The Dream Canvas

by Unknown

  All that time I’d spent stuffing my emotions down inside, spilling them out occasionally onto canvas. All that time I thought I had my feelings in check, I really had nothing under control. Presented with a seemingly fake ring by an even faker person, something inside of me broke. There was this painful twinge behind my eyes that felt like a tendon had snapped. At first I thought I was having a stroke. But I wasn’t. I was mentally transforming into that guy on TV who’d been given a terminal diagnosis and started cooking meth. Yeah, I broke bad. I lifted Rory’s guitar from its bumper-sticker plastered case. I tried to hold back but before I knew it, I’d flung Rory’s baby through the air with all my might. The shiny piece of wood and metal hit the brick wall, smashing into a dozen pieces. Sounding like a dying cat. Rory’s sunken cheeks and high eyebrows contorted into an expression I’d never seen – disgust mixed with pure shock. His head spun around on a swivel like the creepy skeleton on Tales from the Crypt.

  As he frantically gathered up shards of his splintered guitar, the open window beckoned me to use it. The breeze seemed to whisper, Dottie give me the backpack. He lunged at me as I lunged for his black bag. After a mad shuffle of elbows and knees, I found myself on the floor with Rory standing over me, his beloved backpack in his hands and a scowl on his face. He was breathing so hard his nostrils flared like a wild bull. I knew he had drugs in there. That’s where he’d always kept his stash. I just couldn’t believe he’d come back with the shit still on him. Have you ever tried to take drugs away from a junkie? You’d think you were trying to steal their child.

  “What are you thinking, bitch? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Years of festering, pent-up emotions had burst forth like a levy breaking under the force of a hurricane. But they weren’t emerging like predictable words of anger or Charlie-brown tears. They swirled around in my heart like black ink in a bowl of water, swam around in my lungs like deadly little tadpoles, and then exploded out of me in a moment of uninhibited laughter. Pure unadulterated cackling. I must have sounded like a schizo in a strait jacket.

  I took a momentary break from my mental breakdown to regain my composure, “There’s nothing wrong with me. You are what’s wrong. I need you gone so I can be me. So I can actually live and know what it’s like to be happy. I deserve more. You deserve more. You deserve to be clean and happy, too. And us being together will not bring us happiness. Me enabling your habits and your lifestyle will only perpetuate the cycle. You need to leave and get on with your life, and I need to get on with mine. Okay?”

  He looked at me incredulously. “You fucking slammed my guitar into a wall! You destroyed it. I can’t just forget that and walk out the door with a smile on my face, Dottie! You’re crazy! I’m taking my shit and I’m outta here. You’ll get exactly what you wanted. And then you and that tool of a boyfriend can fuck each other’s brains out. Not that either of you had any to start with.” He walked around the apartment to gather his belongings – a couple t-shirts, a baseball cap, the remaining pieces of his wrecked red fender. The little blue box slid back into his jeans pocket. His black backpack he’d slung onto his back. A growl escaped his mouth as he picked up a wet towel and shoved it into his backpack with his other few possessions. Rage radiated off of his body like heat from a furnace. The thermometer showed it was five degrees warmer in the apartment directly following all the commotion.

  Picking myself up off the cold wooden floor, the canvas in the corner caught my eye again. A sense of calm washed over me just thinking of Isaiah. He was still outside waiting for me.

  Before I could grasp what was happening, my nightmare played out before my eyes. Rory picked up the painting and in one swift motion he folded it over his knee, ripping a huge hole through the canvas and snapping the wooden frame in two. Then dropped it on the floor. I was so stunned I opened my mouth to scream and nothing came out. Tears silently soaked my face, and I fell back onto the orange couch hoping I had just imagined the whole thing. But I hadn’t. It was real. When I look back on the whole thing now, I realize I had it coming. You can’t smash someone’s guitar on a brick wall and expect no retaliation. Action and equal reaction.

  “Your fucking artwork sucks. It always has. Stop lying to yourself. It’s pathetic,” he mumbled in his typical Rory fashion. He always had a way of kicking me in the throat after slitting it wide open.

  That painting memorialized the last dream I had had of Isaiah. It was the beginning of my realization of my love for him. The plan was to give it to him as a peace offering, a gift. But it was ruined and once an inspired painting such as this one is trashed there’s no re-painting it. It’s kind of like when your family’s decorated the most beautiful Christmas tree ever and then the big stupid dog knocks it over. You try your damndest to restring the lights just right, hang the tinsel symmetrically, and put it back together just the way it was but it’s never the same. The former beauty of your efforts can’t be emulated, no matter how hard you try.

  I watched as Rory pulled his beat-up converse on and walked towards the front door, his guitar case in one hand, and backpack in the other.

  He slammed the door behind him. He was gone. For good this time. I was left to pick up the leftover pieces of his guitar and my painting. And the pieces of my life.

  Chapter 16

  Dottie

  There was a gentle knock at the door. Isaiah walked in.

  “Hey, are you okay?” he was concerned. His eyebrows scrunched together ever so slightly. He rested his hand on my leg as he sat down beside me.

  “Yeah, I’m better now,” I said and hugged the broken painting close to my chest.

  “I saw him run out the front door. He looked pissed. He didn’t hit you did he?”

  “No. He wouldn’t do that. I’d kick his ass and he knows it.” He laughed and wiped a tear from my cheek.

  “I’d believe that.” He pointed to the painting, “May I see it?”

  I sighed, “It was going to be a gift for you. I had this dream...of us.” I turned the broken painting over and handed it to him.

  “Was it the night I said I loved you?” I nodded yes. He continued, “I had the same dream. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” I watched as he lifted the sides so that they formed a whole painting once more. Down the center of the painting, there was a nasty rip separating the two of us. This was probably the most intimate and vulnerable piece I’d ever painted. Tragically, it was a puzzle that could never be put back together again.

  “It’s gorgeous,” he said.

  “It’s trash now. I can’t paint the same thing twice. It won’t be the same,” I shook my head in disappointment, tears welling up in my eyes again.

  “You’ll never dream the exact same thing twice. You’ll never live the same life twice. But you just might get to love twice. We were together in a past life. We both know it. And now we’re together again,” he said. He unzipped his suitcase and pulled out a painting. I had no idea what to expect. I figured it was one of the paintings he had bought from me or something new he’d bought. He sheepishly handed it to me.

  “Oh my god! I can’t believe this. Did you do this?” I shook with happiness. Something I’d never done before. Once the emotions start coming, they don’t stop.

  Sitting there on his lap was a duplicate of the painting Rory had ruined. The details were a bit different, the painting was in black and white but it was the same scene. Isaiah and I in a heartfelt embrace, making passionate love. The dream canvas.

  “Yep, painted it while I was here the last time. I’m no Dottie Love but sometimes I let my creative juices flow and things come out alright.”

  “I didn’t know you could paint,” I said.

  “Well, you never asked me. Besides, I’m not that great. Suzy’s the real talent in my family.”

  I took the painting from him, walked over to the wall above my bed and hung it on an empty nail. A nail that had been waiting for the perfect painting…over the bed of a woman who had been waiting for the perfect
man. She just never realized it.

  The happiness filled me like a cup running over with wine. We were the lovers on the back of an ornate tarot card.

  “Wait, I have one more thing,” he said and reached back into his suitcase. He pulled out a little box and for a second I thought he was going to propose. Not two in one day, for the love of God.

  “Your Dad told me to give this to you.”

  I opened the box and peered inside to find the loveliest little silver locket I’d ever seen. It was in the shape of a heart and had three little roses on the front. When I opened the locket, it had been engraved with our initials. Mine and Isaiah’s. He explained in detail how my father had come to him in his dreams and told him to give me a silver locket. He said he thought it was really an odd dream, but he did it anyway. This was the sign I was looking for. I told him about the locket that my father had given me as a little girl and how I had lost it. I also admitted that I prayed for someone to send me a sign that Isaiah was the one. First the tarot card reading and now this? The funny thing was I didn’t need another sign to know that Isaiah was the love of my life. But it was nice to know my Dad was still looking out for me. Somehow in death my father was doing what he wasn’t around to do in life.

  Seeing Isaiah sitting in my apartment after all we’d been through was so surreal. So many feelings came rushing back, and I knew something amazing was about to happen. I sat on the bed and looked over at him. I patted the spot next to me and motioned for him to come over. He didn’t think twice. I sunk into his embrace and we fell backwards onto the bed. Our hands moved up and down, exploring each inch of skin, removing clothing until our hot naked bodies were pressed up against one another. I wanted him so bad I could feel the steam radiating off my body, undulating with his. I crawled on top of him. The room disappeared. Our frustrations disappeared. We were caught in a moment of bliss. I rolled on top of him, my dreads falling around his face like the wispy branches of a willow tree. Suddenly, I felt self-conscious of my hair and a “sorry” escaped my mouth.

  He smiled “what are you sorry for? You’re perfect. When are you going to wake up and realize that?” These were the last words spoken for a matter of at least three hours. We made love over and over again. I can say we made love because that’s exactly what we did. I’d never made love before. I’d only ever had sex. Making love to Isaiah was completely different and fully transcendental of anything physical I’d ever experienced before. At times it felt like we were floating, levitating right off of the bed. Moving from the physical to the spiritual. Moving from this realm to the next. Transitioning in and out of dreamtime. Making a piece of living art.

  Epilogue

  Dottie

  I’m sure everyone is wondering whether Isaiah and I worked out. We did. No surprise there, right? We were meant to be together. Through this confusing time in my life, I had discovered that it isn’t always just pure luck, sometimes things happen for a reason. Sometimes fate is a possibility. And sometimes in our current lives we meet the same people we’ve known in past lives. You know it when you meet someone you’ve already known. It’s a feeling you’ll never forget, and you’ll never be able to shake it from your head. It’s like a ghost from your past life that will haunt you everywhere you go. I knew if I didn’t tell Isaiah how I felt, life would remain dull and monotonous. Life is good, but it’s way better when you’re in love.

  We brought two very different worlds together into one. I moved to New York to be with Isaiah. I wasn’t going to tear him away from his children. And hello! New York? A major capital of art? And the man’s sister owns an art gallery. Count me in. I might have been a starving artist, but now I’m a starving artist living in New York with the man of my dreams. I’m living my dreams wide awake.