Episode 4 – I Wish The Dream Were Not So Real

"Good job Maestro," she smiled and grinned in the same expressive way.

"I'm just a natural," I said modestly.

"Six chapters…" she had to remind me, "And all those voices… You know Huckleberry has as many characters in it as words," she reminded me still further.

"I can handle it," I said, "I will just have to spawn some riverboat magic, if you can do the female roles."

"Oh no," she shook her head on it, "You're better at voice alterations than I am… This is your job."

Then she stopped, and her grin was replaced by a serious look.

"They've missed that…more than you know."

"As I have…" and I left her side.

I knew Sandra would be gathering herself for bed soon as well. I moved outside our old Boston home and I caught the early winter air in my face. The ancient light shimmers in the wintertime there, and so the cross-town streets were gleaming back on me when I would look out their way. The soft spray of headlights moved about the nearest streets like lightening bugs in search for new companionship. I could hear the rain quietly pelt round the trees with a soft peddle thump, and sidewalks with the hoof beats of a tiny horse in a long and constant trot.

The air was cool; not biting, though I could see my smoking breath rise up whenever I was exhaling into the night itself. I could see the mist swirl about like a cotangent stew; muddle about, drift in sways, brighten every porch light up and down the street, and so drip from the dark sky. As if Heaven was softly weeping in her sleep. I looked upward through the grand-perching trees in our long, front yard. Clouds were constantly drifting to cover the glowing stars in that particular constellation; and so as such, clouds moved in their stealth and unseen ways. I saw the moon peek through for a glance, then drop out of sight once again.

Times like these a person has to reflect on. The urgency of such a time makes you see the world from a different angle altogether, though not self-imposed. I saw those memories loom like a big spinning yarn in my mind again; of birth; of youth; of burgeoning age; of life in all its wonder. The scene I suppose called for such a thought as I had there.

I drifted further into the lawn and closer to the street's edge. There, in the very midst was an old, entangled, grossly enlarged oak tree; as old as earth itself. One burly limb hung out longer than all the rest; and there, as its big arm cast out along those grassy shores, it held a heavy swing out from its base. I was sitting there, swinging to and fro, watching the world about me seemingly move by my locomotion, and my eyes falling into a dream. There, as was always in the fancy of my imagination, I could alter the way of fate and bring back to life the days gone by. Perhaps the old joys would follow them home.

Those sterling dreams; those memories of old; those employed reflections never grew old or appeared to fail me. There, the world was perfect again and I knew it to be so.

I would see tomorrow for what it was; a new adventure strung from the collective pages of the past. Like a book only half-chartered. A connection and a bridge to what had become was so now affecting what 'will be'. Through turmoil; through joy; through grief, life will still commence by its own stage. Fear can drive one to resist what is just there before us.

I didn't want this to be me. Not my life.

I had seen that storm, and so knew its brash wind and its violent spray. I had survived, though not unchanged. Life will do that to you. Transform you; make you into the person of your own destiny. Like an eagle still growing its wings; a deer still learning to prance about and run; as a kitten captivated by its own play; and as a person still evolving and discovering what life yet has to offer them.

I was once told there was a beautiful rainbow after every heaving rain. Perhaps this is true. But perhaps, even still, the beautiful rainbow comes only after a long journey. It makes the walk seem nicer still when you get there. I had cried my ocean of tears then; saw the bounty of my emotions roll and heave like that storm.

Now it was time for the rainbow to appear.

I stopped the swing there. Silence became more still than the dead, empty space it resided in. I sat alone, eyes closed, and so I bent my head into my chest while wondering when the rainbow would come.

There was one last cry for me to go through; kind of like a brisk shower that was never forecasted. But it came and I went through it, so giving sustenance to the flowerbed of my emotions. Someday the world would seem brighter than that moment did.

I had hope and faith in this… someday, someday.

I felt a soft hand touch to the sides of my face, and then a cloud which hovered and enveloped me. This stirred me to let the tears fall uninhibited and I felt the touch turn into a full, tender clutch; one, in that quiet venture, which was unwilling to let go.

Sandra had shadowed me.

In this time of memories and of reflection, she too shared her tears with mine. There was more rain that night than in the skies above, for Heaven was not alone in her sorrow. And as the clouds above softly pelted us with its dew, I felt Sandra's warm heart take to comfort me.