The Remark

"All we do is sit around and let our hair grow." He said it quietly, no emotion that he was aware of in his heart or gut, so no emotion in his voice.

Mike wasn't sure himself whether the remark was also a complaint. He knew he felt some satisfaction with the quiet routine of his life. Then, again, whatever happened to that drive to make the world a better place?

Introspection, as brief as his own remark, was over. He picked up the Sunday Times. His fascination with world politics was as strong as it had ever been, but now he absorbed the information as an avid chess player absorbs the moves in a tournament, with no sense of moral outrage or social indignation.

It was Margaret who provoked Mike's remark by commenting that his beard and her hair were equally in need of a cutting edge. She busily refolded an afghan onto the back of the sofa, then sorted out the room's newspapers. Margaret had always loved Mike as much as she did that very day. His remark made her smile. She loved his wry humor.

To Margaret the remark was funny because neither one of them ever just sat around with nothing to do. Both Mike and Margaret retired and now worked full-time second careers, work they did because they both loved their work, wanted to work. Their young grandchildren visited often and delighted in the love and attention and teaching Mike and Margaret poured into every minute of those visits. With a home to maintain, an Irish Setter who demanded play time, and all the sundries that a life such as theirs required, nothing to do seemed no immediate threat to Margaret.

The phone rang, Margaret answered. When Mike was reading he never heard or saw her, so focused as he always was. Turning pages gave his mind the chance to take in his surroundings. As he turned from page three, looking for the continuation of an article on what was promised to be page sixteen, he heard Margaret laughing. "All we do is sit around and let our hair grow." She often repeated his humorous remarks to other people. He briefly wondered to whom she was talking, not that he much cared. He became aware of a coldness in his gut.

Mike was habitually honest with himself and with others. Men who are both honest and reasonable are few. Mike usually decided what he would feel. He could not decide. He could not determine the choices. He could not find any feelings.

The continuation of the article was not found. Mike folded the paper away. He looked at his bride of thirty-five years. For an instant he didn't recognize her. Margaret as more actively engaged in listening than in talking. She became aware of Mike looking at her and briefly glanced up at him with that same bright and adoring smile she had been flashing at him since they first met.

Mike watched her as she continued listening to the long-winded person on the other end of the phone. The cold feeling inside him became something akin to pain. He walked into the kitchen as the feeling welled larger, filling his stomach and chest, making his chest feel tight.

He heard a low baritone voice sigh, "oh-o-oh," a long, lingering sound. He was vaguely surprised, but then his natural predisposition to label whatever he experienced took over, and his brain told him, "That's what a void sound likes!"

His brain wondered where the sound had come from, then Mike realized it had come from himself. Panic temporarily replaced the painful cold of his guts, but no on-looker would have guessed the turmoil inside him.

Mike put some ice-cubes into a glass. The dog pressed herself against Mike's leg. He gave her a pat.

Did he believe the world could be a better place? Absolutely. "Good." his brain told him, "the idealist is not dead, not dead." Small comfort, but enough to help him pour some ginger ale into the glass.

Should he be a causative agent in its betterment? Mike put the ginger ale bottle back into the refrigerator and wondered, "How can a man be what he should, if he's often tried, but never could?"

Margaret hung up at long last and tidied the living room a little more. She sat down to write a letter, but stopped after checking the calendar. It was the anniversary of the day, many years before, when she and Mike had been arrested together for participating in a human rights rally. Excitedly she went to tell him.

In the kitchen Margaret found the Irish Setter looking sadly at the door. She cleaned up the water that had sweated off a glass of still-cold ginger ale.

For a long time she read the newspapers. All the ones they had always read. The ones that she had stacked to put outside she reread many times. The answers didn't seem to be there. She read history, psychology, sociology, even self-help. The dog sat on the couch beside her, often laying her head in Margaret's lap.

"All we do is sit around and let our hair grow." It had seemed a joke. Now it was a savage joke.

Two years later Margaret cancelled all the newspaper subscriptions and stopped reading anything that wasn't fun or immediately useful. She was too busy with her grandchildren to read much anyway.

The grandchildren, now young adults, helped her arrange his funeral. It seemed he had done nothing but sit around and let his hair grow after he left. He had done a little handyman work, sat in the library but not read much, and grown older, alone, until he died. Only then did someone call the family.