Writings / Fiction: Yutaka Dirks

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Pull of Gravity

You can see the light of Calgary for an hour before you see a single street lamp, a glow of orange like a grass fire. I press my face against the passenger side window and look up at the sky. My wedding ring blinks with the light of each passing car, but in the sky, not a single star.

At home, we’ve got a gas station, two churches and three restaurants, including the diner, but our town doesn’t have a hospital. So we have to come up here, where The Machine runs from six in the morning to twelve at night. Martin finds the parking lot and pulls the half-ton into a spot close to the emergency entrance, the only doors open this early.

We follow the signs through the empty hallways. I close my eyes and time my steps to match the soft shuffle of Martin’s loafers on the tile. The slight drag of his left leg and how he compensates by lunging with his right, something he’s been doing since he injured it eight years ago. I open my eyes and see the waiting area. I realize I’m on tip-toes.

The reception desk is closed until 8am. There is a phone on a desk nearby; above it, a small laminated sign: If you are here for a MRI appointment, please pick up the phone.

I stand still. If I don’t move, they’ll have to cancel the test. Martin will drive me home and we’ll open up the dinner as always; a little late, maybe, but most of the regulars will wait. I can just stay still, in this empty hallway, and I’ll never have to know.

Eventually Martin steps forward. His hand shakes as he whispers into the receiver. “She said to fill out the form on the clipboard,” he says.

I shake my head and then, having broken my vow of stillness, decide to sit down. I sink into one of the chairs.

“Ruby,” he says, but he finds the clipboard and sits down. When he is finished scratching at the pad, he reaches for me. His worn hand is sweaty and cold around my fingers. I pull free, then, out of guilt, or habit, trace the familiar groves in his palm with my fingertips. A television set is mounted in the corner, but the sound is muted. It flashes behind us like summer lightning. We are too far away to hear the thunder.

A technician arrives and briefly explains the procedure. Martin interrupts her, asks her to repeat, a pleading in his voice.

“Don’t worry Mr. Klassen,” she says patiently. “We’ll take good care of your wife.”

I watch her as she explains the test again. She has the comfortable posture of youth. Full of confidence, she’s yet to experience what life can throw at you. How easy it can be for it all to turn upside down, so that you’re flailing, grabbing at the sky to keep from falling.

The technician directs me through a set of doors. Martin follows.

“I’m sorry Mr. Klassen,” she turns. “This area is restricted to patients.”

“Oh,” he says, but doesn’t move.

His hands are open, reaching. His eyes wide and unfocussed, he looks so much older than his fifty-two years. I drop my gaze before his fear can touch me and turn away. “I’ll be okay, Martin.”

The technician finds me a gown and points me to a change room. I undress and slip on the thin garment, then remember my earrings. No metal in The Machine. As I slip the tiny golden eagles into my folded jeans, I think of July, when I first wore them at the diner.

“Ruby, darling,” Benji beamed over his morning coffee. “Eagles are my favourite bird.”

He wasn’t a new customer by any means. But he wasn’t one of the Claresholm regulars either. He’d been coming by two or three times a week, on his way up to Calgary or Edmonton to work, for about a year. Some sort of oil rig specialist, though he had the hands of a landscape painter. Held his mug with both hands when he drank his coffee, and sipped it slowly with his eyes closed. He was quiet, like there was something he was working up to say. Most days it went unsaid.

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