The New Pornographer

They tell me I’m a writer. I don’t know how true that is. I don’t feel much of anything now. But there is something i need to do tonight, something i need to say to you. and writing it down in clumsy words is the only way i know how.

It begins with a woman on a bicycle. and I love her, not that you would know of course. to you she is simply the woman on the bike. She’s almost old by the time you get to meet her (nearly 52). She pedals along, thin soft hair lifting in the breeze, washed out shirt pressing against her skin gently. She’s on her way to meet a friend. The bike she rides is her daughter’s, and she carries an orange bag, slung from shoulder, bouncing on her hip. She’s looking up at the trees, watching the sun tremble through leaves.

Any moment now she’s going to die…you see there’s a bus headed her way, and it just won’t be able to stop in time. It will scream and screech and mark the road in black, but it will Simply Not Stop. Not until it has met her at any rate.

When it hits her, skidding, weighted, it lifts her body - rag doll like and helpless - and throws her up high. by this time the terrible rush of adrenaline, the split second of sheer terror is past and i imagine her floating slowly through the air, barely a thought in her head, until the road, hard, merciless, sharp rushes to meet her.

Long after they take her away, people driving by will see her blood, spilt like wine, red on the ground.

And like that, so simply, on a normal sunny sunday, she was taken from us.

All i have is the memory of her on the rocks at Unawatuna, dressed in red and gold, the only priest Suda and I would accept as we got married. I remember her asking us to come and stay with her, in her big rambling, beautiful house in greenpath. We would sit outside on the green bench together, go for walks, talk for hours and eat at her table. I have cried in her arms and held her as she has cried in mine. I have heard her laugh, shared her exultation and her despair, made friends of her friends, family of her family. She has shared my life and I hers…and that is the closest I can come to explaining it - we have helped each other Live.

Now that she is gone, I look and see not a single gap or a gaping hole to complain of, instead the whole fabric of my life seems to be unraveling, gently, inexorably as i struggle to hold the edges together. You see, this is the first time someone I really loved has died and i’m tired of coping. Perhaps I’ll get better with practice.

Thisula Abeysekera, 52, mother, wife, friend, lover, confessor, gardener, counselor, landlady, painter, priest, companion, musician…when someone asked her if i was her daughter, she would always say, “as good as”.

She left a lot of us behind, her brood of surrogate children - now orphaned and strangely homeless. We’re all living at greenpath now. Huddling together, drawing comfort and support from each other. Sharing stories, and stupid jokes and singing loudly in the garden. It’s exactly the kind of party Thisula would like to go to. It’s where i want to stay for a while, it’s where you can find me if you’d like to. If you have the time, we could tell you a story or two.

in the meantime, all i can offer you is this.

There was a woman, and she was beautiful and i loved her and now she’s dead…

and the night goes on, the stars reel, the gardenia bloom, the computer hums, my eyes blur and I ache and I ache….