Epiphany

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His veins and arteries presented a formidable impasse until, quite accidently, I discovered two packets of straws, laying in darkness in the back of the pantry. The complexity of of my son's circulatory system demanded hours of unbroken concentration and care. But it was during this crucial phase that I paid dearly for my lack of foresight. I had been painstakingly arranging the delicate capillaries that would bring a healthy glow to his skin when the screech of the telephone shattered my concentration, ruining three hours' work. I had forgotten to disconnect it. Angrily, I grabbed the receiver and snarled, “Who is it?”

I was not fooled for a second. “I am not interested in your catalogue of pains,” I informed her. “Nor do I care about your hidden fears, or your endlessly repeated tale of guilt.”

“You are pushing me too hard,” she whispered. How relentless she was! But I would not be taken in by her histrionics.

“Your ambitions bore me,” I told her. “And you have called at a very inconvenient time. I am building a son and I have no time to waste with you.” I yanked the phone out of the wall and hurled it against the floor. In a fit of rage, I pulled apart the twisted maze of veins, and not satisfied with this, snapped my son’s candlestick arms in two. I grabbed a hammer and raised it above his head, and then horribly realizing what I had been about to do, I collapsed, my anger spent. I knew then what a terrible father I would be: two weeks passed before I could bring myself to repair the damage I had done in that moment of weakness.

For the time being, I abandoned the circulatory system, and devoted myself to other areas. The choice for a heart seemed obvious: I used an old alarm clock. After considerable deliberation, I disconnected the mainspring. A hard decision, for after all, of what use is a clock that doesn’t tick or a heart that doesn’t beat? But ultimately, I concluded that he would be better off never knowing the insidious rhythm of death that sets life in motion. I found some comfort in noting that I had, in effect, emptied his heart of time.

My work, of course, is far from completion, and I am often disheartened by the sustained effort my son requires of me, for I am characteristically a lazy and neglectful man. Only the unhappy sight of my little boy collecting dust on the floor spurs me on. The work is often dreary, mechanical, and for weeks at a time, I am pushed forward only by habit, and the gnawing despair that my labor will never end. But even so, there are sometimes rewarding moments.

Yesterday, for example, I found a use for the broken shards of mirror scattered about the house. I glued two small roundish pieces to the fishbowl, and these became eyes; a symbolic representation of sunyata, the Eastern notion that form and emptiness are interchangeable — for now, when my son must someday confront the vision of the world, he will not shield his eyes in pain, but instead contain and release the vacant and whirling images impeccably, without desire, judgement, or passion.

I wanted him to have his mother’s eyes.