I
Over many years these walls have grown layers. Lost emotions, aching heart, worn out myths and weary echoes of outdated songs. Woodwork, time and dis-tonal themes, former lives, peeling back to naked grain.
Outside, the ancient path is rubble, strewn with weathered, crumbling incarnation. Ashes into dusty fragments of lost hope gathered in confusion and neglected undergrowth. Mossy memories hung everywhere like daylight trapped in dark crevices and cracks. Time, stone and weeds jostle in the pause before destruction. Stripped back to stone this cottage has become stale breath awaiting air. Where is the air?
'Hmmm …' You said, 'What is this place, then? A re-run of the Temple of Doom? A re-make of Grim Castle?' I explained that really I was trying to describe how I had changed inside, using the house imagery because I had been reminded of a dream I had just after my partner died. Duhhh … like that wasn’t obvious … and since when did I have to explain anything to You anyway? You always knew already. 'Well write about the dream then, let it speak for itself …' You shrugged, refilled the coffee mugs and your smile blazed with sunshine. Next time I show you, this is what you will see. It is still awkward but it’s more honest.
II
I gazed at the wreckage. My dreamtime guide for the night, Gary, stood beside me. In the midst of my horror I couldn’t help but notice how attractive he was, particularly so with that sparkling smile on his handsome face. Annoyed that my grief and shock could be so easily diverted from their perfect flow of self-pity, I turned away from his striking blue eyes and wheat blond hair to survey the destruction of my living room. I guess I had already missed lesson number one right then and there.
The furniture was gone. The carpets, the pictures … everything was gone, except for my cat’s ashes. The container holding Spike’s remains had been smashed and the dusty-pale contents spread over the wooden floor. The walls had been stripped back to the brick. I mean, who would want to steal my wallpaper? Even the plaster had been taken! Oh, but my indignation was like a torrent of glorious venom and self-righteous disbelief at such effrontery. What was I supposed to do now?
'This can all be fixed, you know, it can all be put back together … ' Gary said calmly, gently. I was furious with him, totally outraged. How could he possibly know how deep was my sense of loss, destruction and dissolution as I gazed at this empty corridor that had been such a cosy little room where my soul-mate and I had talked, grumbled, complained and made love so often? How dare he blithely say such a ridiculous thing? He saw my look of hostile indignation and repeated softly, 'This can all be put back together'
'No it can’t!' I gasped, 'No it can’t, how can THIS be fixed?'
He smiled and disappeared as I awoke, still muttering fury.
I don’t think I need say any more about that dream but I did search Gary out again, finding him in a hardware store the next time, and rather petulantly requested that perhaps we could start work after all. He smiled. We started.
I don’t know why I am sharing all this but I am happy that You are still here. Maybe it is because this is the second year exactly since *S died. Maybe it’s finally to do with beginning to let go. And maybe, just maybe, it’s to do with the smell of good coffee …
©Shell Heller 2000