I stopped. Even if I somehow managed to break through the wood, it would not change the fact of my death, only the means: rather than be killed by lack of oxygen, I’d be suffocated by the dirt that stormed the coffin. As hungry as I was for air, the earth is always more ravenous. And so, a hush fell on my box like a cadaver’s blanket. With nothing to do but wait, I made the decision to be dignified.

My breath echoed, as if the coffin were a shabby little concert hall. I decided I would listen until I could listen no more, and then the very last, soft note of my final breath would trail out into the dark. I’d go gently, I promised myself, because I’d already-given the severity of my accident-managed to live much longer than I should have.

Then I realized how incredibly foolish this was, all this thinking about dying in a hallucination. No problem. Steady. What had I taught Marianne Engel in Germany? It’s all about the breathing. You steady the weapon by slowing your breathing. In, out, in, out. Steady. Calm. I am the weapon, I told myself; a weapon of living, forged in fire, and unstoppable.

And then. I felt. Something. And this something can only be described by a word I don’t want to use: a new-age, stupid word that I must bring into play because, unfortunately, it is the only correct word. I felt a presence. And it was right beside me. A woman. I don’t know how I knew it was a woman, but it was. It was not Marianne Engel, because the breathing was wrong. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I could identify her by the cadence of her breathing, but I could, and this wasn’t her. It occurred to me that perhaps the breath was coming from the snake. Perhaps the bitch had finally exited my spine for a direct confrontation. After all, you can only talk behind someone’s back for so long.

But no, it was a human body calmly lying beside me. Which was ridiculous, because there was no room in the coffin-the imaginary coffin-for anyone else. Still, just in case, I snuggled against the wall on my side. Her breathing was relaxed, which somehow made it even more frightening.

A hand touched mine. I jerked away. I was surprised that I could feel her flesh; I had assumed this entity was immaterial. Her fingers were tiny but she was still able to force her hand into mine.

I tried to sound courageous while demanding to know who she was, but my voice broke. No answer. There was only the continuation of her breathing. Again: “Who are you?”

Her fingers gripped a bit tighter, intertwining with mine. I asked another question. “What are you doing here?”

There was still only the sound of her soft, relaxed breath. With every question she did not answer, I became a little less afraid. The way she clutched my hand was no longer menacing, but comforting, and soon I could feel myself lifting, almost-no, not almost: definitely-floating. My back began to lift away from the wood on which I lay.

I felt like a levitating assistant whose hand was being held by the magician. I felt us moving through the lid of the coffin, and then we were traveling up through the soil. An orange glow spread across the insides of my eyelids as we got closer to the surface, and I was not even sure whether I was still breathing.

I felt the tug of earth as I broke into the sunlight, and the color exploded. I was lifted upwards, a few inches above the surface of the ground. Soil trailed off my chest and I could feel it trickle down my ribs, falling from my sides. I was floating in the air unsupported; the woman did not break the grave’s surface with me. Only her hand came through, connecting me to the earth like a balloon on a string. Her hand held mine for perhaps a few seconds before it let go and was pulled back into the grave. It was then that I realized that she could not leave: she had not been a visitor to my coffin, I had been a visitor to hers.

My body settled onto the mound of dirt. My eyes adjusted to the light. I was on a mountain and I could hear a river nearby. It was peaceful, just for a moment, until the ground beneath me started to move once more. For a panicked instant, I was worried that the silent woman had decided to pull me back down, but this was not what was happening. On all sides of me a hundred little eruptions began, like burrowing animals clawing their way out of the soil.

There were, at first, only glints in the light. But then shapes began to emerge: flowers, with colorless petals. When I looked closer, I could see that they were made of glass. Lilies. Blooming everywhere were a thousand glass lilies, glowing with pulses of light that seemed to come from within.