Steal Heaven
an excerpt

Part 1: Dark Matters

Chapter 1: The End

I

Winton was dying, and he was very much afraid. It
wasn't the pain, although between blasts of his various medications,
that was considerable. It wasn't a fear of some cosmic retribution
coming his way. He had given up on god and religion around the age
of twelve. It was the thought of no longer being. It chilled him.

The room was dark, close, and it smelled of
disinfectant. His breathing was difficult. He guessed he would not
be plagued with that problem very much longer. But the wheezing; he
hated the sound he made. It bothered and embarrassed him.

Turning his head slightly he felt pain in his neck and
shoulder. He could hear as well as feel it as old bones creaked.
Winton faced, as best he could, the heavily curtained window. There
was the smallest gap, a feeble attempt at light to force its way in.
Was it his imagination, for that was still strong, that he could see
a dark sky? Did he see gray, angry clouds, and perhaps streaks of
rain on the glass? He could not be sure. Failing eyes, and tears.
No, not tears. He was not crying. Sometimes his eyes watered,
obscuring his vision. Winton hoped it was rain outside. Out in the
world. A rain storm fit his mood and the creeping darkness he felt
inside.

Through the partially open door of his room he could
hear the 'careless' people. The care-givers who could not care less.
It was just a job to them, and he knew it. They were paid to be
efficient, and polite. They were paid to smile and be pleasant, but
no one could really pay them enough to care about the people they
administered to. Grudgingly, he understood. This was a place of
death, that part of the hospital where terminal patients were cared
for, after a fashion, in the last days and hours of their lives. One
did not get too attached to people who came there only to die. It
did not pay. And, if they didn't treat you all that well, if you had
a complaint, but no one to tell it to, what did it matter? Winton
was sure that no one ever came back and asked to be compensated for
bad service.

The people outside talked about their homes, their
children, their spouses. They talked about their gardens and their
pets, their car troubles and their diets. They joked and they
laughed. Laughed! They talked about their lives. It did not seem
right. Winton did not feel that kind of talk should be allowed to
seep into the rooms of the dying. It wasn't fair.

Fair. There was that word again. Winton thought he had
banished it from his vocabulary, but it kept creeping back. And that
wasn't fair either, was it?

For a moment the chatter and the clatter outside his
room ceased. It happened sometimes. Everyone was busy with
something else for just a moment. Somewhere, down the hall, he
thought, a phone was ringing. Then, that too, fell silent.

Despite his avowed hatred for the noise, the clutter of
sound, the lack of it brought him back to his deeper reality. To his
predicament. Back to the hungry darkness of his room.

Darkness was no longer his friend, no longer the secure
warmth that had once welcomed him to restful sleep. Darkness. He
shuddered at the thought of it. If they would let him, he'd sleep
with the lights on, now. In fact, he would refuse to sleep at all if
it were possible. He had tried. Forcing himself to stay awake,
trying to keep away from that hungry blackness, but eventually they
would see what he was doing and add a little something to his I.V.
He would sleep then. Sometimes he'd feel it, the drugs he hated,
coming on, but mostly he would just wake up with a start, surprised
to be alive. Like now. And he would wonder. How much longer?

His hands slapped the sheets beside his emaciated legs,
heart racing, breath ragged and quick. Grabbing weakly, it was more
of a gesture, actually, he could feel starched cloth, uncaptured
beneath impotent fingers. While the sense of it, the sense of
anything tangible, touchable, reassured him for the moment, it
brought him no joy. Nothing had changed. Not really. His head
still ached. His whole body ached. He was still afraid.

He was alone at the moment. Alone most of the time,
really. Winton had once prized his solitude, courted it, paid for
it, even. These days he hated that, too. The hospital room was
nice. Nicer than some, but hard as it was for him to admit it, it
was a lonely room.

Winton was not stupid. He understood his condition, who
and what he was. He thought he did, at least, and as well as anyone
could. He understood about his health, or lack of it, and about his
age. He was beyond false hope or self-delusion. Beyond it. But
that didn't help much.

In point of fact, there was a blockage in his mind.
There was a... a what? A something that refused to let him just 'go
gentle'. He envied those people who, he imagined, could just close
their eyes, as though to sleep, and let themselves go.

He had tried most of his life to come to terms with the
shortness of existence, and at one time actually thought he'd handled
his fears. He hadn't. He had only covered them up. It was like
putting his hands over his ears and saying “LA LA LA LA”
to keep from hearing someone speak. He had only put the fears off
for a more vulnerable time. For this time. This time when the voice
he wanted most not to hear was his own. LA LA LA. It didn't help.

He had read Kubler-Ross and gauged himself against the
five stages. He had done his homework, all the reading that he
could, not that any of it had helped. He had gotten through denial,
anger and bargaining—not that there was a 'who' to bargain
with—and found himself stuck in depression. Acceptance just
wasn't in the cards for him. It wasn't fair.

Winton did not lack in imagination, but some things
remained ever out of his mental reach. Not being! How could you not
be? His education told him it was simple. The heart—he never
thought of it as HIS heart—would stop. Then breathing would
stop, and within a minute, perhaps a little longer, the brain would
stop. It would just stop. Everything. Would. Just. Stop.

It would not get dark. You could see darkness, after a
fashion. You needed senses to have darkness. There wouldn't even be
nothing. Nothing needed a perception. And that, the shudder hit him
again... That was what defeated him. The total lack of perception.
How could it be?

In books, in movies or television, it was always
dramatic. The dying person would smile reassuringly and look up at
the tearful survivors. Some trite dialog would follow. “I'll
miss this life”, or “It's so sad, I'll never see another
blue sky...”

It was infuriating. Of course you'll never see another
blue sky, you twit! You'll never see anything. But you won't miss
it. You can't miss it, if you no longer have the means to sense, to
miss, anything! When you break down to your component elements,
there is no you left to miss anything.

Winton wanted to scream and yell and wail at the... at
the what? The people outside didn't care. They were used to it, and
they didn't care. He did not believe in god. He did not believe in
fate, or luck, or rights. Ha! Human rights! Another comedy routine.
He believed in none of that, not even justice. Especially not
justice.

“I'm just a fool. A cynical old fool.”
Winton hated the raspy, weak sound of his old voice. But sometimes
it was the only thing left to hear, aside from noise being improperly
lived outside his room.

“You're not a fool, Winty.”

“What?” He did not need to turn his head to
know who it was, but he did, and saw his wife sitting by the bed.
“Junie, how long have you—”

“You're not a fool. Why do you say things like
that?”

“I didn't say—” Had he said it aloud?
How long had she been there?

“I noticed you didn't deny I was old,” he
said.

She smiled her soft, warm smile and took his hand. “How
are you feeling, honey?”

“What? You mean aside from dying?” His
voice had taken on his slight, but characteristic, harshness.

A painful expression crossed her fine calm features.
Winton was immediately sorry for his comment, and squeezed her hand.
“I'm sorry, Junie. It's just... it's just...”

“It's hard, Winty. I know.” Winton
grimaced. He hated being called 'Winty'. “It's hard for all
of us. It just isn't fair.”

Winton snorted. Ignoring the pain, he turned his head
to the wall. Fair. He could feel it coming on. The anger. It
annoyed him when he said it, but it was worse, much worse, when she
did.

June Garrow was not deeply religious, but she did have a
rudimentary belief in God, and in goodness. If a person could be
considered to be good, June was. But, in his cynicism, Winton had
never allowed himself to see it. Would not see it. Even now, even
on his deathbed where a belief in something, in anything, might ease
the pain of his remaining hours. He could not do it. It angered
him, made him jealous, even, that she could. There was no good.
There was no evil. Words. It was all just words that people used to
justify their actions, to excuse their behavior.

“It's just made up, Junie. It's all a crock, and
you know—” He turned his head back to her, but there was
no one there. Of course not. June was dead. She'd died years ago.
She had already gone through this ritual of dying. He wondered, for
a moment, how she had faced it? He had never asked.

It was funny, he thought, how in a sense he had kept her
alive, if only in his mind, for all these years. Kept her alive to
continue their pointless little discussions... their arguments.

Winton did not believe in ghosts, and yet he spoke with
his dead wife from time to time. More frequently, now, that his own
time was near. His heart, his head, his whole being knew she was not
there, but he would see her nonetheless, sometimes. First he would
detect the faint, always faint, fragrance of her. And the seeing...
the sensing. It brought him some small happiness, some few moments
of relief.

No, he thought. I do not sense her. I do not see her.

“But you do, Winty. You know you do.” June
said from somewhere.

“I do?”

“And do you, June Bartholomew, take Winton Garrow
to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love, honor, and cherish him,
forsaking all others, and holding only unto him?”

Winton had not wanted a church wedding, but June, no
matter what she had wanted, would have run away with him, if he'd
asked. No. Her mother and father would not hear of it. So, they
had gone to church.

It hadn't been as bad as he'd feared. He was not forced
to believe anything, they did not make him pray, to pretend to pray.
He just had to show up and go through the motions. It was all right.
And his biggest fear, the secret fear that he would break down and
cry during the ceremony had not happened. The less said, and thought,
about that the better. No one was to know about his emotional
depravity, as he thought of it. No one could see Mr. Winton Garrow
cry. It just was not done.

He looked up into the rafters of the small church.
Sunlight was streaming in, dramatically, through the stained-glass
windows. Hollywood, he thought, like a Hollywood wedding. What were
the odds of that? He could hear the people in the pews behind him.
They were not speaking. No one was. Their attention was rapt, as
tradition would have it, but he could hear them, somehow,
nonetheless.

But no...

No. That's all wrong, he reminded himself. No one
here. He was alone now. Alone. Not just in the little hospital
room, but in the world. And soon he, too, would be gone. No! Not
gone. Gone is a place you can come back from. There would be no
him.

And there would be no one to keep him alive, as he had
done for June, after he had gone. And then, June would be gone too.
Forgotten.

And their son—

“Your son,” she said, pointing through the
glass. “Right there. That's him. Isn't he darling?”

“What? Who?” He turned his head to see a
nurse standing beside him.

“It's all right, Mr. Garrow. Don't be
embarrassed. You're not the first father that's been too excited to
think straight. You'll be fine. But look, isn't he handsome?”

“I...but, I...”

“Don't worry, Mr. Garrow, your wife,” she
glanced at her clipboard, “June, had a bit of a tough time of
it, but she's okay now. The doctor has her resting. Everything will
be fine.”

“But...”

Winton peered through the glass. The room had several
small cribs and women in white were walking around, efficient
looking, and somehow tender, as they watched the newborns.

He could see several babies, none of whom looked
particularly like him, or like June. For that matter, they didn't
much look like anyone. Hardly like people at all. Just squirming,
crying, red-faced bundles.

So that was his son. And no, it was not handsome. It
was frightening.

The nurse gave a quick glance at her clipboard again.
“Have you decided on a name for him, yet, Mr. Garrow?”

“No. I mean yes.” Was he supposed to be
this nervous? “His name will be, is, I mean, Gerald Winton.
Garrow. Gerald Winton Garrow.”

“That's a very nice name. It sounds like a
statesman, or a writer. Named for you, I take it?”

“What? No. His grandfather. Umm, that isn't
right. I'm named after my father. But I've never been a junior or a
'the second', and we didn't want to put that on my... on my son. So
he only got part of it. He got Winton as a middle name.”

But the nurse wasn't really listening. They never did,
he knew. Nurses.

II

Their son Gerald never called or wrote, probably never
thought of him at all, and certainly did not know, or even care,
probably, that his father was dying. Winton did not know where Jerry
lived these days, or for that matter, if he was even still alive.

Had he ever gotten along with his son? No. No, not
even as a baby. The first time he had held his son, he knew it. He
didn't know why. It had just always been that way.

You know why, said VoR.

“I don't. But I can guess, you know. It was
probably bad genes. Bad blood. Some bad combination of his
grandfather's genes and my... well, my attitudes. Aaah, I'm just
making that up. I'm not sure; don't know. Not really.”

You know why.

Winton sighed. He hated arguing with VoR. He never
won. VoR, Voice of Reason, was the name he had long ago given the
niggling little voice in his head. It was always second-guessing
him, always pointing out his failures, his lies. VoR wasn't like
June. Not at all. June would have never called him on his lies, his
little stretches. It had never seemed to matter to her. Had he
always fooled her? Had she seen through him and just ignored the
little indiscretions? How could he ever know? But that was June.
She had been his wife. His very good wife.

VoR was different. Winton could never pretend that VoR
was anything but his own mind feeding back on itself.

“We fought,” Winton said finally.

You fought, said VoR. You always fought.

“But he left. He was too much like his
grandfather.”

Too much like your father, said VoR.

He stays away, he nev—”

You ran him off. You pushed your son away. You
hated your father.

No, he thought. No, I didn't. I loved my father. My
son, my Gerald, hated me. It was that way from the first.

“I need to sleep,” he said, aloud, weakly,
to the empty room. He turned back to the wall.

But Winton Garrow hated sleep.

“You hate everything, dad.”

“Jerry?”

“You hate me. You hated mom.”

“Jerry? When did you get here?”

“But worst of all, I think you hate yourself.”

Winton turned in his bed to look. The man standing
there could not be his son. He was too old.

“Who are you?”

“It's me, dad. Gerald.”

“Who are you? You're not my son.”

The standing man snorted. “Where have I heard
that before?”

“But, you're old!”

“You're no spring chicken yourself, pop. I'm
sixty-three. Tempus fuck it, dad. Time fucks us all.”

“Jerry? Son?”

“Why, dad? What was it you had against me?”

“Me? I didn't— I don't— have
anything against you! Where have you be— ”

“—You ran me out, dad. It must be great
having Alzheimer's. New friends every day, wrap your own gifts—”

“That's cruel. You know I don't have—”

“— I don't know shit about you, dad. You
never answered my letters—”

“Letters? What let—”

“You wouldn't talk to me when I called. Mom
always made some lame excuse for you.... Oh, honey, he's not feeling
well. Sorry, Jerry, he's at the lodge. He's gone to the store, son.
Crap like that. All the while I could hear you in the background
arguing with the television.”

“What are you...? How can you say....?”

The stranger. The son, smiled, but the smile held no
mirth. There was fatigue in his eyes. “How're you feeling,
dad? You don't look so good.”

“I'm old, son. It doesn't matter. It's good...
it is so good to see you. You've changed so much.”

“What can I say? It happens.”

“Where do you live? Are you married? Do I have
any grandch— do you have children?”

“Me? No. Never had time for it. Just like you,
dad, but I'd like to think I was a little more honest about it. Why
would I want kids that I'd just end up ignoring? Sins of the
father... all that.”

“Why are you saying things like this to me. Can't
you see I'm dy—”

“I should wait until you're dead to tell you how
disappointed I am with you? Lot of good that would do.”

“But, son, I—”

“But what? Look at me?”

“I—” Winton turned his head away.

“LOOK at me, dad! Try, anyway. Am I still
invisible? Can you still see right through me?”

“No, son. You're not. I am so sorry.” He
turned his head back to face his little boy.

There was no one there.

Tears welled, and Winton wiped at them clumsily,
quickly, lest someone, some invisible watcher in his empty room, see.

III

“It's so hard, Winty.”

June?

“It's so hard, this.. this... the way things are
ending. Oh, honey, I wish I could take it away from you. I wish I
could give you something, but I'm already—”

“Already gone? And I'm an old fool with an active
imagination.”

“You've never been a fool, Winty. Headstrong.
Set in your ways, I guess, but never—”

“Protecting me to the end, June? How like you.
But I was. Am. A fool, I mean.”

But, of course, there was no one there.

Winton considered pressing the button they'd taped to
the side rail of his bed. Perhaps get someone to come in and spend a
little time with him. Someone real, just to talk for a few minutes.
To pretend that they cared. He could pretend that he believed them.

He reached for the button, but then, pulled his old and
spotted hand back, and let it fall to his side again. What would he
say to one of those young kids? He had nothing in common, and he'd
know, in his old and bitter heart, that they were just doing their
job.

The pain had grown, sneaking up while he had diddled
with his memories. He should find the little bedside button. He
should call in one of the care givers. They would push the pain back
for awhile. Make it hide for a bit.

Was that it, he wondered? Was pain the answer? Maybe.
Yes, maybe. Perhaps pain was life's way of making you accept your
own demise. Escape me! Run from me! I will hurt you until you give
in. Until you give up!

Finally he decided to thumb his nose at fear and take a
nap. He'd let go for a few minutes. If it came, it came. Was that
the last step? Was that acceptance? Would Kubler-Ross be proud?

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. It'll be good
to be away from all of this, he lied to himself. He wouldn't miss
this damn headache. He closed his eyes, but he didn't sleep.

Then, with less pain than he expected, and somehow, none
of the fear, Winton Garrow's heart stopped. His breathing stopped.
And, quicker than he would have expected, his brain gave up, too.

Winton Garrow, age 87, died. And he had been right.
There was no perception. None at all. But, of course, he did not
know it.