Part IV: The Dreamer

No one has fully grasped what the dreaming mind is doing.

It doesn’t turn off during sleep: brain cells fire, the mind spins; current or past circumstances play out like a movie. Gerri never dreamed, usually knocked out by drugs and vodka; however, since the funeral, images, motifs, and drama haunted his sleeping hours.

Surely these apparitions inform Gerri in some way about his grief. He hoped to understand this condition, then healing could begin and balance restored to his waking life. But his latest dream, unlike any other, drove him deeper into depression.

In the dream Shelby walked up to Gerri in a crowded place, as if they happened upon each other by chance, along the boardwalk in Venice Beach. Stunning, alluring, and radiant in her youth; she seemed just as he remembered her twenty years ago when they fell in love.

As she stood there, the morning light beaming from behind, Gerri could almost see through her; but the colors weren’t faded, on the contrary, everything about this dream popped.

Gerri believed God allowed him to interact with Shelby to lighten the immense guilt burdening his daily life since her death. The relationship between the significant and the fortuitous existed in God’s realm; he did not question the dreams, they were in a reality over which he had no control, indeed he was grateful for the Shelby’s appearance.

“Baby, do you realize how much I miss you?” Gerri asked her. “If I could go back to 1992 and marry you again, I’d do it, but I’d act differently this time!” Unlike Gerri who was plaintive and serious in these conversations, Shelby acted ethereal and joyous.

“Stop, that G.” Shelby said with a wry smile. “We can’t be going back there anyway.” “Let’s talk about right now,” she insisted. Shelby looked around, with her head on a swivel, making sure no one bumped into her on the busy boulevard.

“My love, I can’t stay long!” Shelby urged Gerri when he got distracted. Shelby held a Bible in her hand which looked like the old one from her childhood that sat on their home bookshelf, untouched. No white robes or halos over Shelby Austin, just comfortable jeans and flats with a colorful top, her hair pulled back in a girlish ponytail. Desultory, he was self-conscious for being heavier and much older than Shelby in this dream.

“What do you see of us down here?” Gerri questioned. She grinned, knowing his curiosity, adding seriously, “I can’t tell you that. I can’t tell you very much at all.”

As the conversation wound down, a strong breeze blew across the boardwalk and on the horizon a storm gathered with dark, foreboding clouds. The crowd thinned out, flags swirled and snapped in the breeze, and big fat raindrops smacked the pavement, reminding Gerri of tears he shed during the day. [Never did a drop hit Shelby, which appeared very strange to the dreamer].

“My expectations were wrong when we got married, sugar.”

“Marriage was on my checklist. I did not take it seriously; I should have tried to understand what you were going through, instead of helping you with your self-image issues, we medicated our pain away,” Gerri continued, “once we got on that stuff, you never really came back to reality.” So filled with regret, the tears literally oozed from his eyes as he spoke, spilling down his cheeks in streams.

Shelby reached out to him, just beyond their touch. She searched his eyes and lovingly assured him through her tone and pitch, once again using her angelic voice, “Gerri, listen to me baby; none of us do what’s right, most of the time we only think of ourselves, even in marriage.”

“God showed me mercy, taking me from this world,” she looked around the scene, “I was a bad influence on Bobbi Kristina!” Now Shelby seemed remorseful, “Can you believe that I exposed my only daughter to the things that took me down?” “What role model is that?”

“I behaved badly; there were natural consequences for that down here, although it was all forgiven when I got home,” Shelby looked off toward the roiling surf. “It was like the prodigal’s feast.”

“And I can sing clearly again where I am Gerri,” she beamed, looking him directly in the eyes, unashamed; “Heaven is a good place. Your job is to take care of her now, your second chance is with your daughter; I will know how grown-up you are by what you do with her, Gerri.” That was all for now, then she turned and walked north back up the avenue.

 Stunned, Gerri just stood there fixed to the concrete. In just a moment looking down, Shelby blended in with the crowds and disappeared. He jogged toward where she had walked but she vanished as if a ghost.

Would Gerri say this correctly describes the dream: A ghost story? Or a love story?

©Mark H. Pillsbury

[fiction composed Feb. 19, 2012]

The End

Episode XII of the Storm chaser saga:

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Rick instinctively recalled feeling as he once did at Six Flags® over Texas, where as an eager young kid he rode The Rotor; an amusement park ride where victims stand against the inside of a cylinder, and once the cylinder is spinning fast enough, the floor drops out. The dark, dingy cylinder slowly achieved proper speed and with screaming and crazy looks, one could almost predict the exciting moment.

Instead, this JetRanger® fell at once with no culmination or thrills, just killer rotors snapping through intertwined steel cables of a hoisted elevator, plummeting the yellow cage terminally on its side into the water. The concussive blow was slightly relieved by the shallow tank, almost completely dry due to the longest drought in Texas history.

News photography later showed the wreckage at a deceptive angle; what appeared to be a lone helicopter resting sublimely in a Canadian glacier lake, actually was the yellow bird dumped in a dying pond of an east Texas ranch. Placid, shallow, and mossy, their wet grave was surrounded by burning wilderness and a flat clearing designated LZ (Landing Zone b.) Bravo.

The jarring crash hit Rick so hard it knocked him unconscious momentarily, but he revived quickly to see two of Jessica. The double and blurred vision didn’t keep him from finding her across the passenger compartment, blood oozing from her scalp. Jessica looked still and ashen, he thought, as he sloshed through the warm pond water to pull her up to him.

The quiet was deafening, his shock complete, the devastation total; but Rick quietly cradled Jessica’s limp body in the half-submerged compartment of the downed rescue helicopter.

“I am so sorry Jess.” Rick, almost sobbing, softly, lovingly spoke to her bloody face, gently patting her head. Despite the carnage, this was a tender moment; however she was either unconscious or dead. Rick began to conceptualize the suddenness of their fall was due to hitting the wires overhead. At the same time, it was painfully clear the momentum of his love had also crashed. Far-off dreams of weddings, suburban bliss, even children, just as surely were destroyed.

With so much unfinished business, regret, and terror processing through his shaken psyche, his natural urge was for action; however, he sat there listlessly in the murky green water comforting his lovely partner Jessica, “There, there, babe—it will be OK now; you're here in my arms,” he paused, holding back the flood of emotions, “I gotchu safe babe, you’re gonna be fine—just take it easy now, Jess.”

Time stopped for the storm chasers, and it was still like a sanctuary.

“God, take her from me now, please, I love her so much… Keep her safe for me, I love her so…” Rick could barely whisper, his eyes clenched shut. Grief robbed him of his voice.

He looked at her now in a daze, smiling sorrowfully, “Jessica girl, you get to ride the wind now, sail above the big storms and keep watch over me—will you watch over me, Jess?!” Rivulets of tears watered his pain.

Finally, Rick broke down and heaved with silent sobs, holding her closely to his heart, muttering, “There, there, Jess… it’s OK now...” But for Rick it was over. She was gone.

©Mark H. Pillsbury (Aug. 19, 2011)

The New Rostra (rostra novum) A new blog: Part VII: The Journey

The New Rostra (rostra novum) A new blog: Part VII: The Journey: "The Journey (from the storm chaser saga...) ©Mark H. Pillsbury Image: Augusta Jones dress/Hilary Jessica beamed walking down the aisle t..."

I envisioned episode VII would be the conclusion of the storm chaser saga, but I thought that Rick was so full of regret for not having married Jessica and settled down, essentially doing what she had nagged him about for over a year; that the regret illustrated by his daydream would merit one more post. They have run out of options in this thick Texas woodland. The final chapter will be called "A time to Die" from the ecclesiastical reference made in the sixth episode. How many more it takes to get to the conclusion, I just don't know at this point, but keep reading!?

image credit: ©Lego (Fire and Rescue set)