Dark Day Dreams, page 11
Gayle wiped a tear away and replied, “Thanks, Marcy. I appreciate that…you try not to get too close to these people but it’s really hard…”
Marcy patted her on the back. “I know, Gayle. But you’re strong and I know you’ll get through it all right. If you ever need to talk, I’m always here for you.”
Gayle sniffed and said, “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
************
The days rolled on and another elderly person was admitted to the facility and assigned to live in the room Jenny had vacated. Gayle helped them move their things in and get comfortable.
That night she sat on her couch at home, drinking a glass of red wine and petting her black and tan dachshund, Frankie. He was such a good little man, so dependable and loving. Way better than Darius.
She thought about how weird her job seemed sometimes. You were expected to care for the people and then suddenly they leave and you’re supposed to forget they ever existed. Sometimes she wished they could give her some kind of mild amnesia pill, something that would make the loss hurt a bit less.
There was a knock on her condo’s front door. A small UPS package lay on her welcome mat. When she took it inside and opened it, she found a compact disc in a plastic case and a note that simply said PLEASE WATCH THIS. LOVE, YOUR FRIEND, JENNY.
Before the package arrived, Gayle was feeling a bit buzzed after having one and a half glasses and had considered turning in for the night. But this was just too intriguing…she decided to see what was on the CD.
************
Jenny was on the television screen, sitting up in her bed at the assisted living facility. She had some blush on her cheeks and a bit of lipstick.
“Hello, Gayle. The fact you’re watching this means I’ve passed on out of this life and into another or very possibly just the peaceful darkness of non-existence. Oh, that’s funny, I’m not sure how to actually describe the option where you simply go away…let’s just call it a place where the pain is no more.”
“I wanted you to know you made my last days so much more bearable with your kindness and humor. I was really lonely for those five years after my Audrey died and ironically, I feel like I found real friendship in a nursing home. What a nice surprise.”
Jenny had talked about her partner quite a lot with Gayle. She said they’d been together over forty-five years and had met in college. The nurse had great admiration for any couple (gay or straight) that could stick together that long.
“Anyway, I sent this video so you could be made aware of two things…I’m leaving my remaining money and house to you. And I want to tell you my life story.”
Gayle’s mouth fell open. She couldn’t believe she was going to receive an inheritance. Any kind of house in today’s market in this city was going to be worth quite a lot.
She just hoped the management at the facility wouldn’t think she had pressured Jenny into anything. She stopped the DVD for and thought for a couple minutes about what the elderly woman on the screen had just told her. Then she pressed the play button and the video continued.
“I grew up in Boise, Idaho. My father’s name was Earl and worked as the produce manager in a large grocery store. My mother Betty also worked there when she was young…in fact, that’s where they met. I had one sibling, a younger brother named Austin.”
Gayle had a good imagination and her mind conjured up a picture of what the family might have looked like, maybe standing together in front of their suburban home on a warm summer day. She felt a small twinge of jealousy…the desire to have a happy marriage and children was still deep down inside her heart. However, the inner voice telling her to do something about it seemed to speak a bit more quietly with each passing year.
Jenny continued. “I loved my family very much. Mom and Dad didn’t have a perfect marriage but somehow they managed to make it work for over forty years. I was two years older than Austin we always got along well. We had some common interests…basketball, science fiction novels and attractive girls.”
Gayle chuckled. Jenny was always funny, right up to the day she died.
“Okay, here comes the part that will make you think I’ve completely lost my marbles. I was born in the year twenty forty-seven.”
The nurse groaned and then said out loud, “Oh, oh. Is she crazy?”
All of a sudden, the happiness she’d been feeling was swept away by the realization the old woman had been suffering from dementia. And then her shock turned into a feeling of confusion…she’d dealt with dozens of sufferers over the years and could usually tell right away if somebody was having trouble staying connected with reality. She hadn’t felt that way even once while she was taking care of Jenny.
“I know that at this particular moment, you think I’m quite delusional. Please humor an old woman and let me continue with my story. All will be revealed eventually. You might not choose to believe what I’ve said but at least I’ll have been able to share it with someone.”
Gayle took a sip of her wine and settled in to hear what her friend had to say. She figured it was the least she could do and besides, it might end up being pretty interesting. She’d met some great demented story tellers over the years, folks who claimed to have done everything from riding in a UFO to sharing a pepperoni pizza with Jesus and Buddha.
Her uncle Leon claimed to have seen the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe one time when he was in Baltimore but Gayle always had a feeling that sighting may have had more to do with spending the night drinking cheap bourbon than anything else.
“The first years of my life weren’t all that unusual. My grandmother stayed home with my brother and I until we were old enough to attend kindergarten. I got along well with most other kids, the exception being a rotten little girl named Pam. For whatever reason, she decided to become my nemesis. She always seemed to be either picking on me or trying to get me in trouble with the teacher.”
“Boise was a pretty conservative town for the most part. And by the middle of the twenty-first century it and the rest of the state of Idaho had become somewhat of a Mecca for disgruntled conservatives who’d grown tired of trying to live alongside the growing number of liberals in states like Washington, Oregon, California and Colorado. Our folks were what I would call moderate Democrats, economically conservative but not so much that way on the social issues. Of course, when Austin and I were little we didn’t care much about such weighty issues. We just wanted to have fun…”
Gayle was impressed. Considering she was obviously delusional, Jenny seemed very eloquent and calm. So many troubled people the nurse had dealt with over the years had wild looks in their eyes or talked loudly or both. But if the sound was turned down on the television, you might think the elderly woman on the screen was talking about her favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe or what record albums she liked when she was a teen-ager. No arm waving, no anger, no crazy facial expressions.
“During my freshman year in high school, I began to realize I wasn’t all that interested in boys. It was hard because a part of me felt like I should be. My first real crush was on a straight girl named Shawna and fortunately she was a nice person. Even though she was from a very religious family, she didn’t freak out when I told her how I felt about her.”
“Of course, by that time gay marriage was legal in all fifty-two states. So, even in Idaho, homosexuality wasn’t nearly the hot button issue it had been thirty or forty years earlier.”
Gayle chuckled about the fifty-two states remark. Jenny was obviously a very intelligent delusional person, taking care to add details and carefully flesh out this vision of the future she was presenting. She wondered what areas Jenny had added to the country’s map…maybe Cuba? How ironic would that be?
Then she caught herself and thought, “Hang on there, sister. Yes, she was a sweet old lady but you’re getting carried away here.”
She turned her attention back to the screen. “So, I made it through high school and then found myself attending the University of Oregon. During the third decade of the century, the politicians had begun to realize higher education was rapidly becoming so expensive even upper middle class American families were having a hard time affording it. Our state colleges were basically just turning into learning institutions for wealthy foreign kids. So, the federal government began heavily subsidizing it for everybody except the super-rich.”
Gayle nodded in agreement. Even though Jenny was obviously delusional, she was making a good point. Her own nephew Andre (a very bright kid) had chosen to go into the military recently instead of attending college. It did seem like that whole cost of college situation was headed toward some kind of breaking point.
“I’m sure this change seems a bit radical. But as the twenty-first century progressed, the country’s population seemed to be gradually growing more and more comfortable with semi-socialist policies. Some older big companies didn’t like it but a lot of the younger entrepreneurs coming up accepted and encouraged the change in the culture. It was like everybody finally recognized once and for all what a scam the trickle-down theory was and decided it was time to try living in a society where things worked more fairly.”
“Of course, there were still conservative politicians but less and less all the time. And the states they held power in tended to be ones with the smallest populations.”
Gayle petted Frankie and took another sip of her wine.
“Anyway, back to me. My freshman year I just took the general classes everybody needs and refined my partying skills. I fooled around a bit with a couple guys in my dorm just so I had the full sexual picture, if you know what I mean. But even though they were both very nice and very cute, they couldn’t pull me away from Team Lesbian.”
“My sophomore year I decided to major in English. I wasn’t completely sure what I wanted to do with the degree but I loved literature and the whole writing and book culture. My dad said I should focus on something more in demand but Mom took me aside and told me I needed to do what would make me happy, even if it meant possibly having less money once I got out into the world. I know they were both looking out for me in their different ways but I had to go with my mother’s advice. Having nice stuff had just never been all that important to me, I was far more interested in having new experiences and fulfilling relationships.”
Gayle smiled. Sometimes she missed the sweet, careless idealism of youth. The way she had looked at the world before a failed marriage and all the years of hard work had taken their toll.
She poured more wine into her glass. She figured if she was going to watch this crazy video obituary she might as well keep a decent buzz going. She was still amazed how calm and coherent Jenny seemed.
“I met Audrey in the spring of twenty sixty-seven. I’d seen her around campus and thought she was attractive. I talked to her for the first time at a party one of our mutual friends threw.”
“She had strawberry blonde hair and a slender figure. At that time, I had dark brown hair and more curvaceous body. The whole opposite attracts thing was certainly true in our case.”
“Ironically, she was an engineering student…but a cool and funny one like I’d never imagined. I guess it just goes to show what you might miss out on if you assume all folks in a particular field have the same personality type. I don’t even think she had a pocket protector.”
“We just really hit it off right away. Our mutual attraction was strong and I’d never been around anybody I felt like I could open up with like I did with her. The fall of my senior year, we rented a small house together and even adopted a black and white cat we named Groucho. I was very happy.”
Gayle smiled and thought about how there are few things in the world more magical than young love. It didn’t matter if you were straight, gay or whatever.
“After we graduated, Audrey applied to several highly ranked schools and got into a graduate program at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. I tagged along and got a job teaching English at a community college in a nearby suburb. We packed up our few belongings and Groucho and headed east. I was really excited to spend some time in a different part of the country.”
“There were so many great medical breakthroughs in the first half of the twenty first century…cancer was proving to be fatal much less of the time and even the treatment methods were becoming less unpleasant. If you had a bad heart or liver, it could be replaced with one grown in a laboratory…you didn’t have to be put on a waiting list and wait for some poor stranger to cash in their chips. It wasn’t unusual to see folks living to one hundred ten, one hundred twenty years old.”
“I’ve been told there was a lot of racial tension back in the first forty years of the century. But by the time I was an adult, things were a lot better. I was never exactly sure why…maybe it was a generational thing, maybe the demographics just shifted to the point where even the most conservative whites had to acknowledge they were just becoming another group in the mix, no longer entitled to automatically assume they should be in charge of everything. Or maybe it was due to the fact there were so many mixed race folks. It just seemed like people started to focus more on the human part than the fact you happened to be black, white, yellow or brown.”
Gayle was African-American. She certainly hoped all that craziness and unnecessary hate would be diminished someday.
“As the century progressed there were more and more big climate events and the deniers finally lost all credibility. People began to understand it was about the weather getting crazy and unpredictable, not just warmer. One year it seemed like Arizona and New Mexico might just burn up like pieces of kindling on top of a very hot fire. The following winter London didn’t get above zero for two months in a row because the cold water from the melting icebergs further north altered the course of the Gulf Stream. It was like we managed to push so much carbon up into the atmosphere it caused the planet to experience a nervous breakdown of some kind.”
“The United States and the countries in western Europe had done a surprisingly good job of shrinking their respective carbon footprints. Hydrogen powered vehicles were becoming the norm and improved battery technology made solar far and away the smartest energy choice for almost everything else. But countries like India and China and others still had hundreds of millions of people riding from one place to another on nasty little motorbikes that constantly spewed CO2 emissions into the air. Not to mention trucks and ships they refused to convert to hydrogen technology.”
“People were really starting to get scared. And a lot of them began talking non-stop about these being the End of Days. A new crop of loudmouthed right-wing religious zealots crawled out of the woodwork and began screaming about how we were being punished for a multitude of sins, especially tolerance of homosexuality. You know how they love hating the gays…it’s a mindset that says nothing pisses God off more than people like Audrey and myself getting to share a checking account.”
Gayle laughed. That was a good one.
She was amazed how coherent Jenny sounded. All this information just kept rolling out of her, truly sounding more like memories than an epic made up story.
“Audrey got involved with a secret project at Carnegie Mellon. They were working on transmitting matter from one point to another. Do you happen to remember that old Jeff Goldblum film, The Fly?”
The nurse nodded. She also remembered there being an earlier one with Vincent Price and one of the guys from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. She and Darius had shared a love of old movie and television trivia.
“Well, the researchers at CM and a lot of other places believed it would take a real revolution in transportation in order for us to truly curb the greenhouse effect and seriously get the planet back on track, weather-wise. A technology that would allow you to step into a machine at point A and then safely have your atoms reassembled at point B. Or do the same thing with a shipment of goods.”
Gayle didn’t know what to think at this point. It just all seemed so out of this world. And then she once again reminded herself she was listening to the ramblings of a person who had lost touch with reality.
“Audrey got her Master’s and was hired to continue helping with the research. They called it Project Move. I kept teaching and tried my hand at writing a science fiction novel.”
“The climate problems continued to get worse and worse. New York City was flooded in twenty eighty when a series of level five hurricanes came charging up the eastern seaboard, one right after the other. Half of Florida was underwater and small wars were breaking out all over the world as climate refugees struggled to make their way to safety. Here in this country debate raged continually about how many people we should take in and who they should be. It started to feel like the infrastructure of the whole world was starting to collapse…”
“It was getting to the point where the scientists were worried nothing humanity could do would make a difference. The discussion had morphed over the years from one about whether climate change was real to one about what we could do to stop it to one about how we might adapt in order to simply keep human civilization from drowning or being blown away like an old newspaper.”
“Audrey and the rest of the team at CM kept working day and night, desperately trying to solve the teleportation puzzle. By twenty eighty-two, they were actually starting to have small successes, moving small inanimate objects up to ten feet with a minimum amount of molecular change. But they were afraid to try it out on animal or human subjects, knowing there was a strong chance a ghastly creature straight out of a HP Lovecraft story might come scurrying out of the point B machine.”
Gayle remembered what a messed up mutant Jeff Goldblum became in that Fly movie. That would definitely be unfortunate.
“One hot summer night I couldn’t sleep so I drove over to the lab to hang out with Audrey. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to be there but the scientists and engineers had been working on the project so long security had gotten a bit sloppy.”
“We were alone in the lab, eating a couple of sandwiches I’d brought along and drinking iced tea. She was running tests and I was reading something. We could tell the weather was about to change…cool breezes were coming down from the north, ramming into the hot summer air we’d been boiling in for a while. Sheets of rain began coming down and then a serious thunder and lightning show started.”
