especially after what had happened on the night before
but
Hurrying my approaching I
especially after what
She stuck her head out of the car as if to say Surprise.
I got into their car. I had the feeling I was leaving behind a swarm.
Let’s go she said.
but
Yes let’s get me out of here I told myself.
I exited the Public Library (Restaurant: N) with (Bag Storage: N) but (Restrooms: Y) with all of my belongings with me. Then I ducked into the market just across the street. I had decided I would eat my lunch at one of the little wrought iron tables in the tree lined fairly crowded park behind the Public Library. Tourists mainly local couples working people baby strollers.
After another long much longer stint inside the (Recommended: Y) I went back over to the market spooned up dinner from the buffet of prepared foods set into a wide bank of warming trays before stopping at the adjacent drugstore. Fear of awakening in the middle of the night without sufficient
Weaving in among the trees the father hurried home while praying that his children who as far as he could tell were ignorant of his watching them would choose the easier slower path back to the house.
I bought some extra snacks because I was afraid of waking up to nothing next to me to eat.
Sky darkening the air a little chilly
There’s a suffocating feeling that I get when clouds roll in.
I stepped into the patio then down again to enter through the automatic doors.
You might not turn up anything she said.
I chose a number. Then
As if the clouds are rolling right into my mouth
And that’s why we need you he later said.
I took the elevator up.
my nose
the space behind my eyes
I feel
I feel
It seemed as if the darkness was what pulled that train along as if the darkness pulled the train to just exactly where it wanted all the people in the train with all their things to go.
The lady
more like vapor these days seeping through the cracks between the floorboards or through gaps around the door
grew somehow conscious of what heavy burdens these two women one who had a child
However on her own she couldn’t possibly have
He
The child
Although he did one day become
It was a frigid day when memories of the night his mother climbed releasing him from her grasp up to the railing on the bridge began to dim. He was a young man now who thanks to just one gentle request from mother to the chambermaid
The chambermaid was happy to help a child whose eyes she often thought showed true compassion
empathy
extraordinary sympathy resulting from a limitless sensitivity to
capacity for
To look into his eyes she told the lady when appealing in the child’s behalf is first to lose yourself inside their color then you find that you’ve come out upon the other side confronted by a trail into a forest of unfathomable dimension. Depth. So little sky. Those eyes.
So many trees.
He thus began to get his lessons in the mornings with the children from a nearby mansion. As he grew he more repeatedly began to think of nothing other than revenge for not just all the years his delicately featured fragile little mother spent inside that closet but for how her time on earth had bottomed out.
When on the train awakened by a jolt I
Slipping back into my country cottage dream I started to anticipate the return of the little boy’s parents. Absent from the dream they were apparently returning to the cottage. I grew anxious then
The rimmed in small blue painted flowers plate was trembling on my lap.
about what in the world I could say to the two familiar
They looked so familiar in that dream.
familiar figures who would all too soon be standing in the cottage doorway conjoined in a shared expression of knowing parental terror glazed over with a rapidly disappearing layer of hope. How can I possibly explain this thing I asked myself about the plate.
I awakened again. All quiet save the sounds of the train. Through the window I could watch the sky. The moon was full. I did not look at the woman sitting across from me. I only thought about the dream.
The answer that they
We were in the ENTRANCE
MAIN
(Night Five)
which as he pointed out
You have to admit he said.
was high. A gabled
pretty impressive!
stone projection to the right side of the STAIRCASE
MAIN
The answer was that he had disappeared before.
I felt as though I
Having spent my lifetime tangled up in skeins of thinnest threads I felt as though at last I was beginning to unweave.
Except he always
Sometimes it can take a few days she said. Even weeks he said.
came home.
She said However this time seems a little
That’s why we need you he interrupted. He was looking up into the ceiling.
She was looking down.
I stuck the key into the
402
It was a double with an ivory eyelet canopy on top with ruffle around the bottom both in dusty pink coordinated loosely with the carpet more directly with the walls all painted in the same pink color. Not just one but two gold painted chairs pink cushions shared a cozy corner with a floor lamp near a tripod table bunch of artificial flowers in a vase. The lightness of the carpet with the shortness of the ruffle meant that every corner of the room could be looked into even underneath the bed.
There was a blocked off fireplace white painted grate the window dressed in triple treatment of white vinyl blind behind a gauzy dark green curtain fringed at top with matching valance. May sound good but it was seedy. A little dirty. Worse than 607. There were pictures though. A row of slightly banged up seasonal depictions of a lake a seated conversation on a porch two different sailing scenes one ordinary sailing scene one showing children using sticks to push toy boats across the surface of a pond. But catching my attention in a lingering way
It started with a jolt.
was one medium sized portrait
good condition
hung above the fireplace.
If we should try imagining the raw intensity of the feelings of that child
a man now
we would find a new example of
The child became a
uncontrolled connection with not one
not two
He waits.
He walks.
He passes fluidly among three states of consciousness.
I laid a towel across the bed. I opened the spaghetti suddenly remembering after buttering the bagel halves a dream from several nights ago that I had not recalled until the moment when I stepped into the train.
On board I passed from car to car looked for a seat across from seats still empty. When I spotted just exactly what I wanted I remembered dreaming of
I felt a momentary pang of longing sitting eating on the bed.
All dark. As I could suddenly recall on board that train the person in the dream who chased me was unknown. While being chased while crossing from the concrete walkway to the grass while trying desperately to keep my distance out in front I also tried while crossing grass to walkway grass to slow my shifting sense of who he was. This effort to arrest his image as the high speed nature cameras capture