Conversation on autumn afternoon By david r. trevithick They stood beside the bed where he lay dying. Where, rather, the flesh lay dead and ready for the earth. But the heart would not be quiet, and the tired eyes still shown with something that is of this life. They fumbled for words and spoke with feigned animation, for they were embarrassed saying things that they knew were not true, telling what men call "white lies" to hide the nearness of the grave. He heard them through with weary patience, keeping his face turned to the window and his thin hands lying in the sun. When they were done, he said: "Your speaking as you have recalls our bedside family conversation before my father died. It will soon be ten years. All during his illness we said hopeful things, at first because we partly believed and partly wanted to believe what we said, at the end because we thought it would make death easier. He understood then as I do now that frankness about the approach of death is considered brutal, even by those who profess to see the fullest prospects of happiness in the life beyond. "I believe in the existence of a future state that will be pleasant to those who are just and kind; but if I had been given a year ago free choice between this world and another, I would have chosen to remain here. Now, I don't mind dying. In fact, I'm dead already. When the doctors took my legs they took my life. Much of what the world calls happi-ness I have known little or not at all: bridge, teas, concerts, cocktail parties, dances. But I did know some solider pleas-ures that I should hate to leave if my spirit were not bound to mutilated flesh. I've felt the sun and the snow, seen the mountains and the stars, heard the wind and the rain. Out of those experiences I've drawn materials to make up a world of dreams; my life during the past ten months has been a mosaic built of memories. "It was January fourteenth that I fell. The agony of amputation made me think of my body until I became numb I got away whenever I could, returning only when some pain made me remember that I was still not technically dead. Through the winter months I skied and coasted and skated and hunted rabbits. I called at your houses, and we took our horses and guns and dogs and went off into the hills. We rode and walked through deep soft snow and drank steaming coffee from thermos bottles. The sun glittered on the fresh flakes; the dogs ran with their tongues out; the horses breathed great clouds of steam like dragons in story books. Then we went home and lay luxuriously in a deep warm bath and had a good meal. Afterward we read and then went to bed, exquisitely tired." They scoffed at him gently and offered fresh testimonies of belief in his recovery, but he gave them no attention. The sun slid down from his chest and lay across the stumps that recalled his legs. When they had finished realizing finally that their words were futile he led them back into his world of imagining. "When spring came we did all sorts of things. Sometimes we searched the foothills for wild flowers. My sister liked me to bring her seven stars and buttercups. Sometimes we would spend a whole afternoon on a sunny slope when the earth steamed and there were piles of snow in depressions that sent countless tiny streams to help make the dirty river that roared and frothed down the canyon below. Sometimes we threw things down abandoned mine shafts and explored deserted bunk houses with the windows knocked out and tumbling down engine rooms, rich with the odor of rats and the past. We played with machines that were run by men who got consumption early and have long since been coffin dust. We went in old tunnels and felt the dampness and chill of the earth. "Sometimes we hiked and hunted and watched our dogs chase all sorts of frightened things. Always we took potatoes and roasted them in deep coals or fried them over a sagebrush fire. Sometimes we did things around home like sitting up against the sunny side of the barn and letting our bodies soak up the soft warmth of the sun while we read Zane Grey and chased bandits and made ourselves sick on the imagined sweetness of stolen cigarettes. At plowing time when the soil was turned up fresh and steaming, we flung ourselves belly downward and smelled the sweet fragrance of the earth. When the seed was planted and had begun to sprout, we discussed the mysteries of beginning life. "At night we went to dances around the country. We got out of the house on some pretext and sat in front of the pool hall and listened to romantic tales of far-wandering told by Frisco Jack and others who had gone out beyond our hills. Or we would walk with our girls and talk of marriage and success and try to imagine how far it is from the top of Mount Timpanogos to the stars. "In summer we knew fewer of the delights of just getting drunk on the sights and sounds and smells of the world, for we worked hard and had less time to indulge merely in pleasures of the senses. The work we did though was of the sort that people are meant to do, for it brought on a feeling of delicious tiredness and by contrast made rest more meaningful. We felt our muscles grow and our bodies strengthen. Sometimes there was the scent of fresh clover and of rain on hot earth. On holidays we fished and camped out and smelled the mingled fragrance of pine and sage. "These past two months I have been living again all my autumns, the hours we spent together and those I spent alone. When you came in you called me back from wandering through the hills over there. It has always been the time of year most enjoyable for me. Since the season opened, I've gone hunting every day. Sometimes I've come back from marshes cold and wet and hungry, but never unhappy. Yesterday the four of us tramped miles across the flats and up and down all the hills. We sat and watched the leaves fall, stood in long bewilderment before a wilderness of color. A week ago we threshed grain, dug potatoes, wrestled in a field of new-mown hay. Together we have gone back to school again and seen old friends and new faces. When you were busy I've stood long in the sun to soak up as much as I could before the snow came. Tomorrow I'm going out with my gun and dog. (Continued on page 2 1 Page Eight DRYPOINT Page Nine