Sunday March 2nd, 2003
Day’s Events:
· Performed some neglected computer work (updated stats, accounting, non-scheduled maintenance)
· Visited friend, shared 29.4 Gig of Simpsons, Family Guy, Samurai Jack episodes and .mp3's
· Watched Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
The Dream:
I was walking down a country dirt road, clearly in Ontario not too far from where I grew up and went to school (though the two were 18km apart). I'm approaching a large park I helped design for the township while in the 11th grade. A sign was up reading:
West Lincoln LeisurePlex
Fellowship Gathering
This had sounded like a church picnic, and as I was dressed in my usual dark blue sweater and tan khaki's, I decided to enter. Hoping to see some friends or relatives for the first time since moving to BC, I followed the sound of laughter and music. The air was filled with the aroma of barbecue, a smell I once appreciated with an insatiable appetite. However, since my starvation, the scent of flaming meat only dulled my hopes for a free meal.
I walked through the crowds seeing hundreds of people I had once known, each in a group similar to how I met them, or where they were from. As I passed each person, questions about how I was in BC or why I had left would arise, as well as the frequent angry curse for the sudden departure. All of this was taken in stride as I milled through the seeming thousands, drawn forward to an area not to far away with picnic tables and dozens of children.
The walk felt as though minutes were hours. Everybody had something to say, and being too polite to ignore, I would spare a few words before moving on. When I had finally made my way through the crowds to the tables, I was met with the sight of an old love.
She was seated on one of the dark stained tables, feet on the bench, and talking to some of the children near her. The long reddish-brown hair she once possessed was now cut short, and still highlighted. Rays of sun beamed down on her, giving the beautiful Oriental a halo of golden magnificence only intensified by her golden-tanned skin and compassionate yet intelligent brown eyes.
Unable to hide my surprise, I stop and watch her converse with the children in a voice that could make quantum theory appear as simple as BEDMAS. What she was talking about I couldn't hear, but the young humans surrounding her laughed and carried on in total oblivion to the world around them.
"Mom?" I hear a young girl start. "Can I sleep over at Aunt Laura's tonight? Jessica and I ..."
I didn't hear anything else as the realization hit me that this girl who was no more than six was referring to the tanned woman as her mother. I had seen her before also, years ago, and again recently without any recollection as to why I had neglected the child.
Another quick series of 'memories' run through my mind as I bring the girls' being back into my mind. Seven years ago when I first started dreaming of Natasha Yuu we had enjoyed a long history. Several months later, we had a child.
Mai.
This was who I now regarded talking to the woman who had left me what felt like an eternity ago, but was no more than a few weeks. I recall standing with Tasha on a warm beach somewhere south. Were we on vacation?
I can't remember.
Yet whether she had left me or not, it did not matter. Here she was, before me with the child that was ours. Mai jumped in the air and hugged her mother after receiving permission to enjoy a visit to her aunt’s house where she could do whatever it was she and her cousin had planned, and then quickly disappeared into the crowd. I notice that the children that had once surrounded Natasha had also disappeared, leaving the woman alone on the table, and able to focus on me.
For a brief moment neither of us say anything, lost in thought, phrasing just the right words in our head to utter, which we would more than likely abandon just to say whatever came to mind through instinct instead. This was how it had been for as long as I could remember. No matter how much I had attempted to say just the right thing at just the right time with the right number of words across a vast vocabulary, I would end up saying the simplest of things which would convey more subtext than most foreign movies. Natasha was the same way.
She was my intellectual superior, spiritual superior, emotional superior and best friend. She could do anything she put her mind to, and learn anything within such a short period of time that most felt guilty being in her presence. All of these things I had found attractive, including her slim body. What she saw in me, I could not say, but we had an underlying bond that could not be broken. Words could not convey all that we had meant to each other. And I remembered those few moments on the beach so long ago when she had felt as though we had drifted apart.
I couldn’t blame her. In recent memory, I could hardly remember much of what we had shared unless in direct contact with her. Much as I was now.
I couldn’t remember walking over to her, or Tasha standing, but there we were, in an embrace with lips locked and bodies pressed together as though it were our honeymoon. For an eternity we stayed together that way, finding comfort in the other, remembering all that we had.
Very rarely have I ever felt a surge of pure emotion run through my body, whether conscious or not. Yet in that moment I experienced such a rush of feeling that could have moved mountains themselves. This was where I belonged. In all my travels, through all my searching, this was where I belonged.
“Come with me,” Natasha had said after we released. The meaning was clear. The desire was there. She was where I belonged.
In the next moment, I was standing on a balcony overlooking Lake Ontario. I realized that this was the condo that Natasha and I shared in Mississauga, one that was under construction when I first started dreaming of her during my time at Technical School. The sun had long set, and light danced across the water from all the surrounding cities.
With her arms wrapped around my waist, Natasha stood behind me, her chin on my shoulder, and gazed at the serenity before us. The sounds of the noisy street muffled by a gentle breeze that swept over us, bringing warm air on this perfect summers night.
Natasha’s height had always been an attraction to me. Her long legs would carry her body so gracefully, without struggle. The short hair she now wore gently played on my neck from the air, and the soft rhythmic breathing would play softly over my collar bone. We both wore a plain white t-shirt and dark green shorts, the same clothes we would wear on our morning jogs through the waterfront parks before Mai was conceived. They still fit comfortably after all these years.
“I can come back with you,” she whispered. “Mai and I can move out to BC with you if that’s what you want.”
The thought of being together with those who had once meant the world to me again made my heart skip a beat. This had to be a trick, some set-up. I had learned quite often and at great expense that if something sounded too good to be true, it often was. I couldn’t recall what Tasha had done for a living. I know she worked in an advanced field, something that relied heavily on theoretical mathematics with non-linear and quantum atom optics. Could she really bring her work to the other side of the country?
At that moment I didn’t pursue the question. I just stood silently, absorbing the moment in time that I would soon lose to forces beyond my control. I knew this couldn’t be real. This was what I sought all my life. Never had I ever achieved anything I had set my mind to. Expectations were always too high. Instead I would come close to what I desired, but that was all.
“Natasha,” I started …
… and woke up. One half hour before my alarm was due to initiate.