Sounds no longer accompanied her in her sleep. What that meant, she didn’t know. Perhaps it meant that her ordeal would end soon. Though she was glad of it, the silence did sadden her a bit. Were it not for the long-lived promise to her perturbed younger self that she would never shed a tear again, she would probably have cried her eyes out realizing that her dream, twisted and wicked but still very much loved, as it was the only thing that had come thus far unscathed, had broken down with the finish in sight.
The imagery had stayed the same. As always, it started with her perched by the riverside, hauling water for the garden, where huge tomatoes diffidently overlooked a variety of greedy greens fighting each other over every little drop. It was early in the morning. Clouds were thinning quickly, the sun would be up soon, with its devilish rays. Peace tentatively lapped her calves. She ignored its tickly attempts at unison and concentrated on the reflections of the sky in the water, wondering whether this, then, would be the day of her husband’s return, the day they would resume their life together.
“We could start a second garden patch at the south end of our land,” she mused, “and sell the extra produce at the market, save up for proper plumbing.” Not having to haul water up from the river to wash herself and irrigate her crop, would make life a lot easier. Not having to do her business in the outhouse behind the dilapidated cabin they had taken on as newly-weds, excited at the prospect of doing it up once the war was over, would be heaven. Perhaps there would be money left for other, less urgent things. She could almost feel the worn cloth of her coarse housecoat disintegrating, making way for a colourful dress cut out of first-grade cotton.
The river stirred. She laid her hands on its surface, pretending it was her belly. As she felt her riparian baby moving, she looked up, anxious to find them there, the carefree teens, their uniform-tight youth sprawled beneath the rocks precariously overhanging the edge. Before, at this point in time bubbly sounds of laughter would have egged on the frothing beast creeping up her oesophagus, its claws clutching the high end to prevent her from joining in. She would have disconnected from the flow, she would have run back to the cabin, just in time to meet the postman, ready to present her with her never-ending fate. His deadpan face would have done the trick, and she would have woken up with a jolt, heart squeezed to a pulp, face drooping with sorrow, years piling back on rapidly.
Now that silence had taken over, she felt less of an urge to escape the inevitable. In fact, she found she was glued to the spot, not wanting to tear herself away from the soothing sight of able bodies, writhing and glistening, emanating boisterous love, not yet for each other, but for the sun, the sky, the river even, alternating between a thunderous stream of unsurpassed rage and a plane of single-minded stillness.
Suddenly, joy spread its wings and lifted her. She was free to run towards the youngsters. The memories of a life trapped between a rock and a hard place dissipated so fast, and what remained was so intent on healing, that she did not register she was, practically speaking, walking on water.
“Silence is such a gift,” she thought to herself, keenly aware that she had never been this close to retracing her steps. True enough, the dream had been a nightmare, but when you thought about it, when you really thought about it – hadn’t these two been sides of the same coin? And was not the other realm quite capable of striking a balance between them, even in a puny life filled to the brim with longing for someone or something or someplace that had ceased to exist decades ago?
A rap on the cabin door told another tale. Though sympathetic to her plight, the postman felt he could not dither indefinitely. There were many more messages to be delivered, people’s lives were at stake.
She turned over and put a large pillow over her ears, but the damage had been done. One moment of distraction had been enough for her feet to lose touch with the slipstream of happy anticipation, and with a thump she landed on the age-old boulders underpinning the factitious water. She reached out to one of the teens, a cute little imp with a mass of golden curls wrapped around her head like a halo.
“I was so pretty,” she thought to herself. “How could he have left me for the ugliness of battle? How could they have asked that of him?”
The girl ignored her hand, shaking her head and pointing a rueful finger at something or someone behind her back. With difficulty, she turned her tired bones over once more. The pillow slid over her face, covering her nose, her mouth, the wrinkles entrenched in her throat.
He was waiting. She knew he was, but waking up to disappointment had usurped such big chunks of her life, that she could not will herself to face him and his message.
Instead, she pushed forward, pillow pressing hard on her face, choking and croaking. As she slid in the cleft between both worlds, she grew even more grateful for the gift of silence. The postman kept rapping on the cabin door and her heart kept beating, but neither caught the others rhythm, and finally, after a prolonged struggle, it was quietly decided that the connection was lost, and so was she.
(I’m having fun honing my writing skills with short stories in English.)