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The Forever Bed
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The Forever Bed |
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Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049California 
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I awoke to the scream of a child. It was high-pitched and exploded from one agonizing breath after another into the dark. The scream was my own. As I fought to free myself from the nightmare of my racing heart, I felt Larry’s hand. Larry is my husband. He is a tree to my wavy grass. He is the heat that circles my back in the cold. He is the smile of my mornings. His magic hands touch my ordinary skin and feel the silk of a beautiful woman. He understands the meaning of my sidewise glance and is able to conjure a laugh out of my serious heart. We have named our bed "The Forever Bed." It has always been a sacred place, not a place of fear or hiding, until the dream. "Fear should be faced," Larry said that night after I had calmed down. "When you turn on the light in a room full of goblins, they’ll go away." Larry is so logical. I just wanted to take a shower, but he insisted that I tell him about the dream. So, across the mountain of sheet that was his knee, I told him. "It was the same dream that I used to have as a child. I remember how powerless it left me. Grandma would lay next to me and hold my hand until my tears and trembling stopped." I hesitated then took a deep breath. Larry nodded in sympathy. "It really scared you, didn’t it?" he said. He stroked my hair and crooned "pour little girl, pour baby". He took my hands and looked into my eyes, as though he could see the dream playing there like a movie. I could feel something nudging at my memory from my childhood where the dream was still throbbing behind my eyes in the Technicolor of real life. I closed my eyes and felt it coming back to me. "I’m a child of about four running inside a maze of hallways," I told him. "I’m running away from someone. I hear laughter and footsteps behind me. I need to get to the door at the end of a long passageway, but I’m moving in slow motion. When I reach the door the knob slips in my hand. Behind me, the footsteps are louder and closer. When I finally get the door open, like a tiny ballerina of grace I float down into the dark of the cellar. Then I look up and see a figure framed by the door and lit from behind. I can’t see a face. I know I must be very quiet, but my breath is as loud as the ocean crashing in my head. I hide by covering my face with my hands, thinking, if I can’t see it then it can’t see me. I hear the creak from the first step and then the scream. That’s all I can remember." Larry’s hand was strong and comforting. He pulled me to him and I held on and I felt the peace return to my heart. * * * * I’ve had the dream almost every night since then. I’m afraid to go to bed. Larry says that dreams are the subconscious letting of steam and finding the meaning will free me. "Maybe the dream has something to do with my parents dying when I was a baby," I say to Larry. "Lets go back to the beginning," he says and see what we can find out." So here I am in the town where I grew up. We sit here in the car hoping for answers from this once familiar neighborhood. The house we’re looking at is where I lived with my grandparents. The address is the same but the house is different. It seems out of alignment. The freeway passes nearby, the antenna of progress humming a late afternoon chorus. I am waiting for knowledge to hit me like Mack truck, but instead I am captured by memories of life here when I was a little girl. *** The house was stone and wood then. Ivy grew in and out of it’s many cracks. The front porch was enormous and was filled with potted plants and wicker. It was my job to water. I loved the way the camellia bushes pressed against the side of the house and fuchsia lined the steps. A walnut tree hid the sun in the back yard. My friend and I used to sit at a little table under the tree and drink fresh lemonade. The pool must have been one of the first ever made. It stood empty, except for the cracks that patterned the bottom, and the remnants of rotting things that hid the drain. I would put water in the pool with the hose. An inch or two of muddy water was all I needed to be entertained for hours. Behind the pool was the old hen house. No hen remained. Instead, spiders made their home there and weeds and vines invaded the doors and windows. I remember measuring the room with my footprints in the dust. It measured ten footprints in every direction. Nana’s closet smelled of mothballs. I dressed up in her kimono, high heels, and hats. I slept in the big bed, so tall I needed a stool to get into it. The bed swallowed me in its softness. Naked cherubs cavorted around the mirror over the dresser in plump innocence. * * * I know the door that is in my dream is here in this house. "I don’t want to remember," I say to Larry as I begin to cry. Larry gathers me up in his arms like a child and rocks me saying, "Shhh, shhh, I won’t let anyone hurt you." But Larry knows that I know that hurt may be a part of finding the truth. "The dream is like having music in my head," I tell Larry. " Its tap, tap tapping melody plays over and over until I have to sing ‘God Bless America’ to stop it." Larry understands. He is very patient. He holds my hand as we walk up to the front door. In my other hand I hold a picture of myself when I was about six, in front of the house. I am pale and skinny and have a red Popsicle stain around my mouth. I am dressed in a baggy bathing suit and have the hose in my hand. My front teeth are missing as I smile at the photographer. I feel like I’m walking to my doom. I can almost hear the drum role of the funeral dirge accompanying me. Part of me hopes that no one is home. Larry leads me up the stairs and knocks on the door. The sound is flat and powerless. I expected a thundering gong. It’s just ordinary wood, I tell myself. No one comes. Larry knocks again. I listen to the sound of crow’s laughter, coming from the pine across the street. Then suddenly, the door opens. I smell lavender and Listerine and through the screen, the small bent shape of a housedress covering old bones speaks, "Yes?" "Hello." Larry smiles. "I’m Larry and this is my wife, Rose". He pulls me up beside him. "My wife grew up in this house." I nod, and hold my picture out as proof, feeling an intruder in this familiar place. The woman pushes open the screen and takes the picture. She looks at it for some time. Finally, she gives it back and looks at my husband questioningly. "We’re hoping that you’ll let us come in and look around. We don’t want to impose but its very important that my wife see the house again. She has some unexplained memories that involve the cellar. "The cellar?" the woman echoes, and looks at me. Larry glances at me and I know I must say something now. I always let Larry do things because he is the strong one, he always knows what needs to be done. But, I am no longer a pale, skinny, toothless child and this is my dream and my life. I am wearing a red shirt for power and my legs are long and lean in blue jeans. Larry says my black hair and blue eyes are beautiful. I try to feel as confident as I know I look. "Yes, you see I have been having a dream about something that happened to me in the cellar," I say, "but, I can’t remember the end." "We thought it might help if she saw the cellar again," Larry finishes for me." "The cellar," the woman repeats. "Hmm, oh dear." I see that she has decided to trust us as her face fills with a smile and she pushes the screen open wide. "Come in, come in. My name is Blanche," she says. "My husband and I have lived here for years. He’s not with me any more. He died last year, you see." She smoothed her dress. "The place is rather a mess. It’s hard for me to take care of this big house by myself. But, I don’t want to move. There are so many memories, you know. We had many lovely times here." Blanche leads us into the living room. "Would you like some fresh lemonade? I was just about to pour a glass for myself." "Thank you," I say, feeling more comfortable with this woman who reminds me of my grandmother. "That would be nice. I used to drink lemonade here in the summer. The tree in the back was always full." "It still is," Blanche informs me. "About the cellar?" Larry questions. "We’re sorry if we’re putting you to any trouble". He gives me a look that says, Cut the chit chat and lets get on to the Nittie gritty. In return I give Larry a Let me handle this look. "Why don’t you let me help you," I say to Blanche, feeling more confident with each heart beat. I lead the way to where I know the kitchen is. The cabinets are the same ones that I remember. There is a built-in corner cupboard filled with flowered plates and a bowl of lemons on a yellow Formica kitchen table. Blanche gets out the glasses and I pour from a big glass pitcher painted with yellow lemons. As we sit down at the table Blanche says, "I’m afraid we had the cellar closed off many years ago. We never used it to store things, you see. It gave me a funny feeling, as though there was something bad down there. Raymond thought I was being silly, but I have feelings about things. I could tell right away, dear", she says, looking at me, "that you are like me. You have feelings about things, too. Don’t you?" I hadn’t really thought about it for a long time, but she’s right. I do have feelings about people and places, some sort of psychic knowing. I feel that way now, only I can’t quite grasp the image. I feel like I’m looking through blue paper at a mirage. When Larry and I were first married he said I had an overactive imagination. But right afterward he looked into my eyes and I saw love, not ridicule. Then, he took me in his arms and gave me a long and lovely kiss. "That’s one of the things that makes you so special," he had said. "I’ve seen the girl in the picture you showed me," Blanche says, taking a sip of her lemonade. "When we first moved in, we went down to the cellar to set some rat traps. We had been hearing a lot of scurrying around at night. We found a box, pushed way in the back of a dirt crawl space. It was filled with old photographs and some children’s clothing and dolls. There was a baseball and moth eaten blankets and children’s drawings. When I went through it, I got the strangest feeling of sadness and fear. I feel that same feeling coming from you, dear." For a moment, looking into Blanche’s faded blue eyes, it seems that she has known me for a long time. "Honey, are you all right?" Larry asks, taking my hand under the table. I know my face must have turned pale and my hands are sweating like a school girl’s on her first date. I squeeze Larry’s hand in reply. Blanche looks at me in concern. "I still have the box. Getting to it will be a bit tricky, though. You would like to see it wouldn’t you, dear?" I nod. I have no pictures or memorabilia of those days except the photograph I have brought with me. My grandmother always told me that the past was best left in the past. "It’s the future that’s important and what you do tomorrow, not what you’ve already done," she would say when I asked her questions about my parents or my childhood. "I threw out all that riff-raff long ago. You’re a beautiful, intelligent girl with a whole glorious life to lead. Don’t dwell on the past, Rosie girl; it might bite you on the back side." My grandmother had a forthright way of talking that sounded rough, but she was always there for me. I sometimes felt like I was the song that she had dedicated her life to play. "Larry," Blanche says, "I think that if you help me we can get that box out." Blanche leads the way into the back yard and there, is the chicken house, just as I remember it. I can almost believe my footprints are still inside having measured ten in all directions. "We used this old place to store things," Blanche says. "We tried to clean it out some when we got older, but there were so many memories in the boxes, so many stories to go with the furniture, that most of it is still here. I guess I’m a collector of memories. I even have some of yours," she says as she unlocks the padlock with a key from under a potted geranium and squeaks open the door. Blanche knows right where the box is. "I put it in an old chest," Blanche tells us, "to keep it from getting eaten by the rats. I had a feeling that I was the keeper of something important." * * * The "forever bed" is a sacred place. It is not a place of fear or hiding. As Larry and I sit on the bed with the box I realize that the next few minutes might change my life forever. My hands tremble as I open the lid. I hope I will find my memory of the past, but I’m afraid I will just find useless old junk. The first thing I take out is a blue blanket. It is made of satin fabric and in the center is a yellow felt bunny. It is tattered and frayed at the edges as if it had been rubbed many times. It is painful for me to hold, as if it is made of tears. I think "blue blankey", "blue blankey" and know that this blanket had a name. Then my minds eye flashes a quick glimpse of some sort of sadness. Next, I take out a picture. I hold it so tight the edges start to crumple. It is a picture of me and an older, blond boy sitting at the little table under the walnut tree, drinking lemonade. I know it is lemonade we are drinking. I remember the lemonade. I can barely contain the excitement I feel. I feel the word "brother" whisper into my mind and then I am flooded by memory and choked by sobs. I can feel Larry’s heart beating steadily as he holds me and waits and suddenly, my brother, Bobby becomes the friend in the picture. "I remember." I say to Larry. I am holding the blue blankey next to my face, inhaling deeply. It always held a special smell, a brother smell, a boy smell. Now all I smell is dust and a faint hint of mothballs. "I had a brother named Bobby." I tell Larry. "His nose was always running. This is the blanket he usually wiped it with. He took it everywhere. He slept with it. I remember grandma used to tell him he was too big to carry around a blanket. He usually took my hand and helped me down the cellar stairs," I say, and squeeze my eyes shut. The memory of the cellar comes back to me. It was our favorite place to play. Cool, in the summer heat, we would let in the magic maps of our imagination. But, one day a game of hide and seek brought me there alone. Now, I can remember the heartbeat of anticipation I felt as Bobby yelled, "Ready or not here I come." Delicious fear was a game, until he fell to his death down those dark, long ago stairs, seeking me. Looking at Larry across the mountain of sheet that is his knee, it seems a life time ago that he said, "When you turn on the light in a room full of goblins, they will go away." Larry is usually right about such things. |
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| © Copyright 1999 Martie Odell Ingebretsen - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Watcher666 Senior Member
since 1999-10-13
Posts 1606 |
Heart wrenching story.Well done! ------------------ Illusion...what we see and what we do...it's all up to you. |
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JennyLee Senior Member
since 1999-09-01
Posts 1461Northwestern, NJ. |
This tugs at my heart..I like very much,you write really well  Jenny |
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Janet Marie Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554 |
Martie, i hope you dont mind me bringing this back up, but i just had to reply and also give new memebers a chance to see your wonderful writing. I hung on every word of this... I knew this was gonna be like second skin for you... excellent imagery, detail and emotions. I has to smile at the coincidence as well, for my very first attempt at prose I wrote a similar story of going back to an old house from my childhood. small world *smile*. i have bookmarked several of your prose pieces from the forum search I did and will be reading them all... with bells on  take care my sweet friend, jm |
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Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049California |
I see I never thanked Watcher and Jenny Lee for their comments, shame on me, and I haven't seen either one for some time...but thank you Janet Marie for bringing this story back up and for such a wonderful comment. I really appreciate it...maybe you will motivate me to finish my longer works of fiction...what do you say...please! |
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jfreak Member
since 1999-06-17
Posts 306Yuma, AZ, USA |
Hey Martie, Just wanted to say that this was a wonderfully written story. EXCELLENT Imagery. I loved the line where you were describing what Rose smells as Blanche opens the door, "I smell lavender and listerine as the door opens..." That is just a great line. Well I sure hope you write some more stuff. JFreak |
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jfreak Member
since 1999-06-17
Posts 306Yuma, AZ, USA |
Hey Martie, Just wanted to say that this was a wonderfully written story. EXCELLENT Imagery. I loved the line where you were describing what Rose smells as Blanche opens the door, "I smell lavender and listerine as the door opens..." That is just a great line. Well I sure hope you write some more stuff. JFreak |
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Romy Senior Member
since 2000-05-28
Posts 1170Plantation, Florida |
Martie, This is a very good story that pulls you along all the way to the end! You use so much detail and emotion! I couldn't wait to find out what the mystery was! One question though, What happened to the parents? Did I miss that in my hurry to find out the ending? Thanks for a great story! |
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Marge Tindal 
since 1999-11-06
Posts 42384Florida's Foreverly Shores |
Martie~ Such a wonderful job you did telling this story. Remarkable. Your imagery is so vivid that I felt myself cautiously creeping down the stairs. Holding the 'blue blanky' was the hardest part for me ... tears ... but good remembering kind of tears. You've so much talent, Martie. You are surely very versatile. Thank you for sharing this with me. Love you~ ~*Marge*~ ~*The pen of the poet never runs out of ink, as long as we breathe.*~ noles1@totcon.com |
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Elizabeth Santos Member Rara Avis
since 1999-11-08
Posts 9269Pennsylvania |
Excellent, Martie A captivating story through and through, from 2 persectives, the child and the ault and this was very well done.Though itwas sad, it was also mysterious. I applaud your work Liz |
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Irish Rose Member Patricius
since 2000-04-06
Posts 10263 |
I must say this wow, "the mountain that was his knee" and other lines as well, so vividly capturing small things in a way, that you remember....and I hung on every word, this was excellent Kathleen "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace." Elizabeth Barrett Browning |
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Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049California |
jfreak--thanks for such nice comments...I guess I should go look for my prose muse....she has been hiding somewhere lately. Debbie--thank you for reading and enjoying my story...the parents died when she was a little girl... Thanks for taking a peek Marge--blue blankey is special...my daughter had one and I have it still, tattered and torn and full of her memory. Liz--thanks for the applause and for coming down to prose to read...appreciate it lots! Kathleen--thanks so much for reading...that is one of my favorite lines too. |
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Honeybee Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-26
Posts 5372Ontario, CANADA |
~Martie~ I haven't been in the prose forum for a while now, but I am glad that I am here again to discover your gem. Your story is breathtaking and beautiful. Wonderful imagery and expression. Loved this! Applause! If only I could write like you!  Take care, Melissa Honeybee |
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