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Chelsea Part One. Los Angeles.

1.

i have to ask you something.
do you ever wish you had someone (not the sky someone, but a real person) who could share your reality?
there would be nowhere you could go that this person couldn't go, down to the details of your last strange dream. you'd be in this game together, just you and the other person creating the entire world.

i had that once, almost perfectly. and i want to tell you about it, but do i start with my reality — or do i tell you about the dream?

i've been having this dream.

i go to sleep at night — and then every morning, just at that point between light and dark, when the room seems to be jumping with shadows and energy, i dream that i awaken.

i awaken with akio in the room.

akio is a transparent green boy with cat ears. i would call him my invisible playmate, but he was always visible to me when i was small. he disappeared when i was three or younger, but here he is, back again in my dream.

and in this dream, i run out after akio — and instead of my familiar block in los angeles, we're in a place with no houses, the air so warm and still, trees all around.

akio is racing ahead, and i'm following him into a magical forest....

and in the forest, akio leads me back to my little brother, memphis, and in this dream, i'm allowed to finally hug him.

i can touch his cheeks, i can really see him again, and i'm looking at every pore of his skin and thinking this time it's real — but before i can talk to my brother, he's running, and i'm chasing him through the sun-splashed forest.

sometimes we play — all our old games — and sometimes he hides and i can't find him. but always, i end up being tired, and even though i am already sleeping, i close my eyes within the dream and curl up on the forest floor and sleep.

and when i wake, real life seems dimmer than the dream.

even now, half the colors are washed out of the world.

it's early in the morning and i'm walking to school, first day of tenth grade. dressed in hot dark clothes.
as i walk, my heels beat a rhythm into the pavement: MIYA, MIYA, MIYA, MIYA.

miya — of course you're on my mind. i need to talk to you, but i'm torn.
i need you to be more than a phantom girl.
i also need you to recede into the shadows even farther.
i almost wish you would disappear, but today i can't pretend you're just an internet friend.

i should turn around and go back home. get online and tell you all the things i should have told you years ago.

but fear keeps me moving ahead, an invisible hand pulling me alongside the city park, keeping me on this pointless track. as long as i don't talk to you, i can stay in this in-between world, watching life like it's a river — flowing just out of reach.

birds chirping, moms pushing babies, a rush of noisy kids surging past me. school's just ahead, across the boulevard, tucked in the shadow of the hollywood hills. hot day, already hazy, i want to melt beneath the yellow sky.

i try to shut off the sounds when i pass the kiddie playground; a ton of kids crawling all over, racing and screaming. their sounds squeeze my heart with longing. i press my face against the fence, force myself to look, to focus on any one of them. alone in the sandbox, a little girl digging with a plastic spoon. she's wearing a white sundress and she's burying the feet of a naked doll and her entire being is involved in what she's doing. she must feel my stare, because she looks up — and straight through me.

my petticoats and black dress cling like layers of hot black tar. the brooch at my neck tightens in the heat. i feel weak, and the whole world seems to be getting darker. if i were a dog, i would fall down to the ground and just howl with the pain. but i'm not a dog and i'm not a crazy person.

i gaze out at the spotless lawn stretching from the playground to the little patch of trees at the end of the park. beyond that, black sticks against the sky — sixty acres of burnt wasteland, even after all these years.

i find the break in the fence and cut across the playground, full-out running across the chartreuse lawn, the world a blur, until i slip into the woods.

where is my brother? i can feel him grabbing my hand, pulling me into the next game....

moving deeper inside the woods, picking through the branch-strewn path, cursing the muddy patches, trying not to breathe the bitter scent of eucalyptus.

— a splash —

and my heart jumps —

keep moving —

past the murky pond —

sit on a rock in the gray and green woods, bracing myself for the emptiness. i press my fingertips against the trunk of the tree where i made memphis believe in the elephant. we would always hug the tree and then leave a stone at the base, to help release the little spirit that was trapped inside. there are hundreds of stones in the pile, never moved in all these years.

the ground is littered with chunks of charred wood. this little corner of the park was completely untouched by the fire — but the embers traveled. i grab a piece and use it like charcoal to scribble on a rock — where r u?

i won't cry in this place where memphis and i would catch spiders and dad would carry me on his shoulders to pick the highest leaves when they turned the color of lemons in the strange autumns of this city.

i lean my head against the tree. a whole card deck of memories falls into my face: shopping for school supplies with mom, her nervous face when she waved good-bye from the window, the way i used to run home from school full of things to tell her — ancient, ancient scenes, little-kid scenes, all the way before memphis was born.

an ache at the back of my throat, just because this is the first time mom isn't home when i start school. she's in japan; when the phone rang around 1 a.m., i ran to get it — it had to be her — but it stopped ringing before i reached it. just as well — she's waiting for an answer i'm not ready to give.

there's a cool peppery smell in the air, in the shadows by the pond, so rich i can almost taste it; tiny gold bugs disappear like drops of mercury in the black moss at my knees. each beautiful thing hurts.

so hot. black sweat down my back, don't melt my dress.

i won't cry. like an idiot baby.

maybe mom's moving on, but i'm not ready to.

i feel the warmth rising, the ghosts of the forest steaming the air. it's been three years since memphis disappeared. tomorrow — september 2nd — it will be exactly the day.

i know he'll come back to me — i feel positive it's going to happen tomorrow. we'll be together again — right here in these woods.

it's time to head out, but i'm not going home, because how can i tell you any of this?

copyright © 2008 by dakota lane