Possibly because I've been gorging on so much junk food, possibly because work has been so stressful lately (and that's not right. Cleaning shouldn't be stressful. Physically hard and exhaustive; sure. Dirty; absolutely. But stressful? Foul!), possibly because it's that Special Time Of The Month again, possibly because I've been worried about mother, possibly a delayed reaction caused by Dad's demise...
...or possibly all of the above.
But for whatever reason, the weird and startlingly vivid dreams are back, and with a vengeance.
Sometimes they are disjointed and jumbled, jumping from one subject to the next (and sometimes back again) without warning and zigzagging wildly around until I am left in a confused blur; a feeling that continues for some while after I wake up. And other times they tell a definite story. It doesn't necessarily make any actual sense, nor is it usually in any way anything that can happen in real life - or if it is, bits of unreality are casually thrown in - but still, it progresses from start to finish in a nice and orderly easy-to-follow fashion.
Like last nights offering. It's really long, so I'll do it in parts.
So, ladies and gentlemen! Without further ado, I bring you;
Alice (as Nomi) Meets Doctor Who: Part 1.
Before we begin, I should interject that no matter what circumstances the dreams have; where they go or what they do, the experience is always, or has always been so far, a first person one. Not that I AM actually ME. Sometimes I am, but usually I am someone else. I've been many people (as well as various animals and a few 'things'), from a downtrodden female slave to a circus performer to a male Dwundlint alien captured by Captain Kirk of the Star-ship Enterprise (and his twin sister at the same time, incidentally) to a ten year old possessed by a Szionic Spirit to a fifteen-year old red-headed orphan girl with semi dormant clairvoyant and telekinetic abilities transported back in time into the body of her great grandmother. The list is goes on. But anyway, the important thing is while the person in the dream may not be the me that I know in waking life, it is still me living through whatever comes to pass (Does that make any sense?).
Anyway, on with the dream...
***
I was in a bad mood. A very bad mood. I was having a bad day. I had woken up late; I had forgotten some of my workbooks in my rush and various teachers were furious with me throughout the day; I had bickered with my friends; I had been forced to opt out of swimming in P.E. because of the unexpected start of my period (two weeks early)...it was not a good day.
But by the end of the day, that didn't matter. None of it did. Because something happened that would cause everything else to fade into insignificance. Something wonderful. Something frightening. Something supposedly impossible. Something wholly and completely and marvelously unexpected.
It came to pass while I was trying to find something out for a science project.
The project was to find out how many times I could spin and then be able to walk in a reasonably straight line straight after without falling over. Something to do with momentum and inner ears and such. A stupid thing to try to ascertain and I was thoroughly bored and sick of it (very sick, literally). As I was already in enough trouble as it was, I knew I had to get on with it, but as I did so, I closed my eyes and wished - that I could be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Doing anything else. Like...like helping my grandfather put the decorations on the tree the night before Christmas Day. That would be a lovely place to be; why couldn't I be there? I wished I could be. Oh, how I had wished...
And then...it happened.
There I was.
I was so surprised - and dizzy - upon opening my eyes that I fell over. Thinking it was an illusion brought on by the violent spinning, I lay quite still and blinked hard several times. But the scene didn't change. It stayed as it was; on its side, of course, but still the same scene I had seen upon opening my eyes. Cautiously I sat up. The scene stayed there. I blinked some more, then rubbed my eyes.
Then I saw him.
My grandfather was coming toward me, smiling.
Tears welled up on my eyes. I had not seen him for years. Not since I was a little girl. He had died so long ago; when I was ten years old. I was nearly sixteen now. Six years, almost, since I had laid eyes on him, since his heart attack had taken him away from me and life had turned sour. And yet here he was. Large as life; his beard bushy and his body large and his eyes sparkling as they used to.
"Now then, you silly thing," he said in his booming, singsong like voice; "what are you doing on the floor? Did you fall down?"
I think I nodded but later I wasn't sure. I had meant to, I know that.
"Here..." he picked me up easily as he always had and hugged me to his chest; "...there, all better! You weren't trying to climb the tree to put the star on, were you, all by yourself?"
"No poppa," I managed to get out. My voice, muffled by his shirt, sounded very strange, but I didn't care. I was clinging to him, burying myself into his chest and breathing him in greedily. He smelled lovely, just as I had remembered; of talcum powder and aftershave and chocolate and scents from the furnaces and boilers that he had stoked and oiled for all his working life. His beard tickled my forehead and I remembered that it always had.
Burying my head deeper, I mumbled it again; "No, poppa. No."
"Good. Mustn't have that. You could hurt yourself. Or worse, you could succeed and supplant me and then where would I be?"
His belly shook as he laughed his booming laugh and the lump in my throat got bigger.
Oh, I had missed him so...
Putting me down, he led me into the kitchen to fetch the milk for Santa and as we walked past the mirror a glance revealed why my voice had sounded so strange. I was little! Not little as in shrunk, but little as in young; very young. I must have been no more than six. Maybe even younger. Maybe as young as four.
Pausing, I stared at myself in disbelief and awe and my younger self in the mirror stared back at me with the same expression. Then both versions of us smiled.
"Come along," poppa urged, and I did.
After pouring the milk for Santa poppa poured me some too and I drank it. It was delicious; cool and thick. Full fat. I hadn't had full fat since he had died. It was skimmed in the foster home; skimmed or nothing.
Following him back into the sitting room I glanced at myself in the glass once more as I walked past it to observe my younger self glancing back at me but didn't stop or slow down. I had more important things to do. Like put the star on. This was the the first part of our grand finale of our Christmas Eve ritual. After that we would turn off the main light, turn the fairy lights on, light our advent candle to burn the last of its wax away overnight, place Santa's milk along with a plateful of cookies by the unlit fireside - had to be unlit, poppa always said, "so Santa doesn't get a burned bum!" - and then, finally; the Christmas poem on the sofa by the light of the candle before bed.
All this happened, as I knew it would, and it felt as I remembered it feeling, only it was sweeter because it had been so long since it had happened. So very warm. So very soft. So very kind. So very perfect...
As he carried me upstairs I wanted to tell him to stop, that this was a dream and that if I fell asleep as I knew I would, that would be it; it would be over, but I couldn't. How could I explain it? And even if I did, how could I stop it from happening? I could feel myself falling asleep...
As he laid me down in the bed I had longed for ever since the last time I had slept in it six years ago, I lunged forward and hugged him as tightly as I could, breathing in his scent as deeply as I could, for the last time. Laughing gently, he untangled my arms from around his neck and kissed my cheek, then my forehead. Then he pressed a coin into my hand.
"An offering," he said with a smile as my little fingers closed around it and held it tight; "in case Santa needs to be bribed."
I had forgotten that he used to do that.
"I love you poppa," I murmured, feeling myself drifting away and torn between sublime happiness and utter sadness at the same time. "I love you."
"I love you too, Nomi," he replied, turning out the light.
I closed my eyes. And let go. I had no choice...
...Opening them again I was back in my room in the foster home, as I had known that I would be. But not in bed. I was on the floor. And Helen, the head warden in the foster home, was looking down at me.
"What happened?" she demanded to know.
"Science project," I managed to croak out, after swallowing a couple of times.
Eyes narrowed, she walked over to the bed. Leaning on my elbows, I saw her pick up my science book, lying open on the pillow, and read it. Then, dropping it, she sighed.
"Bloody schools," she muttered. Louder, she added; "dinner will be in fifteen minutes. Don't be late."
As she walked to the door again she gave a lingering glare toward the bed.
"Do it carefully," she warned; "if you don't you'll break your neck."
Dumbly, I nodded and she gave a curt nod back. Then she left, closing the door behind her.
Stiffly, I sat up, rubbing my elbows. As I dragged myself to my feet, I could hear her thumping her way heavily down the stairs. She was a large woman, Helen; fair haired and with a face that was striking, rather than beautiful. Attractive, but not pretty.
Biting at a bit of loose skin on my lip, I walked over to the bed and sat down on it. Then, looking down at my science book, I burst into tears. Burying my face in my pillow to muffle the sound, sobs racked my body. Poppa was gone; my grandfather was gone, gone...
A few moments later I pulled myself together and sat up, rubbing at my eyes and nose.
There was no point in crying like this, I told myself sternly. I had fainted, due to spinning too much, that was all. I had had a dream; a lovely, vivid dream, and now it was over with. It was sad, yes, but I had lost poppa a long time ago and cried my tears and broken my heart for him then. It would not do either of us any good for me to do it all over again. I had to concentrate on my life as it was now. And it was not, all things considered, a bad one. I had a roof over my head, food to eat, clothes to wear. The other kids in the foster home were OK: we weren't all buddy buddy - in fact, apart from at dinner and breakfast, we barely acknowledged one another's existence, let alone spoke to each other - but there was none of the unpleasantness that there might have been, the sort of stuff you heard about happening in other places. I went to school, I had friends, I was even a member of a couple of clubs. I was lucky. Lucky.
Taking a deep breath, I gave a final sniveling sniff and stood up to go and help set the table. It was my turn on Tuesdays. As I walked to the door I fished in my pocket for a hairband.
It was then that I found it.
As I touched it, I stopped dead. I was right in front of the mirror on the wardrobe door and I watched myself as I slowly drew my hand from inside my pocket and into the light, turning it over and then opening my fingers to reveal what was inside.
Biting my lip, I stared at it, then back into the mirror.
And there both versions of me - reflection and real - had stood, looking at one another, at 5:45-PM on a Tuesday evening that ought to have been as ordinary as any other. A day that had started out as ordinary as any other;
With the coin poppa had pressed into my hand lying flat on my palm.
***
Alice xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment