Author’s note: Classifying this entry as Fragments of My Dreams is not entirely legitimate. Unlike other entries of this category, the element that is derived from my dream is minimal. Having said that, I have this story stuck inside my head for a long time. One recent dream of mine has inspired on how to wrap it up with a hook that may work better than my original plot. For that, I don’t mind relaxing the rule of the classification a little bit.
Like photography, in this story, I intend to create a ‘depth of field’ whereby the most recent story in focus is described in accurate details while the events that happened in the past get more vague, broken, and abstract as we traverse down the timeline. Memory plays trick on us at times. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people alive or dead is purely coincidental.
1. Prologue
Claire Anna Walker. Whenever I think of her name, I feel as though I could hear a dull bang inside my heart. Time has washed down memory, deconstructed the familiarity. New routines overwrite the old ones, slowly and surely wear away the little that has left behind. Distorted and made abstract. Gaps are fused with imagination, yearning, and dreams that make the tracing of the true flow of events almost impossible. Only a dull bang remains. My heart does not feel anything nowadays like it used to, which is depressing. I do not want to forget. But having a choice seems like a luxury I cannot afford in a time like this.
Claire Anna Walker. Sometimes when I think of her name, I wonder where she is, what she is doing. Does she still walk the streets and the countryside with her easel and her oil painting toolbox looking for her next inspiration? Her next vintage point? Or her next muse? Not knowing is like having an itch that I cannot scratch. Worse still, this itch resides inside my head, which I cannot reach.
2. The Bitter Cry of Heartache and of Emotions of Other Sorts
September
Though Claire and I have recently reconciled, things were never quite the same as it was. Courtesy masked away our eccentricity but what was left behind seemed bland and less interesting. We seldom met. Nor could we find a compelling reason to. Our reformed friendship did not quite work the way we have intended. Or the way I had wished. It was like having a virtual policeman lurking in the shadow only to appear when the boundary of physical and emotional intimacy was challenged. Things that we would have talked about but did not. Things that we would have done but did not. I bit my tongue so many times. And I knew that she did too. I was surprised when Claire suddenly wanted to meet up.
It must have been a month or two since we last met. I still remember this scene vividly. From across the street, Claire was dressed in pastel walking towards me. A lacy long dress that flowed well onto her tall slender body. In the past, I have always tried to tell her that she looked good in a long dress. But her preference was T-shirt and jeans. “In all practicality”, she used to say to me, “oil painting is my hobby”.
“But writing is mine! And I need a muse. A muse in long dress,” I would jokingly reply.
She would laugh, roll her eyes, and say, “That is your problem. Go find someone else as your muse!”
That day, there was no smile on Claire’s face. As she was walking towards me, her body gesture showed awkward signs of hesitation. Her face was paler than usual, without makeup as usual. Her lips – which in any other given days looked full and kissable – now squeezed into a quivering thin line. Those eyes of despair they slowly swelled up as she stood two steps in front of me. Stopped right there she held her distance. At that moment, as though she was the Gaia and I was the moon. My gravitational pull might have triggered the free flow of her tears, which was only a matter of time before she dived into my embrace, collapsed into a long bitter cry.
I was not sure how to react, except to give her a warm albeit friendly hug. A little squeeze as I breathed in the moment. The invisible policeman was watching. I was certain of it. I could smell the shampoo of her long hair, feel the shaking of her body, hear the erratic beating of her heart – and mine – and the faint sobbing sound of her almost silence bitter cry. Something must have gone wrong but I did not know what. Relationship problem with men, or women? Her oil paining hit a road block like my novel writing? Her parents got a divorce? Her cat died? She ran out of money? Someone bullied her? She only had a few months to live? Or weeks?
Everything leading up to this moment was clear and vivid. And then, my memory suffered an involuntary lapse. It went blank, almost like a self defense. I was confused by the whole scene, of course. I was unable to accept what was to come. There was this touch of gratitude and the surrendering of logic and reasoning. I had a strong hunch that someone must have broken her heart. Someone else. It had to be, for this was a bitter cry of a heartache, in an enormous scale.
After what appeared as an eternity, Claire looked up. Her lips broke into a soft smile and she said, “Thank you. And goodbye.” She then turned and disappeared into an alley. I was immobilized.
That was the last time I saw Claire.
3. A Courteous Reconciliation
Early August
A month or so before our final encounter, Claire and I had a fight. We seldom argued. But we did. I was not sure if I should call her after the act. But she did not call me either. The past one week of not seeing each other had been a torture. I found myself missing her. Should I be expecting a call? Was she expecting my call? Would she want to be left alone? I did not action. Neither did she. Nothing was happening. The days went by dully. On the other end of my routine spectrum, my work-in-progress novel was going nowhere. Last night I had a dream. But that did not inspire. Something was missing. Where was Claire?
Where?
One fine morning, I woke up with bright sunlight flooding into my apartment on the ground floor. My windows were closed but I could hear the birds chirping outside. I saw one. And then two. I took it as a sign, got out of the bed, picked up my phone, and dialed Claire’s number.
I was about to give up on the third ring when someone answered.
“Good morning,” I said.
There was a short pause and then Claire’s voice came through the line, “Good morning.”
“How are you?” Almost sounded like a whisper as I was holding my breath not knowing what to expect.
“I am okay,” replied Claire.
“Did I wake you up?”
“No you did not. The birds did.”
Ah, the birds.
“Would you like to catch up for breakfast at our usual cafe?” I wasn’t too sure what to say and I muttered the first thing that came to my mind. My stomach was growling.
“Hmm.”
“It’ll be pancake. On me,” I offered.
“Sure.”
“Great. Be there in half an hour?”
“Sure.”
Over our pancake breakfast, we stayed out of the landmine territories and instead, talked about what we were up to in the past one week. There was nothing spectacular to report, or talk about. The magic had disappeared. I wanted to talk about my writer’s block. But that sounded impotence. She did not talk about her painting progress either. I did not ask. At some point though, I thought she was studying me like how she studied her painting subjects. The way her eyes traced my profile sent shivers down my spine. I felt as though the creases on my face – and on my clothing – were being analyzed, drawn onto her – or my – imaginary easel. Her eyes lingered in areas that needed more details, decomposing the whole of me into dabs of wet paint, layered on top of each other. I was going crazy. She was driving me crazy.
That breakfast encounter left me with a weird aftertaste.
4. The Great Fight
Late July
“You suck as a friend!” yelled Claire.
“I what?” retorted I.
It went on and on. I was more annoyed than furious. Sure I had missed her call a few times. But I was busy with my novel. Writing is a lonely journey. Inspiration comes and goes. Like any argument between two individuals, the topic is often trivial but at times fundamental. Claire’s brain was governed by logic and discipline. She painted in realism. Perspective had to be faithfully replicated onto a painting. So were the different shades of colors. My brain, on the other hand, was not governed by any universal laws. It thrived on being abstract. Lines were meant to be bent. Shapes were meant to be morphed. Ideas were meant to be spontaneous.
The truth was, I was unable to define our relationship. She was as hot-and-cold to me as I was to her. We walked out from that fighting scene feeling bruised and hurt. Words that should not have spoken but we did. Feelings that should not have bared but we did. Both of us lost something deep inside that day. In retrospect, I felt I was at the losing end. As though I was being dumped. How the wind of change had descended upon us. A couple of days ago, inside a pub, under a more friendly environment, we were reminiscing on how we first met. A bizarre event that we had encountered around half a year ago. Those are happy moments.
5. A Bizarre Recollection
Mid July
“Remember that day we first met?” asked Claire.
“How could I forget? That was half a year ago,” I laughed.
“Me neither. The thing is, I can never quite figure out what has happened.”
“Or what we saw.”
She nodded and continued, “Do you think the driver survive those falls?”
“It’s hard to say. I thought I saw a little girl sitting inside the car. Maybe another adult too.”
“Come on. Logically speaking, no one can survive something like that.”
“True. But history also tells us that extraordinary events do happen.”
“So you are saying that there could be a miracle?” she quizzed.
I paused, took another sip of the beer, and said, “Quite honestly, I don’t remember having seen the whole scene. Nor do I remember all the details that come out from it”
“Like half of the scene was being blacked out.”
“Like half of the scene was being blacked out,” I repeated; “Or edited. Censored.”
Claire took a big gulp of beer and asked, “By who? For what purpose?”
“I don’t know. We went downstairs from the rooftop as soon as the car went out of sight, didn’t we? We ran as far as the main junction down the road. The air was hazy. Dusk was upon us. To our left and our right were the main streets dotted with numerous shops. Ahead of us was a street that led to a shopping mall. There was no abnormality in proximity.”
Claire frowned and asked, “Why didn’t we return to the yellow field in front of your apartment?”
“Because the car disappeared from the yellow field and not into? Perhaps that was why?”
“Hey, that is logic! Logic is my department. Thou shalt not pass!”
I laughed, “Jokes aside. Maybe we will never find out why. Unless you could speak with the ghosts from the past.”
We fell into silence and drank our beers.
“We shouldn’t drink so much tonight,” Claire whispered into her glass of beer without looking at me.
“And why not?”
“Remember the last time we got totally wasted?”
“Oh. That.”
“Ya. That.”
“It wasn’t that long ago,” I said, pressing my fingers hard onto my temples trying to recall when.
“No it wasn’t,” said Claire.
“How does that masterpiece of your go?” I changed the topic.
“My painting?”
“Yes, the one you titled as ‘By My Sofa You Slept With A Peaceful Smile’?”
“Oh. That.”
“Ya. That.”
“I am still working on it. Pretty much like the progress of your novel.”
“I hope your painting is doing much better than my novel,” I laughed.
“And why’s that?” asked Claire.
I shrugged, “Because it is going nowhere.”
6 Did We or Did We Not?
Early July
One morning I woke up at Claire’s sofa looking stupefied. How in the world did I end up in Claire’s apartment, sleeping on a sofa right next to her bed? Claire was too awakened roughly at the same time as me. Rubbing her face with her hands, the first thing she said was: Uh oh.
I scanned the surrounding and found empty beer bottles everywhere. This looked bad. We were totally wasted last night. Smashed beyond recognition.
“Uh oh. Did we?” asked I.
“No we didn’t. You must be dreaming,” replied Claire quickly.
“You sure?”
“Not really.”
Claire collapsed back onto her bed, pulled a blanket partially covering her body. I thought she had gone back to sleep but out of nowhere, she spoke, “Do you want pancakes?”
Reluctantly, I got out of the sofa and said, “Great idea. Let’s go.” I needed some strong coffee to beat my hangover, badly.
7. On the Topic of Art
May
When Claire and I first became friends, I was drawn to her skill painting in realism while she was drawn to my talent of writing in an abstract style. Our common topic was art. Museums and libraries were our sacred playgrounds.
We had debates too. Ironically on the very things that drawn us together.
“Have you tried writing in realism?” Out of the blue, Claire posted this question to me as we were touring inside a museum.
“As in describing each table and mug in detail? The shape of the house, the cracks on the wall, the fabric of the clothing, and the quality of light? Knowing the name of different shades of colors by heart, like you do?”
Claire paused and replied, “Something like that.”
“That doesn’t excite me.”
“Why’s that? Is it because of your lack of vocabulary in describing your subjects in details?”
Unsure if I should take offense on her last remark, I continued, “Perhaps. Or more so, when I am not passionate on that something, I don’t feel the need to expand my repository for the sake of it.”
“But it’s a good skill, don’t you think?”
“How about this. Let me turn around and ask you this instead: Have you tried painting abstract art?”
“Nope.”
“And why not?”
“It is a whole new technique and discipline. And it is not my forte.”
“Is it because of your lack of imagination? Or you are afraid to distort reality and to deviate from it?”
Claire let out a reluctant laughter and said slowly, “So what are you trying to say?”
My eye dashed around just a little searching for a cafe nearby before answering, “What I am trying to say, is that I am tired and hungry and thirsty, and I am sure you are too. So why not rest our feet over at the cafe … there?”
Over the counter, Claire picked her choice of refreshment, and so did I. At the table, she persisted on our previous topic and asked, “Don’t you think every artist should start from working with realism, master the basic technique, and then branch out to other disciplines of art?”
“I don’t see why that has to be the path every artist must take.”
“Take Picasso as an example. His works from his early life are not as abstract as his later works.”
“True. I can see the progression.”
“Uh huh.”
“But think on it. Does it mean that being able to create art in abstract style is the pinnacle of the pursuit of art?”
“Hey!” Claire mockingly protested with a smile.
“Exactly,” I smiled.
“So what are you trying to say?”
“Just be ourselves. Follow our passions. And not necessarily the footsteps of others.”
7. Ghosts of the Carnival
March
Claire had a special ability. Not only could she see ghosts, but also interact with them. I was baffled initially. This went beyond faith and belief. Looking back, maybe Claire was a hypnotist who was capable to bend reality making people to see what she wanted them to see. I was a believer. And we have barely known each other. Merely for a couple of months.
One day, she said she wanted to visit a carnival in the evening. Asked if I wanted to join, I said why not? The last time I have visited a carnival was eons ago. Maybe she planned to paint a Ferris Wheel. Maybe she needed a companion to relive her childhood memory. I was free that evening, still suffered from my writer’s block. Some fresh air under the moonlight might do me good.
There was a tent. Underneath lied a couple of benches. No one was there except Claire and I.
“Do you see her?”
Dumbfounded by her question, I asked, “See what?”
“Her,” and she pointed at an arbitrary direction. Claire told me in the past that she could see ghosts. I did not believe in paranormal activities so I often bypassed the topic with another topic of my favorite: food. That evening at the carnival, Claire looked serious. I could see the sparkles in her eyes. An invitation. A challenge. The air was sweet. Some sorts of circus music was playing from another tent not too far away from ours. I was truly enjoying the evening, enjoying Claire’s company. Until this moment when she pointed at some random directions and asked, “Do you see her, now?”
It was as though the word ‘now’ was the final ingredient of this magic, or voodoo. All of a sudden, the air was thicken with mystery. The music appeared to have fainted away. Not too far from me where Claire had pointed, I began to see the dancing of a yellow neon light source rapidly swirling around forming a figure of a little girl.
I gasped and said softly, “Yes”.
Sitting across from the opposite benches, I was seeing another figure in a red neon light. And another one in a green neon light.
“Are these …”
“Yes,” spoke Claire softly.
8. Bouncing Car Across a Yellow Field
January
The first time I met Claire went something like this.
I was taking a walk near my apartment that day. It was not hard to spot Claire. Carrying her easel and a toolbox, she dressed in T-shirt and jeans. And she seemed lost. So I walked up to her and asked, “Hi. You look lost. Looking for something?”
“Hi! I am looking for a vintage point.”
“A vintage point? For your painting?”
“Yes, for my painting.”
I looked around searching for a vintage point. “What about the rooftop of my apartment over there? You can see the skyline of the town from there,” I suggested as I pointed skyward.
The young girl whom I did not know the name brightened up with a thankful smile and said, “That would do!”
At the rooftop of my 14-story apartment, she set her easel up started to paint while I took a seat nearby and read a book. She looked serious when she was working on her painting. We chatted a bit. But most of the time, I left her alone. She looked young and charming. She had this meticulous painting style. Her work of art looked like something coming straight from a photograph. While I was equally intrigued by her beauty and talent, this oil painting of the town’s skyline looked promising. As she progressed through her painting using wet-on-wet technique, I was drawn to the ever changing landscape created under her skillful hands.
I was in love, with her painting.
“It’s done!” exclaimed she.
“Wow. This is pretty! How do you know when it is finished?” I asked.
“You’d know. Just like how you know a story is finished.”
While both of us were admiring the painting on the rooftop of my apartment, we heard a loud engine sound coming from the front of my building. Two cars were racing down a wide yellow field in a great speed, leaving behind a long trail of dust and cloud. The terrain was not even. As the two cars sped down a slope, the car behind lost control, overturned, and bounced across the yellow field. Each time the car bounced, it reached a greater height. Until it bounced to seven stories high, hit the side of my apartment hard, and fell back onto the yellow field.
I was shocked. So was the painter. This bizarre incident was tragic, in a comical way.
As the car hit the yellow field, it bounced back even higher, flew across our building, and vanished out of our sight.
“Where did it go?” I screamed.
“I don’t know! Let’s go down!”
“Go, go, go!”
This was how I remember meeting Claire under the most extraordinary circumstances of my life.
9. Epilogue
We build walls around us to protect our feeling. We hide inside a fortress in order to feel safe. Because we have convinced ourselves that there are demons lurking outside. For years, my subconsciousness must have been blanking out the details, distorting the facts. Through this lens of abstraction, I can no long infer what has happened, what has not.
I can never be sure how my final encounter with Claire went. What I have tried to forget in the day, my recurring dreams at night tried to undo my effort, reinstate and reassemble the fragments of reality using the debris resulting from the destruction by my subconsciousness. One of my recent dreams goes something like this.
In our final encounter, Claire was crying and she fell into my embrace. When her emotion subsided, she pulled her head away from my shoulder, and looked into my eyes. I was confused. She was in such a mess. There was tears all over her face. Her nose was wet. I did not know what I was thinking. So we kissed.
It was salty and sweet, bitter and sad. When we finally broke away, Claire said, “It’s time for us to move on.”
I bit my lower lip, not entirely shocked by her request. I only managed to ask, “So soon?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve finished your masterpiece?”
“Which one?”
“By My Sofa You Slept With A Peaceful Smile.”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
Claire shook her head and said, “It’s not like that.”
A sense of bitterness clouded my mind. And I asked, “What have I got from this then?”
Claire stopped, looked away. When we reestablished our eye contact, she said, “A story. You now have a story.”
“A story?”
“Yes. A cure to your writer’s block.”
I was stunned, not sure what to say.
“Promise you won’t look for me? So that we can both move on?” Claire asked.
In utter bitterness, I nodded. She patted my lips with hers and said, “Thank you. And goodbye.” She then turned and disappeared into an alley. I was immobilized by that one promise I have made.
I have not seen Claire since then. Only in my dreams.