Yellow Bokeh Lights
I find a tombstone that is unmarked, or perhaps so faded by time and neglect that it may as well be. The plot has been recaptured by nature; no doubt aided by the body below as it fed this overgrowth.
BY JOHN ROBERT MACDONALD
IMAGE BY Pixabay
I had that dream again. It’s the same dream I’ve had for a week. As I lay in bed, I wonder if my unconscious is warning me about something. My mind adrift, I wonder if what transpired actually happened. What is real anymore? Can a dream more vivid than my waking life be any less meaningful? I allow my conscious to unravel the events of my unconscious:
I’m standing in a boundless wheat field. Next to me, cutting through the wheat field, is a dirt road that stretches into the horizon. The sun is shining brightly, almost as golden as the field I’m bathed in. It’s a sun that knows its finest hours are behind it, and it must give way to winter; but is defiant, at least for the moment. The wheat field ebbs and flows like waves lapping at my feet. I try to stay afloat.
I follow the road, and after some time I see some ruins in the distance. They appear to be the remains of a building: a house or perhaps a church. I walk closer to inspect them. The foundation is still visible, but much of the building is gone. There is just a corner of the building fully intact, whereas the rest of the building lays around as moss covered rubble.
As I am walking around what remains of one of the walls, I notice that someone is standing in the centre of the derelict structure. It’s my grandmother. Her back is to me, but I can sense that it is her. I know that it is her.
My grandmother passed away three years ago. I never did say goodbye to her; I had barely visited at all the last few years of her life. I had been busy, whatever that really means. And I had been busy, but more than that I was afraid of facing what a person becomes when they give up on living. It was all too grounded in a reality I was unable and unwilling to accept. And so, I neglected her. There wasn’t even a funeral when she died. She just was, then was not, and so she continues to be, in a state of is/is not. I still expect to hear from her from time to time. My relationship with her stops mid-sentence and there is no punctuation to alleviate how I feel. Yet here she is before me.
I try walking up to her, but I cannot seem to cross the threshold of the building. I try yelling, but there is no breath—no voice—that is expelled, only a silence that is too much to fathom.
As I stare in silence, my grandmother kneels and clasps her hands together as if in prayer, and I notice someone else in front of her, a woman. Her form shifts ever so subtly, as if she were a kaleidoscopic being. She looks at me. She looks past me. Her eyes are unfocused. There is a halo above her head, and she is naked. She is a stained-glass saint in a forgotten cathedral.
The halo above the woman glows brighter and brighter, and I see that the sun is no longer in the sky but in her, for the sun is her. I squint my eyes and my skin begins to burn. The woman glows brighter and brighter until an eruption of light leaks from every pore in her body, and as the eruption hits me, I awake.
As I lay in bed, a hurricane of half-thoughts and heavy emotions wreak havoc on my shores, drowning me beneath the sheets.
I’m tossing and turning in the currents, caught in an undertow of despair. It’s 3 a.m. and I’m struggling for breath. I go for a walk.
I amble. My stride is as directionless as my thoughts. I’m nothing if inconsistent. Walking through the vacant streets, I think about everything, think about nothing. I just exist; a phantom, a spirit, lost. If a man cries from within and nobody is there to hear him, does he make a sound? My footsteps make the sound of one hand clapping.
I almost don’t see her. I am so focused on looking inward that I forgot there was an outward. But there she is, ahead of me in the distance. She has a subdued radiance about her, a sunrise on an overcast day. She stumbles, but I can see her grace. Her heels seem to be giving her trouble, sometimes walking is not like riding a bike. I catch up with her, she trips again, falling toward me. Instead of falling onto me, she puts her arm around me like she had meant to do that all along. She tells me her apartment building is nearby and asks me to help her home. How could I say no?
Up close, she is older than I first thought. Her presence made her seem like she was in her fifties, though she could pass for thirty-three. It’s her eyes, they have a certainty and resolution that someone younger can only pretend to have. Her hands too betray her youthful silhouette, hands always reveal the truth. I am captivated. She could have been a model. She probably was someone’s muse, perhaps still is. She tells me her story.
“I was born in a very small town in the United States, quite far from here. I grew up in this small town. It was the most wonderful place; everyone knew each other and would watch out for one another. My parents died when I was a little girl, and the town took me in. I knew true happiness there. I knew I wanted to become a teacher one day, to have a house, and give back to the town in whatever way I could. For a time, I thought it was possible. Everything changed when I was sixteen. It seems that in the wake of the ever-growing machine that is progress, a new highway was to be erected directly through my little town, connecting one major city to another. There were protests, petitions signed, courthouses filled, but it didn’t change anything. The town was to be severed in two. Those whose houses were caught in the crossfire were compensated duly for their loss, but the town was no longer the same. It had been ravaged of its innocence. So, I left. I followed this new path that was laid out before me. This road went on forever. I trudged aimlessly. I would sleep in tree houses or tents in the backyards of those who took pity on me. For a while, I lived in a commune. I would work for food and drink.
“For every person that I found to help me, there were many more who took advantage. I was standing at a street corner one day. It was very cold. A man came up to me and asked if I had a place to stay. ‘No,’ I said sheepishly. He told me he owned buildings all over the city and would let me stay in one for the night. I felt like I could trust him. He had a very kind smile. He took me to this very nice building; we went to the penthouse. I had never seen such a nice place. He brought me towels, gave me some money to buy some warmer clothes and said he would be back later to check up on me. I couldn’t believe it. I took a long shower and fixed myself up. I started to feel like a person again. His generosity was something I hadn’t seen since l was a child. I found out though that he had a plan. I was naive.
“When he came back to check up on me, he still carried that smile, though it was distorted. He made advancements. I made petitions, outcries, but it didn’t change anything. He forced me onto the bed and with what was erected I was split in two. He told me this was the price of progress. At that point, I had changed. He had taken something from me. I no longer feel whole, and there is something missing in me. I have heard of people harvesting organs, but he harvested my soul.
“I tried killing myself multiple times, but it would never work. The last time, I took a mixture of pills I had stolen, and I downed them with a bottle of vodka. I woke up in a hospital.
“I never did meet the person who stopped me from dying, but they had paid my hospital bills and set me up in a psychiatric hospital. I was free to leave whenever I wanted, but I stayed. I helped with chores and went for walks on the grounds.
“I didn’t speak for eight months. Most people liked to talk to me. They thought that since I never talked, I must be a good listener, but for the most part their conversations seemed far away. That is until one of my fellow patients at the hospital, a woman in what looked to be her seventies, told me about a dream she had.
“She was in a subway car. And across from her sat three identical men, each thin with salt and pepper hair and wearing suits. Each got off at one stop after the other, and as they got off, they stood up and gave her a gift. The first, a bouquet of flowers; the second, some perfume; and the third, a decaying crow.
“As she was telling me her dream, I could see her future. I’m not sure how or why, but I was able to read her dream like it had unlocked a memory of what was to come.”
“What did it mean?” I interject.
She replies, “I told her that her son would visit within three days, and on the night of his visit, she will die in her sleep. That was the first thing I had said in eight months. People were shocked that I said anything at all. I doubt some of the people there thought that I even could talk, but it was a compulsion. It had to escape my mouth.”
“Did she die?”
“Yes, she did. Her son did come three days later, and on that night, she passed. Some of the patients thought I had cursed her, but most people just thought the whole thing a curious coincidence. I was staying at an institute of scientific healing. I’m not a prophet. My Technicolor dream coat was a pale blue garb and there were no years of famine. I stayed at the hospital for five more years.
“After I left, I interpreted people’s dreams for a living and became quite successful for a time. Eventually, I picked up and moved here. I wanted to go as far away from what I knew and had experienced. I’m not quite sure I achieved that, but I like it here. Anyway, this is my building. Thank you for the help home.”
“Wait,” I say, “I’ve been having this dream lately. It’s always the same. Can I tell it to you?”
“It’s not your time, Dear, but I’ll give you my card.”
She hands me her card, kisses me on the cheek, and without another word enters her apartment building. I’m feeling a little confused. I look down at the card and it is entirely blank except for one word: Elizabeth. No contact information, no number, no address.
Elizabeth.
That was my grandmother’s name.
--
I had the dream only once more after my encounter with Elizabeth. In it, I realized that the other woman in the dream was Elizabeth. It was as clear and bright as her light is in my dream. Elizabeth looked at me in the dream, looked into me, and mouthed the words “find me.” For two weeks, I go back to that apartment searching for Elizabeth, but I never encounter her again. I try to retrace my steps, but the path is new each time, so I give up.
I decide to go to Mount Pleasant Cemetery. I walk around the gravesites, markers of loved ones lost.
I find a tombstone that is unmarked, or perhaps so faded by time and neglect that it may as well be. The plot has been recaptured by nature; no doubt aided by the body below as it fed this overgrowth. I take Elizabeth’s business card out and tack it on to the gravestone with some gum I had been chewing.
I talk to my grandmother for the first time since she died, for the first time in a long time. I suppose I found her after all.
John Robert MacDonald (he/him/they/them) loves to tell stories through multiple media. Ever curious, they seek to understand the world through a kaleidoscopic lens. They are currently pursuing a BSc in Psychology at the University of Guelph-Humber.
Image: Yellow Bokeh Lights by Pixabay
HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation.