The Rocking Chair


"Amos. Amos! Wake up now Amos. Day's a wasting. Land sake now, Amos. Sun's been up for almost a good full hour
and there you lay just a usin' up what precious little time the good Lord gave you."

Amos Martin opened his eyes slowly. He had slept fitfully, disturbed by confusing dreams, and their uneasy feelings
lingered. Annie was right. The sun was well up. It poured in through the open blinds, cutting a sparkling swath through
floating particles of dust, settling warmly on the old floral print wall paper that had been in the bedroom ever since they'd
bought the house. Forty-two years of loving and living together and this simple room hadn't changed a bit. Same old
plain pine chest-of-drawers and night tables that he called "coffin wood junk" and his wife called antiques; same old
threadbare woven throw rugs covering the hardwood floor.

"You need something honest and easy to return to in this life." That was Annie's reason for keeping their bedroom an
oasis of familiar comfort in an otherwise changing world. They had spent their first night together in it, just the way it
was now. Amos suspected his wife's memories ran a little deeper than his own. Women feel things ways men just weren't
made to. But when he gave it the thought, he knew she was right. He was as happy as a man was meant to be. It was
nice to have something to hold on to.

"Amos, I declare! Your eyes are open but I swear you're still asleep. Don't you leave me here talking to myself." Annie
reached down and tugged his pillow out from under his head and gave it a solid thwack with the palm of her hand. A
fresh burst of glittering dust was released, swirling to the energetic rhythm of her mock anger in the streaming sunlight.
Amos smiled, the memory of a long edgy nightmare began to evaporate.

So it had just been a bad dream. "Have a snack too late at night, expect your dreams to run a fright." Annie had a
couplet of wisdom for every occasion. She used to lay that one on their son Benjamin when he was little and tried the
timeless childhood ruse of faked hunger to stall off bedtime. Amos tried to think back to what he had eaten before bed,
but could not with any certainty. Probably a couple of Annie's fresh baked Schmecken rolls. Even if he wasn't hungry they
were always too good to pass up.

"Come get breakfast 'fore it's too late. May have to warm it you lazy bag of bones. Abraham crowed an hour ago."

Amos pictured their old rooster strutting majestically along the top rail of the wooden fence that kept their few cows
from grazing the yard. "Haven't we eaten him yet? Soon be too tough to enjoy."

"Amos! For pity sake, what a terrible thing to say. You know I can cook anything to just as tender as mercy. Now let's
get a move on."

At face value some would call it "nagging" or, if they felt the need to be modern and vulgar, "bitching." But Amos knew
that these manifestations of Annie's wit and humor were too grounded in love to be considered either. It was just her
way of expressing affection and need, of drawing him out and into her life whenever he grew withdrawn.

"Now Annie, you know I'm just shucking. Old Abe is like family. I could no more take him to the block than I could old
Gurdy." Gertrude was the name Annie had given the large stupid bird that had been their turkey up until last
Thanksgiving.

"I declare, Amos, if you get any more sour you'll start to curdle. Where's the kind and gentle man I married?"

Amos could recall Annie in her wedding dress with a vividness that dimmed the present, her long red hair painstakingly
braided with white ribbons and fine yellow rosebuds. Fresh, flushed and achingly lovely. Nervous. Excited. All his. No, only
almost his. An open challenge. Always a challenge.

Suddenly, Amos saw another much older likeness dressed in formal grey, laid calm in a narrow bed of satin and lilies, her
complexion sallow beneath artificial rouges that she normally eschewed. She had always shunned makeup when she was
alive. The thought blew through him like a December draft from an open door.

"Amos! You gone again already. If the Lord had wanted me to be alone he would have made me a spinster."

Amos looked with relief into the hazel eyes and upon the natural aged beauty of the woman he loved. "I'm sorry. Got
something on my mind, can't seem to work through. Sounds silly, but I can't even say exactly what it is."

"You're getting old and lazy. That's what it is. You need more to do, and less to stew. I got a house full of chores to fix
what ails you mister."

Annie was right as usual. He should have never shared out all the land. Next year he'd keep forty just to putter on, plant
beans, maybe subcontract hogs again. An empty barn is a sad place for sure.

"Had a funny dream last night. Wish I could remember. Everything in it was so fuzzy. Everything except this sound that
is."

"What sound was that Amos?" Annie had the wisdom to know when to push and when to pull.

Amos thought. "Kind of a hard creaking sound. Back and forth. Real slow rhythm."

Annie's laugh sounded like the unsuccessfully suppressed giggles of a little girl. "You fell asleep in your old rocker down in
front of the television. Coaxing you to bed was like trying to make a mule walk backwards."

Amos tried harder to recall. He had been in his rocking chair. Oddly, it had still been with him when everything else he
owned was gone. And yes, there had been a TV on last night, but a large color box, not his small black-and-white RCA.
He could hear the vibrating blare of canned laughter, meandering musical themes and the gibberish of many accents, but
could not remember any particular program. The channels were constantly changing, and pastel women kept interrupting
him with annoying, mindless requests.

"Go to the bathroom now." a voice would order. Or, "Swallow now," and something sweet with a very bitter aftertaste
would be spooned into his mouth.

There had been others present, lots of others, strangers like him, background people, lost and broken, full of silent
suffering. Some not so silent. It had been a starkly lit place full of gaudy colored vinyl and chrome, where a stale tobacco
smell lingered beneath another that was both antiseptic and dirty.

This had not been his comfortable den with its oak trim, soft yellow table lighting, subdued earth tones and the warm
musty smell of decaying parchment.

"Annie," Amos said more to himself than to his wife, "I am glad we've always gone to church."

Her eyes spoke of sympathy and understanding. Her silence bade him continue.

"I believe that in my dream I died and that the Lord showed me Hell last night." Amos paused to collect the experience in
a way Annie could comprehend. "It was a very bad place, different than I would have expected. Even worse maybe. It was
a place of endless humiliation and boredom."

Amos thought he saw an unstated question pass across Annie's face. This was not the Hell she had been taught to fear.

Amos tried to clarify for her. "There was not even the variety of night and day, just the same nothingness played over
and over. But you know what was worst of all?" He began to shake as the horror of it became clear in his own mind.

Annie took his hand to steady it, but still did not interrupt.

"The worst thing about it was the total lack of privacy, and... " Amos paused, knowing what he was about to say
contradicted itself. "... and the utter loneliness of it." Amos stopped to stifle a sob which threatened to break his voice.

Annie sat down next to where he lay, the feel of the mattress sagging, drawing him in her direction, strangely satisfying.

"It isn't like that," she finally spoke. "Only life is sometimes like that." Her voice had taken on an authority, a somber
surety that was new to him.

Amos again looked up into Annie's face. She was smiling now. It made her look younger and even more beautiful than
ever. The window with the sun full in it was behind her, yet did not make him squint or hurt his eyes. Instead it cast a
bright halo around her, framing her features in a glorious flame of harmonic light patterns. Then she was leaning over
him. No, he was sitting up, rising up effortlessly towards her. Then he knew that they would always be together.

Chris Miller