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Visions of Paradise - Continued
by John J. McNally
After breakfast,
Joanie had intended on taking a shower, but she found herself drifting
off again. Apparently, she was still a little weak.
Once again she found
herself standing outside of her apartment, only this time she was carrying
her violin case (how wonderfully familiar that felt) and was dressed in
her winter coat. She unlocked the door and realized that the keys were
cold in her hand, it must be winter she thought.
She entered the apartment,
and was immediately greeted by a hungry Stormy.
"Yeah, yeah
let me get my coat off will ya. OH MY GOD! STORMY!!!"
She picked the cat
up and hugged him close, she felt his soft coat and rubbed her face against
his hard jaw. She could even smell his cat food breath!
She cried, while
Stormy purred, she was so thrilled to see him again, she didn't want to
ever let him go, but after a few minutes he squirmed to get down.
He ran over to the
back door, Joanie followed him, wondering what was up. He stood on his
hind legs, pawing at the door a little. The back door was different, she
realized, it was the only thing in her apartment that wasn't exactly right,
it was actually her front door and it was backward, as if Joanie was on
the outside again.
She turned the knob,
and stepped inside, Stormy had disappeared somewhere.
She was entering
her apartment again only the scene was different. She could smell dinner
cooking, she was making chicken cutlet parmesan, on the couch in front
of her sat Sam, it was the first time she had invited him over.
She watched as Stormy
came out of his cat condo, sizing Sam up carefully. Until Sam had come
along, Stormy had always reacted harshly to men, she remembered being
in the kitchen at this point preparing their dinner. She had warned Sam
about Stormy's attitude but he promised her that it would be alright.
She watched as Sam
called Stormy softly to him, the same way he had called that kitten so
many years ago. Stormy's ears perked up as if he was hypnotized. He cocked
his head at the sound, and then leaped down from the little condo and
pranced over to Sam.
Sam put his open
hand down palm out, fingers flat. Stormy nuzzled his head against it and
promptly leaped into Sam's lap. He meowed once at Sam and curled up into
a ball on his lap. At this point, Joanie saw herself come into the room
to check on them, and stopped in shock.
"I think he
approves" was all Sam said.
Joanie watched the
scene warmly, feeling nostalgic for the newness of their relationship.
She walked over to Sam, intent on giving him a little peck, when something
caught her eye.
It was a filament,
the thinest of strands, resembling more a spider's web than anything else.
It was exactly like the one she had seen between herself and the tabby
kitten earlier, only this one ran directly from Sam to Stormy!
Joanie almost flew
out of bed, the memory of the dream still sharp in her mind. Sam- Stormy,
is was, however the hell you would say it! They are connected, they were
the same entity/being/whatever. She always hated the typical terms for
connections that were so much more. She sat in shock, realizing how perfectly
it all fit together, feeling better and lighter then she had before. She
glanced at the clock, barely a half hour had passed. She decided to take
her shower and head back to the apartment.
After she got dressed,
Joanie gathered her belongings and went down to the lobby to pay the bill.
"How was your stay?" the manager asked as he ran her Visa card
through the machine.
"Enlightening."
She answered with a grin. The manager looked at her curiously, but didn't
press the issue. Then she requested a private car service be called rather
then a taxi. She wanted a comfortable ride home. It was only about five
minutes before the doorman signaled to her that the car had arrived. It
was perfect, a black Lincoln town car with tinted rear windows.
She gave the driver
the address and sunk into the deep leather seat. It was sot comfortable
that she found herself drifting off again, as they entered the darkness
of the tunnel she lost track of the physical world.
She found herself
in a room, with Sam bending down to kiss her, as if he was an uncle or
something. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and he was looking really
hot. She pulled him in close wanting to taste his tongue again. She loved
how he kissed, he had a playful tongue that could stay busy for hours.
Her nipples were hard as rocks, the skin around them was pulled taught.
She pulled him down to the floor, feeling the comfortable weight of his
chest against hers.
She ran her nails
lightly down his back as he positioned himself to enter her. She was wet
with anticipation, wanting him in her. As he entered her, she shivered
having a mini orgasm. Paradise, she thought to herself as they came together.
He looked as if he wanted to say something to her, but her vision started
to fade.
Joanie jumped up suddenly awake in the car, they were in Queens already,
she saw the driver glance back at her through the mirror. He asked her
for directions once they were off the highway. She gave them to him, and
forced herself to look out the window. She wondered if she had put on
a show for him while she was asleep. She wasn't wet at least, that was
a good sign. Oh, the hell with it, she thought, if he did know what was
going on then I won't have to tip him. She smiled at herself and relaxed
a little more.
She paid him in cash,
and saw no sign from him that he knew anything of her experience. She
felt invigorated, and wondered if that was the sign she was looking for
about whether or not to try and work things out with Sam.
"No." she
muttered aloud. It was just her hormones catching up to 3 months of repression
by drugs and alcohol. Her body's natural balance was reasserting itself,
and that was all. She wasn't going to base her decision on one sexual
fantasy, no matter how good it was!
As she rode the rickety
elevator to the 4th floor, Joanie promised herself one thing. No matter
what she decided, she was not going to live in this dump anymore. She
was moving, as soon as possible! She got off the elevator and reached
her front door, there was a brown envelope taped to it.
She opened it and
almost screamed with laughter. It was a letter from the owner of the building.
Apparently setting off bug bombs was against the rules of their lease.
The super had received numerous complaints from other tenants whose homes
had been inundated with fleeing roaches. The owner promised that eviction
proceedings would begin immediately.
"YES!"
she cried, and did a little dance, still standing out in her hallway.
Her next door neighbor heard her and came outside. She was a 50'ish frumpy
old hag who always pounded on the walls when Joanie played her violin,
no matter what time of the day it was.
"You!"
She pointed her finger like some stereotypical witch. "What the hell
did you do in there? I have roaches coming into my house for three days!
I complain to the super, you ruined my dinner, I had roaches everywhere."
"Oh really,"
said Joanie looking concerned. "Well since you've always been so
nice to us, especially when I try to practice my violin, FUCK YOU!!!!"
Then she opened her door and slammed it behind her.
God that felt good!
She looked at the letter and laughed again! What a perfect revenge for
these son's of bitches! After all the grief they gave her, she felt like
dancing again.
Then she noticed
the floor, "holy shit." she giggled again. The scene was disgusting,
there were dead roach bodies everywhere she looked. There was an average
of 6 per floor tile, and she didn't even want to start guessing how many
tiles there were.
The phone rang, she
tried to pick her way carefully, but there was just no way.
The machine picked
it up before she could reach there. "Hello. This is the super, I
know you are home!"
"Hello."
Joanie sounded as sweet as possible.
"You, are you
crazy setting off so many bug bombs there? Why didn't you tell me you
had a problem I would have sprayed for free, now I have tenants calling
up, screaming at me."
"I'm sorry,
but it doesn't matter, I'll be out of here before the end of the week."
He continued to rant so she put the phone down and went to go recover
the broom. The kitchen was worse if anything, there were hundreds upon
hundreds of bodies on the floors and counters, they made a disgusting
crunchy sound as she walked, and even that she found deliciously funny.
"When Sam calls,
I'll ask him what he wants to keep, but that's it. I'm trashing the rest
of it. I don't want any of this crap." She took the broom and began
by sweeping the bodies off of the counter tops and the wall moldings.
Then she moved on to the floors, the pile she accumulated was disgusting,
but amazing at the same time. No wonder Sam had complained so much, how
the hell could she not have seen that things were this bad.
She paused momentarily
to hang up the phone, at some point the super had given up and the warning
tone was beeping. The whole sweep job went much faster then she expected.
There weren't many in the bedroom, the ones she did find were probably
trying to escape the bombs. She almost wanted to kiss the empty little
cans, but thought better of it. The thought of all those roaches running
amok through the walls still made her laugh.
After the sweep up,
she checked all the cupboards and began cleaning them out as well. Ironically,
there weren't many clean dishes to pull out, Joanie was amazed to find
how much better the place looked within the space of an hour. She thought
about taking a shower, but the tub was one place she forgot to check,
and sure enough, there were bodies there as well. So she washed her hands
and face and decided to head out for lunch.
It was only after
she got downstairs that she remembered the answering machine. Whatever
was on it could wait she thought, probably just hate messages from irate
tenants. If so, I'm going to save that tape and play it at parties, she
smirked.
* * *
Sam awoke to discover
two fuzzy forms asleep on his stomach. He reached down calmly and petted
Sneezy, she tensed at first but then relaxed, apparently Sam hadn't lost
his touch as a cat charmer. He got up slowly, easing them onto the futon.
He only hoped that they remembered where the litter box was.
He felt good, exceptionally
good, in fact he felt like he had been completely revitalized. The dream!
The memory of it was so strong that it made him stop in his tracks. Had
it just been a wet dream, brought on by feeling lonely and hard up. It
didn't seem like that, it had started out like all his other dreams, in
that house with Joanie. He had talked to her this time and she had known
who he was! What amazed him more was what had happened next. Did she really
have sex with him on the floor of the den, or was that just a fantasy
on his part?
What's more is, what
did it mean in the cosmic scheme of things? Not much, except for maybe
the email message. What was it? The past was an illusion… No, the
past was a fiction! And I shouldn't let that fiction stop me from experiencing
the future I wanted.
What was that though?
Sam knew now though, he wanted the Joanie that he made love to last night
back in his life. He wanted the creative, fun loving person who played
incredible music and greeted life with fire in her eyes. That was the
future he wanted, and that was where he would put his energy.
Sam hopped into the
shower, he would head straight to the apartment after breakfast. If Joanie
wasn't there he would start cleaning it up, if she was there, he would
talk to her and decide for himself from that point. It was only when he
was washing his hair that the 3:00 part of the message hit him.
Now what? Should
he wait it out? It wouldn't be that long, he might actually finish his
project before that time. He didn't usually take dreams literally, but
this hadn't been any other dream, this was one hell of an experience.
He had to admit, the one person who he wanted to talk about this with,
was Joanie.
"Okay universe,
I'll wait until three. I do hope you meant PM!" The only answer he
got was from Nova, who was looking for some fresh food.
* * *
Lunch consisted of
a pizza-burger deluxe with extra marinara sauce for dipping the fries
in. Joanie loved diner food (who didn't) and it was one of the few good
things about living in Queens. She tried to take her time eating, but
two days without food had taken its toll. She scarfed down the meal and
even had pie for dessert.
It was about 1:00
when Joanie returned to the apartment. She continued to clean, scrubbing
old dishes, cleaning out the tub, mopping the floors, and even flipping
the mattress. It was while she was working in the bedroom that she noticed
her violin case sitting on the floor under the desk.
Picking it up, she
almost wanted to cry. She couldn't believe that she had allowed dust to
accumulate on it. In her whole adult life she had never gone more then
a few days without playing. How the hell had she let herself go for months?
She opened the case, feverently hoping the roaches hadn't gotten inside.
Fortunately, they had not, she plucked one of the strings to test the
tuning, it had lost tension, which was only to be expected after such
a long time. She made a few adjustments, and then began to play.
The rush of energy
she felt was almost like the orgasm she had experienced in the car. She
had started with one of the simpler sonatas but was building up at a feverish
pace. BANG! BANG! BANG! Her wonderful neighbor already began pounding
the walls in protest.
Joanie laughed almost
maniacally and played even faster, running through every piece of music
she could remember, and improvising in between. She played furiously,
tuning out the neighbors complaints, even using the steadier poundings
as a beat for her playing.
Tears of joy and
frustration streamed down her face as she played. She was home, not in
this shit-hole apartment that they had rented, but here in her music.
This was her core self, her true being, being separated from this had
probably been far more damaging to her then Stormy's death had ever been.
She played a lament for Stormy, starting out with Elton John's "Funeral
for a Friend" and following it with an improv of her own. She cried
as she played, slowing her pace to a sweet ode, sending him love and energy
as he went on to other incarnations. Then she moved back into a dance
of joy, using a melody she had invented as a child and playing it with
all her heart. When she finally finished, she bowed with a flourish to
her imaginary audience. Joanie jumped however to the sound of real applause
coming from the other room.
It was Sam, he stepped
quietly into the doorway looking better then ever. He seemed to be glowing
with power, very much like the Sam in her dream this morning.
"That was incredible."
He said.
"Thanks, I didn't
know you were even here." Joanie felt flushed, a little embarrassed
to have found out that she wasn't alone.
"I got here
about 15 minutes ago, right at the stroke of three." He paused momentarily
to see if that meant anything. "It's great to hear you playing again,
how did you get the neighbors to quiet down?"
"I flooded them
with roaches!" Joanie chortled. "There's a letter on the counter
from the landlord, we're being evicted!" She said it with glee and
danced a little jig.
"You know, I
should be worried about this, but I'm not." said Sam. "We should
have left this dump behind us a long time ago."
Joanie looked at
him, "it's good to see you." Was all she could think to say.
She didn't dare tell him about the dream last night, but she wanted to
so badly. She also wanted to relive it right now.
"You too. Let's
talk, he motioned toward the living room.
He had an open can of Coke on the coffee table, and another one sitting
there for her." I've had a lot of time to think, and a lot of wild
stuff happen over the last few days, and I've finally been able to become
clear about what I want."
"Okay."
"A friend reminded
me that the past is a fiction, and that I shouldn't hold myself hostage
to it, that makes a lot of sense to me. What I want, is for us to have
a new relationship, one very much like the old one was before we moved
here."
"I've had a
lot of time to think as well." Joanie said. "I do want to apologize
for my behavior over the last few months. I didn't realize what a hold
those pills had on me, I give you credit for putting up with it as long
as you did, although it may have been better all around if you gave up
sooner."
She looked into his
eyes, strong, level and steady. "I agree with you. I want to create
a new relationship as well, one that is very much like our prior one,
but I can't do it here. I don't think I can stay in this place another
night."
"I wouldn't
want you to. You should be free to play your music, we should have broke
the lease the minute the neighbors started to whine. I don't care if we
have to squeeze in my studio for a few weeks, we're not staying here anymore!"
Getting up from her chair, Joanie took his hands, "let's do a Power
Focus for money!"
"I'm way ahead
of you." Sam held out two lottery scratch-off tickets. "Grand
prize is one hundred thousand dollars."
They stood in front
of each other, his left hand in a fist, her right hand covering it, and
reversed the pattern on the other side. Each of them opened themselves
to the power of the universe, feeling the energy flow between them, rotating
faster and faster until it shot off into the universe carrying their intentions
along with it.
Joanie had a penny
in her pocket and began scratching hers first, Sam had to scrounge around
a little before he found a nickel, and started as well.
"Nothing on
this one." announced Joanie, crumpling it. She remembered the answering
machine as Sam scratched his.
"Hey! We won
ten bucks!"
"Cool,"
Joanie's lackluster response was due to the first message on the tape.
It was from a realtor from Joanie's old neighborhood.
"Sorry Sam,
I was just trying to hear this message. Apparently someone is finally
interested in that lot my dad wanted."
Years ago, when Joanie
first became proficient at reality creation, she decided to go to Atlantic
City with one thousand dollars. Her plan was to create enough money for
herself so that she would never have to struggle again. She would invest
her winnings wisely and live off the interest when she needed to.
The first few hours
at the slot machines were pretty discouraging. Joanie had gone through
two hundred dollars already and that was only on the quarter machines.
On top of that she found gambling to be so damn boring! She decided to
upgrade to the ten dollar machines, get this crap over with and have a
nice dinner.
She got twenty of
the ten dollar tokens and planned to use the rest of the money for dinner
and shopping. She picked three machines in a row and played them all at
once for fun. Nothing happened, but she got a laugh out of all the motion
anyway. She chose the center one and named it Bob. She promised Bob that
if he let her win big, she would give him a kiss. Apparently Bob wasn't
really into humans, because he didn't so much as spit out a single token.
Mabel, the machine
right next to Bob turned out to be very friendly though, Joanie won a
hundred dollars with her second token. She continued to win small steady
amounts for quite a while, recovering all the money she had spent since
she got there. Joanie's winnings hovered around the break even point for
another half hour, and then the machine just went nuts.
Joanie thought she
had broken it at first. Lights flashed, the bells went off, and then the
money just came pouring out of it. Attendents were over in moments helping
her gather the tokens. She never thought they would stop flowing, apparently
Mabel had been storing them up for a very long time.
When Joanie left
Atlantic City, she vowed never to return. She liked the idea of walking
away a winner, and wanted to keep it that way. She also kept her promise
about investing the money, except for the chunk her father asked for.
Her dad was a great guy, and had died of a stroke just two years ago,
but when he was alive he always thought he was God's gift to money making.
When he heard about Joanie's winnings he pleaded for her to lend him some
so that he might buy a piece of property that was being auctioned. Joanie
thought the idea sounded good and lent him the money, not thinking to
look at the property he was bidding on first.
Joanie figured it
was a house, or at least some sort of storefront, instead it was a lot,
and a small lot at that. A piece of useless dirt, surrounded by other
pieces of useless dirt. When her dad died, he left her the lot in his
will, and she promptly put it up for sale. The inheritance tax along with
the property tax was a drain that she didn't particularly care for.
Now, it seemed that
somebody wanted to buy it. She would try to remain professional, and not
just take the first offer, but in truth she would trade it for food stamps
if she could.
She called her agent,
who explained to her the situation. Sam had been walking around the house
with a paper towel, picking out the dead bugs that had been in odd places.
"We should just
burn all the furniture." he said, but she waved for him to be quiet,
she was having trouble hearing.
"Uh, huh. Well, that does sound fair, tell them I'm definitely interested." She hung up the phone carefully and then turned very slowly to face Sam. "They're offering
a half a million dollars for that useless lot my dad bought!"
"Wow! COOL!
exclaimed Sam
"Yeah! Some
developer is buying up that whole section."
"Damn we are
good! That took us what," Sam glanced at his watch, "about 5
minutes to create. I think that's a new record!"
"I have an idea,
lets blow this dump and spend the night in a nice hotel!"
"That sounds
great, but I'll need to stop at the studio." Sam said "I have
some guests staying there and I think you should meet them."
"Guests? In
your studio? What have you been up to?" Joanie was truly puzzled,
Sam rarely let anyone into his sanctum sanctorum.
As much as she bugged
him, he kept his mouth shut the entire way into the city.
As they entered the
studio, Joanie saw a black flash run off of the drafting table and scurry
into the kitchen. Sneezy remained sitting on the table as if trying to
look innocent.
"These two were
orphaned behind the back door. I named the black one Nova, after the super
hero I liked as a kid. See the star shaped white mark on his chest. This
one I've been calling Sneezy, but I don't think that's her name."
"It's Hope."
said Joanie as she picked the kitten up. She looked it over and said,
"she's a female, that confirms it, her name is definitely Hope."
She let Hope rub against the underside of her chin. "And together
they are "New Hope" how appropriate is that!"
Sam had retrieved
Nova from the kitchen and the two kittens got into tumbling again. "It's
perfect." he said. "Some how it always is."
* * *
Epilogue 1 (In the
probable reality down the street)
Sam woke up feeling
Joanie pressed against him. He pulled himself up and stepped quietly to
the floor.
"Are you alright?"
she asked.
"Fine."
he answered. "I just remembered that I left the cat out, and its
starting to rain." Sam walked down the carpeted stairs, feeling an
odd déjà vu as he noticed the woodgrain in the paneled wall.
He made his way to the back door, hearing the irate meows of an unhappy
cat in the yard.
"Do come in
James, the kitchen is a mess. I do hope you waxed the car while you were
out there."
James looked up and
meowed once, demanding some food to compensate for being left out in the
rain.
James had turned
up on their porch shortly after Stormy had died of feline lukemia. Both
of them had been heartbroken, but James had helped fill the void nicely.
James was given his name because he looked like he was wearing a tux.
He had a white triangle on his chest and four white paws. He was fussy
about staying clean, even by cat standards, and loved to work in the garden.
Well, actually he loved to hunt in the garden.
After providing him
with some apology food, Sam went back up the stairs and re-joined his
wife in bed.
Epilogue 2 (In the
Forest Hills Psychiatric Hospital)
Florence Jacobi
was considered a hopeless case. She had been taken off the streets four
months ago and placed inside a safe room. She was extremely violent, lashing
out at both herself and others. She would spend nights screaming in rage
until she fell hoarse, then she would wait impatiently for her throat
to heal so that she could do it again.
She was a tall woman,
thin and anemic from poor eating. Her face though always looked bloated,
the skin pinched around her eyes. Her gray hair still had streaks of blonde
running through it. It had been long when she arrived, but cut shorter
so that the staff could comb it, it stuck out from her head in odd angles.
Recently though,
there had been a change, one night, she had just stopped screaming. And
while the doctors were extremely cautious, they found her to be much more
manageable. She began talking for the first time since she had arrived
there. When she was asked about the dramatic change in her behavior, she
would only reply that she had nobody to hate with anymore and that the
face in the mirror was gone.
Epilogue 3 (Somewhere
in the Bronx)
James stood on one
foot, wobbling a bit but learning to maintain his balance. He heard his
mother coming up the stairs and walking down the hall to his room. Even
as she knocked on his door, he held his focus, feeling the energy burning
into his thighs. He never thought of himself as a martial arts person,
but the concept of Tai Chi Chuan as "meditation through movement"
seemed the perfect match for him.
"Come in."
Marcy Havelar opened
the door to see her son balancing on one foot. "A package came for
you." She placed the large tube on his dresser and closed the door
quickly, she was so glad to have her son home and taking care of himself
that she was afraid of doing something to ruin it.
"Oh Wow! Mom,
you've got to see this!"
James had unrolled
the picture inside the tube and was holding it on the bed.
"It's beautiful," she said. And it was, there was a large eye
in the middle of the picture with various scenes all around it. In the
center of the eye was some sort of explosion.
"That's my eye."
said James. "I met the guy who made this one day in the city, and
he asked me if he could use my eye in his photograph. That's a lightning
bolt in the center too, it exploded right over us while he was photographing
the sky. Amazing isn't it?"
"It's incredible.
I had no idea, I always worried about you when you were in the city."
"Well, to be
honest you had every right to be, I was pretty messed up, but that's over,
I'm a different person now." James face felt hot as he spoke, but
it felt good saying it. He had avoided his mother until now, partly out
of fear of retribution for his wild behavior, and partly out of fear of
his own feelings.
Marcy Havelar looked
at her son, fighting her tears of relief and joy back. "It's good
to have you home." She hugged her son and cried, James hugged her
back, overwhelmed with the sense of relief that his mother still accepted
him, that even at his worst he hadn't alienated her forever.
* * *
This
story is presented in three parts - click on 'Section 1' or 'Section 2'
to see previous sections of this story.
Section
1 - Section 2 - Section 3
About the Author: John J. McNally enjoys writing from the perspective that everything is possible, and very
likely to happen. Parabolic Mirror is his metaphysical weblog and Telepathic Frog is his t-shirt shop. He runs the Mind
Altering Fiction website and is co-owner of the Conscious
Creation website and the Food Follies weblog and recipe site with his partner Kristen. Click here to contact John.
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