The Phoenix of Birmingham IV

The Phoenix of Birmingham IV

Margaret always hated that feeling of not knowing where she was when she awoke.  It was particularly irritating when the fog didn't clear up after a few minutes even as she searched without success for familiar ground with which to tether her ephemeral soul.

A few more minutes floating and she saw it, the whiteness, the unbelievable whiteness.  No one would deliberately decorate their home this way.  She certainly wouldn't.  She must be in a hospital, some hospital, but what was she doing here? 

Since she was not one to panic, at least not on the surface, she took her usual methodical path and started out by searching her mind, her wandering mind, then feeling her body; all of it.  She stiffly moved her right leg, her right arm, her hand, and just as she began to move her neck, she felt it.  Something was restraining her neck.  Ah, the surgery.  She'd had the scar removed.  But, there was no bandage.  There should have been a bandage.

She slowly raised her hand to feel her neck.  There was nothing, no wrinkle, no scar, no nothing.  Imperceptibly, even to herself, she did begin to panic.  She'd obviously been out long enough to heal, and though she healed rapidly, she could feel in her heart and her stiff joints that she had been out for a while.

As the blossoming question of how long percolated through her system, more questions and more conclusions crowded into her wicked garden of confusion.  She surmised she wasn't in a hospital, as she had originally thought, nor was she anyplace she could recognize.  Likely, she was still in the south, judging by the health of the calming magnolia trees outside her window, but not likely Atlanta.  If she'd had a problem, any responsible person would have known to move her out of any venue where she could be recognized.  Any responsible person would have known that.

In any case, it was time to move.  She began by stretching her toe, her ankle, her leg, her knee, and her pelvis.  The tightness in her back precluded anything resembling sitting up, so she pulled up her right leg.  As she did it, she realized she wouldn't be active in that department for a while, not that she'd ever been very active in that department.

As she lay there and counted the moments of idle seclusion as they ticked by, she was grateful to have awakened alone.  Now she could prepare herself for her first victim, the first person who knew or should have known; Margaret was not a person to leave alone, unless of course, she asked to be left alone.

As she began to rehearse her tirade, mumbling the words between her left and right ears, she felt it, then she heard it, and then she knew.  Something was wrong with her voice.  She was slurring her words and stuttering.  That was simply something she didn't do.  It was much worse than any lisping drag queen strung out on heroin could manage.  As her mind began to recalculate and reassess, she realized she hadn't moved her left side.  She couldn't move her left side.  It was as though it had been nailed numbly to the bed.  She couldn't even feel it, which was why she hadn't noticed.  What had happened?  What had happened to her?  Could she have had a stroke?  Did she have some kind of a reaction to the anesthesia?

What next?  What else could be coming?  Her father had attacked her, molested her sister and her brother, and tried to kill her mother.  Now he was dead and his recently read will unveiled a slew of siblings she couldn't begin to count, all younger than she could imagine.  And then, pain of all pains, she finds out that he has oodles of money hanging around in different little islands off the coast.  All this, and to his dying day he had taken every nickel and dime offered and allowed her to think when she took over the business that it was about to go under at any moment.  She could just feel the audit coming.  She could just feel it.  She couldn't feel anything else, but she could feel that.

Just as she began to consider crying, in stead, she got furious.  She imagined grabbing something, anything fragile, and slinging it against the farthest wall.  She imagined the sound of shattering glass mirroring the sound of her interrupted and shattered youth.  Before she could even think or prepare, she just screamed and screamed.  At first, it was as garbled as her previous mumbling, and then she just let loose with all the rage of her person.  The warm up was invigorating as she allowed herself to sink from her depression and then rise off the bed with her fury, pounding her right leg and fist into the mattress and cascading her bed linens onto the floor similarly to the way the spittle rose from her lips. 

The tears were streaming down her face as she reached out and grabbed the bedside lamp and threw it across the room.  The sound of it shattering against the wall momentarily pulled her out of her reverie, but it was the fact that she did it with both her hands that truly broke the spell.  Her left arm had moved and her hand had grasped and the strength of her volley was paramount.  Thinking about it, she realized her fury had saved her before, why not again?  She'd been trapped and nearly buried by circumstances before, never again, and certainly not today.

When the first poor black face peered into her room, the paleness of their lips and the enormous size of their eyes moved her to peals of laughter.  This only confused the poor linen-clad moron and she turned and ran, probably to get someone who could order a sedative for the crazy paralyzed woman who had launched a perfectly good lamp across the room.  Margaret didn't even have a chance to initiate her tirade.  In any case, she couldn't tell if she was exhausted or exhilarated.  She'd wait for the next face to appear before she made up her mind.  She went back to sleep, hoping she'd sleep soundly.

When she awoke, she was once again confused and lost.  Her throat was sore, both on the inside and the outside.  It was distracting enough that she couldn't focus her thoughts or her fears.  As she reached up to rub her throat, she felt the bandage surrounding her neck obscuring the surgical wounds.  Now she understood, God had simply given her another lesson.  Be thankful what you have.  All that has happened has made you who you are and unless you want to give that up, move on and take on. 

She knew what she'd do.  She'd reach out to her new siblings and search out their inevitable wounds.  She'd help them heal if she could and if she couldn't, she'd do as her father had asked and spread the money around.  Maybe the money would help with the healing or help with blurring the glass of their past.  Possibly another phoenix would rise from her family's ashes and this one would save the world.  She could hope, couldn't she?  She could hope.  Maybe her brother was wrong.  Maybe it didn't all end with him; because in all of the universe, and on each of the planets, including this one, maybe a new beginning was necessary and formed from the old.