When Jupiter Sighs

by Bethalynne Bajema

  "And then when even the bliss of myself and I was not enough to keep me content I heard the sound of something approaching. And then there I was coming quickly across the waters and I was able to know bliss again. It lasted much longer. Alas it is the same now as it was before. There is no joy in my condition and my only hope is that I can find myself once again, to find the joy of being more than one. To feel my bliss."

  Marilyn found herself drifting away from them somewhat. She took a comfortable distance away from the vision, keeping in mind that she could turn and leave if need be. She laughed to herself as she tried to find the right words to express her thoughts.

  "I think that I understand. There was you but you became lonely and wanted a companion. When a companion finally arrived you enjoyed the company of one another here. But the isolation here caused you to eventually devour one another till it seemed there was only one being. And when the third spirit found its way here it caused you to remember that you weren't always one being. It saw you to be two individuals and again you briefly enjoyed this place before devouring that third being. You made this place a hell. And yet I wonder if others have come here. What happened to them if they did?" her voice fell silent.

  The wind was picking up and caressing her. A smile spread across her face as she indulged the wind and its intimate touches. In fact to my fascination she seemed to taunt the three entities with the attention she got from the wind. She allowed her body to be spun in slow circles as the wind became excited by her attention. Slowly the wind glowed with a million pin points of pale light. Maybe a small sign of just how many souls had lost themselves to this place.

  Marilyn turned her attention back to the being before her and offered it her widest smile. I could not enter Marilyn's mind. I couldn't see the thoughts forming in her head. I could only act as the passenger who saw through her eyes and felt the things her nerves felt. But even in that position I could feel something within my grandmother's young body that suggested she had figured out this puzzle.

  She approached the three entities once more. "I know what happened here." she began. The glowing shroud dulled and thickened so that the woman were totally hidden behind it. A grand poker face that wouldn't allow their visitor to see its individual reactions.

  Marilyn lifted the glowing figure of her head, motioning for the wind to engulf it like a trained pet.

  "I think you learned something of your nature as the third woman was lost to your collective self. I think you wanted the brief bit of bliss each new soul brought you. It wasn't even bliss, at least not the initial heaven that you originally found here. What you felt was yourself, the person you once were. You saw memories that you knew to be yours but could have been from one of the others minds. You wanted to feel yourself, something you had forgotten. But with each person you devoured into yourself you enlarged that memory, that collective being. I think that you have had more then just the three of you here. I think once you were a much larger beast to have this utter sadness. Maybe little bits of that greater beast have died over time. I think maybe, in a manner of speaking, you are the banshees that are spoken of..."

  Marilyn paused for a moment as she tried to pull the rest of her thoughts together. Her gaze drifted back to the vision "Maybe you finally wised up a bit. Looked to the beings that found their way here as a thing to revive you. You didn't want to let them into the fold though. You would steal their energies and leave what remained to the winds."

  The wind roared in agreement, swirling quickly all of a sudden which, caused Marilyn's body to dissipate and reform as it blew through it.

  Marilyn laughed softly. "Oh yes, you steal, you take, all in order to remember what you once were. And even now the three of you are all that you have. You probably can't even appreciate all of the memories you hold because you have no idea if they are your own or would later be found to belong to those parts of you that have already died off. It's a fine hell you've created for yourself.”

  The shroud thinned and once again the glowing bodies of the three ladies stood there. None of them seemed upset by her words but then Marilyn did not speak them as an accusation. They were said matter-of-factually. I'm not sure how she came to this conclusion. I couldn't begin to comprehend the thing I was looking at through her astral eyes. It felt like being lost to a fairy-tale that had been tucked neatly away into a dream. There had to be logic and reasoning to be found, but both things were lost on me.

  "And you think this is hell? Then you would be right. I sit here looking at the approaching present that you live in, waiting for it to catch up to me and yet I always stay just far enough ahead to never touch it. It is a hell and this is a relief. Don't pity the wind. It was the force that brought you here. It had needs too."

  Marilyn shook her head slowly. “I don't pity you or the wind. I simply do not understand your situation. Why do you do this to yourself?" She fell silent.

  The entity was puzzled by this statement. "And what would you do if you were me?"

  Marilyn came closer to the being, much too close for safety. She no longer cared about her safety. She was mesmerized by this thing... this place. How even though this seemed her first trip there, she'd been making this first trip and discovery over her entire lifetime. Every time she sat down to tell this tale. I had to wonder if this was not my first time too. It made no sense.

  My grandmother moved a little closer, smiling. "If I were you? If I were you I would take another being into myself. I would let it give me that moment to find myself again and then..."

  The entity held its collective breath "Yes?"

  Marilyn let her astral arms fly out to her sides and she lifted her head high to the night sky.

  "Then I would forget about the present behind me and fly into the future before me. I would just fly, just like I flew to get here. It was heaven in that moment and I never wanted it to stop. Maybe eventually we would fly so far into the future we find the past. And maybe then we could fly fast enough to finally catch the present. And as we flew we could talk to one another and enjoy each other as companions and always know that I was me. That we are us. Not a collective being. My memories, my life, everything that is me would be mine. I would never get greedy like you. Somewhere in that collective mind of yours I'm sure you can see what memories are yours, even now."

  The women wanted to hear this. Maybe they knew one day someone would find them and help them from their despair. Maybe they had seen this moment over and over waiting for the young woman to understand those things they could not explain to her. And now? All they needed was someone to offer. Marilyn was making this offer.

  "Then this is what you want? To have a place among us so that you might always remind us of who we are?" The entity paused for a moment."You would do this knowing that you too could fall prey to the fate we have here?"

  Marilyn nodded. "Yes. I mean, for the first time since I started coming here, you referred to yourself as 'we'. I have spent a lifetime waiting for that. What more do you need?"

  The entity again sighed, its release so close at hand. The shroud seemed to pulse even more as it anticipated the embrace of Marilyn within its body of three. Marilyn moved closer and a sweeping sensation passed over her. Her chest became tight and for the first time she felt as though she needed to catch her breath. When she inhaled it felt liquid and heavy, weighing her down and filling her lungs. She looked up at the three women in panic, she thought they were betraying her.

  The front woman leaned forward, placing her arms around Marilyn's materializing body. Her embrace was warm and comforting. "Try not to worry my dear one... it is only the feeling of your body being lost in the waters that drown it. It is something we all have had to go through." She leaned closer, for the first time speaking for herself "I can remember my fear, my fear alone! Imagine that I can feel it for myself and the other two cannot."

  Something was wrong though. Marilyn was becoming heavy in the woman's astral arms. She was feeling a heaviness about her limbs as though wet burl
ap had been flung over her. She looked at her arms and the glow of her phantom self was being replaced with the solid mass of skin that imprisoned her airy body. She cried out as did the three women. The other two women came forward to grab at the falling body of Marilyn. But she was falling into the waters and there was no way to stop her.

  "Not again." one of the three whispered in her despair.

  The collective grip and desire of six astral hands could not keep the young woman from falling into the waters below. My grandmother looked up through the surface to see the three faces looking down at her, all the misery returning to their features. One woman was crying, the others trying with all their might to bring her back. The waters continued closing over her head.

  Marilyn's mind lost its ability to think as a thick coating of red splashed across it. This was something I felt in a strange secondary way. I imagined that blood was seeping over her brain to cause such a sight. Her lungs were filled with water and yet they burned with an intensity too vivid to stand. The wounds on Marilyn's arm once again began to ache as she clawed at the water over head. The women were no longer there. Just murky water that was filled with its own brand of wildlife.

  Two hairy arms broke through the surface of the water and grabbed Marilyn, first roughly by the hair and then by the shoulders. As she came near to the surface again my ride was suddenly over. My eyes withdrew from her eyes and continued to move away as I watched the old body of Marilyn's grandfather pulling her body from the river.

  Then I was back in my room. Once again I was nothing more than a small child looking up at my ancient grandmother's face. As I looked at her I could still see some of the beauty she had in her youth. When she again spoke all I heard was the voice of an old woman. An old woman who had lived sixty years after she had wanted to become something very different.

  I knew my grandmother had tried to forget that night. She tried to live a life and forget the beautiful women in the waters and the possibilities that could have come by joining them. She forever tried to forget her grandfather who had saved her from drowning in the river near his home. Those thoughts were placed in an area of her mind that would forever suggest the event had been a dream. But there was the hope to one day prove that she had not been dreaming. It couldn't have been a dream. She simply didn't know what she needed to do to find it again. In the waking world dream reality had no place in how simple humans carried on in life.

  "Such comfort in the coolness of the waters. I have never forgotten that. I have never felt how free the feeling flying. Oh my sweet dear, some beings were never meant to wear these skin suits and live in such a mundane fashion. I once understood a magic that would draw me away from it. I no longer know how."

  My grandmother looked down at me with such a sadness in her face. There were mysteries she had known and she couldn't find her way back to them. She had waited too long to try. This was something I realized and I still don't quite understand why.

  "Alas my child, that is something you will have to learn for yourself. Perhaps like me, you'll one day hear their call. Maybe you won't grow old like me and come to realize it was all just a dream. A very cruel dream." grandmother said to me.

  She kissed me goodnight and gave the covers one more tug so that I was tightly tucked away for the night. Then she was up and moving out of my room, leaving me alone for another night. I felt the exhaustion of a child who'd spent an entire night running around when she should have been sleeping. I fell asleep.

  Hours later I woke up with a start. I had been having a dream that was explaining something to me but I didn't quite understand. As I woke I lost all that had been the dream but the understanding became very clear to me. I climbed out of bed and left my room.

  The house was calm, everyone had gone to bed hours ago. Quietly I made my way down the hallway to the very small room that belonged to my grandmother. The doorknob turned under my small hand, it squeaked loudly as it moved. Or it could have been that everything I looked at seemed so much more vivid to me in this moment. I crept into the darkened room.

  The window curtain was pulled open and the moonlight was shining in through the uncovered glass. It offered little light to see my grandmother by. She lay in bed asleep, her breathing even and slow. I moved up next to her and climbed up onto the bed. Gently I gave her a push, trying to nudge her from her dreaming. Her eyes rolled underneath the lids, fluttering before finally opening. She gazed up at the ceiling for a moment before life seemed to slowly seep into her. Then she looked over at me.

  I smiled at her and put my little finger to her lips so that she did not ask me why I was there. I felt as though I would forget what I had to say if I had to search for answers to her questions.

  "I understand grandma." I said to her. My voice seemed so small and frail to my ears. "You weren't dreaming grandma. I know because I was there with you each time you revisited that place. I usually would forget after falling asleep. But the ladies finally called to me and I did not forget this time. The ladies remember you, they're still waiting for you to come back to them. They want you to come back because you kept your promise to them."

  Grandmother's face pulled into a question and even I didn't quite understand what I was telling her. "What are you talking about Ashley? How did I keep my promise to them?" grandmother asked.

  I smiled at her as I saw the images of the three women speaking to me in my dreams. "Each night that you shared that story with me they were able to remember who they were. They had thought they'd lost you when your grandpa pulled you out of the water but they didn't. A bit of you stayed there and is there right now. Every time you told that story you went back to them, to that moment. They said I helped you remember. They asked me if I was ready to take you there. I can come too. I can fly into the future with you."

  Grandmother leaned back slowly, a smile crossing her face. When she smiled I could see the young Marilyn the most. "They are ready to fly then?" she asked me.

  I shook my head yes and told her "Nepurteety is anxious but Sloan and the Magpie can wait a little longer. They believe now that if they can fly fast enough into the future they can catch up to the present. Just like you told them. And when we do that there is no more time. Every moment is one moment and they can be experienced however we please."

  She shook her head in wonder "And those are their names? I often wondered, even after all these years, what their names were. Well then, let us not keep them waiting any longer. Come child, take my hand."

  I took my grandmother's hand and together her and I made our way out of the house. We walked side by side through the city, making our way to a spot just beyond the end of our street. This was a place my parent's used to take me. A small river, a pleasant body of water were the future, the past, and every moment in-between would be waiting for us.

  Snippets of Babble

  Come find me here.

  Waiting and wondering, mulling over all those things which have been said. To act upon the impulse to tell you how it really feels. How it feels to have this thing beating twice as hard in my chest at the mere thought of your face. To marvel over it, to wonder over it, to ask myself how it ever got this way? How long had my mind decided it had its own thoughts where you were concerned? Still, I can’t figure out the answer nor the means to express it to you, the world, or anyone else willing to listen. So it goes.

  And when the rain comes, I can smell it on the air. Somewhere in there is something of you tangled up in the moisture. Locked within the individual droplets. To lick at my nostrils, laughing as I pull away. Shut the window to the wind, to the idea of you. Yet it crawls in through the small cracks in the plaster; squeaks in through the wall boards till I can’t even hide in the one place I thought to be my own. When I wake to my lover, he smells of your rain.

  Would you have truly known me, would you want it to be like this? Would it cause you the same unease or would it simply be more of the same? The same as everything that reaches out to touch you in this world. Can you feel it?
When I catch you sobbing in my dreams over mistakes you’ve made and cannot call back. That same spot I saw you hugging her as a friend, yet I was jealous, even though I was your lover. Then the disappearance of you both, because she needed your help, needed you by her side and here I was left to yell at those who’d made the mistakes over your account. I can’t help but wonder if it’s your finger that directs these ideas in my head. I can’t help but think you actually know me well.