Cherub

There’s something strange and beautiful about dreaming, the way it paints vivid pictures of hidden desires and secrets unknown even by those that hide them .They’re like the woods of the mind, lovely, dark, and deep. They’re strange in the way that they form, in the deepest parts of your consciousness and beautiful in the way that sometimes, no matter how much you try to hold on, to remember the fragments of a memory that never truly happened, you forget. Like a far gone past life or the memory of birth, it seeps through the fingers of your thoughts like a wisp of smoke and slips away until it is just a shadow in the woods, a whisper in a deaf man’s ear. Perhaps this is why I awoke that morning with a hunger unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I had spent the entire night not sleeping, but dreaming only to wake with little memory of the nights imagined events.

The brightness of the sun through my eyelids, the bright blush of bare skin, a soft but raw red whisper, they were all I had left of my unreal reality and they were quickly dissipating into the warm morning air. I reluctantly opened my eyes and looked upon the day. The sunlight had already cast a yellow blanket over the field we had temporarily taken residence in. The cool summer breeze blew the long smooth blades of grass. They bent in waves as if to introduce me to the new day. I looked over to my traveling companion. Kristofferson was still soundly asleep in the sleeping bag next to mine. His eyelids twitched as he dreamed uninterrupted, his hand in mine and mine in his. I suppose we had slept that way. I felt close to him and despite the short amount of time we had known each other, it felt right.

I laid there, completely content for a while just listening to the cerulean swish of the wind in the grass and the glimmering rainbow of colors of the birds in faraway trees. I felt the warmth of the moment wash over me. Suddenly, I felt long fingers move between my own. Kristofferson opened his eyes, blinking as if he was surprised that the sun has risen or perhaps he was surprised that he had woken up in a field next to a strange girl. He sat up in his sleeping bag looking forward across our field. The cool wind blew his long hair so that it gently swept his shoulders. My gaze landed on the back of his head as I wondered what kind of expression had manifested on his face. Finally, he spoke. “Little gal, it’s an excellent mornin’ for drivin’ dontcha think?” I couldn’t help but smile. “Absolutely” He spoke in shades reminiscent of a golden russet apple marked with deep reds, rich muted greens and soft golds. At times, it was instantaneously charming, especially when paired with those green eyes of his. We proceeded to wiggle out of our portable beds and put them away to begin out new lives on the road. It was no longer than a few minutes before we were in his black dodge and on the road.

“ So, I’m thinkin’, it’s almost twelve now and if were to really put the pedal to the metal, we could make it to Austin in about eight hours’ time but I have absolutely no intentions of drivin’ eight hours straight. I’ve got some friends there I’d like to see if you don’t mind none. I think you’ll take a liking to ‘em. I say we go on, take breaks when needed and try to keep up moral.” I’m sure it was around twelve. Like most summer days in the south, the heat was sweltering and the sun was high in the sky. Thankfully, we had both changed. We were both keeping cool, Kristofferson in some athletic shorts and a baseball tee and me in short denim overalls over a thin collared cotton button up that I had cropped badly at the middle last summer. We made sure to keep the windows wide open. “Sorry I can’t help with the driving any, but if we ever come across a tandem bicycle, I’m your woman.” He snorted. “Yep, then I’ll know I can count on you.” I laughed at his reply and turned up the radio. It was hard to hear what was playing over the fuzz but neither of us turned it down.

“So, did you never learn to drive? Why is that?” I rested my cheek on my palm as I looked out the open passenger window to gaze at the expanse of nothingness that lined the long stretch of road we were on. “Nope” I replied. “Mother always said it was dangerous and unnecessary for me since I could get anywhere I needed to go with my bicycle.” He scoffed. “That’s assumin’ you don’t need to go anywhere too far, sounds like she treated you like a little child. “ I quickly turned my head in reaction to what he had said but realized, there was nothing I could say as a rebuttal because it was the truth. Sure I loved mother but I needed to break free from the world she had housed me in. I didn’t have to justify her actions like I had every time in the past. If it wasn’t true, I wouldn’t have left. I couldn’t determine the look in his eyes under his dark sunglasses. I sighed as I turned back to my previous position. “Yeah, I suppose that’s true.” I looked at his face, trying to detect any small hint of satisfaction that he may have gotten from being right. There was none, just a small hint of what seemed to be pity. I probably looked pathetic there sitting in the passenger seat thinking about what a sorry case I was. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask why. Something tells me you don’t wanna talk about it…and, I do s’pose it’ll be alright now. Little gal, you and I are about to see everything there is to see.” I still probably looked pathetic, but less so.

Suddenly, the radio cleared and the music was distinguishable. It was a tune I knew. I rested my head on one of my folded arms that rested on the open window and softly sang along. In a second’s time, my hand that had been resting on the opposite side was once again held in Kristofferson’s and just as sudden as the radio fuzz cleared, so did my mood. I smiled, forgetting the bitter that came along with the sweet. My small thin fingers welcomed the presence of his long cool ones. I continued to sing, “Theeeese days, these days I seem to think about how all the changes came about my waaaaays.” And for some unknown reason, something lovely and indescribable, I felt complete.