It’s Deja Vu All Over Again
The Beginning of the End of the End of the Beginning
And with that, the floodgates opened. “I swear it all seemed so real! I’ve been holding back, trying to hold it in, thinking I’ll wake up and everything’s normal, well, not normal maybe, but the way it was, you rambling on incessantly about God knows what, driving everyone crazy, slumming around the house in your robe with a constant erection, not going to work, getting kicked out of the Bible, Guns, and Ammo Fellowship…my God! Now I’m rambling on, aren’t I? Just like you? I mean just like you did, remember?”
“Whoa, whoa there, Joleen, slow down! Hold on, there, there … let me get you a glass of water. Just take some deep breaths, I’ll be right back.”
Jack returned with the water. Joleen grabbed it with both hands and gulped it down, her chest heaving spasmodically. “Get me another one!” She gulped that one down too but settled down once she finished. “Another one, please, but don’t worry, it’ll help settle my nerves. I think.”
Jack returned with water. This time, Joleen, took a sip, set it down on the table, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay.”
Jack gave her a moment then said, “Whew! That was a lot I just didn’t understand, you were talking so fast.” He took her hand. “It’s okay. Why don’t you start at the beginning? I promise I won’t judge.”
Begin at the beginning she did and kept going – the lawn mower, the roof, the hospital stay, his strange rambling way of talking, his never-ending erection, how he just sat around in his robe in the La-z Boy all the time and rambled on incessantly, how he sounded and sang just like Elvis, his strange rhyming habits, on and on for weeks.
“Then one morning I wake up and you’re making breakfast and dressed in a white shirt and nice blue slacks. Then you put on a coat and tie and went to work. As if nothing ever happened! I tried to make some sense of it all, but just could not. I was too confused and embarrassed to bring it up, I even considered it being a dream but it just felt so real. That’s why I kept asking you if I was crazy because that was the only other explanation for it. Maybe you thought it was a joke.”
Joleen paused for another sip of water.
“I became so desperate, maybe that’s why I started binge watching The Real Housewives of Orange County as if I could somehow leave this life and join theirs. I became obsessed with Vicki. so out of touch with all the others, slightly bent, almost like she existed in a separate zone from the others. Like me. A separate reality.”
Finally, she became quiet and looked inquiringly at Jack.
Jack was stunned by it all. It took him a moment to gather himself to respond. “Wow, Joleen, honey, I had no idea. It all does seem, well, kind of crazy. Oops! I mean, I don’t think you’re crazy. Of course not! Surely it was a bad dream? A really vivid bad dream?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I just don’t know. It seemed so real. Such a long dream. Do dreams last that long?” Of course, Joleen had already considered this.
A few moments of uncomfortable silence followed. Suddenly, Jack snapped his fingers. “Hey, have you ever heard of lucid dreaming? The office secretary, Maude, remember her? No? Lovely lady. Loves to chat. Well, we all went to lunch last Friday, you know, traditional end of quarter celebration if we did well, and we’d had a stellar one this time. She and I wound up sitting next to each other and she told me she’d had a very vivid, strange dream that seemed to go on forever and she couldn’t stop thinking about. So vivid. She even talked to her shrink about it. Would you like to hear about it? “
“Well sure,” I said. I meant it. “Sounds intriguing, Dreams can be very strange. The ones I can remember sure are.”
“Remember? Ha! I wish I could forget about it!
“Well, go on then.”
“So, this old college boyfriend I hadn’t seen in like forever picked me up in a Lamborghini. I had trouble even getting into it. So embarrassing. Anyway, we go to a party, like a college party and everybody’s drinking and high. I’m uncomfortable and this boyfriend – geez, I can’t even remember his name – he grabs me and starts slobbering all over me in front of everybody and starts licking my fingers. My fingers! And I tell him we have to leave right then! So he takes me back to my apartment and follows me up and forces his way in and I say no way, Jose, you have to leave right now and he pulls a gun on me and I shove him out onto the balcony, I’m so mad, and I throw him over the railing! Then I look down and see I’m naked so I run right back into the apartment and there he is with a gun again. So I throw him over the railing again. Well, the next night he shows up in his Lamborghini again and we go to another party and he acts like a lout again and, well, you get the idea. Night after night it goes like this, he’s doing something different stupid every time and every time I throw him off the balcony only I’m not naked anymore, I’m wearing different clothes each time – an evening gown, sweatpants, a party dress with polka dots, underwear, a diving outfit with a snorkel …”
“Jack! Jack!” Joleen interrupted. “Why are you telling me all this! And she told you she was naked? Was she coming on to you?” She realized she’d been neglecting him with all her distraction.
“Me? Maude? Oh god no. You think I want to get thrown off a balcony?”
“Then what’s the point of all this?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. Got carried away with that dream. Anyway, she said the strange thing about it was that she felt she was awake and dreaming at the same time, making conscious decisions like throwing him over the railing. Almost like she was directing the dream like in a movie or something. So, she asked her shrink about it, and he told her, oh yeah, that’s called lucid dreaming, when you feel like you’re awake and dreaming at the same time. You think that’s what happened to you since it seemed so real?”
“Hmmm. Yeah, maybe so. It did seem so real. Lucid dreaming.” Joleen thought, maybe this could be her ticket out of this mess if she could convince herself of it.
“You think maybe you should see a shrink about it?”
“Oh god, no! That’s the last thing I need. Look, I suddenly have an urgent need to get away, get some fresh air, a change of scenery, clear my head. Let’s go somewhere, please?”
“Of course, darling. I want you back.”
Joleen started sniffling. She hugged him tight and nestled her head on his shoulders, “Oh Jack, I’ve been so afraid of talking about it. You’ve been so understanding, so supportive. I love you so much.”
~~~
Jack took a couple of days off work and they drove the three and half hours from Chillicothe, Home of Sliced Bread, on a lark to Ha Ha Tonka State Park near the Lake of The Ozarks just because they liked the name. They caught a lucky break and got to stay at the only bed and breakfast, Cottage by the Castle, by the park due to a cancellation. Their room was on the second floor with a balcony overlooking Niangera River. The room had its own spa. They made good use of it.
The next morning, they were served a charming breakfast – coffee with real cream, French toast with a delicious homemade strawberry jam, warm croissants drizzled with real butter – by a charming hostess named Betsy. They told her they came here on a whim and asked why the park was called Ha Ha Tonka. She said it stood for “smiling waters.” And what about the castle?
Despite probably having made this recitation countless times, Betsy cheerfully said, “A very wealthy Kansas City businessman, Robert Snydor Sr., had always dreamed of owning his own castle and started having it built in 1905, only to die in one of Missouri’s very first car wrecks the next year. His sons inherited it but went broke in the Great Crash of 1929. The castle has fallen into ruins, but the state has plans now to restore it. You should visit, even the ruins give a good idea of its former splendor.”
The park had 15 miles of walking trails wandering through lush woods, up and down bluffs, crossing creeks with wooden bridges, a natural wonderland. Chance had landed the couple here in mid-November and the trees were ablaze in their fall foliage – red, yellow, orange, crimson, a canvas of astonishing beauty. On their final day, they made it to the castle ruins, high on a hill and raised on a tall platform. The view was breathtaking. As they walked the ruins, they wondered how splendid it must have looked when first built. The black and white photographs posted around the site can not have done it justice.
On the final night, Jack and Joleen again frolicked in the spa, laughing, cuddling, groping, splashing and making rhythmic waves. Then they sat on the balcony in their thick white cotton robes. They looked over the calming green river with its still waters, lost in thought. “Smiling waters,” thought Joleen – how appropriate. Then she realized she had not thought once about that awful dream since they had arrived.
Back home, they settled into their routines, going back to work, Joleen took up her arts and crafts again. One peaceful afternoon, she listened to the rumble of the riding mower outside and decided to do a craft project fashioning flowers out of a couple of Jack’s empty beer cans. Ah, normalcy, so sweet, never to be taken for granted again.
As she laid out her tools to get started on her project, Jack came in the front door. She called out, “Watcha doin’, hon?”
“I noticed some loose shingles on the roof while I was mowing and need to hammer them back into place.”
THE END
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Copyright © Johnny Clack 2022
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