endings

Finished Falling Man this morning and thinking about endings. How DeLillo goes back to the beginning.

The other ending that has accompanied me these last months is Spike Lee’s, in The 25th Hour. It’s imagined, projected far into the future of the man about to enter prison. It’s a long, breathtaking sequence, beautifully wrought, haunting. The fullness of its rendering makes the reality all the more bleak and terrifying and sad.

For a long time I thought I knew how this book would end. Now, I come to it every morning with only the flimsiest of ideas. I have the recurring image of a woman sitting by the bedside of a man in the hospital. Is it her father? Her lover? The man she comes to despise? I wonder where the image has come from. A film? A dream? I see it so clearly, the room, shadowy and dark. The bed near the door, a curtain behind it. They are alone in the room. He is not conscious. She reads to him, speaks. She tells him the story of their lives, together. How it might go, might have gone. Imagined, impossible?

There is more I am trying to say this morning, but the words won’t come. Thoughts are disconnected and diffuse. I watch the minutes pass, so little to show for the time. I like to think there is work being done even as my conscious mind resists and frets. Meanwhile, traffic picking up on the highway. I can hear it. Meanwhile, the sky is bright now, the heart lifts, the day beckons.