Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Friends and Ancestors - by Timothy Ingalls
at 9:00 a.m. my mother wakes me
(you're awake?) she asks
I look and nod at something with a smile
and if I remember right, this is what happened
Tons of her relatives under a massive aging wooden table, rolling around on smaller more proportioned chairs, wooden and old alike, drinking and laughing, talking nonsense to each other. They rolled and rolled like a carnival on these chairs with flat bottomed legs that rolled like office chairs. Where the table ends is where a green field opens up, and then a hill just ahead, more of a ramp I would say, a dirt ramp with small resting areas with small wooden doors behind them where people gathered. The doors were surrounded by shadows that had been hand drawn around each door, whoever drew them used thick ink, you could feel the shadows dripping on your shoulder and all around.
I walk through a door behind people of whom I knew their names but wouldn't say (hello) to, which made them feel like strangers. and probably should be. I join them and watch, we watched like viewers of old gladiators, sipping brew and waiting to cheer in this dream-rendered coliseum.
As I watch I see my bride and her relatives and then I move down the hill and underneath the table, my presence seems unacknowledged, the relatives ride around me like bumper cars.
when suddenly almost everyone files out, leaving me, my bride, her aunt, and a distant cousin. Now my presence is known, they all look into my eyes. They were about to leave and so I gave my bride a forceful kiss that was accepted but not recognized as anything familiar nor anything of any romantic value, it didn't mean anything, it seemed as common as taking aspirin or paying a bill. She stepped back because I pressed so hard. then she gathered herself and watched as her aunt pulled an exact replica of her body from the ground. The body was a costume, another layer that she was to wear. Her aunt spoke of how well prepared everything was and how beautiful the costume looked. I tried it on. They all watched me, and again I did something that was easily accepted, completely unworthy of notice. I asked her (is this ok?) her cousin and aunt left immediately and then she turned from me, picked up her dress, her dress that she was to marry me in, smiled and said (two of us is better than one). She veiled herself and rushed out through one of the doors, faster than anything I'd seen.
I follow much slower. Through and into a large warehouse like room painted white with no furniture, nothing but scrap paper fallen from bulletin boards hung scarcely along the walls. Her speed had created a distance between us, I had to look far with my eyes to notice she was gone, I ran fast, and reached the doors as they were slowly closing.
A high school hallway was next. A high school hallway on the last day of school or so it seemed. Thousands of boys, only boys running violently past the locker lined hall. I stould in the door, and wasn't touched, when I looked ahead and saw my bride at the head, they were all after her.
I tried to jump in, but I couldn't, and I don't know why.
Finally after they had all passed all but two stragglers, I accessed the hall. I ran alongside the two slowest chasers until we hit the turn, and I followed one of them into the wall with my shoulder. He looked at me and began to cry. He was saying he was sorry, and his friend was tired and sweating, looking at me like he was confused, but in a hurry.
The boy in tears had a small note attached to his chest. He grabbed it when I went to read it. To get it out of his hands, I placed my two hands on the wall and kicked him in the side.
He threw the note to the floor, I walked over to get it and read somewhat to myself, somewhat in a whisper, somewhat in a panter of anxiety, somewhat in my own tears now: "I love you for all the nights we could have, for all of the love in this physical world, I love you for your body pressed against mine."
And in this rarest occasion. I saw two men. I cried to myself solemn for them, for what they were.
And in the same solemn and conciliative form, without anger, I placed both my hands on the wall for a second time.
The other man watched me paint the wall red. He watched it dry. He watched it become old.
At 9:50 a.m. my mother wakes me.
(church starts in 10 minutes, were leaving.) she says
I sit up and stare at the empty doorway.
submitted at 10:24 AM
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