You Name It

YOU NAME IT

From the window, I can hear the murmur of the stream running through the garden and into the cool basin of the pool below. It sooths my fever and sleep embraces me.
Waking later, I can feel the breeze from the Ocean and the curtains move slowly as if fanning the room with their gentle sway. Now it is dark and the fireflies begin to hover and buzz outside the casement. There is no movement of human life other than my breath; the calm rise and fall of my chest as I lie in the bed.

Does this mean I am alone? Alone in the great house among the trees? How did I come to lie here? Faint images of figures like pages from a picture book pass through my mind and vanish in a fading stream of memory. Were they real or just imagination? I look from side to side, testing my vision in the enveloping gloom. No, there is no one there. Merely shadows cast by the few pieces of furniture beside the bed; a rattan chair, a stool made of dark wood and a china jug sitting on small table.

I test my limbs; first legs then arms. What force restrains them? There is no movement in them, yet no pain, just patient stillness, as if the brain told them to be at peace. This must be death, coming so quietly after the fever and sealing my body in its eternal state.

But my brain is alive; I can hear the gurgling stream. The faint stirring of the breeze touches my cheek and my thoughts run on as I lie here. I am alive but motionless like a waxwork figure in an exhibition. As if on display for visitors; a curiosity in some human museum where sightseekers gawp.

I must get up. I have to show them I live. Someone is coming. The door opens and figures approach the bed. I can hear them talking.

"He seems at peace. It won't be long now."

"Can you name it?"

"It's the calm of death. It's called serenity,"

Touch me! Save me!