An Evening at the Carnival with Mister Christian

When she touched the shaft the cat flinched, opened it's eyes and looked at her, yet the animal seemed too weak to do more than lift it's head. Without hesitating, she broke the shaft above the wound and pulled it through the leg, and a fresh torrent of molten black blood ran from the freshly opened wound, spreading out onto the sand. The girl dashed back to the sea and ferried more water to rinse the wounds, then she removed a kerchief from her neck and tied it around the cat's leg, staunching the renewed flow.

Only then did she turn to look back at the whale, but it was...gone. There was no sign of it at all, either close to the beach or further away, out to sea, and she found herself wondering if she had ever really seen it. Perhaps, she thought, this had all been a dream.

Then as suddenly she heard music, and turning back to the cat she found herself almost face to face with the beast. It was standing now, and eyeing her curiously, but then it's head turned and she sniffed the kerchief around it's leg, then she came closer still and sniffed the girl's hair. The cat circled her once, then again, rubbing up against the girl roughly as it paced, and just as suddenly the animal walked off slowly into the grass, stopping only once to look back at the girl.

Again, she felt as though she was being judged, asked to follow, and the feeling unnerved her...but then there was that music. It was strange, whatever this music was, totally unfamiliar in form, but whatever else it may have been, what she heard was certainly music...but out here? Who could be out here, so far from the colony? Walking along the shore -- following her, perhaps? But now, coming from the grass? Was someone hiding from her? What kind of danger was this?

All she was certain of now was that the music was coming from deep within the grassy field next to the rocky beach, the field where wild strawberries grew in summer, yet now it appeared the cat was walking directly towards whoever was out there.

Without thinking she knew she had to warn whoever it was, so she took off through the grass, then realized she was following the big cat's trail.

The cat's prints came to an abrupt end, and there she found a man sitting on a blanket. He was sitting with his knees crossed, leaning over a stringed instrument of some sort, and she realized he appeared gaunt, almost emaciated. As she looked at him he played and sang, yet the most conspicuous thing about him was the small, round spectacles he was wearing, for they were tinted a very deep blue, and she had never in her life seen anything even remotely like them. And his hair -- so straight and long, and she couldn't recall ever seeing a man with hair so long.

The man was playing the stringed instrument he cradled gently in his lap, singing about pools of sorrow and waves of joy and images of broken light and none of it made any sense to her...but suddenly -- like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky -- everything the man sang made perfect sense -- and with this realization came the feeling, startlingly clear in sudden intensity, that she had seen and heard it all before...the whale...the cat...and this man singing about something called the universe. She watched him and felt her life dissolving as unseen layers of time drifted by -- then everything was spinning in shimmering air.

Thoroughly disoriented, she sat down not far from the man and listened to his music, yet he never once looked up as he played. He seemed, in fact, oblivious to his surroundings, almost as if he wasn't really there beside her. Then he stopped playing and looked up at the sky, then down again until he was looking directly at the cat.

"Is that your cat?" he asked.

"What?"

"The cat, there. Is that your bloomin' cat?"

She turned, saw the lion sitting on the ground behind her, contentedly licking a paw while it looked at the man.

"Uh, no, I thought he must be yours..."

"That's a fookin' big cat."

"It's hurt."

"It doesn't look fookin' hurt, Eleanor Rigby. It looks bleedin' hungry..."

"Eleanor? My name's not..."

"Oh, I know, girlie. Just an expression." He looked around the grass, looked perplexed as if these were not his expected surroundings. "Where am...where is this?"

"You don't know?"

"I'm pretty sure I wouldn't ask if I knew, ya know?"

"Did you walk up from Plymouth?"

"Plymouth?" he sighed -- as if not sure what she was talking about. "No, I don't think so..."

"Oh? Where did you come from?"

The man looked around these strawberry fields again, then at the huge cat, then down at his hands and the instrument in his lap. "I'm not...I can't remember..."

"Well, this is the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Plymouth is down that way," she said, pointing roughly to the southeast. "Didn't you come from there? Or are you lost?"

"Lost?" Again, the dead tone in his voice defined the moment, then he looked down at the instrument in his lap and began playing again.

"Nothin's gonna change my world, girlie," he sang, but now he sang in that same flat affect, and with that he abruptly stopped. "You been to the carnival yet?"

"The what?"

"The carnival. You must be from the carnival."

"I'm not sure what that is," she said. "Where is it?"

He looked around the field again, only now he looked very confused -- confused, she saw, almost to the point of tears.

"What the fook!" he screamed suddenly -- and he recoiled as if from a massive, unseen blow. It was as if he'd seen something fearful, that something quite painful and unexpected had just happened.

"What is it?" she cried out, but the man's form began to shimmer in the afternoon air, turning first bright silver, then brighter and brighter blue. She saw blood erupting on the man's shirt, a very confused look on his face, then stark fear in his eyes as his form turned to pure light.

She turned away from the sight, shielded her eyes as she tried to look at him, but then she realized he was gone.

Still shielding her eyes, she turned and saw the cat was still there, yawning now -- as if bored -- though the animal was still looking at her. It rolled over on the grass and presented it's belly to her, and without thinking she began rubbing the cat's belly -- and noticed all the wounds she had cleansed were healed. She looked into the animal's eyes, searching, trying to remember something vital.

Yet she felt kindness reaching for her, something compassionate in the animal's eyes, and once again that feeling of familiarity, and judgement. Shaking her head she stood -- and the cat stood too -- then the cat leaned into her as it sniffed her clothing, then her hair.

She heard someone calling her name. A familiar voice -- distant, growing close. She turned toward the ramparts and saw her brother, and several more colonists following him, coming for her.

She looked at the cat, saw it looking at the people, then she saw the cat look into her eyes again, before it settled into a slow trot and ambled off through the grass.

Her brother arrived seconds later.

"Was that a lion?" he cried, pointing to the grass as he gasped for air, as he struggled to catch his breath.

"A lion? Are you serious? Good Lord, no!"

He leaned over, struggling to breathe. "What the devil is that!" he gasped out, pointing at the grass behind her.

She turned, looked at the ground, saw a spreading stain of blood there -- then she jumped backwards, slamming into her brother, almost knocking him down. "I don't know," she said, her voice now dripping with uncertainty. "I -- don't -- know."

Her brother stood upright and looked around the field. "I know I saw a catamount," he said, still breathing hard. "It must have killed a deer -- right here. Maybe you came along -- scared it. Dragged it away -- into the woods. We'd better -- get out of here."

The other colonists were gathering 'round now, and they saw the blood, heard her brother talking about having seen a big cat -- and that was enough for them. "Let's get out of here," one of them said, and there was a general assent to that proposition.

She turned to look after the cat again, but there was no sign of it at all so she turned and looked out to sea. Nothing. Nothing -- anywhere.

"I've got to fetch my wood," she said.

"Alright then. Let's go."

It was a long walk back to the colony, and a very cold wind fell in from the north woods, yet she heard the man's music as she walked along, saw him in her mind's eye.

What had changed his world, she wondered, and why was he bleeding so?

By Lifting Winds Forgot

the second part of the tale: 'Where all that we see, or seem, is but a dream within a dream'

[Log entry from the SailingVessel Gemini: 4 October, 1230 hrs GMT, Tuesday afternoon.

COG:67degreesMag <.1varE;

SOG:5.4kts;

Temp: 49F;

Winds:NNW at 12kts;

Barometer 29.55 falling;

GPS: N50.34.37 W1.04.57.

Passing Ventnor, Isle of Wight, 4.3nmi/330magnetic; now approx 43 nmi to Brighton breakwater, 124 nmi from Exmouth departure. Winds steady@10-12 past three hours, storms building SSW, radar track shows moving in at 20+knots, expect to get hit mid afternoon. Staying close to shore to keep out of channel shipping lanes, traffic into/out of Southhampton/Portsmouth heavy, lots of radar buoys too, good as viz is down to about 5nmi in mod. haze.]

He looked at the sky, at the building storm, at all the telltale signs along the western horizon, and he decided to shorten sail as he closed the coast. He was tired now, tired after so many days at sea, and he was worried about the staysail, about the loose stitching he had found earlier that morning. Too much wind and it might fail -- just when he needed it most -- so he reeled it in, the genoa too. He looked at the clouds and decided to reef the main, then he walked around the deck and tidied up the little ships lines.

He stood once and looked into the sea -- wondered if she was still there.

Oh, how he missed them.

+++++

Hers had been a busy morning, gray and damp, busier still as there was a hint of autumn in the air. Her feet hurt with the passing of summer's warmth, the arthritis in her left wrist bothered her even more than usual for this time of year. And she was tired, too. Tired of it all. She liked to say everything about her life was tired -- on those rare occasions when she was in any kind of mood to talk at all, but today felt like one of those mornings when the best thing to do would have been to pull the covers up over her head and go back to sleep. She could hide from the world in her dreams, and sometimes she could even hide from her life -- inside those gay little snippets of what might have been. Hide -- for a little while, anyway.

She was still an enigma to the few who knew her well enough to see through her moods. Outwardly at least, she was regarded as a warm, caring and indeed, a compassionate soul; as a result her customers were a devoted lot. Never was she seen in the café without her famous, broad and caring smile; never was she without an encouraging word to anyone who came her way with a careworn brow. Men and women young and old stopped by her shop for their morning tea, her freshly baked scones and Devonshire cream, and though they had for decades most would have been hard pressed to think of a reason why -- beyond dropping by for their morning dose of that comfortable, all-knowing smile.

Her little shop was off the King's Road in Brighton, not far from the pier, and she lived in a little white flat just up the hill, not far from the Tay Memorial. Her name was Deborah, Deborah Hill, and she was fast approaching fifty -- which was why there was more white in her pale red hair than she cared for. Her eyes were a blue much deeper than the sky; no, her's were the color of the sea in twilight, just before day surrenders to the night. She was a tall woman, too, and in her youth she had been considered strikingly beautiful, and most men of a certain age still considered her gorgeous.

And once upon a time that beauty had given her a certain freedom, the license to run with fast crowds in London, back in the punk 80s. Backstage at concerts or on the front rows of 'the scene' -- wherever her charms carried her, really -- she was always just along for the ride, yet somehow the life of the party. And she'd met 'him' at one of those concerts, and at the concerts that followed. Steve was his name, a guitar player for one of those 'super-groups' that popped up regularly back in the day. He was a god, or so 'they' said, but he fell for her too -- for a while, anyway, because he was one of the first to realize that her beauty was not simply skin-deep. She traveled with the group for a few months, he bought a flat for her in Brighton and she settled into what passed for domestic bliss, in those days, anyway.

And she was pregnant. A little girl, born with a serious neural tube defect, a little girl who lived seven days. Steve was gone a lot after that, then she heard he was with someone else and had moved on. She liked Brighton, the splashy aura of a sunny seaside resort, then her mum died, left her a small inheritance and she bought the tea shop -- and inertia took over after that. Her life ran it's course, ran away from her, and she did her best to hide from the despair -- but the pain always came back to her -- even if he never did.

She'd taken stock of her life one day -- one day after they released her -- and she'd found her time hollow -- useless and empty. But oh, how the inertia of her life kept playing games with her, pulling her along in all it's uncertain gravity. She took on help at the shop from time to time, and one girl, a sweet, confused little thing had fallen in love with her. The affair was ultimately more confusing than anything else, but it had been so sweet while it lasted. There was for a time someone who cared for her, someone who listened when she talked -- and then, after? Only the silence of broken dreams called her name these days, and one day she'd realized that's all there was, all there'd ever be.

These days she took her evening walk around Lewes Circle and Sussex Square, and she walked alone, always alone. As night fell she liked to look in windows of the houses she passed, at the warm lamplight and people inside gathered 'round sharing their day, and she wondered about the lives playing out inside those warm, honeyed rooms. About all the smiling men and happy women and their contented children -- and she could ignore the contours of her life, the cherished glowing smiles she never shared.

One evening she watched a little girl playing the piano, and something about the scene touched her. "That should have been me," she told the gathering darkness, and that was indeed how she saw herself in that moment. That something had come undone, a contract, perhaps.

"This is all wrong," she said to a passing shadow. "I shouldn't be here, not like this..."

So she was tired now, her feet hurt so badly she decided to close up shop early that afternoon. The pain, the burning in her feet, just wouldn't let up, and then she'd bumped her wrist in the pantry and that pain had joined the other and all had grown intrusive. She walked home and soaked her feet in salts, then she dropped off in a chair and dozed a bit, wanting this day to be over, to just be done. Finally and utterly alone at last, she thought. The night couldn't be so bad, could it?

She opened her eyes, looked around the flat, at the images of broken dreams on the wall, the emptiness she felt there a simple repudiation of everything she'd ever hoped for, and she sighed -- nothing had turned out as she'd once dreamed, nothing was going to change her world.

"Yes," she said then, to the four walls, "I am tired of all this. Of everything." Such a simple realization, she sighed -- wonderingly. Because no, she really didn't need to carry-on any longer. The choice was hers, after all was said and done, wasn't it?

And so she chose.

She bathed, changed clothes and got ready for her evening walk, though because it was much earlier than usual it was still light out. In fact, the sun was still high in the afternoon sky, her sky a cotton candy parade of low, fluffy white clouds scudding in from the sea. A good day to walk out to the cliffs, she thought. Yes, she really didn't have a care in the world anymore, did she? And the view was so lovely out there...the sea and the promise of night.

So, she left the flat and walked east, past the marina, then up to the trail that flanked the cliff's edge just past all the little boats. She enjoyed, as she always did, the feel of the wind in her hair, the sun on the back of her neck, and even the sound of gravel beneath her feet played along to the music of her growing resolve. She hadn't felt so free in ages, and as she came to a pair of benches she'd always liked she felt an overwhelming peace. She walked close to the edge, looked down at people walking on the Undercliff Walk and she hesitated. She didn't want to ruin their day, not this way.

She turned and walked back to the closest bench and sat, looked to the sun still a few hands above the horizon. She hadn't thought it would be this hard, this letting go, this setting free...then she looked out to sea...at the wind and the waves...the gulls wheeling in the air behind a fishing boat. To be free as a bird, she thought.

"Whatever happened to the life we knew...no, no...that's not it..."

She heard his voice, at once so familiar -- yet so distant. Music in the air now, faraway, looming like a train in the night, like a steam calliope playing the notes of a dream.

"...that we once knew. That's it, that's -- better."

She turned, saw him sitting on a broad tuft of grass, clear as the light of day, as free as a bird. He was leaning over his guitar, writing words in a book, then playing another string of notes. He looked up at the sun and the clouds and the birds, then he turned and...looked at her.

"Hello," John Lennon said. "Do I know you?"

She stared at him, then shook her head. "No. We never met."

"Are you going to jump?"

"But...what...are you doing here. You're..."

"Dead? Yeah, well, nobody's perfect. So, why do you want to jump?"

She shrugged, looked away. "I'm tired."

"Tired? Really?"

"Tired of being alone. Tired of cooking for myself, of going to the cinema by myself, of sitting in a restaurant at a table for two, women looking at me, laughing when they look at me -- by myself, while they gloat."

"So? Don't be alone."

"Easier said than done...John..."

"What'd you call me?"

"John. What do you mean...you don't know who you are?"

He shook his head. "No, not really."

"That song you're working on? I liked it."

"Did you?"

"Yeah, 'where did we lose the touch...' I really related to that when it came out, sad as it was to realize we..."

He looked away, pointing out to sea. "That's a hell of a metaphor, don't you think?"

"What? The channel? I don't know. I suppose it is."

"It's like that, you know?"

"What? Death...?"

"You never know who's coming along. Who's going to come whistling through your life. But it's not the crap-shoot you think it is, ya know?" He bent over his guitar, fingered a G-major chord and found his way through a new passage. "Doesn't sound quite right -- does it now?"

She shook her head again. "No. Why are you here?"

He laughed as he looked up at her. "Wish I knew." He cocked his head to one side. "Do you hear that?"

She listened, felt the faintest traces of carnival music in the air. "I think so?"

"Was at a carnival...last night maybe. Jennifer. She was there for a while."

"Jennifer?"