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No matter where I turn, fire is all that I
can see. Everywhere around me, burning flames, scalding my flesh from every
possible direction. Burning, smoldering, choking me to the very edge of my will
to go on. A sea of impermeable, devastating flame. I notice something spinning
– a gargantuan part from a giant machine, twirling blades within a cylindrical
case of decrepit metal. On the ground around me are giant hulking pieces of
metal, scattered about the earth like a ruined city, a wasteland. The spinning machine
from before spins even faster now – and spits flame like vomit hurled from
Satan’s belly. The flame laps at my clothes and skin, hot licks with tongues
like razorblades. I feel my lungs fill up with smog, my body falls - I hear a
bloodcurdling scream.
I
open my eyes. That is where the dream ends.
How
strange, how… disconcerting. The dream fades very quickly but for one bizarre
element – the giant spinning machine. The one that spat flame like projectile
vomit from within its hulking core. I have never seen a machine quite like that
in my life, but something about it – the chaos, the power, the metallic
clanging as it spun as though a fan were encased in its ring of steel – sent
hot flushes through me, as though the fire from my dream still ravaged my body.
I
rise, slowly at first, and look around. Ah, the bedroom, intact as per usual,
although looking a little strange to my eyes. Something about it seems unusual.
Strange, as though something about it is out of place. Did we move the dresser
again? Blast, yesterday seems so far away. Jamais
vu, to experience something that is familiar yet seems oddly unfamiliar. Surely it is naught but my
hazed-over early morning mind playing tricks on me.
I turn to my
side, towards other half of the double bed, and notice something else
unfamiliar – Marissa, absent.
Tsk tsk, no need
to terrify yourself. She’s not missing, just gone. Gone to work, no doubt, the
hard little worker bee that she is. Although – and I chuckle at the thought of
this – she’s more of a queen bee on her days off, if you let her have her way.
Demanding and needy, but always in a way so dignified it’s positively
endearing. She’s a hearth; burning brightly and without any shame at all. Bless
her heart.
I haul my legs
over the edge of the bed and reach for my slippers – only to find them not in
the place I’d left them last. Hah, they’ve taken flight like my mind this
morning. I reach down and fumble around under the bed – with an ache; I’m not
the man I once was in my youth, although at thirty-three one could hardly call
me old – and finally locate the damn things. I look up – and see a photo atop
my bedside table, a photo of a young boy.
Tony, smiling
widely with not a care in the world, blue eyes shining with joy and youth, brown
hair messy and tattered with dirt, a soccer ball in his right arm, mud smeared
across his arms – a complete gem. My son.
Today is the
twelfth of August. Today is his day off. I beam brightly, with the same fervor
as him in the photograph. Finally, after so long, I’ll be able to spend some
time with him. Finally, I’m ready to spend some time with my son. I reflect.
We nearly lost
him some time ago. With my job as an English professor at two separate
universities, and Marissa the darling flight attendant, we barely get to spend
time with him. That was until he came down with pneumonia, which afflicted him
so badly that he was in hospital for months. We were certain he was going to
die – yet even when he came to and we were as happy as we’d ever be, still our
routines went unchanged. What a shame, two parents incapable of caring for
their blessed child. A mere parody of parenthood. A ruse.
Today, though,
things are going to be different, I tell myself, and my heart picks up speed in
anticipation. Today, I’m going to spend some time with my son.
I get up with a
start, still grinning like a little trickster, and move to tear open my bedroom
door. I throw it open with a swift turn of the knob.
“Tony! Tony, are
you awake?”
My heart feels
like it stops. Something is not right.
I stare into a
large room – quiet, undisturbed, with chairs lining the walls and proceeding
forward to form several rows. All around me there are people – young women,
mostly. Somebody steps forward.
No. I don’t
understand. I don’t… No. This isn’t… This isn’t right.
“Where… where is
Tony?”
One of the women
steps forward. “Sir… sir, listen to me.”
“No!”
“No!”
I slam my
bedroom door, and stagger back into my bedroom. The room starts to spin as I
feel like I’m losing my mind. I hurl myself into the bathroom feeling the need
to vomit from confusion, look into the mirror – and everything stops.
The face I see
before me, illuminated in the dim light, is not one that I recognize. Hair
grayed, lines creasing my brow, eyes weary.
Blue eyes.
Tony’s eyes. My eyes.
I stop, and my
jaw falls.
I… I remember.
The spinning
machine from my dream, the chaos and ruin all around me, the hot licks of
burning flame. There was a chaos, a frenzy. Marissa was on board, calming me -
I’d never boarded a plane before. A journey on the twelfth of August – for
Tony. The spinning machine that spat flame like vomit hurled from Satan’s
belly.
I stare back
into my own eyes, and I remember. But that was forty years ago.
The person whose
scream I heard was Tony.
All I can do
from that moment – is scream.
I blink once,
and then blink again. The man in front of me does too. I forget myself, and
smile – to which the man smiles back.
What was that
sound earlier? And who is this man before me?
I hear a door
open and close – then footsteps. I turn away from the man and see a woman,
stepping forward. That is when I realize I’m in a small room, adjacent to a
bedroom.
“Hello, do we
know each other?” I ask the woman in front of me. She is wearing a white dress,
very uniform, and a white cap upon her head.
She smiles at
me. “Yes, Daniel, I’m Gisella.”
I smile back at her. “Gisella, where am I?”
I smile back at her. “Gisella, where am I?”
The woman’s
smile falters, and I sense a touch of distress.
“You’re safe.
You’re safe here. Are you okay?”
“What do you
mean?” I asked perplexedly.
“I heard you yelling. I thought you might have had that dream again.”
“I heard you yelling. I thought you might have had that dream again.”
“What dream?”
“… Never-mind.”
She takes me by
the arm and leads me out of the tiny room. I turn to wave goodbye to the
strange man – but he’s gone.
As she leads me,
I notice something sitting atop a table in the bedroom – a small photo of a
boy. One with blue eyes and brown hair, clutching a soccer ball, face brimming
with life and colour.
“Who is that?” I
ask Giselle with a smile.
She stops us,
and turns to look at the photograph.
“That’s Tony. Do you remember Tony?”
“That’s Tony. Do you remember Tony?”
“No…”
“Oh.” She
frowns. “He’s your son.”
“Does he visit
me?”
There was a very
long, drawn-out pause – and Giselle sighs. I sense a labor in her breathing.
She is struggling, like she might choke. I worry.
“No, Daniel. He
doesn’t come and visit you.”
She leads me out
into a very large room. A lot of people are in the room, and I look around at
them smiling, although I have no idea who they are. Giselle sits me down in a
giant chair, and I stare out of the giant windows at the end of this large,
large room.
There is a
rumbling. A plane flies overhead. I see it through the window, gliding off into
the distance until it remains a tiny speck on the horizon.
I’m sweating,
and I don’t know why. A hot flush goes through me like nothing I’ve felt
before.
