Weissenbaum's Eye - Stetten

Weissenbaum's Eye - Stetten - Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

He was totally relaxed. He was so relaxed that for a long time he didn't even realize it.

The couch had released him during the night, leaving his body and senses to resume their age-old communion. He rolled over onto his side, and curled up into a ball, clasping his hands between his knees. There the awareness started, flowing upwards through his shoulders and into his chest. Slow and gently resolute, breathing and pounding, his body awaited his return.

Content, content, content, I belong here, I belong here, in the garden, and the trees surround the clearing that pins me at its center, content, asleep, I belong here, in the garden, I belong here.

In his dreams, the plants were growing things, and green stems spread throughout to fill the empty space. The light was blocked from high above, and the cool smooth surfaces of plants were left in the shadows to wilt and roughen. Bark flaked from the branches, and yesterday's life was a tinkle of dust settling on the forest floor.

The turmoil of Sand's sleep was monitored by the scattered eyes and ears of his room, which began to breeze soft chirping music, and the walls washed a gentle green. Shifting shapes and hues swam across the ceiling.

Sand was oblivious to the silhouette of a man with curly hair who leaned over him. As the dream fed trouble to Sand's features, the older man watched his son.

Sand was falling through the motionless fibers of living wood. Tangled branches twisted in the air above him. The trees were everywhere. There was no sky, no ground with trunks that could support this sagging mass. Sand stood upon a spongy gloom, peering off between the trees.

There were others, far away, vague forms in the mist. From all directions their incomprehensible voices drifted to him. Sand shouted, but they would not answer nor cease their senseless monotone. His own voice seemed to disappear.

He held the handle of an ax, but the branches bound him so securely that he could not heft it, nor even see the blade. Slowly he pendulumed it back and forth, the blade gently bouncing off the branches. By tossing it up a little at a time, Sand worked his way down to where he was holding the blade itself. Grabbing a branch with his other hand, he started wielding chisel blows in mid-air.

His hands...his knuckles...pain and panic tightened his grip as the frozen veins cracked off the backs of his hands. Through the green trees, an old man was watching, reaching, a wise old man was trying to help. But then the old man was like a drowning victim grabbing him, clutching Sand's wrists and making him drive the ax into his hands, sinking his fingers into the open wounds.

In the madness that guilt would bury, Sand woke up, and Peter pulled back in surprise. The focus of the moment blurred into forgetful confusion.

Sand pulled himself up from the couch and wiped his mouth. Peter looked around the room, as if to give his son time to recover from embarrassment. It was brighter now, and the walls were blank.

"I'm sorry to wake you," his father said. "I had to talk with you."

Sand could only nod, and stare in disbelief. Thinking more clearly now, he wondered at his father's presence. Peter hadn't come in person for a very long time. The house where Peter lived was quite a distance from the city, far back into the woods. The journey by car to the city's edge, and then by foot over the rooftops, took more than a day. Peter looked pale and thin.

"Did you go to dinner last night with Benjamin?" was Peter's first question.

It took Sand a moment to remember about Holly, and Carrie's Cuisine.

"Yes," he said. The rush of yesterday's triumph returned, but Sand said no more. Peter looked away. His voice changed.

"I've just finished a big work, Sand. My best."

"That's great," said Sand. He heard the words sink. Why didn't he care? He tried again. "You must be very happy."

"Huh? Oh yes," said Peter. "It's just a strain, creating. I feel so tired."

Sand noticed Peter was clutching something. "Is that it?"

Peter was flustered, as if he had been hiding the little disk. He held it out now in clear view. "It's for Mara," he said.

Sand wished he hadn't heard that. Now he saw that Peter's wild fidgeting was no better than when Mara had left him. The distracted mumbling, the conflict, all had returned. Or perhaps it had never left.

"We haven't talked enough," said Peter, slowly waving the clear little disk. "Maybe she'll find some understanding in this. It's important that she know...I still love her."

His voice broke, and he would not meet Sand's eyes. "Take it to her, son. Please."

Sand felt tears welling up, and reached out to put his hand on his father's shoulder. In his mind Sand stood upon a mountain top, free from all the troubles that had blocked his view for so long. He had beaten Benjamin Holly. Now he was free to help his father.

"I'll take it to her," he said. "But just remember, there's no guarantee the gate will open."

Peter squinted at his son. Instead of gratitude, he had the look of a critic with some bitter knowledge. "Mara will tell you things that you should know, things I cannot..." His words seemed crucial, but his thoughts were contracting, collapsing in upon themselves. "Go see her," he stammered, "and tell her that I miss her very much."

With that, Peter left to make the long journey back home. But despite his apparent frailty and fatigue, he would not let Sand accompany him. His car was waiting at the city's edge, and he would be exhausted when he reached it, but he could sleep during the ride back. He just begged his son to go as quickly as possible to the campus.

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