What Will Rise

Dawn Hurley-Chapman

“Oh, it’s hard on the man, now his part is over . . .”

–- Kate Bush “This Woman’s Work”

“Hey, Alexa . . .”

The blue halo circling the speaker blinked in response.

“What’s the news?” I asked.

“Here’s your news,” she said. “A naked emperor is kneeling on a nation’s neck. Two little red riding hoods have been found dead in the woods. The father, a werewolf . . .”

Her stories grew in me like tumors, black and throbbing. My nerves lit up like a forest fire as Alexa brought the world into my bed. I imagined myself as an avenging angel, my hair full of flames, sword raised, glinting and ready to smite. But when Alexa stopped speaking and her blue light dimmed, my light dimmed too. I lay in the rumpled sheets, smelling of stale sweat. 

“Alexa, my head hurts,” I said, “Can you fix it?”

“Sorry,” she said, “I don’t know that one.”

I’d been sleeping all afternoon and woke to night. I threw on a pair of rumpled jeans, not bothering to change out of the t-shirt I’d slept in, and left the building. The glare of streetlamps swallowed the light of the waning moon. I shivered. I should’ve worn a coat but there was something I enjoyed about the cut of cold. It made my edges sharp, like shattered glass. I knew from Alexa that smoothness and curves were vulnerable. My breath rose into the air like a wish. I walked for a long time. I walked until I didn’t know the names of streets anymore, my footsteps so heavy they cracked the cement. I carried the weight of the world in my pocket, disguised as a black, glowing rectangle. I considered dropping it through the grates of the sewer, but it stuck to my hand and wouldn’t let me go.

Down a street where crooked houses cast shadows across unkept lawns I saw a wooden door with an iron handle that spoke to me, whispered come in, be warm and leave your troubles for the moon to mind. Inside, I saw a lone bartender. Dark, loose strands from his ponytail tickled his stubbled chin. He asked what I fancied. I said whiskey neat. The amber liquid gurgled from the bottle like a river; its peaty scent and burn on my tongue, a balm. I trained my eyes on my glass, not feeling like small talk. He read me right and sauntered over to the record player and slipped a vinyl on. The song was soulful and warm under the scratch of the needle, and I relaxed into my seat.

As I sipped, I noticed a mosaic of two women covering the back wall of the bar, the broken colored tiles sparkling like the inside of a seashell. Recognition hit me, like I’d just bumped into two old friends I hadn’t seen in years. Kate Bush and Virginia Woolf, sisters of the arts, adorned with halos. A glimmering raven perched on their joined hands.

Kate Bush Hounds of Love had been the first cassette I’d ever bought. I remembered listening to her in my room with the door closed, the bass line matching the thud of my heart. Her voice flying above me like a spirit singing through a veil. Her music made me feel dark and sensuous, the way I felt in dreams half remembered. I watched her on MTV embracing Peter Gabriel; they turned and turned as the full moon darkened to eclipse. She caresses him with her voice, ‘Don’t give up, you still have us . . .’ She saves him from despair as if she were the hope flying out from the bottom of Pandora’s box. In that moment, I wished I could change places with Peter Gabriel, longing for an embrace that would let me know everything was going to be ok.

I sipped my whiskey and met Virginia Woolf’s eyes. She was plain and beautiful to me—a goddess of words. What would those eyes think of our world, I wondered? I’d written an essay in university about her stream-of-consciousness technique in Mrs. Dalloway. The non-stop flow of thought made me like a fish swimming in the river of Mrs. Dalloway’s mind, easy and liquid. When I learned how Woolf committed suicide, I romanticized her walk into the water, pictured the moonlight rippling across the waves. I watched her remove her hat and place it neatly on the bank before she filled her pockets with stones. I looked at her portrait on the wall and wondered if she felt relief when the water finally embraced her.

I ordered another whiskey, toasted the two women, sent them gratitude for their music and their words. The whisky wore away my anger the same way wind and waves smooth stones. By last call, I’d gone through two more glasses and Kate and Virginia whispered it was time to go home. I staggered from my stool back into the cold night. I walked and walked until I passed the corner store a block from my apartment. Three men stood hunched in their jackets, smoking. They turned to me, eyes narrowed, smirking as I passed. My back bristled like a cat’s does when it sees a dog. I worried they’d follow me down the dark street, so I walked with my eyes full of fire, emanating destruction.

At home, I peeled off my clothes and lay on my bed, the whole world spinning. I popped a melatonin and pulled the blankets over my head like a shield, waiting to slip into dreams. I felt my anger settle down inside me like silt at the bottom of a river.

“Goodnight, Alexa.”

“Goodnight.”

* * *

“As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.”

– Virginia Wolf

After I fell asleep, my inside eye opened up. I hovered high above a riverbank, bordered by fat blades of grass shimmering with morning dew. Beside the river lay a golden field, and further on stood a dark forest, so dense even the sun couldn’t penetrate its tangled growth.

While gazing down at the river, a feeling of knowing came over me; I knew that for centuries the name imposed by humankind on this river was ‘Thames’; but I felt the river’s heartbeat, recognized the diastolic and parabolic rhythm of convergence: the mighty Euphrates, McKenzie, Nile, Amazon, streams, and even tiny, nameless creeks where children jump from side to side all flowed together here, each a part of and the same as the other.

I saw in the distance, under pale-blue clouds that looked like ice, two women approaching each other along the riverbank. My mind’s eye zoomed in closer, and I recognized Virginia Woolf, her hair coiled into a knot, laced tight into a black dress, clenching a book in one hand. The other woman was Kate Bush, her bare feet hovering just above the ground, her long brown hair worn loose in waves down her back; her pale purple gown, as fine as gossamer, streamed behind her even though there was no wind. A litter of golden puppies followed behind her, tumbling and yelping, relishing the scent of fish and fresh grass.

I felt Kate’s songs alive in her body and, as she moved, music played from her pores and rustled the silks of her dress. And even though she walked toward Kate, Virginia’s eyes never left the flow of the river; her mind a great light that flashed through her eyes like a beacon.

As the two women’s fingertips touched in greeting, a raven flew from the sky and landed gently on the bridge of their joined hands.

At the sound of a gun cocking, the raven flew away, its caws reverberating through the open sky.

I saw the soldiers coming before the women could turn to see them. I screamed but no sound came out. Hordes of soldiers were emerging from the forest, some turning to the left, some to the right, in flank formation. So many men marched out from the bowels of the wood that the fields turned to mud. The soldiers dropped and writhed forward, crawling over each other, not caring who suffocated under their weight. I heard the sucking sound as their limbs pulled up out of the dark soup of earth and I felt a terror as hundreds upon hundreds more pushed ahead, some wielding bayonets, some legless, some with hollowed out holes where their eyes should’ve been, some with faces melted by gas. Swastika. Sickle. Maple Leaf. They all crawled steadily through the mud.

“They’ll crawl on never stopping over me over you and all the world over I have stones in my pockets I could throw to save us but then we join them at their own game and we are all of us lost,” Virginia said.

Kate gripped Virginia’s hand tighter, “Save your stones. I have hope that we can make it all well . . .”

Kate knelt and reached out for the soldier nearest her. A bullet hole in the front of his jacket leaked blood, thick and viscous. She pulled him to her breast, pressed his mud caked face to the crook of her neck which I imagined smelled like apples and sweet, warm milk from his mother’s breast. The man collapsed in Kate’s arms and she held him tight. Soldiers the whole field over sighed as one, as if remembering a time before they were angry men, moving at the whim of governments, remembering a time before conscious thought, when they were held and rocked by their own mothers, and all was safe and well. The soldier in Kate’s arms closed his eyes like a child, his lashes caressed her cheeks. His arms slackened and he dropped his gun.

As the gun hit the ground, it fired, the sound ricocheting over the muddy field. The noise woke the soldiers from their rest. The puppies surrounding Kate barked and bared their teeth. I didn’t see where the first bullet came from, but it pierced the side of the largest pup and its side burst open in a splay of blood and bone. It rolled, squealing, onto its back. The soldier pulled away from Kate and raised his gun. One by one the dogs fell until even Kate’s feet sank into the mud, covered in blood and fur. Whimpers of pain. Silence.

Kate turned to Virginia and asked, “Where do you go when you have lost hope?”

Virginia took Kate’s hand, walked her into the water where she’d been headed the whole time. She understood the inevitable draw of the deep, the peace it could bring. They touched foreheads and gazed into the river. In the ripples, they saw the faces of other women undulating in the current; the faces of women the world over who had looked into rivers and lakes, ponds and streams, through time immemorial. Women who had lost their loves, their children and their families to war and to lies and despair. The women’s tears joined with the great river and made them one.

Kate and Virginia held each other, the sour smell of blood and decay in their nostrils. The spirit women rose out of the water and shielded Kate and Virginia from the tidal army by twining their bodies around them like a vine of roses.

The soldiers continued their march toward the river, relentless in the shadow of the setting sun and the women’s arms reached out from the depths for them too and as more and more soldiers entered the water the river swelled over its banks reaching with wet fingers and embraced them all come to bed yes sleep here in our bed yes.

As the last man sank into the water, the raven swooped and cawed. I watched the clouds burst open and wash the land clean.

I felt time passing in a way that can’t be measured. Time went by until the water began to gurgle and churn, and I heard voices welling up from the deep.

Waking up in my room was like swimming toward the surface, the sun a rippled, beckoning orb. I fanned my arms and kicked, desperate for air.

Who but the river knew what would emerge?