I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS

I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS is the story of Rose, a woman with extrasensory powers, which is prey of strange experiences during her dreams, and looks for her missing son in the labyrinth of life and...

It was around 10 p.m. of a beautiful summer night in California. The sky was quite clear of clouds and, due the absence of the moon, in the dark firmament some stars shone their twinkling lights. In particular, from that southern California neighborhood, which it was located on the hills of the city of Palos Verdes, very near to the ocean cliffs.

It was a pretty neighborhood, with big gardens around the most of the mansions, in which their architectural designs reflected the classic Californian style. One or two-story houses with large windows and balconies, and red tile roofs showing the influence of the Mexican style modernized to the American taste. Among them, there were two, which stood out for the detailed landscape of their gardens, located one opposite to the other, separated just by the dark asphalt of a street. These houses were the residences of Ford family, African-American lawyers, and the Dunaways, archaeologists of Irish descent; both families belonged to the boomer generation.

In that starring night, in the bedroom of the Dunaway’s residence, there was a beautiful young woman, Rose, who didn't look her age, 36 years old, sitting in front of her dressing table mirror, brushing her silky hair before going to sleep. She wore a silvery silk nightgown, open back, letting to see the smooth line of her back; and only the beauty of her face reflected in the mirror. At her right, on the dressing table, was the picture of a smiling man, it was Paul’s image, her husband.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by the voice of a man that spoke behind her telling tenderly, “You are beautiful, honey.” She just smiled, looking at him through the mirror, without stopping the massaging that every night she used to give to her hair; and she answered, “And I’ll always be for you, Paul.”

Rose left the brush on the dressing table, got up and went to turn off the lights. In the darkness, she walked to her bed, dropped the nightwear and, naked, she got into the sheets.

The bed cracked under the weight among the sounds of kisses, rubs of bodies and sheets, moans and sighs of pleasure until all those noises stopped after a long sigh from her. Then, it followed some minutes of complete silence that Rose broke it:

“Our son gets married tomorrow,” she said with a sad tone in her voice.

“And he’s going to the Lebanon in a week” Paul replied to weaken the reason of his wife’s sadness.

“Why Paul, why do things have to be this way?” Rose reproached him helpless of being able to change the facts.

“Because life has many roads my love and every step we make, when we walk on them, we choose our own destiny”

Rose wasn’t satisfied with that answer.

“But, why did he choose the army?” she replied, while her eyes shone in the twilight.

“For the same reason that you chose to be an archaeologist,” Paul answered with coolness.

Nevertheless, Rose, almost crying, complained: “I'm just afraid for him, Paul. I got a bad feeling; there is something that bothers me.”

“Honey, you don’t have to worry about... -Paul tenderly said to get calm her down-... life goes on forever.”

And the silence returned to the bedroom. Rose was sleeping deeply, although she was alone on her bed.

The following day, around noon, the Santa Monica’s small church was full of guests for John and Jane’s wedding ceremony. Most of them were young people recently graduated from the same high school where the couple had studied.

The religious ceremony had finished, and the newlyweds were about to come out. On the street, some friends with video cameras recorded all the incidents of the wedding and the racket of the youths, when suddenly, one of the guests spontaneously played the soft melody of “Hotel California” in his portable stereo, and everyone heard it. It was the couple's favorite song, and their friends knew it.

At the exit of the church, there is a concrete stairway ending on the public sidewalk. The guests made two groups along it, leaving a space in between, as an alley, just where the couple should go through in their way to the white limousine that is waiting for them parked at the edge of the sidewalk. 

As soon as the newlyweds came out to the church's door, the crowd sparked off shouts of happiness and joy.  It was an inter-racial marriage. John, son of Rose Dunaway, was six feet tall, blonde, blue-eyed and freckled nose, a handsome young man, sport lover and popular in the neighborhood and at school due to his cheerful and informal personality. Jane, of ebony skin color, daughter of the Fords, was beautiful, slender, with light brown eyes, and straight black hair. She had the appreciation from all her friends for her kindness and tenderness, besides standing out in the art of the painting and dancing. Actually, the couple was too young to be married because both were under 20s. They both had fallen in love since junior high school, and the wedding had rushed due to John's trip to Lebanon, with the consent and the happiness of both families. Nevertheless, this whole event was unusual in the lifestyle of that neighborhood.

Rose and the Fords were standing on the public sidewalk, waiting for the newlyweds. The sound of music of “Hotel California” gave it a joyful mood to the ambient. The couple came down along the stairway, radiant of happiness, slowly, covering themselves with their hands from the rice and confetti rain that their friends were throwing, until they got the sidewalk. Rose, once they were there, hugged vividly to John and then the bride. After that, the Fords made the same with the newlywed couple. When they finished greeting their relatives, they both ended up faced each other once again. John hugged Jane by her waist and, as she tenderly responded offering her lips, he gently kissed her amid the cheers of the guests who were celebrating the first kiss of the wedding. 

The young couple got into the limousine where they were kissing again, and when the vehicle started leaving, John and Jane said goodbye to their friends waving their hands. Anyway, it would be just for a while. The wedding party would be in the Ford's mansion, and there they would meet all once again. However, before that, the limousine would take them for a ride by the ocean cliffs of Palos Verdes.   

Nevertheless, the attention of John and Jane was more on saying love words and giving tender kisses each other than on the beautiful view of the immensity of the Pacific Ocean.

“I love you Jane, I love you with all my heart,” John told her while separating his lips from hers.

“I love you, John... I’ll love you forever,” Jane promised him. She had her eyes half-closed, as if she was living a dream from which she didn't want to wake up. 

The limousine driver, by John’s order, made a stop at the small park in Palos Verdes, on top of the ocean's cliff. There were a few wooden white painted benches nearby the edge, where John and Jane were standing hugging and staring at their eyes.

“We became lovers here, honey,” John said looking at her eyes.

“Yes, John, our love was born here to last forever,” she responded.

They kissed tenderly  once again and again until John said, “I want to do something very special, Jane,” and took out from his pocket a couple of old rings, those that they had used for a long time as a symbol of the promise of love that they had made when they were young teens. However, today they had renewed that promise again in the small church, and both were wearing on their fingers the gold and diamonds wedding rings.

John had tied the rings with a red ribbon making a delicate knot and kept it in his hand. Then, he told to Jane's, while was holding her hand and staring at her eyes:

“When these mountains have already vanished!

 When the sea has already ceased to hit the cliff!

 When the sun doesn’t hide behind the sea anymore!

 When there is nothing left in this world!

 ... I will go on loving you Jane!”

Then, John moved slightly away from her side and with all his strength, he threw the old rings into the sea.

“I love you, John... -Jane said, while she sobbed with happiness-... I love you with all my soul!”

John, staring deeply at her eyes, said as a holy promise: “Yes, from now on our souls will be forever one!" Then he kissed Jane’s lips tasting the salty tears that were rolling down her cheeks. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the ocean cliff, the waves of the sea were furiously hitting the cliff.

At the time when the newlyweds made their entrance through the front garden amid the cheer of friends and relatives, the soft rock melody of “Hotel California” was filling up the air of the Fords’ family mansion. Moreover, when they came into the large living room, they found out that the crowd had reserved for them a clear space, where the couple could dance the traditional “The Blue Danube Waltz.”

John and Jane were dancing staring tenderly at their eyes. They were radiant of happiness, surrounded by relatives and friends who were laughing and applauding cheerfully. The couple's dance movements were soft and elegant in accordance with the rhythm of the waltz, going from one side to the other in that large open circle surrounded by the guests, until Mr. Ford and Mrs. Rose interrupted them to switch partners. Mr. Ford was proud of his daughter's marriage. Rose, although happy, she couldn't hide the sad expression in her eyes due to the near departure of her son to the Lebanon. Then, Christ, grandpa of John, and Mrs. Ford, mom of Jane, were the following ones, who interrupted the new wedded couple to switch partners and dance with them, and, in this way, to open  the opportunity to the guests to dance in that living room and also in the patio of the mansion. 

Later, at the evening, the melody of Hotel California sounded again. The young couple was on the patio, standing next to a long table full with food, drinks and, on the center, a big wedding cake, while the crowd surrounded them shouting and urging them to cut the cake. Jane had the knife in her hands and John, at her side, had his hands on hers. They cut the cake, and pieces of this one went to the mouths of the newlyweds amid the general noise. John kissed to Jane again, just when the melody ended.

 

John was in an army boot camp for a few months, and then he was sent to the Lebanon, to an American military base in Beirut. They were there as part of the UN peacekeeper corps, in the civil war of that country. Today, Saturday, the activity in the base was slow. After lunch, John was lying down on his bunk, while he was reading a letter recently received from California. It was his wife’s letter, in which she was telling him: 

“... It doesn't matter how far away you are from me now.

I’m the happiest woman in the world, because…

I always feel your presence by my side.

And every night, when I sleep, I see you in dreams... 

And you hug me...

                    Take care, my love!”

John had finished reading the letter and, without folding it, he left it on his closet, nearby his bed. At the same time, he took his harmonica and leaned back on his bunk again. Nobody else was in that dormitory that could perturb his thoughts and, this way, with his eyes closed, he began to play the harmonica and a melody came out from it: “A Heart of Gold,” and the Neil Young' song began to fill up the air. The melody, the loneliness and his thoughts caused by Jane’s letter made him sank in a deep sleep, and after a few minutes John's eyes, with the lids closed, were moving rapidly. It was the unconscious reflex sign that he was dreaming.

In Palos Verdes, California, thousands miles away from Beirut, was almost midnight. In the Fords residence everyone were sleeping and Jane was not the exception. She was in her bedroom, in bed, breathing deeply and slowly, but her eyes, under her closed lids, were moving rapidly. Yes, she was dreaming too. When, suddenly, the smooth sound of a harmonica broke up the silence in that room, even though there was not a radio or any other electronic device that could produce such music. It was the melody of “A Heart of Gold”.

 

In her dream, Jane is jogging around the neighborhood streets, surrounded by a soft fog. Straight ahead, she can see the horizon line formed by the dark asphalt road and the blue sky. She sweats copiously, even though the cold breeze of the dawn is hitting her face. She is wearing thermal clothing of two pieces, which left her arms uncovered. On her left wrist, she has a cotton elastic band with her embroidered initials “J.F.” Jane gets to the top of the street then she begins to descend. The beautiful immensity of the ocean view is there, before her eyes. The streets are quiet, only few cars are at both sides of it. A few blocks away, near the top of the hill, there is a small park with white painted wooden benches at the edge of the cliff. Her trot pace by the ascending street is slow. She is unaware of things around her, because her mind is set on her thoughts, in spite of the physical effort that she is doing, while breathing deeply the salty breeze. 

When, suddenly, she thought she had heard a harmonica sound at distant. Jane continued jogging and realized that the sound was real, and becoming stronger and clearer. She was about to get to the small park and had already recognized the melody. She had no doubts; it was her husband's favorite song. The one he used to play with his harmonica in the park when both enjoyed the sunset view. Jane had stopped her running, standing quietly on the street, close to the edge of the park, trying to find out where the sound was coming from. She realized that no very far away, from where she was, she could barely see the shape of a seated man on one of the benches, like a dark spot, at the other side of the park, still covered by a light fog. Definitively, the melody of the harmonica was coming from there. From the same place that for Jane had a special meaning. Jane, surprised by a flash of premonition, mumbled smoothly, “John?” and without thinking twice, she went toward that place, while she whispered again, “John... is that you?” A breeze blew, and her vision became clearest. Now she could see that somebody was really up there, sitting down on the bench, playing his harmonica. In that instant, Jane felt that the musical melody got mingled with the beats of her own heart due to the overwhelming emotion she was going through. She stopped just a few yards away from that strange man. He had stopped playing the harmonica and slowly stood up. Then, he turned around to look where she was standing.

Jane, surprised, exclaimed “John, John!” Because the premonition, she had felt, had become true. John was standing there, only a few steps away from her, smiling, open arms and ready to hug her. Jane, with no doubts, went forward a few steps to give herself up to him, losing all the sense of the reality that she was living, feeling and enjoying her lover's lips, which was hugging and kissing her passionately...

You can find it at Amazon.com

Author's Note

The novel, I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS, will catch you from its first pages, because is notorious the arduous work of the author to write the story in an easy and coherent way to reach the enjoyment and pleasure of the readers...