When he was my age, he wore a humble smile, and tennis shorts the colour of Antarctica. He'd glide across the court, stealing dreams with a tricky serve; those sepia crowds were lost for words. Wimbledon to wild New York: that smile lit up the Earth. But now... now... When I was newborn, he ran a white tuxedo media gang; speeding back from preview screenings to sing for me, so I'd stop screaming. When I was thirteen, he taught me shaky-handed simple chords. Later, when we'd share the stage, that humble smile would light his face. But how... how can I look at him now? He writhes, crippled in his bed, a silent shell that something fled. Young men laugh on Centre Court on-screen above his head. We're told there's nothing to be done: he's too weak for Switzerland. I sing for him, then scream in the shower. Years go by, but it's been hours. You wouldn't do this to your dog, let alone the noble man he was. You wouldn't do this to your dog. Don't give a damn about your God; can you give me one good reason not to let him turn this torture off? I dream I unhook all his tubes, and wheel him out the back, into one last movie limousine, drive out under the moon; somewhere bright and cool and free, like the boy he used to be. He'll shiver like Antarctica. I'll watch him fall asleep.
The TV lounge is silent as the sea floor, save Penny telling Sheldon to shut up. The only joke is that they're nerds; but Mum clings on to every word, embryonic in the grief he left her. They moved here when their mortgage was expiring. Their tenderness and warmth soon followed suit. She'd sneak upstairs, and sleep all day; he'd stab his keys, while in his veins, disease unspooled, and dragged him, ache by ache, to his grave. By the lonely oceanside, in a town built for goodbyes, in the house of seagull-white where their love went wrong; in the lounge where we all cried, when all he could do was writhe; in the sunbeam where he died... we carry on. I've moved back now, to throw out old mementos; to make her soup, and tell her 'give it time'. I cringe through Theories of the Bang; through joyless laughter from the can. But when I sing, I feel his absent hand guide me back to who I am. By the lonely oceanside, in a town built for goodbyes, in the house of seagull-white where their love went wrong; in the lounge where we all cried, when all he could do was writhe; in the sunbeam where he died, old and tired and gone; on our pale blue speck of light, in the endless yawning night; in the great, cruel sweep of time... there is a song.
[Instrumental]
I showed him your photograph for the first time, on that night before he left. With his old and clouded gaze, he drank in your laughing face. With a laboured breath, he told me you were beautiful. Right then, years of enmity dissolved away: I was six again in school clothes in his arms; a French hillside; and the hall where he cushioned my first fall. Maybe he knew it's you I would be falling for. Oh, I know it's only early days, but I want a life with you; four walls and the sky with you. Does that sound okay? You held me through his funeral, 'til I went alone to say my last goodbye. But I couldn't very well see my father in that shell: only the Ever-Empty in its open eyes. He wasn't there in those grand, wounded eulogies, or the laughter of the mourners drifting home. But in a tiny Richmond bar, sharing ciders after dark, I could feel him in the music, when you hummed along. Oh, I know it's only early days, but I want a life with you; four walls and the sky with you. Oh, I know it's only early days, but I wanna cry with you. Never hide from you. Burn apple pie with you. Drink in the afternoon. Under the aching moon, worship the way you move. Gracefully leave our youth; hold it inside us too. Start a few lives anew. Move somewhere wild and blue. One day, like he taught me to... I wanna die with you. Does that sound okay?
