October 20, 2009
Untitled / Unknown by Pierre TOUTAIN-DORBEC
I FELL IN LOVE IN A DREAM WHEN I WAS A CHILD ONCE.
Children readied their makeshift sleds anticipating the tear down the snowy hillside. The fact that it never snowed in this part of Mexico was the furthest...

Untitled / Unknown by Pierre TOUTAIN-DORBEC

I FELL IN LOVE IN A DREAM WHEN I WAS A CHILD ONCE.

Children readied their makeshift sleds anticipating the tear down the snowy hillside.  The fact that it never snowed in this part of Mexico was the furthest concept from the dreamer’s mind.  The quiet and sullen demeanor the boy carried with him transfered into the landscape of his slumber.  The orchard was in full bloom, not a single flake on the illuminated greenery.  The trees seemed ignited by resplendent dreamlike pigments which transcended color itself.  They captivated him.  He would stare at them as they caught his eye for the duration of the voyage.  One might think the construction of these plants was the sub-concious’ greatest creation in this hallucination.  They were, until she appeared.  It was a clear, cool day.  The leaves swayed in their own surreal rhythm, compelled by the steadiest of breezes.  He took some comfort in this dreamland, he assured himself, as he trepidatiously became one with it.  When he saw the smiles of his peers (whom he had never met) as they called his name, he dived in.  He was now fully immersed.  Dressed all in white, his new best mates generously encouraged each other and took turns sliding down the embankment.  He recognized his grandmother’s home out of the corner of his eye and felt comfort as though he were resting on her bosom.

He first noticed her dainty tall figure as she walked towards him from the orchard.  She wore a beige hat fashioned in a manner he had never seen before, a cross between a mourning veil and a small top hat.  Perched on the top of the slightly tilted chapeau were two black feathers attached to its base by a cream colored ribbon, which contrasted beautifully with its caramel color, and then the incandescent surroundings they stood amongst.  His mind assembled her slim robe from one of the countless Vogue magazines he and his mother adored to rifle through on Sunday mornings.  Her bright red shoes clashed dramatically with the rest of the ensemble.  Her coquettish gaze was transcendent and intoxicating.  She never wavered as she looked through him.  A knife cut through his heart spilling out its unpredictably volatile contents.  He was in a trance-like state the likes of which man has never known as she magnetized towards him.  Romeo and Juliet be damned.  The greatest love story ever told palled in comparison.  Oddly enough, he was comforted.  His usual shy and skittish disposition was replaced by a tranquility he had never felt.  With every step she took, the boy reciprocated and did likewise.  They met under the most majestic tree in his mind’s kingdom.  They loved each other unconditionally without ever uttering a word.  Her slim face and exaggerated lips replenished his heart’s contents with the most powerful narcotic ever conjured.  The angelic snapshot of the corner of her mouth was the most alluring sight the boy had ever witnessed.  She bent down and gave him a peck somewhere between his cheek and eye through the veil and then playfully retreated.  He unabashedly chased after her as she coyly drew away behind the phosphorescent tree.  When he caught his muse she giggled and shrieked as her bonnet fell to the ground.  Questions the boy often pondered, and worried he didn’t have answers for (nor the courage to ask), were answered uniformly when he was in her arms.  The sky is blue, the stars and heavens are above, the planets spin seamlessly on their axis held together by the intangible for one reason only.  For us.

He awoke startled by the sound of grandmother’s cook thrashing about in the kitchen.  His eyes drew wide open violently.  Welcoming the child back into this cruel world was a an off white eggshell cracked ceiling.  He was befuddled staring at the neutral canvas as her presence began to fade and sutures in his heart became undone.  Absolutely still.  Then it came.  the mild ring in his left ear pulsated to the right and settled somewhere between the temporal lobes after volleying back and forth for a few dizzying cycles.  His eyes jittered and darted unpredictably.  The reverberation sustained and grew in its intensity as the tears unexplainably dripped down the young boy’s motionless cheeks.  He had lost in love before he had ever been given the chance to take a leap of faith.