*a story*
David Pearl sighed with relief. Travel was not his favourite way to spend his time, and he was ready to relax. He opened the door to the apartment, walked in, and pushed the door closed with his foot.
He called out but heard no response. Instead, he found a cold and echoing apartment. He dropped his travel bag in the hall and wandered through the rooms, wondering why it felt so strange. The answer came when he saw the open and newly emptied bedroom closet.
On the otherwise bare table he found a folded slip of paper, an abrupt goodbye comprised mainly of an accounting of the things Christine felt were within her rights to remove.
At least she had the grace not to recount his personal failings on paper. There was no need to; she had already performed an adequate job of doing that verbally. After hearing her repeated accounts of his deficits he began to wonder why she persisted in their relationship. These thoughts he kept to himself to avoid further inflaming the smouldering ashes of a once warming relationship.
Now he had his answer. She no longer persisted.
The perfidy of it; of Christine. Go away for a few days and come back to find your life turned upside down. And you have no recourse, no voice in the sorry affair, and certainly no by-your-leave. It was a done deal. Such was the nature of betrayal, he thought bitterly.
With a sigh, David turned and left. No way he would be able to relax at home now; he needed space, and time, to deal with the ruins of his former life. And walking was his usual method of thinking through issues, of finding an often meandering path through the thickets of life.
He zipped his jacket against the light autumn breeze, and jammed his hands in his jeans pockets. Once he got moving he would warm up, but for the first few steps he hunched his shoulders and folded his body in on itself. It was not purely coincidence that his hunched body mirrored his mental scrunching. Without conscious effort he headed to the edge of town; to the refuge beyond. His respite; his gathering-thoughts place, where he could be alone within himself.
After he passed between the stone pillars guarding the entry to the refuge David provided the only human activity to be seen. He shuffled through fallen leaves while his thoughts bounced between self-flagellation and self-righteous anger. He kicked at a small rock as he walked, chasing it across the path. It jumped and skipped around wildly, like the thoughts skittering across his mind.
An acorn dropped onto a red leaf near the edge of the path. The leaf popped into the air as if startled by the fallen nut. At the rise of the little red leaf, David hesitated. From the corner of his eye he saw its’ startled movement. He realized he had been trudging along, head down, barely absorbing the sensory load of autumn. Unaware of the things around him. Just like Christine said.
David’s refuge, a large wilds not far from town, was typically quiet and lonely. It did not draw many visitors; there were no real amenities, unless the presence of many trees counted as an amenity (which it should.) A meandering stream flowed under the trees and wound through the hills. Babbling water, chittering birds, and chattering squirrels broke the stillness of the wilds with their ever-present sounds.
Roused by the motion of the red leaf, David raised his eyes and his turned his mind to the trees around him. Multi-hued leaves waved and fluttered in the crisp fall breeze, awaiting their turn to take the final plunge. Random patterns of light and shade dappling across the fluttering leaves created a natural kaleidoscope in all directions.
He stopped and looked skyward. He began spinning around in a dizzying arc. Remembering that autumn was his favourite season, and that he was wandering through the wilds on a beautiful autumn day, weather-wise at least, he gradually became alert to the nature surrounding him.
Across the slope of a hill he saw a glint of light scattering from the small pond. Low angle rays poking their way between hills and through tangled bare branches hit the surface of the water and bounced up to his eyes. Tracing the course of the rays from eyes to pond, and then upward through the trees, he was surprised at the low height of the sun. Could it really be nearing twilight already? He hesitated and looked about, turning through a full circle.
The pond, like the quiet walls winding across the hills around it, had an air of ancient solitude. Things had happened here in some era now long gone. Stones carefully piled to form meandering walls attested to that. It must have been a lot of hard dirty manual labor, hauling and piling stones, rocks, boulders. All to clear fields and form walls. All to no avail. The soil, cleared of surface stones, yielded only more stones from within its bowels year upon year. Eventually, the slopes and valleys were yielded to nature. Now, the only sign that the natural order had once been disturbed was piled stones.
The quietness of the autumn pond contrasted starkly with his memories of the clamour rising over it in the spring. Riotous spring, a gloriously fecund time of the year, seemed so long ago, so far away. Memories of spring contrasted starkly with the present autumn. David’s awareness returned to the current moment and his present life.
He wanted to go back. Back to where, he could not really say. Back to somewhere not here, now. As usual, back was not an option. Not when the proverbial time machine was in the proverbial time machine shop. And if he got his hands on a working time machine he was likely to enter the wrong data, the wrong coordinates, and end up as dinosaur dinner. So he went on instead.
A breeze puffed into his jacket. He pulled it closer. Strands of hair blew across his forehead and tickled the bridge of his nose. Should have grabbed a cap before setting out on his little trek, he thought.
‘Always full of acute hindsight,’ he added.
Tramping on through skittering leaves, he came to the top of a hill. Before him lay a small bowl-shaped valley, rimmed with colour and alive with flutters and dashes of blowing leaves. Suddenly, he felt a sharp rap on the top of his head. He took a small jump sideways and simultaneously reached up to the point of impact. The offending acorn continued its descent, its initial trajectory only slightly altered by the obstacle momentarily posed by his head.
He rubbed the bruised nob on his head. Almost automatically, David became self-conscious. Even though he was quite alone, a ridiculous notion, an autonomic response, seized his mind. Did anyone notice the indignity?
Ridiculous. There was no one around. And even if there was, so what? It would not matter.
He relaxed. He had not seen anyone since he reached the wilds and set foot in front of foot, trudging across leaves and gravel, rocks and roots, for a couple kilometres along the path.
Nevertheless, an awareness crept over him. He was not alone. He felt it. He felt it before he knew it. He stopped, his nerves tingling. Still rubbing the top of his head, he slowly turned around. He saw nothing. Nothing but trees, hills, leaves ruffled by the wind. But something was strange. He took a moment to contemplate what was bothering him.
Finally it dawned on him. There were no sounds. No chirping birds. No chattering squirrels. No babbling water.
Curious. He was not used to squirrels disappearing at twilight. They were usually everywhere, and in abundance. One more nut to gather, one more chase to perform, one more scold to loudly chitter. He circled around, through a full 360° and more.
Everything was quiet. Abnormally quiet. He grew very disquieted, his gut tightening. He stood still for a minute or two, timidly looking about.
And he saw her.
Ahead, over a slight rise and down the slope, on the side of the path, he saw a bench. A typical iron park bench, in an atypical location. Curlique arms and wooden slats. He had to stand straight, almost on tip-toes, to see it.
Above the bench was a lamp post, ancient in appearance, with a globe dangling at the end of an arcing arm. A glow from within the globe cast a soft light onto the bench and the ground around.
David stopped. He was ready to rub his eyes, cliché or no. The setting, the scene before his eyes, was as unexpected as it was familiar. Familiar like a scene from an evening stroll through a town square, or perhaps a vignette from at least a couple dozen old movies. Unexpected in that it was totally out of place in the middle of these wilds.
Puzzled, and a bit wary, he slowly walked toward the bench. He realized he still had his hand on the top of his head. He quickly dropped it. He strode down the hill, following the path toward the bench. He carefully kept his eye on it.
On the bench sat a small figure. The figure had a hand over its mouth. Whether this was an expression of minor horror or an attempt to suppress a giggle was not immediately clear.
He stopped about three or four steps from the bench. The figure resolved itself to a woman, albeit somewhat amorphous within a burgundy fleece jacket and matching cap. She was petite. The portions of her appearance he could make out seemed attractive, but he could not immediately tell her age.
“Hi,” she said brightly. “Looks like you ran into a little difficulty up there.”
“Well, I did not expect an attack from the sky.”
“Actually, it was from a tree. More precisely, from an oak. Not from the sky.” She pointed toward a big oak at the top of the slope.
The point was obvious. But her remark did little to improve David’s mood. He was torn between a sulking and a sarcastic retort. After a moment of reflection he decided she was both accurate and amusing.
He smiled and shrugged.
“From a tree, then. I did not expect an attack from a tree. Nor did I expect a witness.”
“Oh, I witnessed the attack of the acorn all right. I watched it leap from that tree and take deliberate aim for your head. Which it found, to your pain and embarrassment.”
“The pain was obvious, I am sure. But why do you say embarrassment?”
“You quickly looked around. You had an expression people often have when they are spied on under embarrassing circumstances.”
“Were you spying, then? Following me?”
“Spying? No. Following? Perhaps, although probably not in the way I think you mean.”
He was now curious to see who he was talking to. He tilted his head and tried to see her face. He tried not be obvious, but of course he was. Her face was partly shaded by a small brim on her hat. Even so, the visible part looked vaguely familiar. Especially her eyes. The eyes looking up at him bore an expression of both amusement and familiarity.
“And what way might that be?” His voice cracked with annoyance and apprehension. Something was unsettling in this encounter, but he didn’t yet understand what it was.
“Stalking. Spying. Trailing. Maintaining unseen physical proximity. I do not mean following in any of those senses.”
He just stared at her for a minute.
“Do I know you?”
He startled himself with the question. He had not planned to ask it. He really had not planned to engage in any conversation. That was why he sought these quiet woods. Rarely did they see more than a single visitor at any given time.
But now it was too late. The question was out. The engagement was initiated.
“That is an interesting question. I do not know how to answer it.”
“You could start with yes or no. It is a simple honest question. Not a phoney pick-up line.”
He pointedly looked around. “You seem kind of familiar, but I cannot really place you.”
“Familiar like you have seen me in a queue at a café? Familiar like we once interacted? Maybe we talked?”
He took a step and a half forward. He was close enough to touch the back of the bench, if he dared to reach out.
“Like we have met. Like we have been together somewhere, sometime. But I cannot place it. I can feel it, but I cannot place it.”
He hesitated. He looked closely at her, bending down slightly to do so. She shifted back almost imperceptibly, but continued looking straight at his eyes.
Still uneasy, he asked, “Do you know me?”
Her response was a simple smile. “You are David. Correct?”
“Correct. And you are…?”
“In due time. And we do have time.”
He straightened, alerted by her response. He dared to break eye contact with her for a moment. He sensed that it might be dangerous to do so, but he was not sure why. He looked around carefully.
The world outside the glow of the lamp had disappeared into darkness. A momentary panic set in, until he realized it was always darker when you looked out from inside a lighted area. Still, there would not be much light left when he tried to make his way out of the woods.
Then he noted the continuing quiet. The wind rustling through the trees, the water in the river, the rustling of critters in the underbrush. All were disquietingly absent. It was strange how quiet the world had grown. He expected the sunset to take the light away, but not the sounds as well.
She did not seem concerned. She was not alarmed about being lost in the woods in the dark. Perhaps she had a torchlight in her jacket. He might need to stay with her simply to get out of the woods in the dark. Especially if he did not leave soon.
But he could not leave. Something drew him in. Kept him in the circle of light. Whoever she was, whatever she was doing here, he had to find out. When he set foot on the path he had no notion of meeting anyone or of doing anything other than allowing the solitude of the forest to dull the sense of oppression he felt.
Now his original purpose no longer mattered. For some reason what now seemed to matter was to discover this woman’s identity and to figure out why -how- she knew him. It seemed that she did know him. At least she knew knew who he was. Which was almost the same thing, since he wasn’t a complicated person.
What was their connection? He would try once more to find out.
“Do you have a torchlight? It is getting dark, and we will have difficulty walking out of here once the last of the daylight is gone.”
“I do not need one. I have my light.” She pointed to the globe over head.
“That is rather large to carry.” His annoyance verged on sarcasm. She did not seem interested in providing direct meaningful answers to any of his questions.
“It would be. But I do not need to carry it. I summon it when I need it.”
“Do you have another light? A torchlight or lantern? Or do you live nearby?”
“Not as close as you. My usual domicile is rather distant. I am here to see you.”
“Okay, enough of that talk. Either you start with some useful information, or I am going, dark or not. I will stumble my way out if necessary, killer acorns be damned.”
Her eyes looked deep into his. She smiled. Her face bore a very calming expression. Despite his agitation, her smile had a pacific effect on him.
“I mean you no harm. Look at us. You are much bigger than I, and I have offered no threats or cause for fear. Please, sit down.”
She indicated a space on the bench, and slid over a bit to emphasize her gesture. He did not move.
“What do you want to know? What can I say to put you at ease?” Her voice was calm and her expression remained passive.
“Who are you? What is your name? You know mine, apparently.”
“Angie. My name is Angie. But you already know that.”
She reached up. Her left arm reached across her forehead and she grasped her cap by the bill. With a quick sweep of her arm up and over her head the cap came off. After a quick shake of her head a mass of auburn curls burst out and surrounded her face.
David blinked. He squinted at her in the semi-sideways manner he often employed when puzzling out something he saw. A flicker of recognition seemed to cross his face, but it quickly vanished and was replaced by puzzlement.
“Angie. From where, from when, do you know me? Something is familiar, but there are pieces missing.”
“We are not going to go there yet. We need to establish some basics first. Come. Sit here. I promise not to bite.”
He hesitated, shifting his feet but not moving to take the proffered seat.
“What kind of game is this?”
She answered with a question. “Are you happy? You once asked me about happiness. Not ‘was I happy’. You asked ‘did I know happiness?’ So, now I ask you: Do you know happiness?”
“Who. Are. You?”
“I am Angie. I told you. And you are David Pearl. A gem, but a flawed one. And currently an unhappy one. You cannot be happy that Christine is gone. Christine. Once your best hope for happiness. Or so you probably thought. I ask again: Do you have hope for happiness in your life? Do you know happiness?”
“Christine put you up to this? That is it, right? Some macabre joke, some mind-game of hers. Well, you tell her I am on to it, and I am not going to give her the satisfaction!” His voice rose, with a nervous angry edge to its tone.
He turned to leave. It was dark beyond the fringe of lamplight. He hoped he was facing the right direction. He did not want to make a dramatic exit, only to stumble off the pathway. He did not want Angie to report it back to Christine so they could have a big laugh at his buffoonery.
As his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the woods, he saw a faint trace of lighter ground snaking off toward a slope. The trail. He took a step, another step. The pool of light was behind him, barely lighting his first steps.
Suddenly everything turned dark. He stopped and glanced back. The light was gone. The clearing was black. Everything around him was black. The pathway at his feet was lost in the blackness of the dark woods.
Startled, nervous, a bit scared, David turned back toward where he thought the clearing was.
“Angie,” he croaked, his voice breaking. “What are you doing?”
Nothing. No noise. Not even quiet breathing. He was alone. Alone and lost. Physically alone and lost. He suddenly began to feel emotionally alone and lost.
Overwhelmed, feeling helpless and broken, he sank to his knees. He pressed his hands to his face and stifled a sob, turning it into a feeble gasp. He rocked on his knees, and moaned.
A pain pierced his heart and, simultaneously, exploded in his head. A pain of loss, of conscience. She was right. He was alone again. He was back in his lonely solitude. All he was lacking at this moment was…
“Angie! Come back! I need to talk to you.”
The dark woods answered his cry with rustling leaves. He rose and took a step back in the direction of the bench.
“Angie. Please.” An unbidden sob escaped him.
A soft voice replied. It seemed to come from everywhere. “Please? Please what, David?”
“Please explain. Why does she want to do this? Why do you?”
“Hear me, David. First, there is no she in this. This is not about Christine. Not directly, at least.”
Her voice still had no directionality. He turned his head from side to side, trying to find her.
“Second, I do not want to do this. But I have to. I have to for you, and for me.”
“Where are you? I do not like talking to the dark like this. Please show yourself. You are making me very nervous.” His voice cracked with anxiety. “Please.”
He heard a gentle sound, like snapping fingers. Gradually, like a sunrise, the globe began casting its yellow-white glow from above. He saw the empty bench. A couple steps forward and he was in front of it. He pivoted, sat in the centre of the bench, and wrapped his arms around his body in a self-hug.
“Where are you?”
“Here.”
He looked up, his eyes sweeping left to right. After a moment Angie seemed to glide into the field of light from the left.
“Do you mind if I sit?” she asked.
He slid to his right a bit and gestured to the open space on the bench. She settled on the bench, turning so she was facing him. She drew her right leg up and tucked it under her left thigh.
After watching her for a few seconds, waiting for her to say something, he exhaled. “OK, where to start? You say this is not about Christine. For the sake of argument, I accept that. Then what is it about? Where do I, we, come into this picture?”
Her big eyes absorbed him. He squirmed, and pulled his jacket closer. That was when he noticed that he was not feeling cold despite the night air settling in around them. In the bubble of light the night chill seemed to be absent. Just as the night sounds were. He sat silent for a couple of minutes. She sat and watched.
“Remember Grade 12?”
The question threw him off. Slowly at first, then with a rush, a burst of memory flashed into his mind.
“No! I mean, yes, I do. Sort of.” He got excited. His face reflected his sudden awareness. “Now I remember you. You…are you that Angie?”
“That is what I told you.”
“But…but you cannot be. You cannot be that Angie. She was a geeky, gawky girl with big plastic glasses, braces on her teeth, and funny bangs. She was a girl who was nobody. Someone who… who had not blossomed.”
“There is a difference between had not and would not. And I had blossomed enough to be a woman. Physically at least. As you may recall…”
“Help me. I remember some of those days. But not all. I have worked to forget much of that part of my life.”
She leaned over and slowly placed her hand on his knee. He felt the pressure of it for an instant, then the sensation disappeared. He looked at her, then down at his knee. Her hand still rested there. This whole encounter was strange, so he just accepted the loss of feeling.
She began her story.
“As you so eloquently put it, I was a geeky gawky girl. That did not mean I was not human. I felt things. Things like need. Physical need. Emotional need. Geeky I may have been. Correction. Geeky I was. Definitely geeky. Definitely in-between. But I still felt. Still hoped for attachment, for belonging. To mean something to someone.”
“I am sure when we ‘accidentally’ met behind the school one afternoon, you were surprised. I think you could fairly say I was stalking you at that instant. I arranged that not-accidental meeting.”
David’s eyes were wide, and she detected a bit of mistiness in them.
“Why did you go to the trouble?” he asked.
“Because you would not have paid any attention to me otherwise. You had not, despite my poor efforts to engage you. I am sure it would not have helped your reputation to be seen hanging around with geeky Angie. Even though you were mostly an outsider as well.”
She hesitated. A couple of times she started to speak, then stopped.
“Go on.” He encouraged her to continue.
“And because we…we were supposed to be together. Not an adolescent crush kind of together. Forever together. A real rarity: true love. On one side, anyway.” She stopped and looked down. She looked up and her eyes grabbed his. “Love which has never died.”
He swallowed. “I had no idea. Help me. Help me remember. Help me know more so I can figure out what this is about.”
Angie nodded. She rubbed her right hand across her face before speaking. “We started talking. We walked into the woods. We walked for a while. Eventually, we came to…” She looked around.
“Yes! I remember. We came to a clearing…” He slowly looked around, shaking his head.
“Like this one. We sat against a tree.”
“And I said it was okay if you wanted to touch me.”
“You did. I remember. And I did. I touched you.” He looked down, brow furled with memories and recollections. “And we touched until we ended up naked together. We, I…I lost my virginity then.”
Her smile twisted a bit. “So did I. Afterwards you asked me, when we were laying there together, ‘Did I know happiness?’ All I could say was ‘Yes’. Because at that moment, for the first time, I really knew happiness.”
She turned fully towards him. Her eyes were filled with tears. She slowly shook her head as the memories flooded across her face. David was paralyzed; he did not know what to do; to say.
He extended his index finger and gently touched the tip of her nose. Her nose twitched. Once. Twice. It was soft, warm, solid. Not spectral, not a delusion. She was made of warm flesh, just as he was.
She inhaled deeply and continued.
“But my newfound happiness did not last. The next day you avoided me. The next week. The next month. You shut me out. We made love once, then you shut me out. After a few months I left. Left school. Left town. Left everything.”
He shook his head at her words. “Apparently I was a jerk. An idiot who was so afraid of knowing happiness that he threw it away. Threw away a chance without even giving it a second thought.”
His eyes closed and his head tilted back. David brought his hands to his face and slowly rubbed it. He sat up and looked at her.
“I am sorry. I am so sorry. I was shallow, callous. And I probably lost something of value. Look at you. You are astonishing. There is a… a glow about you. I have never seen such a glow on a woman. You are not only beautiful, but almost ethereal.”
He shook his head and half-moaned. “What did I do? What have I done? Oh, what an idiot I have been.”
She did not answer. Time passed. Slow, fast, he could not tell. They sat, silent and motionless. Acutely aware of her weightless hand still resting on his leg, he was afraid to move. Afraid to break whatever spell was being cast. He simply sat and stared into her face.
After an indistinct bit of time passed, he exhaled loudly. He realized he had been holding his breath. He did not know how long he might have been holding it, or whether he had been breathing normally up to that moment. His awareness of time and place seemed to have been displaced.
She looked up. Her eyes bored into his. Without a word, with barely a movement, she took her hand off his leg. His body shook, as a sudden chill ran through it.
She unzipped her jacket and dropped it on the ground. She reached down, grabbed the hem of her dress, and pulled it off. She laid herself on the dress and drew him down.
That moment in the woods flooded over him. He almost wept as she took him.
And when she finally spoke, it was the barest whisper in his ear. “You destroyed us. You shut me out; ghosted me. You never knew the happiness we were destined for. And for what? Look at you now. Look at me. Feel me. Feel what you lost. Feel what you do not have; what you cannot have.”
Everything grew even quieter. The quiet echoed off the hills and the light slowly faded.
He woke with a shiver and a strong sense of confusion. Even before he opened his eyes he could smell the pungent autumn earth. The scent of decaying leaves and ripe acorns filled his nostrils, penetrating the fog in his head. Squirrels were loudly chattering. A jay was raucously screeching somewhere overhead.
Disoriented, he opened his eyes. The sun was dappling the forest floor around him. He was face to face with a pile of leaves. He sat upright. The sudden movement made him dizzy. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against his arm, waiting for the spell to pass.
A boisterous squirrel chittered loudly just above him. Re-opening his eyes, slowly and carefully this time, he looked around. He was sitting at the bottom of a slope in a small forest clearing. Water was splashing over rocks somewhere nearby.
He had been dreaming. He was sure of it. He was caught in the woods after dark, could not find his way out, and eventually fell asleep. When he realized this, some of the tension in his neck and shoulders began to ease. It was easy to confirm, no matter how vivid and present it felt. He turned around and looked. There was no bench. No light.
It had been a dream after all. The most vivid, most stirring dream he could recall. He felt disappointed.
Angie. She would be a reason for living. A way to know happiness. Too bad the previous night was not real. A ghost of a memory.
He resolved to store the memory and its stirrings. Hang on to it, prevent it from becoming as ephemeral as his other dreams. Maybe try to find out what happened to Angie.
He stood and stretched, then looked around for a path out to the wilds. Time to go home, pick up the pieces, move on.
As he turned, he stumbled on something. He looked down. His nighttime-in-the-woods pillow was at his feet. He bent and picked it up. With amazement he looked at it, turning it over and over in his hands. He was holding a burgundy fleece jacket and a matching cap with a small bill. A long reddish hair was curled in the cap.
Chasing an acorn along the path, kicking it ahead and following its bounces, he soon arrived back at the entry to the path. No one was around, but he did not feel alone.
END
mry writes 