Dream Displacement, or Love from the Grave

by Robert Scott Leyse

Dream Displacement, or Love from the Grave

  by Robert Scott Leyse

  Copyright 2015 Robert Scott Leyse

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  Author Website: https://www.robertscottleyse.com

  Read Leyse’s free short story, “Why Waste English Setters on Dog Shows?,”

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  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, and events, past or present, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Built by RSL

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  Life in Manhattan had become suffocating, claustrophobic. The lack of refuge from prying eyes, save within the walls of my dismal apartment, had commenced to hammer at my nerves and peace of mind, relegate me to an interminable state of skittish pent-upness. The unrelieved stress of never being left to myself (not even in my apartment, actually: the woman to my right would bang on the wall at the slightest sound that issued from my activities, including when I spoke on the phone; the man below would bang on his ceiling, by way of informing me he could hear my footfalls and I should tread more lightly; the couple who lived across from me in the building behind mine never tired of arguing and their shrill voices were intermittently audible at all hours of the day and night) had affected me on a physical level: my hands shook unremittingly; my joints, particularly those of my knees, never stopped aching; my lower back was a minefield of muscle spasms and inflammation; a strained expression was permanently stamped upon my face. For the first time in my life, I looked forward to sleeping in order to escape conscious awareness and dreaded awakening in the morning.

  My apartment: it was located on the second floor in the back of a moldering tenement building over a century old. Sunlight vainly struggled to force its way into the narrow space between my building and the one behind it; even had I ventured to part my curtains and expose myself to the view of the endlessly bickering couple, barely a hint of daylight would have reached me: it was little better than perpetually dark outside and I lived exclusively in artificial illumination. But I didn’t live alone: hardly a day went by that I didn’t encounter several of the spiders, representing at least a dozen species, that spun dense webs under my bed and in the corners; mice were often to be heard rustling in the kitchen, below the bathroom sink, and behind the walls; roaches were rampant and nothing killed them. The grimy walls of peeling paint absorbed the light and saturated the air with dimness, regardless of how many lamps I turned on; the steam heaters unabatedly hissed and sputtered during the winter, even though they were stingy with the heat and the rooms were always cold; in summer there was no relief from the hot humidity and I was constantly sticky with sweat, it being impossible to run an air conditioner without blowing the fuses. Pipes would burst in the walls and spread water across the floor and rain it upon the footfall-obsessed man below, incite him into paroxysms of rage.

  My neighbors: what a prying, neurotic, hateful bunch they were. I can’t say they were united in disliking me: they loathed each other and themselves as much as they loathed me. They lived for complaining, spreading slander, hoarding spite, stockpiling grudges, and giving way to ugly outbursts. Instead of killing themselves outright, they immersed themselves in death-in-life.

  I had to get out of that building: I was far too young, three years shy of thirty, to be leading such a life. I’d always been hale and hearty and still ate well and exercised and wasn’t an ounce overweight, but was nevertheless wasting away, frequently feeling uncharacteristically feeble: such is the nefarious ability of sustained negative emotions to undermine one’s health. A quiet and cheery apartment, with abundant natural light, on one of the higher floors of an uptown high-rise would certainly reverse my spirits. But the ground had, as it were, yanked itself out from under me: I lacked the will to rally myself, seek the sort of employment and income that would make such an apartment possible. In dread I considered the possibility of having become infected with too much depression and inertia to extricate myself from the tenement building. Is it possible to be thoroughly infiltrated and debilitated by the overwhelming gloom of a place, rendered incapable of shaking off its influence and escaping?—as if the very walls are able to creep under one’s skin, smother one’s better instincts, blind one to the possibility of a healthier manner of living? How many high-spirited individuals, newly arrived in the city and only able to afford a dwelling such as mine, had found such a dwelling erasing all recollection of uplifting emotions, enwrapping them ever tighter in a web of frustration and hopelessness, and holding them prisoner for the remainder of their days?

  I wasn’t going to be a victim of that building—wasn’t going to end up like the others and spend my waking hours listening for, wincing in annoyance and fear at, noises outside my door. I wasn’t going to allow myself to be swindled out of my better instincts, lose my sense of emotional health, stop yearning to be out of there, away from the atmosphere of claustrophobic pettiness—the emanations of resentment, envy, hatred, and misery—the persistent erosion of well-being, steady incursion of sickness of the soul. I wasn’t going to allow myself to lose sight of life. But the more I willed myself to take remedial measures the more a pervading tone of paralysis and indifference—frightful indifference, as of being separated from the very flow of my blood—overcame me and froze me in my tracks. But something had to give: what was I going to do, abandon all hope and choose to kill myself before I was deprived of the ability to go through with it?

  And then an event occurred that had nothing to do with any foresight, planning, or exertion on my part but that was assuredly a rope tossed into the stagnant water in which I was drowning: how true it is that we as often as not obtain new leases on life solely on account of the blind interventions of chance.

  As for the event in question: a distant relative passed away and, being without siblings or progeny, left his house to my parents, who didn’t want to trouble with selling it. I was asked if I’d be interested in traveling to the remote coastal town in Maine where the house was located, arranging with a realtor for it to be shown, and receiving twenty percent of the proceeds. I agreed without hesitation. I’d relocated to Manhattan in order to indulge my newfound thirst for the unfamiliar and novel, undergo experiences that my suburban upbringing had denied me; even though I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for, I was sure Manhattan would be able to provide it; at any rate, I’d concluded the suburbs were an emotional dead-end, incapable of quieting my increasingly restive disposition. Obviously over-eagerness and lack of adequate preparation, out-and-out inexperience, had caused me to get off to a bad start. A sojourn in the country, I reasoned, would purge my emotions of the wrong directions with which they’d become burdened. I’d surrender to the forests and sea, allow nature to restore me to centeredness of purpose. I’d dwell upon the mistakes I’d made and learn from them, train myself to be more wary of my weaknesses and capable of overcoming them, regather myself for a renewed and wiser attempt to settle in the city that I still felt I belonged in, despite my dispiriting apartment.

  I arrived at the seaside town in mid-January, the day after a knee-high blanket of snow had fallen. I hadn’t bothered to inquire after the particulars of the deceased relative’s property and assumed it was a run-of-the-mill small-town house, unremarkable in architecture and dimensions; so imagine my surprise at the sight of the dwelling in question, a mansion with an extensive Doric-column-framed porch, wide decks encircling the first and second floors, complex wood and iron fretwork at every turn, over a dozen bedrooms, as many bathrooms, and several liv
ing areas, as well as kitchens and dining rooms on both floors—locally notable for being the largest and most opulent residence in the county. As for the property upon which the mansion was situated, it was a twenty-six and a half acre lot that ended at its rear where the Atlantic Ocean began. What joy overwhelmed me! How I laughed at the thought that I’d been treated to an overnight one hundred eighty degree turnaround in variety of