The Thanatos Syndrome

Alba she now. She’s almost Christina again. She’s quite beautiful actually, but beginning to be ravaged again, thin, cheeks shadowed under her French-Indian cheekbones, but not yet too thin, not yet wholly Christina. I wonder if she has stopped eating.
    â€œMickey, please come over here and sit where we can see each other.”
    She does.
    She doesn’t mind looking at me.
    â€œWell, Mickey?”
    â€œI—” She breaks off, nods as if nodding could finish the sentence.
    â€œI’m—”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m having an—”
    â€œYou’re having an attack.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOf—”
    â€œI’m—Driving over I was terrified—of killing someone.”
    â€œWell?” Well.
    Her great black eyes, as rounded as a frightened child’s, are full on me. One hand is holding the other. She is actually wringing her hands, something you seldom see.
    â€œAre you afraid, Mickey?”
    â€œIt’s—It’s not like anything I ever had before. Something is about to happen. I dread something, but I don’t know what it is—” Her eyes fall away, unconverge, as if she saw something, someone, behind me, far away but approaching. Now she’s nodding, reassuring herself. “Now isn’t that something?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMy life is fine. Durel is fine. My kids are fine. My horses are fine. My painting is fine. But—” She stops, eyes coming back to me, focused, seeking out. She gives a little laugh.
    â€œWell?” Well.
    â€œCould I talk about it?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDo you remember that dream I had, about being in the cellar of my grandmother’s farmhouse in Vermont and the smell of winter apples and the stranger coming?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œCould we work on that?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œI had it again. Last night and the night before.”
    â€œI see.” Well well.
    â€œDid I say or did you say that perhaps the stranger might be someone trying to tell me something?”
    â€œI don’t remember. It doesn’t matter what I said. What do you think now?”
    â€œYou know what I think?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI think the stranger is trying to tell me something.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI also think the stranger has something to do with the terror.”
    â€œI see. How?”
    â€œHe is not someone to be terrified of, yet I am terrified.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œDo you know who the stranger is?”
    â€œWho do you think he is?”
    â€œI think the stranger is part of myself.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œI am trying to tell myself something. I mean a part of me I don’t really know, yet the deepest part of me, is trying to—”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œCould I talk about it?”
    â€œYes.”
    She falls silent, but her eyes are softer, livelier, are searching mine as if I were the mirror of her very self. She lets go of her hand. She almost smiles. She ducks her head and touches the nape of her neck as she used to.
    â€œWell?” I say.
    She opens her mouth to speak.
    Well well well.

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    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    copyright © 1987 by Walker Percy
    cover design by Jason Gabbert
    cover image courtesy of Erin Power
    ISBN: 978-1-4532-1631-6
    This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
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