Unfortunately
How, he wondered, did she get into this dream of his? A peculiar
dream, but then isn’t that what all dreams are like? Stranger than what
ever happens in life. Leaving you afterward, if you even remember
them, wondering what might occasion them, what deep, dark recesses of
your mind harboured such thoughts to spring into a mysterious shadowy
kind of life in your mind, while you’re asleep. And here he was, quite
clearly but slowly awakening from one of those dreams. Perhaps more
like a nightmare. He would have to reserve judgement until he knew more
about what his sleep-fevered mind imagined.
And why
was she crying? That kind of distortion of someone’s face, even someone
as young as her, made it difficult to recognize her. But he did. He
had never before taken close notice of her features. Other than to note
how plain looking she was, poor thing. What people used to describe as
homely. Well, he didn’t mind, he was homely in appearance himself.
But she was a nice, pleasant young woman, always with a smile on her
face, and anxious to please. He knew her as the cashier at the local
coffee shop. Where he was often asked to drop in, to pick up a few
special orders.
He didn’t drink coffee himself, the
jolt of caffeine didn’t agree with him. He had, his late mother had
always murmured, a “delicate constitution”, and it’s true, his stomach
was easily upset. Which was why he always had his lunch at the Green
Diner. Regular as clockwork, twenty past noon he would exit the
building, walk down the block to the same place he took his lunch for
the past three decades. People who knew him even slightly in the area,
claimed they could depend on his daily stroll for lunch to inform them
of the time.
She was pale, and weeping, her grey eyes
swimming in tears. And he wondered why. Wanted to ask her, but the
words wouldn’t form. It was always like that, in dreams. You wanted to
respond, intended to do something or react somehow to what was
occurring in the dream and you just could not. As though you were not
meant to. Because you were a spectator, imagining that you were an
integral part of whatever was happening. And obviously that was the
case now.
He could see her mouth moving. She wore no
make-up; her features were pleasant enough, but somehow placed in an
irregular manner on her face, giving the impression that whoever
designed that face was in too great a hurry, poor girl. He couldn’t
make out what her lips, forming the words, meant to convey to him. For
whatever it was she was saying was obviously meant for him. There was
no one else near him. And he was in a very strange position. It was
dark, yet it was light. He was lying on his back, nothing surprising
there, since he always slept on his back. But it soon became hazily
evident to him that he was not in his bed. He was, rather, in the
out-of-doors in an area vaguely familiar to him. Familiar, yet
unfamiliar, since this was a streetscape he had long known bipedally.
Never had he scrutinized it in a daze, lying on his back.
The
dark portion of his perception was occasioned by something very large,
mechanical, metallic, filthy with detritus, with layers of icy snow,
looming over him. The light was that of the ordinary light of a winter
day seeping under the dark and heavy object stationed over him. And the
girl was there, kneeling, beside him. What a peculiar set of
circumstances, what an odd staging; what were they doing there? He
became dimly aware of a high-pitched sound scraping through a dull roar
in his ears. The sound finally coalesced into words he could
distinguish: “Sir…Sir…are you all right?” Why would he not be, although
he was grateful for her concern. Why was she so anguished? For him…?
“Sir,
hang on, please stay with me“, he heard, and wondered what on Earth she
was going on about. Stay with her? Why? Mind, he liked her
immensely, though he did not know her personally. She addressed him in a
respectful manner; Sir, she said. Of course, she didn’t know his name,
his first name, using it disrespectfully, without his permission like
the young new office manager. Who addressed everyone, even the senior
partners, by their first names. He’d known them a long time and out of
respect and courtesy would never dream of addressing them other than
formally, using their surnames. He knew his place; she obviously did
not recognize hers. He should, he mused, introduce this nice young woman
to that other one, the new hire, whose presumptuousness so irritated
him.
He felt so burdened. As though he was being
crushed. He hadn’t felt that, before. That noise, that incessant
roaring sound was increasing, and he could no longer hear the weeping
young woman’s voice, though she was still there, still urging him to do
something he could no longer fathom. He felt unutterably chilled, colder
than he’d ever felt before. And then he remembered, he’d been running
late, hadn’t taken his scarf, his gloves, his hat. The only part of him
that felt some warmth was his hands. She was holding his hands in
hers. Her small, warm hands warming his, pleading with him to “hold
on”. Why? She was holding on, there was no need for him to….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He
would never know that Fortune had conceived a grudge against him. Why
him? He would never ask that, either. Would never believe, even if he
were to have been advised, that this had all been diabolically planned
by Fortune. How could anyone? After all, Fortune was supposed to be
beyond bias, visiting good on those who deserved it equally with those
who clearly did not. And bringing ill to those who had lived exemplary
lives, just as readily as she did to those whose lives brought horror to
those of others upon whom they preyed. Fortune had no care about the
outcomes and destinies of peoples’ lives. She impassively directed them
to the right or to the left, and whatever might descend upon them to
uplift or to condemn them simply occurred. She was the blindfolded
messenger, and no one ever sought to blame her. On this occasion she
was not blameworthy, for she had taken note of this man’s daily
perambulation toward his lunch site. There was something about this
inoffensive, well-tempered and very ordinary man that had obviously
offended her. She had instructed fate to send toward the intersection
just as he was crossing it, a great, lumbering beast of a truck. Whose
driver, an unwitting witness to a very discrete and unfortunate
accident, sat at the wheel and directed its passage, unable to forestall
the little tragedy. And he sat in his cab, quivering in huge distress
and disbelief. He too, had been used and abused by Fortune. Who went on
her way afterward, dispensing her often unnerving, sometimes celebratory
happenstance of fortune upon unwary humans.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In
the following day’s issue of the local newspaper, much was made of the
heroic efforts of firefighters to free the man who had been pinned under
the double-sized dump trunk. The office manager of the law firm which
had employed the man who had started there at the age of 20 as a file
clerk, was effusive in her praise of the young woman who had given
comfort to the man who was so beloved of everyone who had ever worked
with him at that law firm. He would be missed, they said. His cheerful
presence, his willingness to take on any task required of him, however
small. His good-natured reliability. Their office would never be the
same again.
In his obituary it was implied that he had
lived a solitary but exemplary life. He had no close relatives. He
hadn’t even a domestic pet. He had his job, and he had his routine.
And now he had need of neither.
