Dreaming of another Life By James Hayes The car breaks down again, and the noise from under the bonnet reminds me of a deathbed cough as I drive to the side of the road. Feck this. I had my foot down as I drove to the Thatch Pub in Bally-common a place where them who have money like to live. The road is always smooth, each crack and pothole is filled as quickly as it appears, as the smoke from burnt oil comes from the car’s front, drowning the clean smell of Shannon. My shoes crunch on gravel as I walk, house lights can be seen over the ditches, and I go towards the house. As I get near the house, I see her clearly through one of the front windows, a slim woman with dark hair. She turns and peers through the glass with a questioning look on her face. I wave with a smile. She meets me at the door. You’re the mad-man in the Jag? That’s me, and as usually it has broken down. She stands at the opened door, with the smell of baking bread filling the air around her as she guides me inside. Things turn strange as I walk into the front room, it seams she is baking for an army, ever place that can hold a cake is full, even the dinning table is stacked high with baked bread. I like to bake she said, as she touches me above the elbow. All at once I see my life with this girl, laughing in this kitchen, long strolls along the banks of the Shannon, holding hands and kissing at the water’s edge… It’s a lifetime in one womanly touch. She smiles, my knees buckle a little. So what do you do, Jag man? I’m a writer, I say. I’m finishing a book just now, I hoped she like the way I said it, even if I was been a bit cocky. I catch a look of myself in the hall mirror, I look good; have not looked this good in years. Must be a dream I say to my-self. Then I hear the cry of a man through the darkness. She just smiles and says my ex. He lost a leg and most of his brain and sense. I could see in my mind, a man limping around talking to himself as he watched her from the road way, a little mad, This made me angry, I knew right then this woman needed someone to protect her. Pay no heed to him, he will go away when he get tired. The room seams to be moving as the walls begin to look like liquid. Two children walk into room; a boy with dark haired like me, and a girl who is a young version of the mother. Do you have children? Some say I do, I said smiling. The room seams to move. Next time I will stay longer. Next day I jumped up wide awake with my clothes still on. The darkness of my apartment seamed to surround me. I fell off my couch, limped to the balcony and smoked a cigarette as the wet air sent shivers down my spine. The dream’s images, debris of my past stacked into nonsense, stuck in my head. My Jag has cost me a lot more then money, as some would say, an arm and a leg. The Nenagh River, the last place I’d spent time with my dad. I remembered the boat oars in his hands as he propelled us across the water surface. I would love to own a house there, he’d said as he coughed, the lung cancer already bristling in his chest. It was one hell of a dream, I said to myself, especially the woman. The doctor told me that the pills could trigger colourful dreaming. I was expecting nightmares; if this was all they are doing to me I didn’t mind. I slammed the balcony door, stripped to my boxers as my stomach fell over my boxers, a growing ball of fat. The girl from my dream wouldn’t look at me in this life. I pictured her, and her curves. Asleep again Now a candle’s tiny flame sends lightning around her bedroom. We grab each other, two bodies merging under sheets of silk, as flashes of light blind me. Now in the darkness I hear her moan. Then, in a low and breathless whisper, she adds, my love. She slides off of me. I watch her body, then roll onto my side and pull her close to hold her a little longer. I love you, I say. The words sound loud, like thunder. She turns to me and smiles. Then I hear him again, the man crying, like a fox dying from the cold... He’s mad, he gets like that some nights, she says and smiles. We have to do something about him, I tell her. She kisses me and the time feels like hours. Next Day Nice shoes he said stepping over my gym bag, are they new? I bought them last year, I said. I read somewhere that they put more technology into a pair of modern running shoes than they did the first astronaut suits. It’s the same synthetic material. He picked up one of the. That’s why they’re so lightweight. And? Did you need something? We have to talk, it’s a mess. As he lectured me I thought about fishing with my dad, the way the boat rocked underneath us, the feel of wet air on my arms, the cold against my seat and my father’s peaceful look between coughs. Tim shut up. I nodded. Okay. You really have to double-check your work before you click submit. Right. Work Finished My head throbbed so I drove home in the dark, glad again it was Friday. Inside my apartment, I dropped the shoes next to my toilet door. Their soles were black as roofing tar. Not one speck of street dust or mud had tainted them since I bought them with a credit card that was now well over due. I washed my face and then opened a small bottle, shook out one blue pill and swallowed it with tap water. I hoped it sent me back to Bally-Common. Then I fell on the couch. Wake time My writing room is small and crammed with books. I spend the morning at my desk, drinking green tea and writing. Framed covers of my previous works adorn the walls, seven books; all of them have a gold bestseller seal in the lower right corner. Back to my dreams And in this dream I’m a bestselling writer – I knew I would make it... I want a cigarette, but I have none, life holds gives me so much to live for, not a bad place to live in. I put on a sweatshirt and went outside, the door bangs shut behind me as I start to jog. I start breathing deep; it was a man on T V who said this was the right way to breath. My chest expands; my lungs are full of oxygen as I run along the waters edge, and then cut through a patch of grass and onto the road. I walk to cool down, and then stroll to her house. She’s sitting on the step out side her front door, street address numbers, 999. I was hoping you’d come by today, she said. Her grin makes my heart pump more than the run did. She stands up and I wrap my arms around her. Home and awake I woke up numb. A haze of a morning light filled the room. Shit I had slept through the alarm, it wax then I realized it was Saturday. I got off the couch, stiff muscles resisting movement. I headed for the toilet and something caught my eye. It was not movement, but the awareness that something had changed. My running shoes; they were exactly where I’d left them, but they were no longer new. The red-and-black material had faded. The soles had worn down and turned grey. I poked at one with my foot, felt cold against my toes. Then I knelt down. A slow current of electricity vibrated inside me. I snatched them off the floor. The shoes were damp. The tread was heavy with brown sand. Fishing I take the little girl fishing. Our boat creaks and sways on gentle waves. She sits across from me, her fingers baiting a hook. Good job. She beams back at me, eyes bright. She’s my favourite, I know, but I remind myself that I mustn’t neglect the boy. He loves football and on Sunday, we kick a ball around the yard. I kick it high, making him run to get under it. Each kick is higher then the last. He kicks it back, laughing, pleased with himself. I love his laugh. He’s my favourite, too, I guess. Maura joins me. Thanks, she says. They like you. What about you? Oh, OK, she says. That evening, after dinner, the four of us sat on the couch and watch a film. The girl likes it. The boy makes fun of it. A plate with a cake sits on the coffee table. We stuff ourselves, devouring the uneven circles and licking cinnamon sugar off our fingers. My mouth goes dry. Then, as the children are sleeping on the floor, the screaming begins again outside. The children lift their heads and look at us, teary eyed. Maura lifts them up, one on each knee. I stand. Then I walk back and forth. The screaming goes on... No, she says. He never lets us see him. The window breaks, the crash of breaking glass makes me duck. Maura clutches each kid closer to her as bits of glass past her, glass everywhere. Don’t. Too late, I’m already out the door. The air is colder than it should be this time of year, like ice. I see my breath and start to shake. The street is still, quiet. I hear noise and I run towards it. Get the feck out here, now. I find him, taller than me, hobbling away from the house. Fecker, come here. I run after him. I want a word with you. He dodges through and around the cars on the street, clumsy on his good leg, in a zigzag pattern. He’s trying all he knows to loose me. I burst onto the shore of the Shannon, now a black shadow of water. On its edge he’d carved it in the sand. Get lost now A ripple of water rises up about ten feet out. It crashes over the warning. The surprise was it did not stop then, it came right over my feet, splashing over my shoes and soaking my socks. When it pulls back the message is gone. The cold settles into my flesh and all at once my body shudders. The trees in the back ground shake as the water rises. I don’t want to wake up. Who likes to work? Are you coming to work? I stood in my room, mobile in one hand and a filthy worn out running shoe in the other. It was heavy with lake water, like it’d been drenched. Of course I am – on Monday. A foul, locker-room odour had filled the room. It’s Wednesday, Tim said. What? It’s Wednesday afternoon, he said. Look, if you miss four days in a row you better have a doctors Cert... I’m sick, I said. I really am sick. Will you be in tomorrow? Yes, I said. I will definitely be in tomorrow. After a long silence he said, Okay. I’m sorry, I said, but he’d already hung up. I held the shoe for a long time, the smell, I realized was my own. It was days and nights of boiling sleep. I went to the bathroom, turned on the tap water, and popped the lid off the pill bottle. I shook three capsules into my palm and gulped them down. The pills took hold with a deadening sensation, a painkiller for my soul. Everything went heavy. Still, I trembled myself to sleep. Back with her Wish you’d tell me what’s on your mind. We’re in her bed; the now familiar shadows pulsing with warmth. She’s resting her head on my chest. Her hair smells like the first day of summer. If I sleep forever I’ll die. The bed squeaks as she shifts positions. Your not asleep love. If I’m not asleep than both of me exist and here at the Shannon I’m as real as the sand and mud stuck to my shoes. I am not an image in my own longing, but flesh and bone. I live – and I am happy. I shake my head, clearing the sudden sensation of waking up off of me. Stay forever, okay? It won’t hurt for very long. What won’t? After a silence she tells me, the poison. I can sense her biting her lower lip, a look of pleading covers her face. The children, they love you. I never wanted children, but now that I’ve taught a girl how to fish and played football, I don’t care that they’re not mine. I don’t care that their real father stalks the streets outside the house. I will deal with him. And I love you. I will protect them; each of them. Nothing bad will happen to us, not to my family. Another Day I woke up tired, my bed empty, and closed my eyes to slide close to Maura to get the smell of her, and eventually relented, blinking against the first rays of morning piercing my bedroom window. I was starving. Work the curse of the lover Later, at work, I opened a browser and searched for 999 Bally- common Road. The search came back with million of sites. I clicked on the first – fishing tips. Whoa, what happened to you? Tim stood at my desk, eyebrows raised with suspicion. Do you need something? A fever burned in my head, pushing sweat out of my pores. I felt it dripping through my hair. The doctor’s cert’s for your sick days. I’ll leave them on your desk. And I have to report you for not calling in. No problem. He left. I put my phone on voicemail. I kept clicking links and that afternoon I found it: Man Charged with Wife’s Murder. I read it twice. It gave no details, just some facts; woman found dead, man arrested. It said nothing about her. It didn’t say she loved to bake; only that she was found dead. He kills her. If I’m not there, he kills her. More sweat pouring out of me, my skin goes cold, nausea rose inside me. I closed my eyes. With her again She meets me at the door, no girl’s ever been so happy to see me before. She is so beautiful it’s hard to inhale, like my lungs are too busy looking at her to do their job. The streets are quiet just now. No birds, no cars, not a sound. She hugs me tight. I lean down, kiss her head. Come inside, she says and leads me into the kitchen. Cakes, loads of them, are everywhere. She’s set one aside for me. It’s a large circle on a red napkin. She hands it to me, Coca-Nut favourite, isn’t it? Eat now? Plenty of time later, she says. Right now you should come upstairs with me because the children are at school. Home is where my heart is not I scanned my apartment, my small, dark home. The cake on my kitchen counter, between a coffee stain and the sink. I took it to the couch. For a time, I thought about my mother and wished I had more memories of her. I had so many of my father. I hoped I still had them in the next life. I got a glass of water and swallowed the rest of the pills. I felt a slow, creeping paralysis infecting my muscles as the chemicals took hold. I inhaled long and slow, steadying myself, and then I bit into the cake. My tongue tingled as I chewed fast and swallowed. The inside of my mouth began burning. I fought back a retch and stuffed more cake into my mouth. I chewed, I swallowed. Chewed and swallowed and the pain erupted below my heart, a long piercing like being stabbed from the inside. It emerged hard and definite as the water of the Shannon come into focus. The smell of the water filled the air. I’d never noticed that dangerous scent before. I sat on a grey rock, the clearing in front of me illuminated by moonlight. A man stands in front of me and his being there startles me. I stand up too fast, lose my balance and fall to the ground. Little stones dig into my palms. I try to cry out and cannot. Blinking, dazed, I turn to peer up at the man. He looks down at me. His eyes are full of sadness. I don’t understand. He points to his mouth then feigns eating a cake. I nod. Yes, yes. I ate the cake. He opens his mouth. He has no tongue. A stump of tissue rises near the back of his mouth. I told you stay away from her. I’m not dreaming now. My mind seizes this realization, this time with dread. I am not dreaming. I get to my feet and I run. I’ve spent hours running, but I’m winded. I’m panting by the time I find the road. I pass my Jag, still sitting on the road-side with that thick, burnt oil smell. Maura’s house lights must be off because no glow guides me. I find the road, though and I run to it. The bits and pieces of white paint curl off in long peels. All the grass has died and the dirt surrounding the house is as grey as concrete. I hear my children’s laughter, but there is no longer joy in it. Now, it’s high pitched, nasty. The front door opens a few inches. I sense someone – something – peering out. Welcome home. The voice was full of cold terror. Copyrighthayesp1989
Posted on: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 19:53:54 +0000
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