Erica Verrillo
Presque Vu

"Oh!" she said. "I just remembered my dream." Her son had called, and he had said something, which she had instantly forgotten in the little rush brought on by her snippet of dream. The dream segments that returned to her were flashes in the pan, tantalizing quasi-visions, vivid and evocative of profound emotion, a feeling of immediacy, intimate in their promised revelation of some deeply significant truth.

She could never hold onto her dreams. They disappeared as soon as she awoke, winking out as quickly and brightly as shooting stars no matter how hard she struggled to retain them. And these little reminders that appeared randomly over the course of the day left her poised on the edge of enlightenment, deepening her frustration with a promise held just out of reach.

"You were saying?" she said. And her son continued to describe his new job - running around Los Angeles in his car, fetching lunch for the crew. He was ordering from Denny's even as he spoke with her.

Maybe it was a car. Yes, it was a car, she was in a car, and it was stuck in reverse. She had no control over it, and she was panicked.

No, that was a recurring dream. Not the one she needed to remember, not the important one. And the little vision was gone now, vanished in the mundanity of diet Cokes and turkey sandwiches "hold the mayo."

"You should get out more," he was saying. Her son was scolding her now, worried. "Do something different."

"I'm fine the way I am," she said. She didn't want different. She wanted the comfort and security of doing the same thing every day, eating the same thing every day, going to bed at the same time every night, no variation, no tiresome planning, no uncomfortable adjustments to novelty. At her age, novelty held a challenge that she was completely unwilling to meet.

From where she stood, talking on the portable phone by the bay window in the living room, she could see her entire garden. The first frost had killed off her tomatoes, which had been prolific in this hot, dry summer. Their fate was the compost heap. The cannas were wilted, as were the dahlias. They'd have to be dug up before they rotted. It was her fall routine: dig things up, throw things out, and put the garden to bed.

She rang off, and put on her shoes. It was a warm day, almost Indian summer, though not quite. The clouds were lowering, dark gray underneath, but occasionally the sun broke through and lit up the yellow leaves of the ash trees at the edge of the lawn. As she dug up the cannas and dahlias, cutting off the dead foliage and shaking the moist black soil from the roots, the leaves fluttered down around her. It was a lovely day, like a painting in a museum. Something she could admire from a distance without laying claim to it.

The rhizomes safely stored, and her tomato plants pulled, she now had the rest of the afternoon to spend reading, perhaps watching a movie she'd seen a dozen times. (Her son chided her about that too. The truth was she preferred knowing the ending right from the start. Old films were reliable.)

A gentle breeze caressed her check, and she stood, facing the ash trees. The copse extended along the driveway and down to the road. She peeled off her gardening gloves, and began to walk, her shoes crunching lightly on the gravel. Passing the big squared-off boulder she'd used to bend and shape the metal supports for her raised beds, she was reminded of Aztecs or Incas. One of them had built stone pyramids, and made ritual sacrifices. The boy's bike that had been left in the little gully by the road was still there, rusting, waiting for its owner to return. Across the road was a deeper gully, with a lethargic stream that ran though it from a culvert. There was no stream on the other side, so where this little trickle of water came from was a mystery.

The road ran from Haydenville to Whately, and like all Hilltown back roads, it twisted and wove its way up and down rises, seeking low points where it could follow a stream or gully. There was relatively little traffic, in spite of being leaf peeping season. Like most country roads, there was no sidewalk. The houses were few and far between, and nobody walked anywhere. But, she knew every inch of this road from having driven it a thousand times - to soccer games, band performances, county fairs, farmers' markets, doctors' appointments, and everything else that boded contact with civilization.

The sun came out, and the trees arching over the road beckoned her. She headed south, towards Haydenville. A walk, she thought. Not precisely different. But it was spontaneous. She'd have to tell her son, not that he would be impressed by an afternoon jaunt.

Something glinted up from the dirt by the side of the road, a slug, or the ring from an aluminum can. and then, a flash of dream. In her dream there had been silver, sequins, yes, a sequin dress, or cloth, something mystical, brilliant, hovering just out of reach...

She didn't even hear the pick-up that came roaring by, or see it, because she was walking with, not against, the traffic, and she barely felt the bottle that came crashing against her skull, and which knocked her to her knees. The truck didn't stop.

Dazed, she tried to regain her feet. She lifted her hand to her head, and it came away red. She could feel the blood, warm and sticky, flowing down her face like lava from a volcano. There was something she needed to do: go home. She needed to go home.

A black car pulled over just ahead of her, and a young man hopped out. Flannel shirt, work boots, sincere face, one of those sustainable, gluten-free types.

"Can you, can you take me." The words were getting stuck in her mouth. She wanted to ask him to take her home, but she was getting dizzy now.

"I'll take you to the hospital," he said, lifting her by the arm. He fit her into the back seat, where he insisted that she lie down.

"But, it will get dirty," she said. She tried to turn her head so it wouldn't drip all over, but the movement made her a little nauseous. Out the window, the trees flew by. After a few moments, they thinned, which meant they were passing the reservoir. You could see the lake clearly now that the red pines had been cut down. They'd had some kind of infection, or infestation, and had to go. There was a town meeting about it, but nobody really minded the loss. Red pines were a dime a dozen.

The car turned at the cream-colored house that used to be green. The paint job had been an improvement as its former color was a putrid shade that reminded one of gangrene. Colors never looked right on shingles anyway.

"Are you alright?" asked the young man. He'd asked her several times already.

"I'm fine," she said.

"We'll be there soon." He sounded anxious, like her son.

At the hospital they didn't make her sit in the waiting room, but got her onto a bed almost immediately. First they had to "process" her. But even the intake personnel looked worried. She must be bleeding like a stuck pig.

"We'll get you taken care of right away, dear," said the nurse. Right away meant an hour. But for an Emergency Room, that was pretty quick.

The alcove had two beds, cots really, bright fluorescent lights, pale walls - not white, but equally as antiseptic. There were dinging noises coming from the hall, an elevator? The sounds of bustling humanity. They took her blood pressure, hooked her up to a machine. Eventually, a doctor drew back her curtain. He was balancing a little silver computer on one hand, looking at it as he spoke her name. She was already in the computer, on the screen, apparently.

Somehow, without dropping the computer or looking directly at her face, he leaned over and peered at her head.

"How did this happen?" he murmured.

"I was walking along the road, and someone threw a bottle at my head," she said. "They didn't stop," she added. She didn't want the hospital staff to think the young man had injured her.

"Well," said the doctor. "You're lucky they hit your hard skull rather than your soft eye." He rapped his own skull, trying to be personable. "Scalp wounds bleed a lot, so you look a lot worse than you are. This will only require a few butterfly bandages. You won't need stitches."

He continued to talk as he cleaned the wound, inspected it again, and bandaged her. "Did you lose consciousness? Any nausea, vomiting?"

"No, a little nausea maybe."

"When you get home, lie down and rest." He looked at the computer screen again. "Is there someone who can take you home and watch you for a few hours? A relative or friend?"

The question confused her, "My son is in California."

"Who brought you in?"

What was his name? She hadn't thought to ask.

The nurse ducked her head through the curtain, and the doctor muttered a question. She heard the nurse say, "He's still here, waiting."

"Good," said the doctor.

They wheeled her out, and she was processed once again, or de-processed. This time, she was sent to the waiting room, where the nice young man had been sitting for - look at the time! - more than two hours. He looked distinctly relieved to see her cleaned up and bandaged.

"Thank you so much for waiting." she left the statement dangling, and tried to raise her eyebrows.

"Stephen." He pronounced it Steffen. She'd be willing to bet nobody called him Steve.

The nurse had apparently spoken to him, because he didn't even ask if he could take her home, he just brought the car up, and helped her into the passenger seat.

"Are you sure you don't want to lie down?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said. On the way home, she looked at the sky. The sun was low on the horizon. The whole day had gone. The young man drove up the gravel driveway to her porch, and helped her out of the car. He had long pale fingers, very clean, and though he was thin, he was strong. Once she was safely standing on her own, he offered to stay. She didn't know why he was being so helpful, but she didn't want to ask. He might want to chat.

"That's very kind of you," she said. "But I'll be fine. My landlord lives right up the hill."

He backed down the driveway, and she watched him as he turned left onto Haydenville Road, going south.

She didn't go into the house right away, but sat for a while on the porch steps. Before her, the lawn, still vibrantly clothed in its summer colors, was littered with golden confetti, and through the trees there was a bright patch of brilliant chartreuse, sprinkled with rust and scarlet. At first, she thought it was a green cloud, and the wonder of such a thing captured her eyes, until she realized it was a hillside struck with the last rays of sunlight. Beautiful, it was so beautiful, and so close she could touch it. It took her breath away. A crow strutted across her lawn, looking important, and she laughed out loud, delighted with the perfection of the evening. The air smelled of apples, and smoke, and possibilities.

Everything was the same, only different.

That night she had a dream. She was at a party, or a gathering of some sort. Many people were talking indistinctly, and she had the sense that they were discontented, dissatisfied in some way. An old woman with long white hair, dressed in a robe like an ancient priestess approached her, holding out a string from which hung a shining piece of jet black obsidian. Without speaking, the woman somehow conveyed the knowledge that if she held the rock she would be happy. It was a gift. She took the string but did not hold the obsidian.

"I can make my own happiness," she said.

_ _

Erica Verrillo is the author of the Phoenix Rising trilogy from Random House, as well as of two medical reference texts. Her short works have appeared in over a dozen publications. She lives in Western Massachusetts, where people have the good graces to leave her alone. On Twitter @EricaVerrillo.

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