by
Matt DeGrood
The Set-Up
Margaret walked out the door that morning with her faithful sheep dog, Rusty. This, as many other Sundays, would be leisurely spent, basking in the glow of a non-work day. Although she was lonely, Margaret always had a pleasant demure about her. As she and Rusty made their way through Central Park on that sunny day in July, Margaret’s eyes began focusing and unfocusing on all the single men and women in the park.
"Not a safe one in the lot, I bet." She thought to herself as she watched a shirtless man throwing a
Frisbee to an overzealous golden retriever
Once she found an idyllic picnic spot, she pulled her quilted blanket from her bag and laid it down on the grassy ground. As she sat reading her Danielle Steele novel, a tall man walked up to her and said, "Hi, is anyone sitting here?"
Margaret looked up in a dare, "Huh?"
"Is anyone sitting here?"
"Oh, um... no, why?"
"Would it be okay if I joined you?"
"Sure."
As she gazed up at him, she noticed something oddly familiar. "I’m Ray, and you are...?" He said, extending his hand. "Oh, Margaret, but all my friends call me Maggie." "Well, it's nice to meet you," he said, sitting on the blanket next to her Though normally, Margaret would have been taken aback or possibly frightened with this act of brash, somehow she felt he was safe... and if anything went wrong, Rusty would have protected his master quite well. As they sat. Margaret thought to herself, "What is it? Why do I feel like I know this guy Something about him. The eyes look hauntingly familiar."
As they sat and talked, Margaret stared into his green-blue eyes. She was mystified A recurrent sea of colors and memories sat before her, captivating her. Yet, as she watched, lost in a lovelorn dreamscape, she could not find where he pieced in her life.
She went home that night, lost in an empty shell of remnants of the day. Her mind retraced her steps in hopes to gain a glimmer of reliance in that lost perspective of actualization.
She slept with no realization of dream state. She went to work the next day, her mind trapping itself in a web of in-conclusion. The man’s face was etched in the chasm of her mind, un-referred by memory. As if an amniotic glow had permeated all reality. She walked home and passed him. A flowing veil of vague recognition swept over her for a time and, at once, was gone, as if to draw her into a subconscious realm. A knowing glance in a sea of restlessness.
The Solution
They sat together again, as they had for weeks preceding, a fading nuance of bittersweet security lapped at their being. She never told him about the sensations she had been feeling. She never knew why she didn’t tell him, perhaps it was the looming feeling that she just didn’t have to.
Together, they possessed a link of some sort. An ethereal joining of two souls among the
vast wastelands of nothingness.
The answer came to her in a dream.
The year was 1894, in Chicago, Illinois. She saw a young boy that possessed her, or perhaps it was she who was possessed by him. The boy ran down a dirt road on the outskirts of town, a barrel-hoop ambled out before him. The boy was clutching a stick, laughing, when suddenly a small cocker-spaniel came into view. Maggie focused on the dog. a warm tapestry of calm spread over her as she looked into its eyes A greenblue ocean of memories and reality
The next day, they met again, Maggie looked deep into Roy’s eyes. The dream embraced her being. A focused energy of past and present surged through their fingertips as they touched.