SONG OF THE SORRIES
The messages of grief first appeared in the small places. They appeared in the hidden places, the places of microscopic tenderness, the places of secret communication and lost love. In the bathroom stalls and the church message boards, in the chat rooms, the message rang out, the cry of a wounded spirit.
“I’M SORRY,” scrawled in red lipstick, arranged in black-and-white letters, drawn with pencil on the school desks.
Students sitting in their seats received a folded piece of notebook paper. “I’m sorry,” scrawled in chickenscratch, delivered unsigned. A message appeared from an unknown contact, coming through on the hidden waves of light. “I’M SORRY.” When the recipient replied, to interrogate, “What do you mean? What are you sorry for?” no response would return. The messages continued in this way for some time, stapled to the telephone poles, graffitied on the bus stops. People would be standing in a crowded public space, when a stranger would walk up to them, lean in close, and whisper “I’m sorry,” before disappearing into the anonymous mass.
The messages increased slowly in strength. Letters arrived at people’s mailboxes, with no return address, the inside scrawled with red pencil, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Parrots at the pet shops broke out into a squawking chorus of sorries as pedestrians passed. It was chalked on the sidewalks, carved into the trees, trimmed into the hedges. As you walked the streets of the city, you’d pass a homeless man, screaming into the sky, “I’M SORRY!! I’M SORRY!!” His eyes bloodshot, his hands shaking, he would sink to his knees, his face in his hands.
Sorry voicemails began appearing. When reviewed, a clear voice spoke the magic words. Telemarketers and spam callers began saying their sorries and then hanging up. As you drove through residential streets, you saw the sorry mown into lawns, painted onto garage doors, nailed with planks across the windows. Teammates in your video game spoke their sorries into the microphone and then disconnected. Company-wide emails bearing no sender circulated the sorry through the arteries of business. In the museums of the grieving nation, typewriters began spontaneously reproducing the sorry for no-one. “IMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRY.” Telegraph machines disconnected from any power source began beeping the message in Morse code. “IM SORRY. STOP. IM SORRY. STOP.”
Birds began singing sorries in the trees. Ambulances and police cars sped across the highways of the city, their sirens repeating “I’M SORRY. I’M SORRY. I’M SORRY,” in a harsh, distorted tone. Call 911 and you’d hear the tart voice of a dispatcher saying “I’m sorry.” and hanging up.
The phrase ceased to have any meaning whatsoever. After only a few short weeks of the madness, normalization took its toll, changing “I’m sorry” from an expression of remorse to a common greeting. Young businessmen stood in tall towers having meetings, thrusting out their hands, “Nice to meet you. I’m Paul. I’m sorry.” “Well met! I’m sorry.” Across the room, sorries were traded like cards, passed around like breath mints, peppering the air with a sorry here and a sorry there.
Young couples met in the parks, one getting down on one knee, opening the ring, saying to their partner, “Anne, I’m sorry. Will you marry me?” Anne jumping for joy, “I’m sorry too! Of course!”
The sorry became a way of life. Even the most disturbed soon forgot the time before the sorry. So it was in the grieving city. All were possessed. None escaped the grief rising through the grates, the sorrow raining from the sky, the regret gushing from the reservoirs.
The sorry was growing in strength. Soon it was seen in the clouds above the city, a bare “I’M SORRY” formed in vapor against an uncertain sky. The geese flew overhead in sorry formation. Crop sorries appeared in the fields, gasoline sorries burned on the asphalt, sorry murals climbed up the walls of every building, their psychedelic colors covering the windows, washing the city in paisley.
Fighter jets with wailing engines screamed sorry in transgression of the sound barrier. Squadrons of civilian aircraft flew long sorry banners in all the airspaces above the city, painting the sky a patchwork quilt of grief. Strange people ran through the city, shouting their sorries through megaphones, singing sorry songs, yelling sorry chants in the stadiums. The teenagers hung out of their cars yelling their sorries at one another as they raced through the streets. The restaurants served sorry sandwiches, the patrons in the bars drank down sorry triple-sec. The radios only played songs of grief, number one hits with all their lyrics removed, replaced only with the song of the sorries.
The sorry storms began. Sorries in lightning across the sky, followed by thunder sorries which toppled buildings like God’s blunderbuss. The city was coming apart. The sorry rain started, and never ended. Rivers of sorry floated in the streets. Sorry earthquakes struck the city, splitting the streets apart into sorry cliffs. The sorry fires burned throughout the city. People began having sorry heartattacks and breaking their sorry legs. They were drowning, drowning in the sorry ocean.
A booming voice was yelling all night and day through the terror. “I’M SORRY!” Boom. Lightning. “I’M SORRY!” Boom. Thunder. “I’M. SORRY!!!” Fireworks exploding throughout the city, gunshots ringing in the streets. The whole world was crying, the whole world was sorry.
A boy knelt in the rain on an exposed patch of earth.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sorry sunflower seed he had bought from the store.
Carefully, amidst the lightning and thunder, he pawed his hands at the dirt, removing the earth slowly.
He placed the seed inside the hole, gently replacing the dirt, patting it with his hands, giving it the love it needed to grow.
Finally, he bent down to the seed, his face inches from the bare earth, and kissed the place where it rest.
“I forgive you.”
A shockwave of relief rushed through the city, a pleasing gust of warm air which pervaded every street and building. The song of the sorries quieted. A hushed silence fell over the city. Everything was quiet.
“I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you.”
The whispers rose in a chorus. The rain ceased. The lightning and thunder quieted. But a new rain fell, a rain from all the eyes of the city dwellers. The sun shone brightly. People swam through the streets on the rivers of tears, basking in the sunshine, shouting “I forgive you!” at passersby through their own tears.
In the hardware stores, in the barber shops, in the glass towers, in the art studios, in the factories and the slaughterhouses, in the west end, in the east end, all were crying, in the cars, in the planes, in the movie theaters and the restaurants, tears spilling out of the windows of the rowhouses and the buses, the forgiveness washing into every corner of the city with cooling magic.
The forgiving boy was crying too, his tears falling upon the sunflower. For 80 days he returned to the sunflower, his tears watering it, purer than any rain or river. For 80 days the city was forgiving. For 80 days the sun shone. For 80 days the flowers and the trees and the plants in the city grew without stopping. For 80 days, the sunflower grew steadily, sprouting into a seedling, growing up into a sapling, maturing into a beacon of hope.
After 80 days of forgiveness, the bloom was ready. Carefully the boy cut the sunflower and held it aloft to the sky.
“I forgive you!”
DEDICATED TO QUINN