Dreamtimes

The fresh coffee steamed. Two cigarettes smoked themselves in the ashtray. The prodigal wasp had returned and was carefully examining the spines of the books in the European Literature section just above Gilbert's head like a browser in a second-hand book emporium. Gilbert stroked his cheek ("how soft," he thought to himself, "even the whiskers seem softer") and picked up his cigarette.

"Do you recall Dick?" Abby looked toward him quizzically. "Dick Detective," he mouthed. "Of course, of course, in The Stew! How could I forget him? And he turned up a couple of more times after that didn't he? Helped make our retirement fund - meagre as it is - that much I do know. What about him? He's dead isn't he?". "I thought so too - until last night that is." "You saw him? In your dreamscape?" "Not exactly - not saw him - not as such. He was there inside my head. I couldn't see him - visually - but that's no big surprise given my "normal" dreams, is it? I'm not even sure that I was asleep. No, rewind that, erase, I think I was asleep but I'm pretty certain that I wasn't dreaming. It didn't feel like a dream at the time, nor afterwards. It was closer to the front of things than that slight distance that dreams happily exhibit. I definitely wasn't dreaming. I don't know - an apparition maybe? A mirage." He lapsed into silence and closed his eyes - a sign that he was thinking hard. "It was," he resumed, as if ten blank minutes of forward time motion hadn't passed them. The coffee steamed no more. "It was more like an acid flash than a dream - not visual --------- nor properly auditory. But it was right up in front of everything. Kind of how I used to imagine Moses' burning bush experience. Real only more so. I could "hear" him but in pure words and ideas somewhere inside. The same place that my own voices live. But he wasn't one of mine anymore. He was an alien voice. His accent was slightly off and his constructions were more complex than when we knew him then. But he was younger. Much younger. I just knew it. He felt younger. I don't know - it's hard to explain ... He was Dick, but not, together, at the same time. Oh shit. I need another smoke".

"So: he was Dick but he wasn't; he was Dick but younger - younger than when you first knew him?; he was there but not visible; he was not a dream but he was more than real? Is that it? So what did he have to say for himself? I assume he had something to say. He surely didn't turn up after all this time - dead and all as he was - for fun. Did he?"

"Fun, what a strange word to choose, no, it wasn't for fun and even now I can't for the life of me work out whether he was warning me or whether he was gloating or whether he was taunting me. Maybe. Maybe he was having fun - I sure as Shannon wasn't. But one thing I do know - he isn't dead. Not anymore he isn't. And I know why. Or I think I do. It has just come back to me - he told me. When I say he told me I need to explain how we "talked" - well mostly he "talked". He "talked' without talking. All right, I know, that's not really very helpful. It was like he just put the phrases into my head. Clauses, sub-clauses, whole sentences, paragraphs. I suddenly just had them. Like seeds that he had planted inside my language centre that grew. I don't even know whether I've heard it all yet - that stuff he planted. I just can't tell. Fragments come back now and then. Like when I was getting the coffee: I "remembered" the last thing he said - 'Sue Graffi' or something like that. I've no idea. Not a one. But it was important I know that. What does that mean?"

"I do know that somebody else is writing him now. That's why he's not dead anymore. Who? I don't know. Or maybe I do. Perhaps I do. I need to think - to try to recall it". He furrowed his brow. "I must. I must." He steepled his fingers and threw back the last of his coffee - cold now. He ground the last of his latest cigarette into the ashtray and stood. There was no pain evident in his movement, not an ache even. "OK, time's up. I don't know what you think and I sure as Shannon don't know what I think. It's all confused. Perhaps - maybe - we'll talk about it some more when I get back. If you don't mind that is. For now I have to go take Betty for that service. Adonis will be waiting. Kelly arrives Tuesday. I might even get to see how Daisy's going on. Who knows?" He moved around behind her chair and massaged her neck and shoulders slightly more than peremptorily. "I'll finish that off when I get back". He stooped. Kissed her and then he was gone. Leaving her thinking. But before he drove off he called in at the top floor and exercised his morning bowel movement. An easy movement, not at all like his struggles in the past. A regular diet, regular hours and regular exercise had alleviated the constant battle with his now aged haemorrhoids. Two or three minutes each morning - as regular as his his mother had always wanted him to be - had done the trick and now he had only to deal with the vestiges of damage done much earlier in his life. Much like many of his problems these days his piles were left-overs from previous lives of his.




(to be continued ... )