Not just those faint and fleeting cameo-like slumber-land hallucinations that I get now and then but a very real and sustained manifestation. Transported back in time, I was totally embraced by her love. She was so real and so alive.
I was seated in a corner of a room. It was pitch black all around but I sensed the presence of another person close by - a man, but friend or stranger, I could not make out. I rose from my seat and noticed the low poof chair I was sitting on. It was a familiar object, that small deep blue circular soft cushion seat. I had used it often in the hospital, where Jenny spent her last days. But the rest of the room was smudged in charcoal black. I could not see anything else. Even then I was at peace. The darkness did not trouble me.
And then in the opposite corner, out of the inky blackness, a blurry visage slowly emerged. A faint greyish blob floating out from the wall of darkness, hanging mid-air.
Then a light flickered on at the far corner of the room, illuminating a flight of stairs leading down to the room. I saw first the pair of legs, in dainty high heels, taking slow and careful steps down the stairs. With the incandescent light suspended behind her above the stairwell, I could not make out who she was. This elegant lady, immaculately dressed, descending the stairs and taking a slow approach towards me. But very soon she was standing there. Right in front. It was still too dark to see her face. But the silhouetted figure cut out a familiar frame. I immediately knew. It was unmistakably hers.
There was not enough light to make out her dressing. She was wearing a blouse and skirt, silk probably and she looked tall on her stiletto heeled shoes. Even in the poor lighting, I could tell that she looked stylish from head to toe, glamourous like a high fashion celebrity. She had shed the staid and demure outlook I remembered her all the years. I did not know the reason for her new image but did not care to ask. It was her and that was all it mattered.
“How have you been?” she asked. “Missing me? Well you have me back now”. It was her voice for sure. That has not changed. Distinctively hers and it soothed me immensely.
We needed no second prompting and smothered each other in our arms. I held her tight and felt her so close to me, feeling her hair tickling my nose and getting into my lips. It was a familiar feeling as I had held her countless times before. But this time, she felt bonier under her silk blouse. She had lost much of her body weight. Cancer was to blame.
But cancer was not in my mind. She was back with me and that was all that mattered. And as we stood in the darkness hugging each other, we were united again once more as husband and wife. As we were made to be. We locked ourselves in each other’s arms for some time.
But not long enough. Dreams are ephemeral and this one fizzled out too quickly.
It was morning but far too early to rise. I needed to get back to sleep. To slip back into the same dream and get back to where she was. So I could savour her presence and remain close to her for a longer time. The experience was too precious to expire so soon.
But I knew also that I had to lock this dream to encode in my memory or it will be forgotten very quickly. Our memories are poor retainers for dreams. The details of the dream state were already melting away even as I write.
And so this is the new reality for me. Dream-state versus wakeful consciousness. Which presents the more fulfilling experience for me now? Jenny could return only in my dream consciousness, like how she did last night and brief as it was, I felt her presence fully and completely. But no one can control dreams. Switch them on and off like a TV remote or replay them like a video recording. Dream on.
I do not know when she will re-appear. If she does, all I could hope to do is to relish the dream for as long as it last. But waking up from the dream is always a return to a surreal existence. One that has since became my daily nightmare.
Because in this wakeful conscious state she will never appear again in any form or guise. Cancer has taken her away for good.
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