"Dream of Voilét"

As is with dreams, I found myself inserted about a quarter of the way through the dream’s storyline.

A vision of urban sprawl met my eyes, and when I turned away it ceased to be, and at once became a part of the speeding “subway train” I found myself in. It was, however, not so much a subway train so much as many cars somehow held together as if they were many stagecoaches, converted into an efficient railway vehicle.

Violet.

Next to me was a woman of grand age, and yet she was a man of youth as well. Her feathered hat was too a bowler cap, and inside her coat (I knew) she had a secret pocket lined with lead that held a small, shiny brooch she had pinched from a store she had visited, and the young man she was was too her follower, for he had seen her attempted burglary, and was waiting for a moment most opportune to make his move.

"Don’t you think you should do it now?” I inquired.

The woman answered with a sniff and turned away.

The young man was flustered. “What do you mean, sir?” He thought he was clever.

"Oh please,” I scoffed. “You clearly know she knows! You are opposite she, who is both you and her, and she displays her stolen brooch, though it may be hidden, defiantly!” I exclaimed.

“Look there!” I realized that this was not the case, and the aged invalid and her tail had not changed; both were still one and the same individual. I had no way of proving my claim, and just as I was about to protest my sanity to the imminent claims against it (“Now, see here…”), the two were just that; two.

On my left was the woman, but she was now a young one and not the hag I had known her to be. She was without a brooch, and her coat and hat were of a like that attracted my gaze and I indulged in the racing of my eyes to the sweep of her neck, the line of her jaw, and the sharp angle of her nose. A severely beautiful face that can be described as “old beauty”; a face of quiet regality and beauty that cannot be achieved through pounds of gold, money, or dermatological products, worn well by her.

Violet.

Her eyes, however, reminded me of how her image was just seconds prior. (At this point the situation’s absurdity became obvious to me, but I muscled through the threatening closure of the dream and pressed on, as is with confusing dreams.) Though she was, I assumed, the way she looked in her twenties, her eyes and the skin encompassing them seemed to contain the concentrated years of all her body, and they were at once filled with tears. In homage to what I took as her seniority and the fact that I could not imagine encroaching on what appeared to be an intimate moment for her I averted my gaze and in doing so caught sight of the young man. I was wrong when I described him as young (apparently). Similar to the woman, he had gone through a metamorphosis himself; he remained strapping, and his eyes were still of a youthful nature in their amber color and tautness of skin. But his hair had been decimated by age, I suppose; in patches his scalp showed through, and the sight was extremely disturbing. It reminded me of images of cadavers on operating tables prior to autopsy in the process being shaved. He himself played the role of the invalid as well; he clutched a razor in his right hand, and in rhythm with the rises and the dips in the track he drew it smoothly through his mid-length hair. It grayed as it fell and turned to what appeared to be some sort of soot or ash. It fell until there was only the odd strand of hair that graced his bald-enough head. He was not neat in his grooming; some strands hung over his eyes, his ears, and some still fluttered against the nape of his neck. I met his gaze once more and found he no longer had his eyes on mine, and they were instead upon the visage of the woman opposite him.

The air of the car became disturbingly still and the two looked at each other, not breaking the eye contact despite the growing turbulence of both air and track as the odd-looking series of cars sped along to the destination I had no memory of in the absence of the sounds I did not remember hearing. They looked as if they were in the midst of a demented lover’s quarrel, and all the world seemed a blank slate to them. Violet. I muttered some nonsensical word in passing ("Shorthushere") and I was acknowledged with silence.

I passed between the two of them (I had no memory of getting up, or if I had legs), and found myself crawling through an endless line of cars. All had extremely low ceilings and all were identical to the first, though devoid of passengers. Behind me (I assumed it was behind me, though it felt as though it came from all around and even from the pit of my chest), harsh words erupted, and it did not occur to me that this was the strange pair I had found myself sharing my “cab” with. After an eternity in finite comfort, I reached the lead car and presently there was a numbness in my limbs. The driver was no driver; he was no person per say. He was more entity than man. "You should go back." His voice caused the panes in the windows to rattle out of their securities and presently the wind slammed into my face, lifting my arms and legs and even the chair I rested in. I sped backwards at a speed that bent light (I suppose), and would have made any sensible man balk. I found myself slowing and the wail of the winds was replaced with the wail of the winds of the old woman’s voice.

Violet.

I came in from the roof of the cab (peculiar), and I saw for myself that the young woman had reverted to her elderly image. The young man was now an old one; however, he looked as if he had the texture of sandpaper and as he shifted it was as if his joints were controlled by the whirring of dozens of old projectors. It appeared to me that he had his arm out of the window, and only later did I realize that this wasn’t the case; it was missing, most likely from an accident. Horrific. "…I’ve missed you terribly…” The lady whispered. I felt surprise on my face. “You missed me?” She looked irritated. “No.” I followed her gaze. “You missed your would-be jailer?” My tone was a bit incredulous. She smiled sadly.“He is no jailer, would-be or otherwise; he is my late husband,” she replied. "It cannot be true!” "It is,” replied the sandy man. "But sir, you are dead (that is what the term “late” means when it comes to spouses, unless it is used in a timely sense), and the dead do not walk!” “The world is full of surprises, good sir. One in my case would be the apparent fact that you are the lawmaker of what we can and cannot do, both in your world and beyond your earthly romps.” He seemed peeved. I caught myself before continuing the argument. I turned to the old woman. Violet. "Voilét,” I asked. She nodded in confirmation. I was grasping for something to say at this point. "Why have you stolen that brooch?" Apparently the fire had only been dampened, and not put out. Perfect. "I did not steal it! It is mine!” She quieted some after the minor tirade, and her supposed late husband reached across the space and patted her knee.

"Tell him, darling.”

She sighed and indulged us. "Prior to Mr. Voilét’s death, he had put his gift for our fifty-year anniversary on hold. He had always been a kind old fool, and he had made sure to leave a sufficient sum of money in the reservation tab; he was a forgetful one and did not want to lose his hold on it if he did forget. I do not know why he did not simply purchase his gift for me sooner... Anyhow, he... Perished sometime before he could claim his gift and it was forgotten. Sometime later I received an impending termination of holding on a certain brooch that I had no knowledge of. After some dispute over whether or not this was some elaborate hoax or not, I found that my late Mr. Voilét had saved me this brooch. I had never actually mentioned my wanton desire to have the pretty thing, so you can understand my thinking of this being a horrible joke. My husband was a clever fool.” She smiled at that.

She continued. "After realizing that this brooch was his, and therefore my own, I went to claim it before the termination notice.” She sighed. “In short, I was too late.”

Once more, a sigh. “So I took it.”

I met her sudden silence with my own silence.

Mr. Voilét spoke up. “Was it hard on you? Me…”

She replied with a grim stare. "A thousand journeys in that dreaded limousine to that hungry hole that was to swallow you up would do me no good; I would grow old with my misery rather than know peace without you.” I looked around at that, realizing that this “train” was merely a series of limousines tied end-to-end rather haphazardly. For the first time I wondered about the driver, but a turn in the conversation kept my attention. Of its own accord our breath left our mouths and together we spoke:

Go.

With.

Him.

She regained her breath, mollified.

"Don’t be moronic! That goes against everything I believe in!”

"Please, Violet…” She looked at Voilét (it was he who had spoken). A certain glaze came to film her eyes from an opening in the ceiling, and my own were shadowed with warm fog, and presently the inside of the cab was filled with the sounds of trickling water, a buoy coupled with a bell ringing out far to my left, and gulls crying overhead. We were there, on the beach, both the start and ending of our journey, their journey, that I somehow was a part of. I found that they were not near me, and I looked up. There they were, toes dangling in the surf,staring at me. I myself was in the water, up to my chest. Strangely, the water did not impair my breathing as I watched them, waiting; my chest expanded and contracted in relation to the eddy and the rise and fall of the breakers.

From this distance I could still make out their voices:

“I…I…” She was at a loss. "I wouldn’t have anyone else... Voilét, could you do it? I’m scared…” At this she handed him her broach, and in his palm it was no more a broach, but a shining pen knife that seized my gaze and held it as a child to his mother. At once I knew it was razor, brooch and knife all together. “For you, darling,” He replied.

He leaned into her, holding the knife between them as the blade slid into her chest, sheathed among her pain and misery and enfolded by her desire for closure.

A whirlwind of images; childhood, teenage years, marriage…death. The happy couple turned to me as the foam turned pink from the product of their love.

"Bless you.”

My reply was silent.