The old man moves slowly, his balance threatened, his muscles an enigma. He’s dressed in layer upon layer: long underwear, jeans, T-shirt, heavy flannel shirt (long-sleeved), hoodie, coat, coveralls, two pairs of socks, a bread bag for each foot lining a pair of boots. Finally, a tattered pair of leather gloves. He exhales sharply, a mystic necromancer struggling vainly to resuscitate his own ghost. In the archives of his heart, serialized wounds have formed thick, elegant scars that ache and glow in the cold. A shiver pulses through him in short, sharp waves. He walks to the end of the driveway and waits. His face is flush from exertion and numb from cold. He’s only walked twenty yards, give or take, but it took him forever.

A car pulls up: small, red and unnecessarily sporty. A boy climbs out. Greets him warmly, but seriously. Leads him over to the passenger side. Go on, Dad. Get in. An adult voice. The child, obsolete to anyone else, is hidden out of sight. Inside mind. The biggest problem with genius is that you forget where you left the keys that are right there in your hand.

He lets out a quick guffaw, not even a handful of clouds escaping. His son stares impolitely. Words swell and push, swell and push behind the tightly shut gate of his mouth. He swats his son’s hand away, Jesus, I’m not helpless, and buckles himself in. His mind flashes with words. A quick breeze of melody. A woman’s face. A ripple. The cramp of old muscles called upon to dance. 

Where you at dad? It’s not so much where, but when. The old man smiles, and squirms his way into the car. Buckles himself in. He has the strangest feeling that he’s been here before. That he’s done it all before, every second of every swirling snowflake of minutiae. He adjusts his gloves, checks his reflection in the side-view mirror. Doesn’t recognize himself cowering beneath his drawn-up hood. His son starts the car (when did he learn how to drive? I must have taught him) without any effort and puts the car into gear. The radio is playing a song– oh, I recognize this one, what is it– and he begins to sing along. Loudly, though he doesn’t really know the words. His son gives him a look. Puts his hand on the stereo knob, but changes his mind. Lets the music play. Languid and bittersweet. Languid and bittersweet.

The car rounds a corner, the passenger seat occupant holding on tight. A side glance from his son. A laugh. It’s alright. The car lurches and darts. The streets are clean. The old man remembers getting up and showering before school. His wet hair froze when he went outside to do his chores. Animals, barely moving, but waiting for food and water. Cows sending predictable plumes of white outward, chickens huddled together for warmth in the henhouse. His limbs moved in jerky steps so as not to slosh water over the side of the buckets. Water splashed onto his legs despite his efforts. The dumb faces of the cows waiting. Tongues, long and fat like eels, flitting into nostrils. He poured the water into the old bathtub in the stockyard. Ice crackled a loud complaint as the water splashed down. He rubbed his legs now. Found them dry. The car in motion. The stockyard years away. Sometimes it's the living who are haunted, and sometimes they are the ghosts. The old man looks out the window. The snow begins to fall again, light, yet measurable. His son drives on, steady and straight, signalling when required, braking in plenty of time, turning slowly. The car moves without hesitation, built for this task. Sometimes it’s the dying who are already ghosts. They battle in dreams, struggling against the scent of death that wraps them in its heavy blanket. They sit stock still, hoping that they won’t be seen and will be spared. 

It is dark by the time they get there. A soft, early evening dark, abetted by the snow clouds. Fluid gray, dotted with Christmas lights and sputtering street lamps. The entire day had been devoid of blue, of mystery, of spark. The boy parks carefully. The man is asleep and dreaming, mumbling into his sleeve some mysterious indecipherable speech addressed to persons unknown. A twitching tantrum. A kick against invisible antagonists. The boy touches him lightly, peeling away with a single caress layers of dust piled into heaped dirt. The snow continues to fall. The boy puts out his arm, an offer of aid to the father. Ghosts of steam rise from their mouths, whispers transcribed on air, secrets seen as subtitles, scribbled but still untranslatable. A sign. A faint cry. An aggressive cough. He walks slowly beside the old man, pretending to follow his unneeded instructions. Just a few steps further now. He’s singing the song that had been playing in the car when they’d gotten in, the words coming to him in fits, like the cough. 

That shape is my shade there where I used to stand. At first, the boy doesn’t understand, but then he sifts through what he knows and he also comes up with the song. It seems only yesterday I gazed through the glass. Steely Dan. Yes, that was it. “Deacon Blues.” His dad had played it incessantly while doing chores around the house. He had once caught him whistling it during a sermon at church. Not that either of them had been keen on going to church. That was all his mother’s doing. He laughed, and wondered if his mother had heard the whistling, soft and impatient, under the radar. Meant only for him. Come on, Dad. Almost there. His father grunts his disapproval, but continues his slow walk down the slippery sidewalk. Peering from beneath his hood, he looks like a medieval monk leaving his monastery for the first time in years. His face registers mild panic, a touch of fear, and nothing like hope. The boy whistles the song now, and his father seems to calm down. Maybe he even laughs. There are so many strange noises: wheezings and sputterings and coughs. It is difficult to tell. 

A man sprinkles salt on the concrete. A cardinal flits down from the brush and lands at their feet. Hops around, looking for something to eat. Finds the salt too spicy for his taste. Looks up, as if inquiring after seeds. Toss down some millet, would you please, or some sunflower seeds? He flutters off like a bored, hungry child looking for handouts, then lands again a few feet away. Disappears in a streak, blood red against immaculate white snow. The two men enter the building. The younger of the two holds the door while his father stomps the snow from his boots. Then he stomps the snow from his own boots, and enters.

The lobby is too bright, is crowded with the hum of fluorescent lights and the chatter of children. Too hot, too. The old man takes down his hood, and removes his outermost coat. Looks for a place to hang it up. One of the children runs over to him, and hugs his legs tightly so that he totters and almost falls. His son moves over to give him support. The old man looks from the child clutching his knees to the one holding him up. How can one person be in two places at once? The child lets go, runs away laughing to hide in the pack of other children. The old man starts to stumble after him, calling his name. Dad, I’m right here, says the man holding him up. 

He can’t hold onto anything. It’s all so slippery, as if time is something to be grasped, and his hands are coated in oil. His feet, too, are unable to maintain reasonable contact with the forces of gravity. He must be a sight: legs wobbling, arms flailing, his whole being moving like a broken puppet in a soundless room trying to learn the rhetoric of dance. It’s no use. The boy who is a man stands hopelessly staring down at him, and a nurse appears suddenly with a wheelchair. He wants to scream, but his mouth doesn’t seem to be working either. What a disappointment, to be struck dumb and stupid and clumsy all at once. He takes a deep breath. His shrink would be disappointed to hear him use such language in reference to himself. In reference to anyone, really. No time to consider such intricacies when one is flailing about on the ground– he’ll call himself whatever he wants to. Hopefully his father didn’t see him fall. That would be a disaster with even greater consequences. 

Without anyone asking him, he is picked up and placed into the wheelchair, then pushed down the hall. He brushes himself off. Tries to adjust his coat so that it will cover the spot of urine on his pants. He must have some dignity hidden away somewhere for use in a time like this. No, apparently it’s already been used up. Long, long ago. He hangs his head in shame, the flag of his soul at half-mast. The nurse looks down at him and smiles. He sees nothing in her face but pity, an emotion that he detests more than any. 

The door to the office closes with a tight, official bang. Two nurses are sealed in with them. His son must really be sick for such an entourage to have accompanied them into this room way in the back of the building. Out of boredom he looks at the pictures of human anatomy hanging on the walls among the posters advising innoculations for Shingles and Flu and Covid. The pictures had always fascinated him, had kept him preoccupied during his frequent visits, but he didn't want to let his father catch him looking; there is something vaguely improper about them, too, as if they told secrets inappropriate for a young boy. The one in this room seems fairly innocuous, though: It pictured several drawings of the human brain. 

The nurses whispered their secrets, kept looking over their shoulders at him. His son seemed concerned. At least his father is no longer in the room. He’d probably fallen asleep out in the waiting room, tired and bored as he is with the problems of others. As long as he doesn’t run up a large bill, his father will remain calm. The nurses busy themselves with the taking of vitals, the filling out of charts. They ask his son questions about him as if he weren’t even there. How absurd– a child being asked for information about his father! Finally, they turn back to him to ask him a question about his medication, but he’s having another coughing fit, and can’t answer right away. When it subsides, they ask again. Yes, I heard you the first time. Yes, I’m taking medication X once a day, but I don’t know how much. 

The nurses seem pleased for the moment, but he knows that their greed for information is never sated. They file out of the room, and an epoch of waiting begins. Why hadn’t he brought a book to read during these long lulls? He searches in his pocket, and fishes out a piece of paper. What’s this? He unfolds the paper slowly; it is tattered and worn, and might easily fall apart. His son looks on with curiosity, making him turn the paper a bit so that it can’t be seen by anyone else. The boy laughs, as if they were playing a game of peek-a-boo. The paper is folded many times. The old man’s hands are shaky. The boy offers help, and is rebuked with a quick laser stare. Just as he finally gets it opened, the doctor walks in, and he shoves the page impolitely back into his pocket. 

The doctor examines the old man’s physical being first. There’s a reflex hammer testing the knees, a flashlight probing the dilation of his eyes, an order to open the mouth and say “ah”. Some generalized probings. Then he asks him some silly questions: What’s your name? What’s your date of birth? Who is the President? Some of these questions he asks more than once, as if trying to catch the old man in a lie, but he’s too clever for that. One of the nurses stands next to the doctor, her large brown eyes a distraction that works better than all the doctor’s tricks. Her lanyard bears her picture, not a bit flattering, and a name, Willow, which in his mind is not suitable either. She should have some other name, like Elizabeth or Katherine– regal, but not overly formal. 

What is your wife’s name, asks the doctor. Willow, he answers, then, when everyone laughs, he stutters, the words broken down at the edge of his mouth. E liza bet. Kat ern. On the next try, his elocution having returned with his memory, he finally comes around to his wife’s name. It’s Peg, but she’s dead.

The room goes quiet. Willow turns her back to them, busies herself with something in the corner. The doctor proceeds asking his questions. The old man fidgets with the paper in his pocket. He’s no longer listening to the doctor. He takes the paper out and looks at it. The doctor interrupts, and then the son. Nurse Willow still stands facing away, her back a wall. What? What do you want? A dog inside him barks with sharp teeth ready. Peg turns, placing her hand on his shoulder. It’s okay. It’s okay. He shrugs her hand away, dropping the piece of paper. 

Everyone in the room stares at it as it falls, landing face-up. The boy grabs it, as if he were about to engage in a playful game of keepaway. Give it to me. This, again, a bark with meaning. The boy hands it to him without looking at it. He puts it back in his pocket. Wishes he could remember what it was. He can’t remember anything now. What if it were some midnight love note to Peg? What if his son had read it? He turns red at the thought, the soft blush of embarrassment replacing the frenzied red of anger. 

The doctor motions for his son to follow him out of the room. The old man thinks this unusual, but he does not protest- it gives him a chance to examine the content of the paper. Peg stands over in the corner now, keeping a watchful eye on him. He approaches her, attempting to give her a hug, but she moves away with a resounding no. Unexpected. Nevermind. He walks back over to the wheelchair, and sits down. Takes the paper from his pocket. 

As he pulls it out, it tears in half. As he opens it, it tears again. Each time he attempts to read it, it rips into a smaller piece until there is nothing left but a pile of fluffy white confetti. He motions Peg over and deposits it into her tiny white hands. In another second, it is fluttering down into the waiting mouth of the open trash can.