Broken: A Love Story & Other Short fiction

Carl and Time

Carl and Time

It was one of those dreams. They come infrequently now—once every few years. A dream where he is there and I am fulfilled. It is being with-- it's proximity. Being with him. Because I was in love with him and in the dream I still am in love with him.

It's meaning is transparent. I am lying beside him and I can smell his scent and I think—oh yes. I remember that.

It's you.

I'm enveloped, I'm satiated being there with him. In the apartment or on the beach. Wherever the dream takes place. And he can talk to me with his eyes. I don't ask myself how I could remember this after all these years. I know he loves me. I can feel his love. It radiates, it bathes. I want to kiss him or touch him. Really I want to make love to him. I yearn for him and he's practical.

Why is he practical I think?

And that's when I start to realize I'm dreaming-because in this dream of him there's no place for practicality, only in my awake consciousness.

The two of us there, in love—a last chance. Consciousness collides; it doesn't shatter. The dream doesn't end. It retreats like the ocean, in subtlety. Leaving more and more shore between us when he goes, before I'm fully awake.

Half dreaming, I touch him any way. I press myself against him. I inhale. I recognize him after all this time, I think.

There it is again I think. All this time.

That is my awake self. In real life I know how much time has passed but the dream is ignorant. No conception that the two of us, middle age now.

Fully awake I have no idea I am so empty and that emptiness is because of him.

Still, I wake but pretend I don't. I let it linger. Knowing it was decades ago. Knowing where I am and that I'm glad to be there. Still, I pretend to be sleeping because I want him a little longer. Because I know it will be a very long time before I'll dream of him again, feel him next to me again. I'll forget him all over again but one night, or more likely one morning just before dawn he'll visit me again.

***

I opened the screen door and yelled out towards the lake "Sarah! Josh!" I listened for a moment. I heard splashing and I let out a deep breath and shook my head. The whole way down to the edge of the lake I was simultaneously shaking my head and talking myself out of frustration. "Try to relax." I tell myself. "It's the family vacation."

But in the thirty-seconds it takes me to get to the shore I'd forgotten any zen intentions. The kids were in the water with the Nolan twins, two boys—handsome. They'd become quite good looking over the years and they're 15, the same age as Sarah. I stood watching. Josh was still a boy. Only 11. He wanted the Nolan twins' attention because he thought they were cool. I knew that. Sarah, I could see now wanted their attention too. I should have known, the way she skipped out of the cottage and down to the water. The very fact that they were all out there swimming together. She hadn't played like that in the water for at least two years.

"Sarah!" I yell to her.

She somehow heard me or sensed me. She came up from underneath the water. In a violent, unexpected attack she dunked her brother suddenly then smiled and waved "Yeah?"

"Why did you do that to Josh?"

"What do you want?"

"Really? Why did you?"