Mark sat erect in his chair, listening to the sad wind crying through his window.
It blew his gray curls into wild artful tangles. "Terri's coming over today," his
wife hollered from the kitchen. Mark cringed. He loved his stepdaughter, but she
was a little crazy, and Saturday was his crazy free day. Mark walked slowly across
the living room and closed the window, the last bit of breeze strangled in a dying
whistle. "Did she say when?"
Lynn had lived with Mark long enough to read his thoughts. "You know Terri. Her
visits last about a minute."
Mark combed his tangled hair with his right hand, using his arthritic fingers as a
comb. The curly blonde hair Lynn admired so much when they met had grayed and
thinned over time.
Time was much kinder to Lynn. Her hair glistened like gold treasure as it fell
about her shoulders. Her green eyes flashed with confidence, and her face radiated
a spark of youthful wonder.
For Mark, retirement was not a reward for his years of hard work. It was a
punishment, a prison of endless drudgery and routine. His day started with
breakfast at seven, a cup of coffee at eight, then a little gardening. He had come
to rely on his chair and a good book as a sanctuary. The state of the world alarmed
him. He grew up in a time of blatant and pervasive bigotry. Now over fifty-
something years later, not much had changed. He was a helpless nobody without a
voice. The noise and endless distractions of an immutable world filtered through
his conscious mind in abstract fragments and turned to silence.
At dusk, like the turning of a finely tuned clock, Mark opened the front door of
his house and stood in rigid silence on his porch, watching the night swallow the
deep red and orange sunset.
A week before, his nightly ritual had been interrupted by shadows gliding through
the yard. He noticed the moonlight shining on his metal yard art glimmered inside a
blurry halo producing two distinct images. He thought he was losing his mind or in
the grips of something metaphysical, but his doctor assured him it was a stroke in
his eye.
His body was slowly failing, and each ticking of the clock introduced a new
ailment.
The screen door slapped hard against its frame, clattering loudly in response to
Terri's vigorous knocking.
Terri opened the screen door shouting in a beautiful soprano that echoed down the
rustic hall and filtered through the house. "Mom?"
Lynn answered back on cue." I'm in the kitchen." Terri stuck her head through the
living room door on her way to the kitchen. The musical quality of her voice
suddenly turned flat. " Hello, Dad." The light tapping of her heels slowly turned
to silence in the kitchen.
Mark was thankful for his diminished hearing. It turned Terri's harsh words into
whispers.
Terri's fair-skinned face turned bright red when she spoke about her dad. From his
chair, in the living room, the whispers occasionally intruded in sharp staccato.
Every time I come over here, he is sitting in that chair!" Now Terri, show some
respect for your dad!" Those were the last word he could make out before he fell
blissfully asleep.
Mark woke to catch the last light of a hazy sunset, the smell of roast permeating
the room. By the time he walked out on the porch, the golden yellow sun was saying
goodbye to the last patch of blue.
A Mockingbird provided entertainment by chasing a stray cat that had wandered into
the yard up an old oak tree, and the night air felt cool, calming, and serene on
his skin. The moment of calm brought with it dreams and thoughts of youth and
laughter that suddenly turned to something else in his head. His reverie was rudely
interrupted by Lynn announcing supper. Mark pondered the imponderable something
else, and all the other lost thoughts that briefly caught his attention.
What was that shadow that moved purposefully through the flower garden? Was it the
imaginings of a disordered mind? He rubbed his eyes in disbelief! It was another
cat, a cat as ephemeral and fleeting as the tenets of a lie. He could see right
through it.
He started to call out to Lynn to look, but it disappeared like the shadows and
shade in the setting sun.
The still and silent night amplified his tinnitus into a deafening roar, and he was
startled at the sound of Lynn's footsteps and sudden presence behind him. "What do
you do out here every night?" she said. Come in and eat before the food is cold."
Mark and Lynn ate their food that night smothered in indifferent silence, serenaded
by the droning air conditioner and the clatter of silverware and plates.
Lynn pushed her plate away and looked up at Mark. "What's happened to us?" We don't
talk, and you act like you've given up on life!" The way you treat me, I might as
well be invisible!" Mark thought her choice of words ironic. He grimaced as he got
up and pushed his chair under the table, and then he slowly walked to his place of
emotional sanctuary in the dark living room. Sinking into the large, overstuffed
recliner, he muttered to himself," I'll try to do better."
Then he fell into the sweet oblivion of sleep.
He found comfort in the disembodied voices that whispered to him in his dreams. The
muted tongues of long-dead friends spoke in the golden tones of youth with offers
of empathy and absolution. Angel's gifted presentiment and health. The very flowers
danced in communion with the voices of heavenly choirs. Mark found his body bathed
in the light of Seraphim. Purveyors of revelations bent his ear with promises of a
world that would submit to his will. You will cast out the angel of the abyss.
Mark shivered in the cold and damp morning dew. The sun was barely waking in the
east, casting its diffuse rays over a forest of tall oak and evergreens.
His head was resting on a rotting log, and his long lanky body sprawled across a
bed of dirt. He watched as his hand convulsed uncontrollably. He felt a dull
headache combined with a strange feeling of weightlessness. He raised his arm to
scratch his head, and it brushed against his ear instead. It was as if his arm had
a mind of its own. He fought to steady his arm by holding tightly to his forearm,
trying to force it to bend to his will. As his mind slowly began to focus, he was
shocked to see his hands were calloused and as black as coal. Adrenalin pumped
through his body. He jumped quickly to his feet. What the hell was happening? What
happened to his clothes? Dirt stained his white sack shirt and breeches and worn
leather shoes. He could smell the stench of old sweat on his body. He had gained at
least six inches in height and lost fifty or more pounds. Mark screamed at the
rising sun and wildly shook his head, "Wake up! Wake Up!" He frantically fluttered
his eyes, commanding them to open. "Wake up! Wake up!"
Mark tried to control his panic by pinching the flesh of his cheek between his
thumb and finger. It hurt. He sat back down on the log and glanced upward toward
the sun. The brightness and warmth of the sun were real! He sifted the fine black
dirt through his fingers and breathed in the morning air full of the smell of
evergreens. "It must be real," he thought.
Mark sat still watching the sun as it reached its apex, waiting until his heart
rate had slowed a little. To Mark, it felt like the prelude to a children's
fairytale.
Until this moment, he had paid little heed to his surroundings. A black dirt road
stretched out in front of him, and he was determined to follow it and find the man
behind the curtain. He bent down to pick up something glistening in the sun. It was
a ring.
Lynn woke up from a troubled dream fueled by the sleeping aid her doctor had
prescribed her. It had somehow jumbled her mind. She thought she heard a low and
barely audible moaning in the living room. Maybe it was just the wind. She decided
to check on Mark. As she walked down the hall, the hair on her arms bristled. The
full moon shining through the front door illuminated the wall clock, and she could
clearly see that it was two-thirty. The second hand was pulsating and moving
counter-clockwise. She picked up her wristwatch lying on the marble table in the
hall. It had stopped running at two-thirty.
The wood floor creaked as Lynn walked towards Mark's chair. It seemed as if she
could see through him. Lynn laughed and spoke to herself. "The doctor told you the
sleeping medicine could cause hallucinations!" As Lynn's eyes slowly acclimatized
to the dark, she slowly moved beside the chair and put her hand on the arm. The
chair was shaking violently, and Mark appeared to be having a seizure.
Lynn stumbled over an empty drinking glass that Mark left beside his chair as she
rushed to turn on the ceiling light.
When the light came on, Mark was sitting wide-eyed, looking back at Lynn with his
mouth open. Lynn was unsettled and struggling to catch her breath.
Mark, clearly shaken by his dream, stared at his hands for a moment and began to
cry.
The next morning, as Mark and Lynn shared a morning coffee, he told her about his
vivid dream and how real everything felt and smelled. Mark looked at Lynn, "You
know I once had a daydream about meeting my grandfather on an imaginary road, much
like the one in that dream."
Lynn reflected about the night before. "By the way, the clock stopped working.
Could you look at it, please?" Mark walked over to the clock hanging on the wall.
"It's working now and keeping perfect time."
Lynn was happy that Mark seemed less withdrawn and more talkative.
Lynn smiled. "Thanks for finding my lost Turquoise ring." Mark was puzzled. "I
didn't find your ring."
"Sure you did!" she said quizzically. "It fell out of your hand last night."
The trauma of his dream created a spiritual hunger in Mark to relive and revive the
old family memories contained in those photographs stuffed in the closet. As he
emptied a shoebox of old family photos, the irony that a hundred years of living,
striving, loving, and sorrows could be reduced to a one-foot pile of inanimate
paper overwhelmed him.
Mark's parents, grandparents, and a brother had died years ago. Only his older
brother Bill was still living. He had an aunt and some cousins who lived nearby,
but they never spoke.
Mark pulled another shoebox full of pictures from the bedroom closet and dumped
them on the floor. He was a child the last time he looked through them. He
remembered his father showing him different ones and telling him who they were.
Looking through the disorganized pile, he saw a sea of unrecognizable faces. He
thought they might as well be strangers.
He pulled another shoebox and dumped that one too. One picture caught the wind of a
ghostly draft and separated itself from the others. It was dancing in the air as if
held by an invisible hand. It was the black and white photo of a middle-aged black
gentleman. He didn't recognize the face, but the clothes were the exact ones he
wore in his dream, with the same stains.
Mark had not talked to his aunt in years, but he wanted to see if she knew who the
man in the photo was, and it seemed a perfect opportunity to mend fences.
Mark had not been to Dora's house since her husband Hubert died. Mark had fond
memories of his uncle until the day he came over and threatened to hit his dad with
a steel pipe for fencing off the septic lines on his land to protect it from
Huberts wandering cows.
A four-lane highway and a thousand yards of pasture stood as a boundary between his
and his aunt's house. To Mark, the distance seemed insurmountable. A separation
widened by years of neglect. He thought her home looked much the same as it did
when he was a child. He could remember the tumbles and bruises of learning to ride
his bicycle in that large front yard.
Mark knocked lightly on her door, nervous about his reception. The woman who
answered the door seemed spry for a woman of Ninety. He examined her every wrinkle,
and in her face, he saw his father's reflection. "Hello, Mark," she said. "Come
in."
The piano sat where it had been since conscious memory. "Do you still play?" After
an awkward silence, she replied. "No, my fingers aren't nimble enough anymore.
Arthritis in my hands saw to that!" Mark pulled the small picture from his pocket
and showed it to her. "Do you know who this is?" There was an abrupt change in his
aunt's body language."That happened before I was born."
"Your uncle Alfred took that picture." His aunt's response heightened his
curiosity. Dora continued to explain, growing more animated with each word. "No one
knows who that man is," "I don't know how much you know about your maternal
grandfather, but he owned a store where Hugo Vengler lives now." Her finger pointed
unconsciously toward the property that bordered his own. She pondered what she said
a moment and added, Well, at that time, it was called a grocery. "That's where your
dad met your mother. Your dad, fourteen at the time, often walked to the store to
flirt with your mother." Your dad's brother Alfred followed him one particular day.
Alfred had two interests at that time. Baseball and photography, and he proudly
carried that Pendaflex camera he earned working in the fields all summer. "The
store was often busy around noon with people drinking beer and eating sausage. The
store offered a hand to mouth existence, at best." "Your dad was standing near the
counter when Bonny and Clyde Barrow, W.D. Jones and Ralph Fults came in announcing
a hold-up. Your dad tried to grab the gun from Ralph Fults." Ralph pushed him back
and said, "You're dead asshole." This man came from nowhere and jumped in front of
your dad, and took the bullet meant for him. The agitated crowd turned on the
Barrow gang, and they rushed to their car and left. "What happened to the man?"Mark
asked. "He died," she said regretfully.
"Nobody in the community recognized the stranger's face."
When Mark returned home, he sat in his recliner and tried to place what he heard
into a neat and tidy box.
But the more he scrutinized what happened, he realized there was no order to the
particles and waves of the infinite universe, and beyond the strands of energy that
flow within its confines, lie thought.
Mark laid back in his chair and closed his eyes, and slowly counted backward from
one hundred, imagining the past.
Mark found himself lying near a fence, in sight of children dipping cups into a
cistern, giggling at the sight of dragonfly nymphs wiggling in their cup.
He lay for a while in the hot summer sun and realized this was His Dad's school. He
couldn't say why, but he knew he must run north as fast as he could.
This ethereal body that he now inhabited was nimble, quick, and human. As he ran,
each stride elicited a strong need for air. The more ground he covered, the faster
his heart pounded inside his chest, the tighter the muscles became. Everything
about the landscape was different but familiar. Some internal clock began counting
backward in time and with each tick lost opportunity. The black dirt road was now
paved and had light traffic. He could see the store on his right. The tiny non-
descript moving figures began to take human form. An old Buick pulled over in front
of him and stopped. Two burly, ragged-looking men in white snuff stained T-shirts
threw open their doors, shouting racial tirades, "Where you headed, boy?"
Mark had no time for this and ran wide around them.
The sound of a shotgun jarred Mark. He felt a burning in his side. He only had a
few hundred yards to go. He ran past a young boy that took his picture and into the
store.
Lynn and Terri found Mark's lifeless body in his chair after an afternoon of
shopping. Terri pried the picture of an old black man from his hand and threw it in
the waste bin.