The Griffin on the Ceiling by Melanie Rose Huff

There is a griffin on my ceiling. As I lie in bed I can see it—wings spread wide, just springing into the air from a jutting rock, the muscles on its leonine hind legs bunched from its leap, all raw power and feline grace, the feathers on its head burnished bronze, glowing in the light of an invisible sun.

I can see the landscape around it when I close my eyes. In the foreground the mountain slopes, bare rock patched with snow, giving way to pine forests below. I can smell the pines and the snow, sharp and cold. In the distance a green plain stretches far, far away… seemingly all the way to the setting sun. The sky is fuchsia and rose and lavender, fading to blue at the edges where I can just see the pinpricks of the first stars.

I have told the nurse about the griffin on the ceiling, though not about the rest. One cannot tell people everything, I’ve learned. The way they look at you changes.

The nurse smiled when I told her. A sad smile, with a weight of pity behind it.

“Oh yes, I never noticed that before,” she said, a little too brightly. I closed my eyes and smelled the pines. The griffin watched me with his wild bird gaze.

My parents arrive later. I hear them come into the room but I keep my eyes closed. I stand beside the griffin on the rock. His great, fierce head rests against my shoulder. A machine beeps in the background of my mind and I hear the nurse arrive.

“She has such a vivid imagination. She was telling me about that water-stain on the ceiling earlier, how it looked like some kind of bird creature.”

A griffin, I think. “Some bird creature” indeed! Beside me, the griffin ruffles its feathers and makes a small huffing sound in my ear.

“She looks like an angel,” says the nurse. “I hate to wake her but I have to check her vitals.”

I roll my eyes a little behind my eyelids. I wonder why people only say that when you lie still and weak and empty. I feel sure angels are active beings. How could you not be, with wings?

I feel the brush of a feather against my cheek as I obediently open my eyes.

The nurse needs to draw some blood. I look up at the image of the griffin on the ceiling as the needle goes in, then watch the blood as it is pulled out of my vein and into the vial, warm and red and alive. She pulls out the needle and I reach over automatically with my other hand to apply pressure to the gauze while she tears off a length of tape to wrap around my arm. This is why they like me here. I do what needs to be done. I feel the griffin’s impatience with this cold, metallic world and its sharp, sterile scent of disinfectant and sorrow, and I smile a little. Me too, my friend, I think, much better the pines and the snow.

The doctor comes in later, asks me questions, talks to my parents, says my vitals are stable. I can go home tomorrow. I can continue with my usual treatment schedule. I know I should feel glad, but all I feel is tired, and homesick for a mountainside no one else in this room has seen.

I sleep that night under the griffin’s wing, cradled by his warmth, at peace—and when I wake I keep my eyes closed as long as possible to hold on to the moment, to keep out the noise and bright light waiting for me on the other side of my eyelids.

I know if I asked, the griffin would carry me. We would fly across the plain, free and wild and whole. But I can’t go. Not yet.

As I open my eyes I feel the soft touch of a wingtip, like a kiss. Like a promise.

END

Melanie Rose Huff

Melanie Rose Huff is a writer, dancer, and choreographer exploring grief, healing, and connection through art.

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