PART 5.
This is a short story of sorts that might or might not be part of a larger cycle. If it is, then it is towards the end — part 4 of 6. Maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, rather than dump the story into one large post, I’m going to chunk it up and let it be consumed over a couple of posts. Enjoy.
Once again her name slipped from her mind. What had the woman called her? But even more important than her name was what lay before her. At first she thought that she had stepped in front of a large crowd with a single spotlight lighting a plot of space around her. From all directions faces and eyes bore in to her, so that as she walked into the middle of the room, she used a hand to shield her face. Then, dropping it, and standing up straight, she looked around her.
Everywhere she looked Lisas looked back at her. The walls. The domed ceiling. All was covered with mirrors. Strangely, though, the Lisas in these mirrors were not the girl who stood unnamed in the middle of the room. Some of the Lisas were young girls energetically shifting from one leg to the other. Some appeared to be in middle-school, and were pulling brushes through long, brown hair. Others were closer to her current age, and stood with their hands on their hips, shifting their bodies critically this way and that. All of them, though, were staring at her, although “glaring” might be more accurate, and all of them appeared to be in a room that looked like a room that she remembered — a place where she once lived. There was her bed. There were her dresser and desk. There was the window with its floral curtains letting in afternoon sunshine. There was no doubt about it, these Lisas were all in what appeared to be her room in her mother’s house, while she…what was her name again?… stood before them, like a plaintiff before a jury.
“Who…”
But before she could say anything, one of the young Lisa’s shrugged her shoulders and turned away from the mirror. With a jerk, she felt herself spun around. Before her a teenage Lisa was brushing her hair, and her arm spasmed up, and began to move back and forth over her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another Lisa slump back into the desk’s chair, and suddenly she felt herself flung to the floor.
“What…what’s happening?”
All around her the mirror Lisa’s went about their business, and as they did so, she found herself flung this way and that. Some jumped on the bed, and she found herself leaping up, time after time. Some moved their mouths this way and that, and picked at their teeth, and this made her face contort along with them. Some sat on the floor cutting valentines from paper, some danced, some stared, some pulled on clothes, and whatever the activity, her body flopped along, mimicking their actions, and the room filled with a cacophony of noise. Chatting, laughing, music, thuds, and in the middle of all of this, she was flung about like a marionette. On and on the activity went. When some Lisas went to sleep others were just waking. When some left for school, others were just coming home.
At first the girl, once known as Lisa, struggled for control, but no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she willed her own body, it continued to pull itself this way and that. In fact, with time she found that her mind wasn’t even needed. With a start she would come to, and realize that in her absence her body had continued to act on its own accord. And so slowly, she attended to it less and less. And slowly, more and more, it was if she wasn’t even there.
“You are stuck like a fly in a web.”
The thought drifted into her mind like the lightest of silks blown from late summer’s milkweed. So soft and so light was this thought as it settled itself on her awareness, that at first she didn’t notice it. In the mirrors all of the Lisa’s continued their routines. Some staring forward and touching their foreheads or brushing their hair. (Her arms flailed.) Some passing across their bedrooms without a glance. (She was pulled lock-step sideways). Some plopping into the bed, pulling out a phone and texting a friend. (She fell to the hard floor, lifted her hands and twiddled her thumbs.)
“You are words in a web.”
The thought lifted and brushed across her attention, and this time she did notice.
“You are right,” she told herself. “It is a web made of echoes.”
“Hi there,” said the first thought in a tiny voice.
“Hello sister,” whispered back the second.
She watched these two thoughts as they lazily swirled and danced. They would stop, and then blow back into life, lift up and cross the blue sky of her imagination. And just for a moment, for the briefest of moments, the girl once known as Lisa, who was sitting on a hard cold, stone floor, in a room surrounded by mirrors, in a place in which nothing seemed to make sense – for the briefest of moments, she felt a breeze brush across her skin. A breeze that carried the fresh smell of sunshine and new-green plants. And for that moment she closed her eyes and smiled because she was remembering. Yes, she was had been named. She was remembering, and this was her memory.
Once upon a time she had gone on a trip to the beach with her mother and father. She was four and sitting in a booster seat in the back seat of the car. The car was edging out on to the asphalt of the highway. Her parents were laughing, young and smiling in the front seat. Their car had run out of gas a quarter mile before the gas station, but it had kept rolling and rolling, and they had all yelled encouragement, and the car had slowed and slowed, until it crept to a stop precisely next to a gas station’s pump. They had all cheered, and little Lisa had watched as her mother and father had happily kissed, and when her father had opened the passenger door and pulled her out, he had swung her around in a big hug. “Can’t you just taste it!?” he had said. Now, the car was pulling away from the station, and Lisa, in her booster seat was smiling. Behind her, packed among the duffle bags, boogie boards, snorkel and flippers was a powdered-blue egg the size of a grape. She had found it in the high grass at the edge of the gas station, and with her mother’s help, she had packed the egg in tissue and put it into her mom’s toiletry kit.
In her booster seat the four year-old Lisa smiled as she thought about her mother and her father and her egg, and in the room of mirrors, sitting on the cold, stone floor the older girl, who had been named Lisa, also smiled, and opened her eyes. Around her the mirrors shone, and in each, the mirror-Lisa was standing and staring in at Lisa as if through a storefront window.
“Then what happened?” asked one of the Lisas.
The room filled with questions and exclamations tossed in at her from every direction.
“Tell them,” laughed one of the thoughts in the girl’s mind.
“Tell them what?” whispered the girl, who had once been name Lisa. She could feel her muscles slipping away from her, and it was all she could do to keep from once more jumping to her feet and moving like a puppet on strings.
“Who you are,” danced the second thought.
“Remember who you are. You are the dream catcher; the word giver.”
This last voice was a new thought. It sighed into shape and expanded like a balloon in the girl’s mind. As it did so the other two thoughts became tinier and tinier.
“Goodbye” called out the thoughts. “Goodbye.”
“The dream catcher,” she whispered to herself. “Why does that sound familiar?” And then another memory spread into her mind.
One summer she had gone by herself to stay with her grandmother. This was when she was 13, and a growth spurt was stretching her legs and arms so that she scarcely recognized the person who stared back at her in the mirror. One night that summer she woke with her calves knotted up and cramped. She must have called out in pain, because the next thing she knew her grandmother was there, rubbing and massaging her legs. Her grandmother had strong, callused hands, and she kneaded lotion into Lisa’s skin that smelled of mint and that made Lisa’s skin throb with warmth.
“There, there,” said her grandmother. “It’s going to be o.k. Lisa. Shhhh. It’s going to be o.k. Shhhh.”
Only now Lisa was sobbing. Her whole body shook and shuddered with the sobs. Her grandmother shifted her weight to the top of the bed, and gently pulled Lisa’s head on to her lap. Without a word her hand stroked through Lisa’s hair. Over and over it passed.
“What did I do? What did I do?” cried Lisa over and over.
“Oh, my sweet girl,” said her grandmother. “My sweet, beautiful girl. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. Shhhh. It’s not your fault.”
Finally, the sobs receded. Lisa stared darkly up from her grandmother’s lap, and still she felt the broad fingers gently pulling strands away from her face and ears and smoothing the top of her head. Lisa felt the damp from her tears on her grandmother’s nightgown.
“I got your night gown wet,” wavered Lisa’s voice.
“It’s alright.”
So Lisa lay there. The night air was warm, and the windows were open. From outside came the whirr of crickets and from somewhere, the calling of an owl. She could feel her grandmother’s lap beneath the nightgown, and across the room was the dark shape of the dresser topped with the music boxes that her grandmother collected, jewelry boxes, and bottles of perfume. Each breath her grandmother took raised and lowered Lisa’s head ever so slightly.
“Come with me. I want to show you something,” said her grandmother, and she hefted herself up from the side of the bed.
Down the stairs they creaked to the kitchen. Lisa loved her grandmother’s kitchen. It always smelled of cookies, or Thanksgiving turkey, or roasts in the oven. There was a small table pushed against one wall, and a round window, surrounded with a hanging of ivy, that looked out at the night sky. To Lisa it was a perfect kitchen.
Her grandmother gestured her to sit at the table. She put a kettle on and brought Lisa a glass of cold ginger ale in an aluminum cup. Then she reached up into a cabinet and pulled down a shoebox, which she placed on the table, before sitting down opposite Lisa. She lifted its lid, and one-by-one pulled out its contents. A dog-eared letter, a pin in the shape of an angel, a cross on a silver chain(her grandmother was Catholic), photographs.
“Do you see this?” said her grandmother. In her hand she had what looked like a spider web. Its outermost ring was made of crooked sticks that had been tied together. Thread had then been strung and patterned across the space between the sticks, and mixed in with the twine were shells and beads.
“You made this for me when you were little.” Then her grandmother reached in and pulled out another, similar shape. “And here is one that I made when I was little, too. I thought it was fun to keep them together. Do you remember what they are called”
Lisa nodded, and her grandmother continued.
“They are dream catchers. The idea is that you’d hang it over your bed. Because usually when you are asleep, dreams drift in, and they are hard to hold on to. Like clouds.”
The tea kettle had begun to whistle, so Lisa’s grandmother got up from the table. After a moment, Lisa reached out and turned the dream catcher she had made so long ago over in her hands.
“But with a dream catcher some of dreams get stuck.”
Lisa’s grandmother poured hot water into a mug, and returned to the table.
“Over the years I’ve found all sorts of dreams in those webs. I once wanted a parakeet so badly, and you can’t imagine the number of parakeet dreams I pulled out of the web in the mornings. But there were also dreams about being at school with no clothes on.”
Lisa’s grandmother laughed.
“I hate that dream,” said Lisa.
“Oh, it’s a horrible dream, all right. But the thing about dreams is that in the daytime they do look completely different than at night. Beautiful in a way – even the frightening ones. Our dreams, after all, are who we are and who we need to become deep, deep down. All of us are beautiful, and all of us are afraid, and all of us are capable of wonderful things just as we are capable of hurtful things, and there’s never anything wrong with that. There is never anything wrong with seeing those parts of yourself.”
Lisa’s grandmother blew her tea and took a gulp.
“Anyway, I think you should have them.”
“But they are yours. Really?”
“Of course.”
Lisa scraped back her chair, went around the table and put herself in the broad hug that was her grandmother.
“I love you grandma.”
“I love you too, Lisa. Now, how about you become my dream catcher?” She reached out, took Lisa by her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Do you promise?”
“I promise,” said Lisa.
So when it had come time for Lisa to leave her grandmother’s, in her bag, pressed carefully between t-shirts were the two dream catchers. For the next three months Lisa kept them hung on the wall behind her bed.
It had only been three months, though, because her grandmother had died, and at the funeral, Lisa had reached in to her pocket and tossed both dream catchers into the grave. What was the point? Really. What…Was…The…Point?
The girl, who had once been named Lisa, opened her eyes. All around her the mirror Lisa’s reflected back at her. The little girl Lisas, and the teenage Lisas, and all the Lisas in between stood silently looking in at her.
“Well?” one asked. And then the room was filled with a yammering throng as they all called out. “Well?Well?Well?” But the girl, once named Lisa, wasn’t paying any attention to them. She whispered to herself, “I’m done with this. It’s time to move on.” She stood, and with that the room went silent. Lisa walked to the small wooden door, her footsteps echoing across the room. The Lisas watched, and when the girl, once named Lisa, reached the door she turned and said, “Don’t worry. I forgive you. You all did what you had to do.” Then she turned, opened the door, and walked out of the room.