Lucid Waking

Archive for October, 2008

Sunny Day

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Tuesday

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Blueberry and Cloth Nest

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Oak Tree

        I didn’t know what happened to her until very recently. I had heard songs about people going up in a blaze of glory or walking away, leaving. In fact, she was just missing one day. One gentleman had seen her to bed and then no one saw her the next morning. Or the morning after that. They found her almost a year later walking near the edge of the frozen sea in January, but that was it. Police gave up the case and now she’s a ghost story. I’m the only one that saw her after that day and even I don’t know where she is.
        I was one of her many gentleman callers, and she’d always been non-decisive about anything I threw her way. She never said yes to a second date, flowers, candy, or marriage. She never really said yes to anything. She was enchanting, bewitching, but she never said anything of real merit. The more you shared about yourself, the more she’d agree, but the less you knew about her. I was naive and connected with her the longest—seven months. It was only after spotting her with someone else at the movies that I finally gave up. It was a week after that when she disappeared.
        I remember one night when we went walking through the forest. She was more of a mist gliding through than actually walking at my side. I remember thinking she seemed possessed by the full moon. She never connected with me and wandered listlessly through the trees. She was wearing a white sweater, so she was easy to spot when she wandered into the darkness but at certain points her legs and head would disappear and she became a floating torso with porcelain hands. She usually had her hair licorice hair in a bun. Her green eyes were lifeless, but she was alert. I asked her if she wanted to go back, but she declined.
        “I’m all right,” she said, but she didn’t smile. “But can’t you hear the screams?”
        The forest was silent, so I said I couldn’t.
        “Oh,” she said quietly. “Am I crazy? I keep hearing cries of help.”
        “No,” I said. Shivers went up and down my spine. I reached for her hand, but she moved away to the side of the path before I could reach it.
        “It gets louder when I go this way.”
        “Then why are you going that way?” I said, irritated. I was scared, but I didn’t want to admit it. Part of my irrational thinking was that I, the male, should not be scared while she, the female, was obviously not frightened about the voices in her head. I heard her foot snap a twig and then a groan of creaking wood. I called out her name, but she didn’t answer. Her sweater was a gray shadow in the darkness. I told her we should leave, but there was silence. I couldn’t see her. I called her name again, but I was greeted with the same silence. Then an owl hooted, a wolf howled, and the strange creaking sounded again. A twig snapped near me. I called her name cautiously into the dark, but nothing answered me. Not even the wind. Then I turned around and ran. I ended up in the police station, panting, and tried to tell my story in a sane manner. They said they would check for her in the morning, but they ended up finding her in her house fast asleep. She never brought up why I left her or what happened, and everything seemed to go back to normal.
        Then she disappeared. I read about it in the paper. The man who had last seen her was suspect for her kidnap, but I knew him and he wouldn’t have even considered it. He had no motive and no ideas on how to go about such a thing. Then I heard about her on the beach spotted by two lovers who were out that night. It happened to have been a full moon.
        The next month I went back into the forest. It was during the day when I estimated where I had stopped and ran back. With the sun streaming down, it was nothing special. I knew if I could conquer my fears during the daylight, when I saw her ghost at night, I we be calmer.
        A little ways off from the path was an old oak tree with scarlet leaves. As brown is usually the color of oak leaves, I stepped forward and touched the bark. It didn’t feel different. Acorns were still surrounding the roots of the tree and a squirrel looked down at me when I looked up into the foliage. I considered that it was the tree asking for her help that night, but it didn’t speak to me. It didn’t even say anything to me that night when I approached it again with a flashlight. The acorns, however, did glow with their own inner light looking much like a Christmas tree.
        “Oh, hello Robert,” the familiar voice said from behind me. She came up and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Isn’t it pretty?”
        “Yes,” I said. Then after a polite amount of time had past I asked, “Where have you been?”
        “Nowhere,” she said, surprised.
        “Is this the tree that was in pain?” I asked.
        She smiled. “You still remember that after all these years?”
        She moved forward and reached for my cheek.
        “It’s good to see you,” she said.
        I didn’t know what to say. “Why don’t we go back?”
        She shook her head. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
        She stepped forward towards the tree and started to sing. The wood creaked and a crack in the bottom of the tree that I hadn’t noticed before spread and widened so that it was a doorway. She stepped inside of it and then turned around, sadness obvious in her eyes.
        “I always loved you most,” she said. “I’m sorry to see you go.”
        “What do you mean?” I asked stepping forward to grab her arm one more time as if touching her would fix all of our problems. Even if she didn’t think I changed, she certainly had and I longed to start over. But I didn’t reach her before the tree shut and cut off the space between us. I stood there reaching for the tree for a few seconds, my spirits dropping and my ears soaking in the silence. The acorns still glowed blue even at my feet. I tried to sing what she had sung, but the tree wouldn’t open for me. So I left. A few sequential months after that I went back and tried to see her again, but that was it. I hadn’t said the right things, amended things, changed. I wasn’t who…or what…I was supposed to be.
        It’s not really my fault. I’m still not sure what it all means. But I’m still trying to figure it all out.

Wonderwall by the Brad Mehldau Trio

She had a red Ferrari,
He a limousine.
And though her car was sporty,
She was as smooth as he had seen.

She walked like ice cream melting,
Smelled like honey in the grass.
And though her dress was plain,
She always had high class.

She never drew a crowd,
He walked and people stared.
And though she wanted this attention,
He never seemed to care.

He lived beyond his means,
She far below the line.
And though they’d never met before,
For their friends, it was about time.

(Listen to it)