I Awoke With a Start ...

 

I awoke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed.
 
I was dreaming ... perhaps I still am. There is no doubt about the house, however. That house. At this present moment are set before me the orderliness and tidiness of Mr. Clean and Jeeves themselves. I am home. My own home. Yet the smell and disarray of a dwelling long neglected persists in my nostrils and before my disbelieving eyes. Those who held title to this sinister house could not have known they would never be welcomed here. Not truly. I have no idea why I said that; perhaps it's just a feeling. Why I should think it, much less say it ... As I said before, I could still be dreaming. Scenes from my dreamscapes make sense like visions of Alice in her little world of wonder make sense.
 
Whatever this all purports to mean, I am certain of what I heard, what I saw. Something at the top of the stairway was moving. I was finished, at least for the moment, with taking inventory of the large container addressed to my mother. Time to investigate. I'm past fear. Well, we'll see.
 
Grabbing the banister - not unduly concerned about its filthy state - I pulled myself upward, slowly, as though my legs alone could not adequately perform the climb. However dark the upper landing might be, there was a sensation of movement that my gut picked up on, let alone my eyes straining to discern what should have been even the most obvious indicators of a presence. Atop the landing - at long last, it seemed - I clearly saw what had been moving, though I heard nothing but a muffled sort of cry. A door was swinging open, swinging partially shut, ever so slowly, gently, back and forth, from what could only have been, to my way of thinking, some draft. Perhaps an open window in the room behind the door. I hesitated momentarily, not initially from fear, but because that muffled cry broke sharply into a cutting sob. I felt myself blanch. A tingle shuddered noisily up the spine.
 
The door, of its own accord - so it would seem - opened fully before me. I looked cautiously into the spacious room, a bedroom ...

Love's Illusion

I have searched long for that love of all loves,
But it hastens not, though my winter's arrived
 
And leaves me desolate of every hope of warmth,
Comfort and a prospect of my name's immortality.
 
Nor will this elusive love reveal itself in my tiny dreams,
Allowing, at the very least, a gossamer of muted visions
 
That would elevate this worn and bitter man to a level of
Expanded vistas, kindling within flames of love's illusion ...

Mother and Daughter, continued

 

So much can be said in the silence of the lips. The eyes say what needs to be said: often so eloquently, so scathingly, so very to the point. Yes, the eyes have it.

 

Theresa, never before seeming to possess a thought of her very own, was forced  to think, to act without reservation. She was such a child in a number of ways, but her father's brutal execution turned her into an adult overnight. The physical comfort and security of her home could not, of itself, assuage the emptiness she felt.
 
As Renata approached Theresa, breaking into her daughter's troubled reverie, she put her cold hand upon Theresa's shoulder. She hadn't the emotional capacity to embrace and comfort her daughter wordlessly, as a normal mother might do. Yet, strangely, the readily confident and glib woman had no words. If there had been any, they would have stuck in her throat. Theresa looked into her mother's eyes and said nothing. The inwardly distraught but poised Mrs. Gettleman sought sympathy from Theresa with her eyes. Traits such as compassion and mercy, typical of any decent human being, were scarcely spiritual waters deep within the well of Renata's soul.
 
Theresa's awakened eyes saw fear in those of her mother. So unnatural, so untypical for the woman who plowed her way through every obstacle, challenge and person who stood their own shaky ground. With her right hand, warm and utterly feminine, she firmly grasped her mother's hand, still upon her shoulder, and silently declared that never more would they touch ...
 
Nor speak.
 
Miss Gettleman has left her childhood home for the last time, never to return. The shell of a woman, ghostly in pallor, stands motionless on an upstairs landing  and stares at the street below ...
 
Through a darkened pane....

Mother and Daughter

 

No more words were exchanged between mother and daughter, nor would there ever be.

 

Theresa, out of long unspoken necessity but presently for the purpose of survival, has put on a new and bold garment: wordless defiance, this in the face of the sudden erosion of Renata Gettleman's supreme confidence and now dissipating arrogance that the world was ever in her control, her tight grasp. That grasp is loosening, and she has no say in the matter. She has lost her prized possession ... her child. A perverse love, but love nonetheless.

 
The one person over whom Mother had absolute and unchallenged dominion was Daughter. Despite a brittle outward show of motherly affection and concern for her only child, Renata's normally cool demeanor was, to her consternation, warming up to this new creature. Theresa Marie was showing signs her mother's own robust nature. However, we are talking assertive, not aggressive. Both women knew what had happened so tragically, so unnecessarily mere days before. The younger woman, she who truly suffered the loss, knew, but only in her heart; the remotest possibilities of Renata's untoward behavior, neglect toward her husband, was facilely explained away.

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That Timeless Flow

 

Recent happenings close to home have bewildered me by day, terrified me by night. Yet, the shroud of fog begins to clear. I see outward, through the windows to my soul. A sense of tranquility replaces anxiety and confusion. A calmer state of mind allows me to sort through the simpler things. Scattered pieces of life's puzzle come together of their own accord; my intervention is neither required nor sought. 

What I have commonly referred to as the past, I now realize, is not a block of time and events disconnected from today, but life and living's continuance through to this present moment. A flowing stream, irresistible, from that so-called past of no discernible nor recorded beginning.

In that timeless flow from then to now, I see myself not as participant but on-shore observer. Rushing past me are images of people and buildings and books. And so much more, the more of my former childhood surroundings that have edged their way into my today's reality. It is a continuation of what I started out as and what I continue to be ...

Through nature, through nurture.

None of this is so unusual ...

That House on the Hill

I want the warmth of hearth and home. It is natural.

The house that draws my heart and mind away from all reasonable and natural desire, however, is desolate of any ember that might be kindled into a passionate flame. From yet so far a distance my imagination conjures up interior walls blackened by the oily soot of poorly trimmed kerosene lamps and a dank, poorly drafted fireplace whose tepid fires never quite took. The windows, likewise, are years and years gone unwashed. The now opaque panes distort through their dried-on grime views from within, visions from without. Paneled ceilings, somber and bleak, drip decades-worth of filthy webs downward toward stalagmite accumulations of swirling debris that reach upward, grasping tentatively, from warped and gaping oaken planks.

A grand and spiraling staircase takes center stage but startles me as its wide and toothless grin reflects the loss of many a baluster. It dares me any further approach. I draw back instinctively yet am morbidly fascinated by what is gently swaying in shadow ...

In the dark, at the top of the stairs....


My arrest of attention upon movement upstairs was abruptly diverted by the slamming shut of the huge entry door, that accomplished with a huge sucking sound and consequent evacuation of a heavy, fetid atmosphere. More unsettled by my own annoyance at the rude interruption of the unfolding of delicious terror than I was by actual fright, I spun round and stopped dead, face-to-face with a most unexpected sight ...


What could have been only a hasty delivery by an unseen courier - so much of my account seems fraught with the unknowable, the invisible - was my scarcely determined assessment of a large wooden container's sudden arrival, landed squarely at the entrance. I saw the downward, lazy swirl of dust coming to rest whence it came, having been excited and cast upward from the box's crash to the floor's thick cushion of dust. My approach toward the mysterious carton was, needless to say, accomplished with the utmost caution, and not a little trepidation as my thoughts cast backward to the tale of Pandora. However dim the light stealing through the long unwashed glass proved to be, I was, nevertheless, able to read the name of the addressee ... Elizabeth Vincent, my long-departed mother. Any vestige of fear clutching at my heart gave way to an insatiable curiosity to discover what ill lay in wait for me from within the steep, rectangular walls of pine. In my mother's stead, I deemed it entirely suitable to take possession of her property.

Locating a crowbar amongst a heap of tools and diverse household paraphernalia in the kitchen, I hastened back to the box and began unfastening the several nails holding the broad lid in place. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to slide the tapered, flat end of the bar between the tight seam between cover and box, I finally penetrated the seeming hermetic seal that, ironically, appeared to wish absolute denial of entry therein. The usual loud and protracted squawk of nails letting go their tenacious hold on wood did not disappoint for all its raucous clamor.

I worked my way around the box - some nine-foot-square was the lid - and at last had released each nail's fast hold to the box proper and set to pull off and lower the lid to the floor. Though I had figured the box to be pine for its light coloring and presence of characteristic knots, yet the top was exceedingly heavy. I managed it down by tugging at one corner, drawing it bit-by-bit toward me, then, likewise, the opposing end.

As I let out a sigh of relief over the unusual expenditure of time and effort, I let the lid drop, barely missing my feet.


Astonished, incredulous, aroused emotionally.

Words, even when taken to the superlative level by that four letter word, cannot adequately describe my trembling, choked-by-sobs self. The capacious container was resting place to a multitude of books that had been lovingly and carefully arranged in a deep cushion of excelsior. Though this bevy of books had the evident look of relative antiquity about them, there was not the characteristic odor of must and damp so prevalent among cemeteries of long-forgotten books.

I reached with the utmost reverence for the volume that had caught my attention and won my affection as a mere lad: Arundel, by Kenneth Roberts. Knowing nothing then about the historicity of the American colonies' various accounts (some, I have since learned, are disputed as to accuracy), I was taken by N.C. Wyeth's cover art of Indians and settlers canoeing the swelling waters of the Dead River ... the Arundel River ... the Kennebec ... la Riviere du Loup? I cannot recall, but the deep blue waters tipped by creamy white caps, the crisp, colorful off-shore autumn foliage, the looming, inscrutable blue hill, have long since inhabited my imagination.

Once out of my memory-stirred reverie, I began slowly turning pages, traveling digitally the maps depicting the moves of Colonel Benedict Arnold and his men, the Prologue by Steven Nason (the story's protagonist). On page ten I caught sight of Steven's loving tribute to his mother, Sarah. Why my careful though somewhat random perusal took in that particular account, I've no clue - there was simply too much to take in, given my excitement and agitated sense of deja-vu. Nevertheless, the words were fitting, as I could have said the same about Elizabeth Vincent, my mother.

Steven thanked God for his mother's education ...


She read Shakespeare and Plato; in addition, she spoke French, some of which she passed on to her son, and that of no little benefit to him. Apparently Sarah Nason, nee Butler, wished her son to ponder matters other than the merely mundane: fish, weather, sleep. Regarding the outlay of funds for educational purposes in their district of Arundel, the citizenry were wont to decry the prodigal expenditure of fifty pounds a year. I have reason to believe that Steven rose above the loutishness of his neighbors, though he did not consider himself a man well versed in letters.

In like manner, with regard to the above comments relative to parents' mentorship of their malleable offspring, my siblings and I were encased, as it were, with books of every description. Whether the virtual overflow of every sort of reading matter in our cluttered bungalow had been principally for Elizabeth's personal enjoyment and, collaterally, that of us children, I do not know for certain my mother's prime motivation. Surely, she encouraged and promoted our literary travels by leading her enthusiastic bookworms each week to the ancient Carnegie Library of stone and ivy. I cried when the city tore down the venerable edifice where adventure and learning had come together and borne me. The replacement contained the same books of paper, spines and hardback covers, but the former atmosphere (one of enlightened decay) among the stacks was missing. The sanitized air of the new building did not sit well with me. I was just a kid; I didn't know why.

Somehow this dirty old house, whose true character I'm still not certain of, is in concert, silently so, with Elizabeth Vincent's container of books.

I must dig in further.

The Darkened Pane

My frequent walks these last few years about the neighborhood so familiar to me would ordinarily be construed a pleasant enough non-event. A little mild exercise - taken in small doses to keep the joints operating properly - and a keen eye peeled for the ever-changing face of nature have rendered the daily promenade a suitable diversion. Until recently.
 
I noticed nothing unusual at the beginning; I saunter over the same roads almost without variation, being an inveterate creature of habit. To tell the truth, I cannot pinpoint the exact day I began walking in this particular region of my town, other than the fact that, when I moved here some three years ago, I was too involved with matters more pressing than finding time to exercise. Nevertheless, once in a routine of regular jaunts throughout our peaceful suburb, I really sensed nothing out of the ordinary. No, not until recently.
 
I'm being stalked. Not in the usual sense. No crazed individual lurks in shadow. No person trails me surreptitiously. The sun is shining and birds are singing. Evil does not happen under such circumstances. Yet, an evil far more sinister than any miserable human could embody and visit upon the unwary soul has seeped into my neighborhood. Slowly. Insidiously. By otherworldly design.
 
The beauty of my natural surroundings - wherever that might happen to be - has never failed to tug at my heart and stir my imagination. For a certainty there are enchanted castles in the clouds, armies of fabulous creatures inhabiting the forest and crusty woodsmen rafting down a river swollen by heavy, unseasonal rain.  A secluded cabin properly placed in this setting would be the perfect touch. Back to the present: I am capable of distinguishing between reality and imagination, however active and fertile that imagination may be.
 
It's impossible to take in one's surroundings all at once. In addition to observing nature, I revel in the diverse architecture of my neighborhood. Even over a period of time, however, one still misses detail. Yes, there always has been a house on that lot, but I hadn't noticed the awnings over the two windows facing the street. Oh, this home on Robin Way has a brass kick plate affixed to the base of the front door. Was it always there? When did the Johnston's install metal railing on their deck? I didn't notice that the wooden corral railing had been removed ...
 
And there it was. Why hadn't I seen it before? I've shot a look at that hillside more times than I can count, but I don't remember ever seeing that house on the hill before. It gives all the appearance of rising up from the soil as though it were sown and nurtured there, tended as though it were part and parcel of the wood itself. This acknowledgement of a hillside dwelling should not, of itself, be any cause for undue concern. Of course not. Not till somewhat later, feeling a slight need for change and taking a different stretch of road, did I look out toward another band of foothills and feel a shudder fly up my spine.
 
There, unmistakable, was the house. I looked and looked again. It couldn't be. I've walked so long, so far. Nothing else about the forested ridge appeared remotely familiar. I was taken aback by the ghostly deadness of the land and forest surrounding the building. As for the defining architecture, the line of the house, the slant of the roof and ... the window.... What was clearly recognizable as a window was not by any means a typical pane of glass. Despite the other readily identifiable characteristics of the house, the window was, eerily so, the distinguishing feature.

 

Darkly sinister. And peering ...

 

Peering at me....
 
 

This Is Not My Home

 

I awake in a place that clearly is not home.

 

Looking about in a blurry daze, the expected trappings of bed, chair and scuffed, dirty walls have somehow disappeared during my wretched slumber. All the familiar has slid away, swirling downward, but not swallowed, into an eerily black vortex above which my stiffened body floats unaffected by the devouring maelstrom. My immediate surroundings are an atmosphere of greenish hue that is part of what appears to be sky. Not a sky like I've ever seen before. Definitely a sky. Emerald and iridescent. Suspended amidst the shimmering splendor of undulating waves of a surreal firmament is a golden sphere, which I take to be a moon. The gentle but steady rays of illumination it sends forth warm me. This I find puzzling, as this celestial body is not a star.

 

I continue to have no control over my body, yet I am not uncomfortable nor do I sense any imminent danger. Something has changed regarding the direction put upon me. A force - like what I would imagine to be a tractor beam - draws me upward and away from the strangely silent but malevolent whirlpool below. Coming into focus at a distance seemingly close, but probably an infinite space away in light years, is an incredible edifice of glass, porcelain and adamantine steel - a veritable temple of a night's vision, dedicated to some constellation's god. Opalescent double doors of extraordinary height and hung upon hinges of gold begin to open in protracted slow motion. Blazing through the widening expanse of the closed-become-revealed is a brilliance like that of Earth's noonday sun. I gaze directly upon its supernal glory; in the manner of a dream, I am unharmed.

 

I startle as there emerges from doors now fully opened the likes of which nightmares are made ...

La Luna

Chilled to the bone, I couldn't care less.

Awakened by an otherworldly light flowing languidly through a single pane of glass, I arise from crumpled sheets and pad my way over to the frosty view that patiently awaits me. Full, round and gleaming is beauty supernal: my exquisite, my lovely Moon. I wish to touch her but am overwhelmed by giant sentinels whose barren arms are reaching longingly for her. For all their height, those statuesque trees are no more able to touch her silvery face than I. The eternal, desperate pining for what is enthroned on high.

I do truly adore La Luna. The commute, however, should prove impossible.