*
“Either the Soul argues with the Body from a position of moral superiority or it shares guilt with the Body (and often deserves more blame).” Michel-Andre Bossy on medieval debates between body and soul
*
Sometimes Body would wake up, open the curtain, step into the sunlight and stand motionless for an hour. He was so grateful for his existence, although he didn’t know why. Didn’t know why to be grateful. Didn’t know why he existed. An ignorance within grace, more or less cupped.
Meanwhile his wife seemed to be withering like an unwatered plant, though she was as beautiful as ever. He loved all the aspects of her that he understood but they seemed to grow constantly smaller. Now she began talking so fast that no one could understand her. She would come home with her power clothes in disarray and the smell of strangers on her fingers and her neck, and yet – and yet she didn’t have the secretive glow of a woman who was cheating on her husband. Whatever she was doing with those strangers might be anything you like but not fun.
Her movements in the front yard were brittle and strangely cautious like those of a frail dowager. It was odd that as the two seemed to move into separation it was the Soul that became mechanical while the Body continued to live with that slow, grounded organic manner that banished the thought of machinery. It was odd – and it wrung one’s heart.
*
Their counselor suggested a shared vacation, something new. The 2 of them sat in the airport surrounded by mismatched luggage. Sarah got up and paced around, then said suddenly, See you in 10 short minutes. Then she was gone. Emil began to wonder (the first time? not the first time) whether she was addicted to some drug.
He watched her go into the airport’s Platonic Lounge, reserved for high-fliers, the preferred travellers. No doubt mere bodies were not allowed, only elites, only souls. A half hour passed, almost an hour, then the flight was announced. He stood awkwardly over the luggage, picked up some of hers, looking ridiculous, evoking laughter from nearby children. Oh yes, his weight was ballooning again. Stress. Then a kindly stranger in a flowered shirt offered to watch his stuff. But when he ran into the Lounge, no one was there that he recognized as his own or remotely related. She was gone. Then another hour passed, then two, then three. Paralyzed desolate hours too heavy for a timepiece to hold. Had she gotten on their plane without him? How could she have done that without the boarding pass he held?
*
It seemed to be a day or 2 later that he finally reached home. He threw himself onto the couch and began to bawl, silly Body, doing just the kind of thing she most despised but then of course she wasn’t there to be disgusted and that was why he was bawling. At some hazy point he noticed the message light flashing on the phone, pressed the button. A completely unfamiliar voice began to lecture him about inner peace. “Remember we dissolve into nothingness at the very edge of what we are, so dig deeply into what you now are. Quickly before it disintegrates.” What nonsense, the Body said to himself. the wisdom is within disintegration, not somewhere squirreled away off to the side. This was one thing a Body always knew.
*
One also knew that the worst human rejection held hope embedded like an arrow sticking out of its side and pointing outward. Because denial is a word God rarely uses. It’s a human word, we humans practically eat up our rejection, it’s like our bread and butter. We think it gives us a license to sin. But God sees this and us differently.
A few hours later the doorbell rang and a co-worker stood at the door holding Sarah and glowering. Hey, did you forget something? Or maybe somebody?
His wife looked like a giant worn-out doll with a crude parody of a woman’s features painted on her face. The nose, the cheeks, the eyes were all emptied out. Whatever drug she’d taken, it was busy demanding payment.
Then the 2 of them sat awkwardly on the couch drinking tea, looking more like the fragments of a misfired blind date than members of a seasoned marriage. Maybe it was good for them to admit they didn’t know each other. At least Soul didn’t look like a zombie. She was once again recognizable.
*
All right, stop it, she said.
Stop what? he asked.
*
I mean I will stop it if I only know what.
*
Stop smirking at me and floating those thought balloons in my face. I know I don’t deserve you. I keep trying to die and failing – and you always take me back. You’re acting like family and it’s embarrassing. Your forgiveness seems to diminish me.
*
Right but I can’t help it, it’s my makeup, Body said. It’s not like I even want to live with you, honey, although I do, but it’s something more. I love you but I don’t want to, it’s deeper than that. We’re *married*, what can I do? When you go off on your jags, I’m not even here, I don’t even exist.
So it’s like I have to ask you this favor: don’t keep taking my own self away. Let’s be this thing we are, let’s be it for real, because I’m not sure we basically have a choice, except maybe to die. Now I can see the disdain in your eyes, you think I’m stupid, just a Body. But if what I’m saying is stupid, my love, then take it for what it is. Because I *am* stupid and I know that well. But go ahead and come back anyway.
End of Part 3 of 3.
*
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