Late of Heaven

It was a monastic start to the day for Stanley Jesseps. Coffee, a slice of buttered toast, a banana, and on the kitchen-table lay the white To-Do pad calling him to action, inviting him to seize pieces of the day. A new task might occur to him during the morning’s repose, but on he rolled with the prior-night’s draft, prescribed moments of meaning midst the dross of an old man’s life. It is an orderly approach, the cadence of the day established in advance, though neither the tasks nor the dross could save him from darker thoughts.

Completed tasks intersected with times and places, memorialized on the pad at lunch (tick), in the car (tick) and at dinner (tick). The absence of Beth, triggered by small things overwhelmed Stanley; he would stop and stare at nothing, then press on with things; six tick marks for the six tasks. He tore, crumpled and threw the completed list into the waste container in the corner of the kitchen, next to the dresser he’d bought for Beth.

After dinner, Stanley wrote a new list, drawing the day’s activity to a close and preparing for the next. He gave the mundane tasks his professional consideration. Tasks of magnitude, once prioritized by urgency and importance and described in the language of business, had given way to this single to-do list, a dull, simple thing made up of small matters thrust cyclically upon him by family, friends and small-town institutions. The list became an end in and of itself, the tasks subservient to the role they played in occupying his time.

Stanley’s sleep was unusually troubled, not by the phantasm of Beth, but by a mad chatter centered on a world in which actions preceded thoughts, outcomes preceded their causes, death preceded life. Midst this churn, he trapped a big idea that contained and straightened out this nonsense, and he resolved to tell Beth about it in the morning, but the will is weakest in the small hours, judgment most clouded, and at daybreak the wisdom was beyond reach, and Beth was still dead.

In the morning there appeared an errant tick mark against an item that he hadn’t planned for, and certainly hadn’t accomplished. in all-caps: BOOK AN APPOINTMENT WITH UROLOGY. Certainly, this was something that he’d been thinking about – worried about – for months, from the happy time before Beth’s death, but he had also delayed and delayed, fearful of being drawn into the medical system. The system that had been unable to save Beth.

Forgetfulness was possible, he supposed, but the lapse irked him.

“I am phoning to make an appointment for next week with Doctor Keppler,” said Stanley to the Urology office receptionist, Francine, “I was referred by my doctor at Stroud General. Last year we detected traces of blood in my urine. He suggested I get a scan and book an appointment with you”. Stanley was fishing for information.

“That’s totally fine, Mr. Jesseps, but you booked the appointment yesterday!” said Francine.

Stanley detected a practiced patience in her manner. Mostly she dealt with elderly men, he could tell. “That doesn’t seem possible, I was busy with other things all day. That’s why I am calling you now,” she said.

“Well, that’s as may be, but it looks like you – or someone – spoke to Kathy or me yesterday and we got it done,” said Francine, “Dr Keppler looks forward to seeing you… on June 15th at 2.00 pm.”

Stanley concluded the phone call, but he was uneasy. Obviously, he’d called the doctor’s office the prior day and made the appointment, but how could he have forgotten something so front of mind? He retrieved the prior day’s crumpled to-do list from the waste basket, smoothed it out, and re-ran the six to-dos – basement shelves (tick), fixed washer/dryer lock (tick), refill the diesel can (tick), relocate the roses(tick), pay the water bill (tick), query insurance premium (tick). A day of metronomic precision that he remembered quite well, and – for sure – he did NOT call the Doctor, something that would have merited purposeful inclusion on that list, on that or any other day.

On Thursday afternoon, Stanley made an overdue call to his youngest daughter, Clara, in Los Angeles, a continent away. It was one of the day’s to-dos.

“Your lists are an obsession,” said Clara. “When we were young children, we would find discarded lists in the trash. I drew squiggles on them, Gina wrote fake tasks that involved us in your life. You always seemed to be doing something more important, somewhere else, involving other people, and your lists never included us. We resented them.”

A familiar fog enter Stanley’s mind as he tried to recall their childhood and his role in it. Beth, his wife, would often complain that he was never there for the hard stuff: tantrums, fevers, sports-meets, homework assignments.

“But I try to spend time doing things for you. Every day. I am always here for you and Gina, even if I wasn’t so attentive before, ” he said.

“I know dad. I know that you are doing the best you can do, and you weren’t so bad, just absent. But now you need to just stop the manic stuff. It’s crazy how much you get done and how little satisfaction you get from it,”, she paused, “and how little it matters to anyone else”.

“I love you, but your mind has been colonized,” she said.

“What does that even mean?” Stanley asked.

“Love you Dad”.

Stanley felt tired and he missed Beth with an aching heart. She died suddenly, unexpectedly. An undetected brain tumor, irrational behavior, failure of memory. A quick death they said, painless they said. It was all so abrupt, the funeral so rushed; in unguarded moments Stanley senses that his wife still walks the earth, but in an interrupted state.

Stanley called his older daughter, seeking opinion about the list, his memory, the doctor’s appointment.

What exactly do you talk to your therapist about?” said Gina, changing the subject away from the abhorrent lists.

“Truths from an alternative reality, like watching the life of a coral reef through the bottom of a glass-hulled boat, ” said Stanley.

“Can you be a bit more specific?” asked Gina, irritated. She reminded Stanley of her qualifications as a licensed social worker. “Do you explore your feelings? Does he give you exercises to do?”

“Oh, I try not to get too personal, nor take on additional load”, said Stanley.

“That’s not therapy,” said Gina, “that’s just bullshit. Has he steered you toward meditation?”

“Some people can sit quietly, alone and contented in a room, others cannot. It’s like being color blind or having perfect pitch. You can either do it, or you cannot”, said Stanley.

His pomposity announced Gina. “Well, that’s bullshit too,” she said “and these lists… they are not helpful. They are a way of avoiding your own self.”

Stanley suspected that his daughters talked about him behind his back.

Sleep proved elusive again, a tumult, disturbed by lists of unknowable and undone things, of unspecific threats from intangible forces, hidden hands, instructions from a dark unseen omniscience seemed to be seeking out a recipient. Beth figured in the dream, not embodied, but as a roiling noisy tempest that smashed things.

He awoke unsettled, hardly rested at all and in this state of mind he approached the To-Do list with trepidation. A new item had appeared on the list: “LATE OF HEAVEN”. All-Caps again.

This sent Stanley deeper into a funk. The list felt contaminated.

Gina came to visit on a pretext, he didn’t initially pay attention, and she didn’t really elaborate, but she was cheery, pragmatic, washed the dishes, opened the windows. Stanley sensed a concealed motive; he was being observed quite closely, being professionally evaluated..

She grabbed the list from him and examined it with interest. “Perhaps it describes mom as ‘elated of heaven’, or it’s an exhortation to ‘be late to heaven’, said Gina constructively. The latter did seem to jibe with instructions to see the Urologist.

Stanley sighed. “I googled it,” said Stanley, “Lathe of heaven came up on the search”. He seemed reluctant to continue, but Gina urged him on.

“It’s a Sci-Fi book about a man that creates new realities through his dreams while under the control of his therapist”. It sounded ridiculous.

Gina was distracted by a childish doodle in the lower left corner of the pad. She was also struck by the similarity of her father’s handwriting to that of her own. She must have copied his style when she was younger.

“Well, it’s been written with your pen,” said Gina, “it sure looks like you are the author.” She held her hands out in a way that invited Stanley to offer up alternative explanations, but he sat there in silence in front of his sullied list. Gina then sat with him.

“My therapist agrees with you and Clara. He thinks I need to cease with the continuous activity. He thinks it’s a massive distraction. Just be in the moment. Being, not doing; that kind of thing,”, said Stanley.

“Maybe he’s right?”said Gina.

“Maybe he is right, but ‘being’ is not what makes us human,” said Stanley. “We can imagine things that do not yet exist, and we can make them real through action, said Stanley, “not through stupid dreams” he added. He hoped that he was being coherent, making sense, alleviating Gina’s concerns about his mental state. He really didn’t need her to worry about him.

“Well, I suppose you can choose action,” said Gina, playing along, “but if that is true, then you can also choose its opposite, inaction.” She pushed the to-do list to the side, hoping to reduce its salience.

They sat quietly together in the kitchen enjoying the early summer breeze that was wafting in through the open windows, the first time they’d been opened in months, since before Beth’s death. Dust motes, caught in a shaft of sunlight, sparkled against a shadowy background.

“I miss Beth terribly,” said Stanley.

“I know,” said Gina, catching her breath.

“And I miss you and Clara too. I wish I’d been there for you,” said Stanley, choking. He seemed older, defeated and though she resisted, Gina could feel his vitality ebb and foresee his mortal end.

“Well, you’re here now,” she said.