Off Center In The Attic Page 6

  I'm on my way to work on my motorcycle and trying to keep the bike upright as the flow of traffic starts and stops. Dragging my boot on the pavement helps keep my balance. I'm wearing leathers today but, at times, will wear a dress while riding. Nonconformist. That's me. People say I'm strange, or daring, or both. Who cares? I've got a job I don't intend to lose, and a rented townhouse a little too far away, but my commutes are exciting. I got started late today and threw on the first clothes I came to in the closet. Dawdling the minutes away trying to emulate a fashion hound cuts into my commute time. But now, waiting bores me because traffic has stopped again.

  My mind wanders. Suddenly that silver disk with the bubble top quietly passes overhead in a silent tip and swoop motion. It's shiny and gleaming and about as wide as a couple of traffic lanes. Its outer rim diminishes to very flat around the periphery, just like described in those UFO sightings.

  It's coming back. I raise my arm in the air, like I'd like to make contact. That would make my day. The glowing disk hovers above me and I reach for the edge and miss. The saucer re-positions. I finally get a grip and begin to feel so heady that my mind reels.

  As we move in traffic, it stays with me, as if pulling me along. It's letting me hang on as I drive, sort of a friendship gesture, playing with me, I guess. How I shifted gears is unknown, considering it takes two hands to do so on a motorcycle. I wonder if other motorists can see this disk above me. If not, the other drivers must think I'm stupid for riding along with my arm in the air. I have to laugh.

  I'm excited beyond belief. I knew we didn't have to fear these things. When I grasped the saucer's edge, I felt connected with it. It takes no effort to hold on as we move along together with me feeling more a part of their world than my own.

  Traffic slams to a standstill and I wasn't paying attention. I let go of the saucer, but too late, unable to downshift fast enough. I swerve. My front tire nicks the car ahead and I see my bike crumple and I'm sent nearly riding the thermals. During the descent, my motorcycle appears beneath me and I flop onto the seat. Unbelievably, me and my bike are okay. So is the car I hit because no one's honking or stopping or panicking. Traffic crawls along, like it does every morning. Through the strange episode, I wasn't frightened, like I knew I'd be okay. So, did that really happen?

  Having to let go of the saucer was disappointing. I felt connected to that ship and wished to get closer, even know the beings inside. As if they had heard my thoughts, the craft swoops and dips and hovers over me again before disappearing. When traffic comes to another stop, the beings materialize to my right, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic in a small car. Five unearthly, grotesque faces that raise the hair on the back of my neck morph into earthlings. These are not beings you'd want to meet in the dead of night. For a second, I catch a glimpse of tube-like structures protruding from their heads, writhing like Medusa's snakes. Their faces have long slits for eyes with something shiny and dark inside the slits. The rest of their faces are caved in, no noses, mouths or ears, only deep vertical wrinkles as if their heads were pulled away from the rest of their bodies. Something stuck out from top of their heads but I didn't have time to make out what it was. For sure, they must communicate telepathically. The images disappear and leave me wondering about my own mind.

  My stomach quivers and sends a message that I should forget about this and leave well enough alone. My adrenalin surge fades after another moment of vertigo and I see them only as humans. Five guys. I have vague memories of seeing only three the first time. I know who they are, and they know that I know, as if they want the connection too. Every one of them looks about ready to break into laughter. They've always had a sense of humor, though I don't know how I know that. My focus changes when I notice their car. It's a brand new charcoal-black model of some sort of small coupe unlike anything made on this planet. If those aliens were going to materialize an earthly vehicle to give the impression they're human and car-pooling, they might, at least, have conjured one all of them could fit into. Was that a message about the idiocy of commuting? That's their kind of humor, poking fun at our reality. Flying saucers surely have no traffic jams.

  The endless line of cars begins to move again. My sideways smile to them says Thank you! And, I know who you are! And, What a thrill! Let's do it again! Each smiles back. We have this little secret between us that doesn't fade from my mind. I hope they follow because I'm feeling frisky. It feels good to share minds with them, even to flirt with the whole carload, and it's all done with thought.

  Arriving at the shop in a mall where I work, they have followed. As I'm walking into the building, the woman from the car behind me in traffic when I went soaring approaches on foot on my right.

  I jokingly ask over my shoulder, “You didn't see any of that, did you?”

  “Nah,” she says. “I'm from Roswell, New Mexico. We're told we've never see a thing flying around and not to believe the myth about Hangar 14 either.” She disappears through a doorway.

  A voice seeming projected into my head says, “She's both envious and in awe… can only tolerate glimpses.” I look around and see no one.

  I'm singing the bouncy song that goes, “I know… I know… I know….” The aliens can hear me and it's like a silent message between us. It tells them I'm jubilant and at ease with what's happening. They're reading my mind, building trust.

  Inside my work place, my co-workers are aware that I'm being watched.

  “Look who's being followed again,” someone says, her voice ringing with envy.

  The aliens have parked at the curb, staying human-like, staying close, as if wishing to know my every thought. We're curious about each other and they're happy, too, that they've finally made a connection with an earthling who isn't afraid. How I know this escapes me, and I also remember glimpses of similar occurrences in the recent past. It's as if I'm being indoctrinated into a mind-blowing experience in small measures that are beginning to fit together. I want more!

  I turn to look toward the curb and the whirling action fills my head with a reeling sensation. When the vertigo stops, my clothes are already changed and I'm presentable for the sales floor. My mind must have wandered from boredom in traffic. This has happened before and I couldn't figure out how I got from home to work without remembering the trip. Commuting on my bike sets me free. It's addicting! When I think about it, it's not just the bike ride that gives me this feeling. It's… it's something else.

  “Okay, Dizzy,” Frannie says. “Let's get started.” She's the only one I allow to call me that. Work beckons, reminding that I must stop slipping off into these daydreams.

  Later, pulling into my driveway at home, it's evening. I'm convinced that the episode with the space ship has occupied more than a few of my idle moments.

  In the dim light of the garage, the thumb and fingertips of my right hand are coated with something shiny and silvery. It doesn't rub off. In fact it glows. This feels too, too familiar. Whatever I got on me today had better come off before I start cooking dinner.

  Entering the hallway and intending to head straight for the washbasin, what greets me is a glowing fingerprint on the light switch that I hadn't touched. Another two glow on a nearby table. In fact, the entire living room is radiant with glowing blue-white marks. As I enter the room, multiple sets of silvery, odd-shaped footprints like suction cup marks appear on the floor at the front of my couch. They're here!

  Another shot of adrenaline routs through my nervous system, the kind of surge that warns that something may have gone inexplicably wrong. I feel trapped in a body that won't move, but it's too late to figure a way out.

  The footprints shuffle and turn facing me. Two sets begin to move toward me as the room fills with a burst of hauntingly cool, incredibly brilliant light that fades just as quickly. It's dark again, like indigo ink. I reach for the nearby table to steady myself and finding nothing exists to grab hold of.

  All at once, another surge fills me, this time with both delight and dread. While I eagerly acc
ept the adventure, an unexpected glimpse of those glowing, grotesque faces staring wide-eyed and casting laser-like beams through the dark and into me makes the pit of my stomach sink. The two step close, one on each side of me. Before I know it, their writhing tube-like structures have attached to my head! I'm nauseas, dizzy, about to faint, but no, this is different. I'm floating… floating…!

  An Explosive Day

  On the way to get my car air conditioner checked for a leak, I applied the brakes as I approached a stoplight. My car both grabbed and rejected the stop. I clunked along a few feet and then nearly slid into the car beside me.

  The guy at the repair shop said, “One caliper is broken, the other damaged.”

  “But my car isn't even three years old,” I said.

  He gave me a ride to my favorite bookstore to wait out the repair. When I called a couple of hours later for a progress report, he said the car was overheating, causing the A/C fluid to spill out the overflow. My car has never overheated. I refused the expensive thermostat replacement till I could get a second opinion.

  I took a sip of decaf from my mug and held it in the air in front of me as I tried to find my place in the book I was reading.

  The mug exploded.

  In less than a second, I was drenched in brown and the two guys at the table next to me were speckled. In the moment of shock, the only thing I could do was sit and stare at my hand that held only the handle of the mug.

  In another instant, I was surrounded with hands wielding dishtowels and mops and I was being patted down and asked if I got burned.

  The manager of these attentive people knew my favorite coffee and appeared with a complimentary paper cup and profuse apologies.

  Once everyone in the café settled down, I lifted the paper cup to take a sip of fresh coffee and the plastic lid popped off in my face. Steam coated my glasses, but I caught what was happening before the cup tipped far enough to spill.

  Later, in the bookstore, the manager and I were joking about the brown stains on my pale yellow sweater. “Was it a glass cup or ceramic?” she asked.

  As I explained how it happened, the armload of DVDs she carried literally exploded from her arms and clattered over the floor. “I don't think I want to be near you today,” she said as we both laughed.

  After claiming my car and heading homeward, on a challenging stretch of road known locally as Blood Alley, a pickup flew past me and suddenly blew a tire. My brakes held.

  At home again, I passed my bedroom as I headed for my office. I wanted to lose myself in the safety of work, but for some reason, I visualized my computer, my lifeline, crashing in a puff of smoke. I looked at my bed and wondered if I should just climb in and pull the covers over my head and wait for a better day.

  The Smell of Death

  Long ago, I learned a valuable lesson, though to this day people have thought it laughable. I've always known about death and when it's coming.

  During my teens, my grandfather died. He was ill for a long time. I thought his odor was normal. Not until Auntie got sick did I realize the odor of Grandpa was on her. She died too. I told my parents about the offensive essence but they scoffed.

  Throughout the years, when I was around a sick person, I knew if he or she would get well or die by the way that their odor progressed or disappeared. That scent permeated their clothing and tainted the air in their homes; a strong pungent effluvium of body chemistry drastically altered, as if from decay, but evidently undetected by people always with that person.

  It's been over fifty years since I first smelled that odor and I've always been right. My husband and I have been together almost as long, although he recently chose seclusion, sleeping separately. Sadly, as I prepare to do his laundry, I detect that familiar scent on his clothes and in his room.

  Legacy

  When I fainted at my mother's memorial service, she would have teasingly said “Margaret, that's not like your mother!”

  I had wished to be like her. As I matured, I found I needed my own personality and life. However, I still wished to emulate her ideals, attitude, and creativity. After years of hard work to support me as I was growing up, when she retired, Mother was finally able to manifest her personal dreams. The most important one was to paint.

  I still have the many paintings she's gifted to me. I must say her latest ones are much more refined than her early ones. Still, I cherish them as a legacy of her enduring creativity. Mom had just begun to be known in the art world. After a few mini-strokes over the last 30 years, the big one took her. She passed away quietly in her sleep while on a trip to Seattle.

  Back when I retired, I was already practicing my hand at painting. It seemed only logical that I do what came natural. Mom had a terrific influence over my interests, and my teachers said I had my mother's gift. Mom was ecstatic. “You're just like that painter Margaret,” Mom would say, she having dabbled over the years. That was her name too. She named me after her, believing that we were part of the same soul and not necessarily separate souls as mother and daughter. How could she know that as far back as when I was born and needed a name? I think a mother's knowledge comes from another source to which only she is privy. As I grew older, I began to feel that I was being allowed to share in my mother's wisdom.

  Dad was intimidated by Mom's perceptions. He had secrets, but not for long. It was as if Mom could read minds and it drove him nuts. They divorced when I was young and Mom went back to work. Dad died from a heart attack. After some years of working, Mom retired early and completely changed her life, which included her move to Hawaii.

  As usual, she was right about us being like twins. She didn't have to encourage me. I simply was like her in nearly every aspect. Right down to the fact that my husband and I divorced because I was so energetic about life and he, known as a stick-in-the-mud, chose to go his bumbling way. I can only hope he made a good life for himself.

  Seeing my mother's body laying dressed for a showing before her cremation drove the point home that she was gone. I stood close and gingerly touched her cheek, trying to sense her in that cold body. Her soul wasn't there, just her empty shell, no longer full of the warmth I felt when we hugged and pressed our faces together. The revelation that Mom was gone forever and that I was alone caused me to collapse.

  I regret not visiting her, but she always traveled to my location. Every time she had a new piece of artwork that she wanted only me to have, she'd show up at my home in Phoenix, Arizona. If she showed in an expo in one state or another, she would take a side trip to visit me. We went on vacations together, each time meeting at a new location. We both carried cameras and enjoyed taking photos of subjects to paint.

  Over the years, I had sent Mom several of my canvasses I thought she might like. My art was not as perfect as she might have produced, but she said the canvasses fit right in with her own art and she was proud to have them on her walls. She complimented me and passed along hints and clues about how to improve my capabilities. We'd sometimes talk for hours on the phone. We had just signed up for Skype, not only to save money but so she could demonstrate a technique or two.

  Working and living far apart precluded frequent travel by me. Mom pinched and saved her divorce settlement and, along with selling her art, lived a stable life. My husband had nothing, but I wasn't dependent on him. I have made my own way and done it well enough. But, due to my long work days, I regret not visiting my mother at her townhouse in Moili'ili on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Before I retired, I had been researching jobs that would enable me to move near her. After retirement, I had just convinced myself to move over with no thoughts of tomorrow, to just be spontaneous like she was. I love warmer weather. The temperate climate in The Islands will suit us just fine, Mom had said only days before she had her last stroke.

  Mom left her worldly goods to me, but that cannot compare with all she taught me, perhaps more than I presently recognize. I stand in front of her townhouse, holding the urn with her ashes close with one arm, and her keys in my othe
r trembling hand. I had wanted to visit her and be a part of this life with her. Why had I been so busy? Why hadn't I just taken the time?

  From either side of the front steps, in small flowers beds, light and dark pink heliconia psittascorum on three foot stalks with long, lush green leaves wave at me in the breeze. I sense my mother's presence; can feel her in the artistry of the planting. The air is heavier here than the dry air in Arizona. It must be the humidity of which she spoke. A breeze wafts along and helps me feel freshened. The building façade is painted lavender with varying shades of darker lavender and purple trim. The beveled glass window in the front door, with its etched bird of paradise flowers beckons. As I take in the whole scene, what I'm seeing is an extremely creative artist's dollhouse. Tears flow freely. My throat gluts and my heart pounds. My legs wobble as I climb the few steps.

  Walking slowly through the doorway, the delicate homey scent of the interior causes a rush of childhood memories and feelings. “Oh, Mom!” I say to the empty room. It's as if I've opened the door to a whole different world where traces of memories are preserved. On the floor inside the front door is her unclaimed mail. I scoop it up. One of the letters is from the Kapiolani Artists Creative. In bold lettering on the left side is printed An Invitation! I've received such letters. My mother would have been in this showing, I just know it.

  Mom's living room is clean and neat, yet inviting, and decorated with yellow island-style bamboo furnishings, complete with soft green and blue floral print cushions and throws. Silk and wooden tropical trees and flowers brighten the alcoves. Her spectacular art pieces decorate the walls. The big red hanging Heliconia on a gallery-wrapped canvas, that she aptly named Hot Flash, is well placed on the side wall, the most conspicuous area in the room. Mom had said one art critic thought she painted similar to Georgia O'Keeffe, but I've studied O'Keeffe and Mom's talent was definitely her own. Hot Flash is huge, with three small but gorgeous complimenting floral canvasses, one above the other in totem on one side, but Hot Flash captures my attention. Just as I turn to leave the room, a thought jolts me. I look again at the smaller canvasses and gasp. “They're mine!” Those three smaller canvasses are the ones I gifted to her when I first began showing my work.