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
