Читать книгу Angel's Eye - Jean CDN Galliano - Страница 8

I am falling into sleep when I become conscious of a sound, like a wind. It grows increasingly louder sweeping around my ears. In no time, I am engulfed. All other sounds are drowned out. My entire body is vibrating, resonating first with curiosity then with fear. I jump up and out of my sleep. I am disoriented and confused. What was that? A dream? A loud stereo? A passing siren? I feel uneasy. My heart is beating hard. Groggy on my feet I stagger a moment, but it is quiet now. I have been spending much time alone. Perhaps I am affected by the solitude and the new found chastity. I have been missing my love for long now. Perhaps I am suffering fear of another dream. I wake myself with loud noises.

Too tired to reflect, I dismiss whatever it was. I doze again to find myself at that fine line between consciousness and sleep. The sound is upon me. Where is it coming from? Am I inside of a hurricane? It is rippling through me, and tossing my very spirit from the peaceful boundaries of unconsciousness.

I fight to wake up but cannot. I struggle to move any part of my body only to grow more and more dense. A thickness settles all around me. I am the trunk of a tree. I fight still harder trying to break loose, but I cannot move even a finger.

In the distance I hear the cry of an infant. The cry echoes. It is me. I am the infant. Some part of me is crying small and helpless. But I am strong. I have made it through birth. Though I am cold, I can feel I am alive.

I manage to awaken. Sweating, I climb out of bed and go into the bathroom to look myself over. I widen my eyes in the mirror. "I look okay,” I think, wetting my face, "What the hell was that?"

I go back to my room. Sitting and pondering, I conclude that I am not dreaming. It is quiet and barely morning. I feel both anxious and excited. I am filled with strange anticipation, but when I try to think… my mind is blank, vast and unknown. How could I desire anything or anyone when I have a terrible sensation of never really knowing or understanding even my own soul? The cry of the babe through the storm and wind are fresh, phantom, and haunting. It was not a passing siren. My brow furrows. My posture is pensive.

Look in

So far you look

only at

in…

I sit in the stillness recalling certain metaphysical occurrences that I experienced as a child. They frightened me. I was glad I outgrew them, but there is one memory of my grandfather which has never left me. At the time of his death, I dreamed that he was giving me a message for my grandmother. This was particularly unusual because my grandfather only spoke Italian. I never knew what he was saying, but in this dream I understood him with utmost clarity. He gave me a message for my grandmother! He said that he had to go now, but he would wait for her. Then he disappeared through the wall. I realized he was dying.

I yell, "Mom, answer the phone! Answer the phone!" Catatonically, I repeat that phrase; although, I do not recall dreaming anything about the telephone. These are the words I am saying, "Answer the phone! Answer the phone!”

My parents could not have known what I trying to express. I woke everyone up.

"It isn't ringing,” my father answers. My father often consoled me through sleepless, monster-filled, childhood nights. But I was twelve now and over all that. My mother assures me that the phone is not ringing.

I say, "Pop's dead. He told me he has to go now. He said to tell Mom."

They look at me then at each other in surprise. "Pop's not dead,” my father says. But I know how Dad will say anything, and even lie to spare me pain. The phone did not ring… at least not until we all calmed down and went back to bed. Then the phone rang. No one could sleep after hearing the news that Pop had died "20 minutes ago."