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I stared into the darkness, testing my vision, attempting to conjure a dream from its depths. I could see no shapes, no colors, no shadows, but began to know the room was not empty. Distant whispers and a rustling of crisp fabrics came to me as I sat as still as I could, catching every sound, imagining the movement within it.
She appeared. Her small round face plunged into the candle light, framed in the black of the night, the black of her hair, the black of her dress. She was sitting before me, her face stark and cruel, her black eyes piercing. She said, "Tell me."
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"I want to find a friend of my youth," I started, but she held up her hand to stop me. And she sighed. Her eyebrow arched, deepening the shadow on her eye in the flickering light. "Tell me with your mind. See your desire inside you -- here." She touched the center of her chest, where a heart might be.
I thought of many things, of today and yesterday, but I could not grab onto a single vision of the person I sought. As I struggled with my memories I could hear a faint tapping of fingernails, her hard red fingernails, on a polished wood surface.
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I watched her hand in the light, how smooth, how perfect, her arm lithe and braceleted. Youth and beauty, I thought, impatience and cruelty, tapping out a little time for my dreams.
The clearest vision came then: my own hands, creased, veined, knotted -- stiff and almost all used up. And behind those hands a century of dreams, mostly forgotten.
I struggled to handle a flow memories that began to fill my mind. Then, I could hear narrow waters, feel cool breeze, and, in the crisp light of a summer afternoon, see a boy, mostly naked, kicking up the water of the stream and sending bright sparkles everywhere. I cannot see his face, the sun is behind him. But I remember a smile, just a little smug, of a boy in lust, and the way he watched me as we played in the water and climbed a tree.
He's run off now, up a grassy hill, and I follow, running to catch up. He trips in the long grass and flings himself down in the shade of a silly old oak. I cannot see him because the grass is so tall. Then I find the depression in the grass where he sprawled, laughing. His face is lit with warmth, the face of my son and the face of his father, identical, distant, and gone forever.
Someone was moaning in the darkness. She was sitting there looking at me, her small mouth set and cruel. Someone was crying in the darkness. She flattened her hand against the table and said, "Now go." I leaned against some pillows and tried to breathe, but the smell of the room nearly stifled me. I dragged a deep breath into my narrow chest and placed fifty dollars on the polished table next to the row of candles. I don't remember leaving the place.
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