In the Walls

In Memory - January 29, 2009.

I could leave that as my only post today and it would be adequate. I thought, somehow, that because the last few months have been tolerable that today would be very easy. Even up until yesterday I thought, “This year I won't notice so much. I won't feel so bad.”

I had a dream this morning. I was asleep in the house and in the dream I woke up and began to walk through the house. Something was wrong with a spot high up on my bedroom wall that backs on the laundry room. It was a “hot spot”. In my dream I thought, 'We moved the fuse box so that can't be causing this.' The area was soft and sticky and very warm. In the real world, the fuse box is on the opposite wall of the laundry room where it has always been.

I left the room, calling Jerry as I went. I went to the living room and the front door, both storm door and entry door were standing open. I stared, dumbfounded. What on earth was he doing that he'd leave me asleep in the house with the doors open like that? I went to the kitchen and checked the laundry room and found that the hot water heater was removed. Again, I stared. I began to work on the floor that needs replacing.

Then, I stopped. Where was Jerry? I went back to the living room and looked out the window and saw my sister's car. I went out just as she was coming in. A refrigerator was lying on the ground near the house and near the curb between my drive and the next cabinets and other junk lay on the ground. My sister said, “The people next door are moving out.”

I said, “No, she's in a nursing home and they're cleaning the place out.” This is true, by the way, she is but there's been no work there for a year at least. And no junk anywhere around.

I said, “I can't figure out where Jerry is.”

We went into the house and I went into the bathroom. Bright blue paint was all over the tiles and the shower curtain was missing. It wasn't being painted. It looked as if someone had  been painting and residue settled as they tried to clean up but it was all over the place. I rubbed a spot on the tile and it seemed to rub off easily. There was a time I'd have blown a gasket to find such things. Now I just though, “It'll come off.” Oddly, it was the old white tile we used to have in there.

I stepped into the hall. Incidentally, my bathroom was not in the right place. But directly across was a door to another room where this is a closet in the real world.  I saw a white shower curtain, spattered with blue paint hanging from what appeared to be a shower rod. I saw Jerry behind it in an odd position. He was wearing his glasses and that registered as odd to me. He'd had contacts for several years before he died. His hair was also thick and dark. It had begun to thin when he died. He'd been coloring it for years. He was younger and slim.

He appeared to be sitting on top of the window, his legs through the wall and he was hanging backwards, his hands behind his head as if he was on a lounge chair relaxing. It was such an odd, frightening position and my heart pounded. I yelled his name and ran into the room. In  my mind I thought he was dead but I asked what he was doing. He didn't answer me. He just looked at me and made no attempt to get down.

I told him I'd help him get down. I began to check the wall to see how to get him down and I saw that the wall was literally “finished” around him. There was no “hole” that he'd gotten stuck in. He was just a part of the wall. His hips were in the wall, over the window and the wall smoothly finished all around him.

In my head I was thinking I need to call 911 and get help. I have to get him out of there. And then I woke up into the real world feeling as if my chest were being crushed. I sat up and looked around.

And I said, “God, that wasn't fair. That was cruel. It was mean.”