It's Such a Beautiful Day Page #5

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Okay, Bill, can you tell me

who this is?

It's okay, Bill,

you're doing great.

And can you tell me

who this is?

Bill, can you tell me

who this is?

Do you remember her?

Today she's joined

by her boyfriend,

a young man named Steve

who spends most of the afternoon

in the corner

quietly staring

at Matthew's curtain.

"I am in pain."

The doctor explains to her

that Bill may be having trouble

understanding past tense

and present tense.

It may also be difficult

for Bill to understand

which of his memories

are real

and which are imagined.

When the brain is confronted

with major memory loss,

it often fills in the blanks

with confabulated stories,

false memories,

people who never existed;

invented conclusions to make

everyday life less confusing

and to somehow rationalize

what's happening to him.

Today, they will chat awkwardly.

Bill's been unable to stay

on one subject

for more than a few moments

and seems to get

easily frustrated.

She will say she didn't know

why she'd brought Steve along

yesterday

and admits he'd been so shaken

by the experience

that he quietly cried in the car

on the way home.

The sparrows have already begun

to rebuild,

but he's not sure if he feels

happy or sad for them.

He dreams he's part

of a rocket crew

reentering

the earth's atmosphere.

As they rapidly descend,

it's believed that

eating ice cream bars

will help prevent them

from having strokes.

As the heat intensifies,

Bill eats his ice cream bar

and secretly hopes that

if something bad had to happen,

the ship wouldn't explode,

but just that everyone else

would have strokes.

A final battery of tests

are ordered

to positively rule out

the chance of surgery.

Highly drugged, Bill will have

no memory of these tests

other than a terrible noise

to his right

and a brief vision

of a seahorse

and a falling tree.

(medical equipment running)

This morning, he can't

remember the last time

his ex-girlfriend

had come to visit.

It could be hours,

or maybe it's been weeks.

His uncle, whom Bill had not

even noticed in the room,

looks out the window

and talks about Bill's mother.

Then he says, "It's too bad

people don't say how they feel

until it's already too late."

And then he says nothing.

The TV in the room

is always on mute,

and behind his uncle's head,

Bill watches a superhero

quietly melt a monster's face.

His doctor visits and asks if

Bill might be more comfortable

at home for a few days

under family care

until the final results

come in.

(door opening)

(keys clanking)

A neighbor must have put

these groceries

in his apartment for him,

which was a very nice gesture.

It's kind of a really nice day.

He decides to walk

around the block.

On the side of the road,

he sees

a woman's tennis shoe

filled with leaves

and it fills him with

inexplicable sadness.

He walks down his side street,

alongside the bridge

past the farmers' market,

and back up

the main thoroughfare.

(birds chirping)

It's kind of a really nice day.

He decides to take a walk

around the block.

On the side of the road,

he sees

a woman's tennis shoe

filled with leaves

and it fills him with

inexplicable sadness.

He walks down his side street,

alongside the bridge

past the farmers' market,

and back up

the main thoroughfare.

(birds chirping)

It's kind of a really nice day.

He decides to take a walk

around the bl--

(door opening)

(keys clanging)

That hand is dropping

everything.

Wasn't he supposed

to call somebody?

What was her name?

What in the hell

is wrong with this mug?

(keys clanging)

Does he really need

this much food?

There's a doctor

on his answering machine.

(beeps)

Has he been sick?

A doctor carefully explains

test results with him.

He goes over numbers

and information

that Bill doesn't understand,

and reiterates things

that Bill doesn't remember.

He's momentarily quiet

and then tells Bill

he doesn't have

very long to live.

It's kind of a really nice day.

He decides to walk

around the block.

On the side of the road,

he sees

a woman's tennis shoe

filled with leaves

and it fills him with

inexplicable sadness.

He walks down his side street

and sees striking colors

in the faces of the people

around him,

details in these beautiful

brick walls and weeds

that he must have passed

every day but never noticed.

The air smells different,

brighter somehow,

and the currents under the

bridge look strange and vivid,

and the sun is warming

his face

and the world is clumsy

and beautiful and new.

And it's as though

he's been sleepwalking

for God knows how long,

and something has violently

shaken him awake.

His bathmats are gorgeous.

The grain patterns

in his cheap wood cabinets

vibrate something deep

within him.

He's fascinated by the way

his paper towels drink water.

He's never really appreciated

these things.

All this detail

he's never noticed.

Detail he's never noticed.

He's alive, he's alive.

He's alive,

he's alive.

Never noticed.

He's alive.

The stars rattled him

to the core.

All these lights have traveled

for tens of millions of years

to reach him at this moment.

How somehow far away,

our own sun looks

just like one of these.

How many of the stars

no longer even exist,

but whose ancient light

is just reaching him now.

An impression from a ghost,

an amazing infinite time machine

every night above his head

that he's ignored

for most of his life.

He wants to stop people

in the street and say,

"Isn't this amazing?

Isn't everything amazing?"

He runs to the car rental place

and finds himself a freeway

and drives all night,

following directions

in his head

to a place he can't remember,

absorbing everything

he can

before it all fades again

with the morning.

He's got the keys

to this car.

He also has keys

to a motel room,

but he can't remember

the last time he slept.

He's sitting in the sun

outside of a laundromat.

An older guy in a baseball cap

stands at a payphone

and nervously lifts

and hangs up the receiver.

He asks to borrow Bill's pencil

and then places a call

to his daughter.

He tells her he loves her

and he's proud of her,

and that "one day soon,

we'll finally have our day."

Then he says,

"Fantastic, fantastic,"

and hangs up the phone.

Although it looks like the wind

had been knocked out of him,

he presents the pencil back

to Bill with a little flourish,

as though proud no harm

had come to it

while in his possession.

He dreams of fog

on the dark edge of a cliff

where hundreds of feet below

the deep sea swells up

against the rocks.

And if you lean over the edge

and squint your eyes just right,

you can barely make out

the gray shapes of all the cars

that had driven off the cliff

over the years

sunken deep beneath

the surface.

And as each wave washes slowly

over them,

the undertow quietly pulls

their headlights on and off,

on and off

on an endless loop

growing slowly dimmer

over the years

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