Coronado Dreaming (The Silver Strand Series) (15 page)

“In the end,” said Giddeon, “someone has to read, or there really is no novel. Someone has to be, or there is no place to be.”

He relayed that last bit of information just before he finished off his sandwich.

“
To be, or not to be
?” I said.

“Now, look who’s quoting old Spear-shaker,” Giddeon said after downing his last bite and taking a drink of cola. He took the other cookie from out of his front shirt pocket and carefully unwrapped it.

“It’s about the only other one I remember,” I confessed. We stood up to leave. I looked around at all of the people, places and things in my vicinity. “So… tell me this… how can particles be alive if there are no particles? You know, if there’s no distance, there are no particles… nothing is alive to observe me.”

Giddeon grinned. “I think you may have just answered your own question.”

“How so?” I queried.

He smiled. “
Nothing
… is alive.”

I grunted, once again, as I digested his newest bit of information. I seemed to be doing that a lot back then… grunting, that is. I’m not sure if a grunt counts as a word, but it does seem to stand nicely on its own. It was all a little too much, and I understand that phrase, ‘
Bitten off more than you can chew.
’ a little better, now. Giddeon munched on his dessert as we walked. Another question occurred to me as we made our way back onto the sidewalk bordering First Street where The Sandman was still working on his creations… glistening particles of reality were being arranged just precisely so by his diligent efforts.

“How long is the novel?”

Giddeon took a slurp of his drink that he had carried with him, and then deposited his paper cup into a trash can that I’m pretty sure wasn’t there on our trip in. ‘It’s a work in progress… it’s a work in progress.”

Back on the boat, after the sun had set, Gid and I picked up the guitars and jammed. After seeing the nuclear devastation that afternoon, a chord progression had been playing in my head. It was hard, and rocking. Discordant, with a driving beat. As we worked it out, the words just seemed to come. Within thirty minutes, it was complete:

New Mexico White sands, turned into glass.

I think I see my reflection there, what a pain in the ass.

The devil took a holiday, and, left it all up to us…

said we do it better anyway, turning dust into dust.

Look what's out of the bottle…

it's in all of us.

Surely you're joking, Mr.
Feynmann
… surely, you jest.

And, Einstein, your equations, are such a human mess.

The genie's out of the bottle, I do believe he's pissed.

The genie's out of the bottle, smoking mushrooms in his fist.

Look what's out of the bottle… let’s give him a little kiss.

And, heidi-heidi-ho.

Heidi-heidi-hey.

Where you gonna go,

come
Judgement
Day, come
Judgement
Day?

Heidi-heidi-ho.

Heidi-heidi-hey.

Where you gonna go…

come
Judgement
Day, come
Judgement
Day?

Oh, yeah!

At that point, an instrumental ensued. Giddeon took the lead as the chords changed from A, to C, to D and then back to A… all the while keeping the fast paced rhythm. Then, it went back into the strong, chopped melody.

New Mexico White Sands, turned into glass.

Hiroshima
,
Nagasaki
… well, we had a blast.

The genie's out of the bottle, I do believe he's pissed.

The genie's out of the bottle, smoking mushrooms in his fist.

Look what's out of the bottle,

will Armageddon, be like this?

And, heidi-heidi-ho.

Heidi-heidi-hey.

Where you gonna go…

come
Judgement
Day, come
Judgement
Day?

Heidi-heidi-ho…

heidi-heidi-hey.

Where we all gonna go…

come
Judgement
Day, come
Judgement
Day,

come
Judgement
Day, oh yeah!

“Awesome, dude, awesome!” Giddeon said with gusto. He was quite excited about the collaboration.

“Who was Mr. Feynmann, again?” I asked. Gid had written that line.

“The youngest guy to work on the atomic bomb project in
Los Alamos
… PhD. in physics. He co-wrote a book called, ‘
Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynmann
’… sort of an autobiography.”

“I never read that book.”

“I read it for you.”

“I thought you only read what I’d read… that’s why you were complaining earlier about
Batman
,
Superman
and
The Fantastic Four
.”

He shrugged. “At first, yeah. Over time, I got the hang of accessing other material. ‘
Collective consciousness
’, remember? Everything’s in the same place… even thoughts.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well… it’s a good line for the song. Makes sense, now… kind of a play on words.” I thought for a moment, then asked, “How many books have you read?”

“Let’s just say my library card has a lot of ink on it. I probably need a new one.”

I thought back to when I was a kid and we had library cards on which the names of the books we checked out were written. I actually read quite a bit, back then. Mostly ‘
Hardy Boys
’ type novels and adventures by Jack London. A little bit of Jules Verne.

“You also liked Ray Bradbury, don’t forget.”

Giddeon had read my mind. Technically, I supposed it was his mind, too.

“You ever read anything about how to wake someone up from a coma?”

He chuckled. “Not a lot of best-sellers in that category.”

I felt some twitching in my muscles, again.

Giddeon stood up. “I’m headed over to The Del. Want me to let Boris in while you’re exercising?”

“Sure.”

Giddeon ‘crashed’ the door open, and made his exit.

Boris and I took a book down and read for a bit. Somehow, a copy of Richard Feynmann’s book had appeared on my shelf. Besides being burned alive, it was a good day, all in all.

__________

That night, I dreamed I was with Melody, again. We were on my sailboat out in the bay, anchored off the third tee by the Coronado Golf Course. She had on one of my long-sleeved, denim work shirts over a red bikini. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up, and it was unbuttoned down the front. Her sun-kissed skin contrasted against the scarlet of the swimsuit and beige of the denim to create a decidedly most awesome effect. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she wore a white visor and sunglasses. She was painting the view of the clubhouse from the water on an easel-mounted canvas near the stern of my vessel.

I was behind her, watching her work. Every now and then, she would reach back and give me a squeeze on the knee or a stroke on the arm. The wind was cool and the sun was hot… a good combination. Samantha and Boris were loose on the boat, sniffing and investigating the floating platform; they seemed to be comfortable with each other and, also, with being surrounded by water.

The green of the golf course and the tan of the clubhouse were captured perfectly on her canvas. I love to watch her paint. This one was more in the Realist style, and I was amazed at how quickly the image came to life before my eyes. As the dream went on, the cats settled at our feet in the sun, and I settled next to Melody’s side on a small, portable chair. Our legs were touching as I scooted close to her in the small space afforded us… she leaned over and gave me a sweet, moist kiss. I returned the kiss, with my hand gently holding the corner of her jaw. She looked back to her canvas, put down her brush, and turned towards me, again.

I opened my eyes to find myself on her bed. Our faces were together, and she was moving her beautiful mouth just the slightest bit… I could almost feel her soft, perfectly formed lips against mine. Startled to find myself awake in her condo, I pulled my head backwards to look around. Her cat meowed in a high-pitched voice, and Melody opened her eyes. She seemed as confused as I was, and called out to Samantha, who was at the foot of the bed.

“Oh… come here, girl.”

Samantha trilled and walked through me to her owner. I realized that the dream was then over, but had no idea of how I had come to be transported to that location. After petting the cat for a minute or two, Melody threw back the covers and stood up. She walked over to the window in her panties and t-shirt and opened the blinds, letting in the morning sun. I looked down, and realized that I was in only my boxers… no shirt, pants, socks or shoes.

Samantha looked at me, came over and tried to nuzzle. Of course, there was nothing for her to rub against, so she flopped right through me and landed on the bed, purring all the while. She lay there on her side and gazed at me from out of my torso.

“You’re a strange one, girl. Strange as they get… aren’t you?” said Melody.

Her cat twisted back her head, and answered with a meow.

“Not as strange as my dreams, though. I keep dreaming about Greg. You remember me talking about him. Hmmmm? Do you remember?”

Melody was standing by the edge of the bed. Her underwear and t-shirt were nearly translucent in the morning light. I briefly entertained the idea, once again, that I had died and gone to heaven. After further consideration, I thought maybe I had expired and gone the other direction… allowed to be so close to the object of my desire, yet, unable to even touch her. Melody reached down and stroked the cat; her hand went right through me, naturally. Samantha meowed, again, and looked back at me as if to question why such things happen.

Melody went to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. While waiting for it to brew, she went back into the living room and picked out a blank canvas for her easel. She seated herself before it, and spread her legs apart so she could wrap her ankles around either side of the chair. The sight of her smooth, perfectly muscled thighs positioned like that took my breath away, so, I tried to keep my eyes on the canvas as she picked out a shade of blue and began. It didn’t take long for me to recognize my boat in the bay, anchored off the coast of the golf course.

I watched for a while. Then, I petted the cat, kissed my girlfriend, and went downstairs not knowing how I would get back home. I thought maybe I could take a bus downtown and the ferry across the bay. I didn’t have to, though, because Giddeon was waiting for me in the parking lot.

He opened the door to my Ford Focus, and I climbed inside.

__________

“So… am I gonna have to put a GPS on you?” said my good-natured metaphysical cohort as we pulled out onto
Montezuma Avenue
through the open gate.

“I have no idea what happened… I woke up out of a dream and I was here.”

“You were dreaming about Melody?”

“It was so real… we were on my boat in the bay, kissing,” I said. “I think she saw it, too… she’s in her condo painting a picture of my Catalina anchored right where we were.”

Then, it was Giddeon’s turn to grunt. “Humph… how about that?”

“How can that be? How could she and I have been having the same dream?”

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment as we rolled up Montezuma. At the first light, we made a U-turn to go back down towards the interstate. “That’s a good question… that’s a darned good question. I’m no expert, but I have read of this happening a few times, before. Congratulations on quantum leaping over here all by yourself, by the way.”

“I didn’t try to do it… it just happened. What have you read?”

He grunted, again, as he pondered. Finally, he said, “All I can tell you about sharing a dream is that it’s very rare… and, that there are a couple of theories about it.”

I adjusted the air vents away from me, cold in only my boxers.

Giddeon conjured me up some clothes… cargo shorts, Top-Sider shoes and a bowling shirt; I felt more comfortable even though I looked a little too much like a re-run of Charlie Sheen for my taste.

“I’m all ears.”

“One theory is that one of you is telepathic… not sure I buy that one. Lots of double blind studies have been done on telepathy, and it always pretty much falls within statistical probability… or, very close to it. Of course, none of those included subjects in a coma as a control.”

“Okay… and the other theory?

“The other one is that you two are joined in a way that most people aren’t… the closest similar example I can think of would be identical twins.”

“Please tell me we aren’t related.”

Giddeon grinned. “No, no, no… according to the other theory, you’re much closer than that.” He took an exit for the Interstate.

“Closer than identical twins? How is that possible?”

He reached down and turned on the radio. “Easy… you’re soul mates.”

“Humph.” I sat there in the passenger’s seat taking that in. ‘
Such Great Heights
’ by The Postal Service began to play… I listened to the first few lyrics about freckles being perfectly aligned in two people’s eyes when they kissed.

The music continued on. I reached over and turned it down a bit so we could talk.

“So… we’re like one soul in two bodies?”

Gid nodded. “That’s the way it’s commonly described. Maybe, since you just got half a soul that left plenty of room for me.” He grinned at his conjecture, and the song kept going on at its lower level.

“Funny,” I admitted without enthusiasm.

“Good an explanation as any.”

We motored onto I-15. After a mile or two, a thought occurred to me from out of the blue.

“Who do you think Melody has squatting in her empty room?”

Gid reached out and turned off the radio. I could always tell when I had surprised him. With a quizzical look on his profile, he nodded his head, again.

“That’s a good question. That’s a darned good question.”

We drove on in silence. Shortly, we found ourselves on the
Coronado
Bridge
. At the apex of the structure, the island’s green hues were spread below the brilliant sun. As we curved downward, I got the feeling, as I always did, that I was inside an airplane on final approach and coming in for a landing. The Hotel Del shimmered in the distance and the number 2 and 3 fairways of the golf course were below us and to the left. The bay glistened in a beautiful, blue-grey arc around The Marriott and Il Fornaio’s, and I could almost imagine Tattoo from that old television show pointing up at us and saying, ‘
Boss! The plane! The plane!
’

We made a smooth landing on ‘
Fantasy
Island
’.