I Dreamed a Dream

Sorry, that's the second title I've borrowed (stolen) from Les Miserables. This one is, however, actually adapted from a dream I had when I was sleeping in front of the TV yesterday.

I Dreamed a Dream
by Jill C.

I don't know wheather to leave or not. He said it was all done, and I should just go home until tomorrow. Something keeps me there, though. He's tired of looking after me. He's left and gone into the office. No doubt to help another paying customer. Or to eat a doughnut. It's such a morbid business, though, that it doesn't matter. It fills him up either way. With flour and sugar or with cash.

He's left me in order to go back to work. That bothers me. Hers is not the only one in the frigid room. That bothers me too. It's so impersonal. He sees it so often that he won't or can't or maybe isn't capable of getting involved. It feels wrong. Who ever turned it into a line of work, anyway? Why can't we go back to the olden days when the famailies dug the graves themselves, behind the barns on their farmsteads? Who ever wanted to be a mortition? That's not what they call them anymore. It's not glamorous enough. Who ever wanted to be a funeral services director? A memorial councelor? A damned cold hearted idiot who can rattle off the names of every wood in the forest without the slightest inflection in his voice that would make me understand that he's talking about coffins rather than trees?

Hers looks like a treasure chest. I imagine grave robbers as pirates, hoisting her in the air with joyous yells and carrying her back to their ship. She probably would have liked that.

I lay my hand on the polished mahogony, fighting with myself inside. I want to see her. So badly. Just one more time. One more time, before... I don't want to see her like this. In that dress he chose from the rack of random, cheaply made garnments that were meant to look fancy. With her hair curled. Sprayed with so much rosy perfume to keep the smell of death away. Except it wasn't the smell of death, but the stench of chemicals. Anything to keep her "pretty" for one more day.

She is to be viewed tomorrow. So hers isn't locked. She isn't yet beyond reach. I can't help myself. I slowly raise her lid.

Pale, and small. Too pale. Too small. Her chubby face is gone, the skin retracting toward the bone. She looks like a sick child. Like she had progeria, or some other disfiguring disease. But she didn't. She was just a normal little girl. And now she's gone. And this... this is here in her place.

I can see the powder of hair spray on her dark ringlets. She looks more like a doll. I imagine one of the plastic babies she used to play with. The kind with eyes that opened and closed. I raise her shoulders up. Click. The eyes open. Back down. Click. They close.

Her mouth opens in a tiny gasp. Some broken sound, unintelligible to me, yet the most beautiful sound in the world comes from between her dry, pale lips. It floats to my ears as tears fal from my eyes. Then she is gone. Again.

I clutch myself around the middle, pinching into the baby weight that I still have not managed to lose after four years. I wish those final moments would fly away, leave me be. I want the happy memories, not those. Not of her leaving me.

I brush my fingers on her tender eyelids, then make the sign of the cross on her forehead. Then I close her up, and turn around. I leave. I don't want to be there any longer. Not with them. Not with her.

It's not her that's there. She's already blown away. Why am I expected to hang on to that sick doll? It's not her. It's all wrong.

My little Ana, who wore a ponytail, and read fairytales and books about pirates. Who prefered green cotton shorts, even in winter. That's what I want to hold on to. What I want to remember.

I want to remember the cherry popsicle all over the back seat of my car. The wall at home with badly disgiused crayon drawings. The dirty old football we'd played with in the neighbor's yard.

I want to remember that, not her last breaths leaving her lungs. Not the tears in her eyes as he, he who I dared ever call my husband, hit the life out of her. Not the cops dragging him off to jail. Or the EMT dragging her out in a body bag.

Those memories need to go, to fly away. But they need to go in the opposite direction of Ana's soul.
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I didn't realize how morbid that was until after I wrote it out. In my dream, it was more like a bad horror movie, but I thought it would make better use as a public service announcement about domestic violence and child abuse in New Mexico.

Leona

Based off of yesterday's Smuckers 100+ birthdays on the Today show, this one was just begging to be embellished.

Leona
by Jill C.

Leona sat with her legs crossed Indian style, enjoying the coolness of the grass through her cotton skirt. She ran her wizened hand through the dewy forest of turf in front of her, fervently wishing that the magic worked on ugly protruding veins as well as longevity. Pushing her glasses farther up her nose, Leona brought a quivering sprig on greenery up to her face. Sighing, she nestled it back into the mass of leaves before her. Three leaves, precisely like it should have.

Leona sighed again and dipped her hand into the pocket of her grey wool sweater. Her shaky fingers met with a spread of crackles as they came in contact with the dried remains of findings over the past year. Even old and dry, they were still lucky, like she was.

Taking a brief rest to look up at the sky, Leona reveled in the season. Glorious spring. Birds fluttered overhead, dancing and singing in their mating rituals. It reminded Leona of a musical. Everything rehearsed to be executed at exactly the right time, and then passed on and on through the generations, without regard to the time that passed.

Leona wished that she could disregard the time that passed. It didn't matter to her, so long as it continued to pass. But the little nurses in their pinstriped uniforms who seemed to be getting younger and younger and dumber and dumber constantly reminded Leona of her age and the complications that went along with it.

As they believed, one could not reach one hundred and nine years of age without having some sort of debilitation, like memory loss. The nurses constantly felt the need to remind Leona of the day's schedule, as if she could not remember it herself. In truth, Leona knew the schedule better than the nurses, as she often wrote it herself.

Leona returned to combing the patch of leaves and flowers in front of her. The clover blossoms, like miniature golf balls, tickled her fingers as she passed over their sweet-smelling heads. The flowers were sweet, but the real treasure lay beneath. Leona bent further, bringing her face even closer to the soft ground cover. Her fingers closed gently around a bunch of leaves, and she swiftly plucked them from the ground.

A smile spread across Leona's face when she saw the fruit of her search. Sitting in her palm was a little four-leaf clover. It was slightly lopsided, but it was still a lucky sign. Leona brought it to her lips and gave it a brief kiss, then slipped it into her pocket.

A few more months, at least. Then she would be back looking for more. The nurses felt the necessity to remind Leona that healthy eating and exercise lead to longevity, not luck. But Leona knew better. Or perhaps she just had more fun believing in a little magic.
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