Missing, But Still There

Missing, But Still There

I was tired from working outside on that fine spring day so after I sipped on a cold beer I felt like a nap. I laid down, fixed the pillow under my head and one under my knees, and with a contented sigh closed my eyes.

There was a pop that I felt more than heard and a flash of light and I was no longer on the couch but instead I was floating above what looked like a prairie or maybe grasslands. It was beautiful, green as far as I could see. The grass was moving in small waves following the direction of the light wind. The air was warm as it moved across me mussing my hair. The time of day seemed to be around noon because the sun was high in the sky. There was nothing close to me to throw a shadow, including below me, so I could not be sure of the time.

               I was floating about a hundred feet above ground, unaffected by the wind just hanging there like I was standing but there was nothing beneath me except sweet smelling air. I turned my head both left and right looking as far as I could; there was nothing to break the sameness of the grass. I felt no fear, nothing but tranquility, where I was seemed somehow normal. The only sound to be heard was the gentle breeze as it moved through the grass below me.

               After a while, time meaning nothing here it seems, I realized that I was moving. Moving towards a small spot on the horizon that I could now see, a smudge really, and at this distance I could not make out what it was. I did not feel the speed I was moving at but I could tell that I was moving quickly as I looked down watching the grass flash by. It seemed that the wind was moving with me for there was no resistance, no wind other that what I had felt before.

               I soon realized that I was flying, if you can call it flying, towards a magnificent oak tree standing alone in the middle of all this grass. The tree had to be very old I thought for it was huge, towering up from the grass below; spreading out for hundreds of feet in all direction without a brown leaf or dead branch that I could see. The trunk was many, many feet across and it looked knurled but strong, dark and uniform. Even as high as I was the tree was higher. I was in awe at the magnificent of this tree and I felt drawn to in other than because I was flying towards it.

               As I got closer I could see a very small figure moving about in a bare patch of ground near the trunk of the tree. The ground was grass-less there, in an irregular circle and I soon could tell that it was a tousled haired little boy of about ten. As I watched he walked around within the circle, obviously that was why there was no grass there.

               As I descended without volition of mine own, I could hear him crying, sobbing really. He would suck in breath as a small child does and then wail again. The wail was a plaintive call of Mommmmm. He would lift up his face to the sky when he called her, and then lower it again to sob all the while walking inside that small circle. The sound was heart wrenching and made me want to gather him in my arms and rock him slowly until he stopped crying.

               He was warring worn and tattered pants with the legs cut off below the knees; one longer than the other, they were dirty and torn.  His shoes were laced but untied and badly worn. He wore a faded blue shirt buttoned in the wrong holes with part of the collar torn; it was flopping as he walked. His hair was blonde and was badly in need of cutting. His face was dirty, tanned and tear streaked.

               I settled down on the grass in front of him; he took no notice of me, just continued with what he was doing when I first saw him; sobbing and calling for his mom, walking within the circle.

               Standing there looking at him all of a sudden knew, it came to me in a flash like a stroke of lightening, with wrenching fear and profound loneliness.  Tears leaped into my eyes and my heart felt broken. I knew why he was here and why he was doing what he was doing. I knew that he had been here for a very, very long time. I knew that he had wandered away from his home and had become lost. I knew that this little boy had died alone with fear and loneliness as his only companions. That he had cried in fear and loss until his cries were stilled by death and even in that he was alone.

I knew that his mother was waiting for him but he did not know how to get home, as she did not know how to find him. They were both lost and trapped in this place. I knew that she too would wait until the end of time for his return. Somehow I also knew that I had the power to fix this, to reunite this lost child with his mother.

               As this realization sunk in I found myself once again flying, flying away from the tree at a very high rate of speed even though again I could not feel the speed. I was traveling away and along a different route and as I did the scene below me was changing. Gone was the green grass of uniform height, gone was the blue sky and the warm air, gone was the tree when I looked back over my shoulder.

               Below me now were wild grass, green, and brown, mostly brown. It was much higher and no longer uniform in height. The sky was patched in clouds with the sun breaking through in places throwing shafts of light to the ground. There were animals that I soon could tell were bison, a dark patch at first but soon resolved into individual animals as I flew over them. I was flying fast and seemingly what every controlled this flight had a destination in mind.

               Very soon I felt that I was losing altitude and slowing down, coming to a small sod covered house perched on a small hill. There was one lone straggly tree beside the house. A rope of some kind ran from the corner of the house to the tree and on it hung some laundry blowing in the wind.

                Off to the side of the house was a well-kept garden. It was cordoned off with bits of barbed wire fencing and what looked like limbs taken from the tree that had been used as fence posts. There was also a path from the yard that ended in a gate made of rough-cut wood planks. The house was small, square and built from sod stacked one upon another to form the walls. The roof too was sod that seemed to be laid upon some type of logs, their ends sticking out at odd intervals. I could see brown dead tuffs of grass at the edges of the sod as well as the crumbling edges where the layers were. There was uniformity about the walls but they were neither straight nor even.

               The front door, like the gate, was made from wood planks, rough-hewn, grey in color and set together with cross members. There were gaps in the boards that probably let the wind in. I could see a metal latch and the edge of metal hinges. The door was partly open and moving slightly back and forth in the wind. There were two wagon wheels leaning against the wall.

               Standing a few feet in front of the door was a woman. Her hands were clutched at her breast, her light brown hair in an unkempt bun with a few loose hairs sticking out. She wore a long faded gingham dress and she looked out with tear filled brown eyes. The dress looked clean but well worn, frayed at the hem, a few spots looked threadbare where the color is all but gone. I can see some small patches lower down on the dress that does not quite match the rest of the dress. Obviously they were sown in by hand from the looks of the stitching.

She wore a blouse that I am sure use to be white but looks more gray with stains at the armpits; it too was clean but worn, coming apart a bit at the gathers under the breast, a few threads sticking out like whiskers on an old man. The way she is dressed she looks the part of a woman from the late 1800’s. Her face was streaked with tears and she had a look of profound loss.

The small yard that she stood in was bare dirt with a few clumps of grass and weeds sprouting up, some green but mostly brown. She was saying nothing just looking out into the grass, glancing left and then right, left and then again right. There was a sense of waiting, anticipation in her stance.

               I stood before her for a moment, as she looked past me, through me like I was not there. I knew this woman had lost her son, that the boy beneath the oak was he. For the second time I was flooded with fear, loss and wanting. Once again my heart was torn and I felt the loss that only a mother can feel. She swung her head back again and stopped with a start, she could see me, knew I was there. She said nothing but reached out one hand towards me imploring me to help her. There was hope on her face replacing the hopelessness that was there seconds before; she knew that I could help her, that I would help her.  

 I also knew that I could bring them back together. I knew that she had waited here for many years for him to run out of the grass. She would scold him for being gone so long and then with her small brown hand on his head herd him into the house where dinner awaited.

               I reached out and took her offered hand and in an instant we were at the tree. As she released my hand she moved to the boy and the boy moved to her. Coming out of his circle he threw his arms around her legs and crushed her in a hug as she is bent over holding on to him, kissing his head, brushing his hair with her hand, and kissing him again. Not a sound is to be heard except the soft rustle of the leaves above us. She turns to me and smiles a sunburst smile. She is beautiful in that moment.

               I awake on the couch feeling incredibly joy and at peace. There are tears in my eyes as I realize I am back home. Looking up to the clock I can see that I have been lying here only for a few minutes. Sitting up and swinging my legs over to the floor I am filled with such a feeling of wonder at what just happened. It felt so real, the joy feels so real, the tears are so real and the smile on my face is real.

Years later, another time, another place

 It is somewhere near eight in the evening, I had just gone to the bathroom and when I came back to the living room she was there. As it was before her light brown hair in an unkempt bun with a few loose hairs sticking out, she still wore the long gingham dress and had the same quiet sad brown eyes but they were not filled with tears this time. The dress still looked clean but well worn, frayed at the hem, a few spots looked threadbare where the color is all but gone, as it was before.

I noticed that now that there is a striking beauty about her. Her face is still weather worn with barely discernible wrinkles but the skin appeared to be soft as well as tanned. There was a hint of a sparkle in those once sad eyes that told of many things. All of which were unknown to me. She was not smiling but there was a hint of one. Her bare arms, which hung loosely but comfortably at her sides were also tanned a light brown. I could see well-defined muscles, working woman’s muscles, in those arms. Her hands were calloused where I could see them and the nails clean but very short. I noted a couple chips in some of nails. She projected a feeling of comfortable love unlike the pain of before. It is now like that of a mother and I could now feel her radiating calm and being safe.

If the fit of the skirt is any indication, she is small. Small of hips and small of breast, standing about five foot and a few inches, she was shorter than I am. She is wearing some kind of laced up boots, brown in color and much worn. There was some dirt stuck to the sides of one of them. All of these things I now see, things that I missed the first time we met.

               I know her and she does not cause me to feel any concern about her standing there uninvited in my living room. There was peacefulness about her and I did not question her presents. I am sure that I know why she is here even though I have not seen her in many years.

                              After a few seconds she started to turn right and as she did she kept her eyes on me. Stepping forward she walked through the couch and into the wall without stopping, as if my world was not her world and my things were not there. I spun and moved a few feet back looking towards the short hall that led to the bathroom and bedrooms knowing that if she held the direction she left in she would come out in the hall, which a moment later she did.

               She stopped there, turned her head towards me again and this time smiled that sunburst smile. I feel instantly in love with her again at that moment. There was so much warmth in that smile that I momentarily forgot that she had just walked through my couch and wall never disturbing the picture hanging there. She reached out her hand and a small blonde boy stepped up to her side looking up at her. He was no longer crying, his face was clean and dry and there was a loving smile on his face. She looked back the way she was heading, placed her hand on the child’s head, and they walked away, through another wall.

                              I have often wondered who she was and why she came to be in my living room that night years after I saw her the first time. I never felt fear or any terror even when she passed through things as if they were not there, in her world they were most likely not. I think that in her time, time did not exist and she was coming to thank me. That is how it felt anyway.

I have never seen her again but I will never forget her.

4/06/2015