Divergence.

[joegoda]

Wind swirled down and around and shifted the leaves that dappled the ground that found itself scattered at the base of one of the trees in the park. The sun, bright on the late spring day was mercifully hiding part of its shine with a few fluffy clouds and was not throwing too much heat down on that day.

A few children were running hither and yon, laughing, throwing balls and playing catch-me-not. The world was dotted with greens of grass, whites and reds and yellows of flower, blues of sky and fluffy of cloud.

Under the sun cover of tall tree, sharing dappled grass sat a young man, quietly and observing. In his lap, a pad of paper, thick and wide and tall. In his right hand, a charcoal, black and held poised, upraised. Sitting to his right, a box, old, tattered, with hinged lid, and inside was a rainbow, held captive in ink and chalk and powders rubbed against side and top.

His hair, a reddish, ruddish brown, mopishly sitting unkempt over bushy brows and blazing blue eyes. Eyes squinting in thought as though seeing what was right in front of him and also far, far away. Nose, long and pointedly round on the end, perched over lips pursed in concentration.

Dressed in green shirt, broad collars, the man may have been mistaken for the grass he sat on, if he had not moved at all. He did move, though. Brown boots, laced with leather, twitched in thought, and every so often, right hand dipped to paper, to scritch, scritch, scratch, smudge. Left hand moved too, absent-mindedly carrying canteen to lips, to wet with wine.

Peering over his shoulder, the tree gazed upon tableted paper, seeing a scene it had not seen since its youth, for the artist was not creating a scene of playing children. He was inventing a land that he saw in his mind, a land of what may have been, or what used to be as his inner eyes could see it. The tree, in wordless wonder in its slow, slow way, nodded greenish crown at the birth of it's birthland.

The park did not exist on the rough sketch. Instead there was a river flowing, broad and shallow, banks to the left and to the right. On the right, a dock, simple, and not very large, but sturdy. To the left, broad grasses grew, green and tall, places for sneaky fish and crawbabies to hide and play-catch-me-if-you-can.

The scene was drawn from the perspective of the tree, and it could remember in its slow pondering way, how clean the air was, how sparse the number of two legged animals were. It remembered the family of foxes that slept at its base, back when there were just recently enough leaves that the tree could proudly stand and proclaim it was, indeed, a tree, and not a sapling anymore.

Back, back, back it went, in sleepy memory, remembering as only a tree can. Deeply, slowly and century aged, breathing deeply the scent of long, long ago. So deep that the tree, as young as it is, faded from the present, and did not notice when the man rose, packed away his chalks and tablet and moved down the small hill and away across the park to where a small road would take him away into a town.

It would be weeks before the tree came out of its reverie, and when it did, it would miss the artist, and wait, patiently, as only a tree can be patient, to return.

The man, whose name was John Saunders, was lost in thought, in vision, somewhere between here and there, where here was the now, and there was in the distant past. He strolled down the lane that led to the town where he was staying, and somewhere in his brain he took note of the symphony of colors and images that fell against his eyes. He registered vaguely the sounds that danced into his ears. Though his body was here, his life was... elsewhere, or to be more specific, elsewhen. He was in the past, creating an image that had been with him for the past week, ever since he came to this town, this place, and found the park.

He checked in at the hostel, the journey from where town met country not much more than a visual memory, an auditory bubble. Climbing the short flight to his second floor room, he unlocked the door, walked to his bed and collapsed.

Behind his eyes, the images he had seen, the sounds that he had heard, merged to create landscapes of his dreams. Words, not spoken, but written, flowed through this dreamscape, and he, from nowhere at all, watched and listened as the story unfolded.

"Brad! Brad!" He read against the blue sky, "Come in here right now! Dinner is getting cold. Quit playing in the water and come in!"

The cloud like words faded and a voice, young and boyish answered. "All right Ma. Just another moment." Sitting on the dock, a child, blond haired and boyshaped was poking a long stick into the water, making muddy splashes that did nothing more than briefly irritate the fish that lived under the doc.

"Now, young man! Quit irritating the crawbabies and come in." The voice came from over the hill, feminine, older, colored in age and beauty earned rather than created.

"Aw, Ma," said Brad, painting disappointment. "I'm coming." He tossed his stick far into the current and watched briefly as it floated and floundered in the eddies and ripples. Then he turned and ran up the dock and over the hill.

John, in dream state, floated apart and not quite of this world, watching, watching, recording all that he encountered.

Depth and thickness of grasses, colors and texture of flying dragonfly, ripple and splash of fish as it burst against the surface of the river. The sky, the river, the life, the world, all, all pressed into visual and auditory, drifting to settle against memory to await life again on paper, on canvas, napkins, handkerchiefs.

Faithful in color, true in hue and depth, the renditions of his memories that John created when he was awake, when he was in his present world, brought him some wealth, as his art was prized for the vibrancy they showed, for the feelings they evoked.

Publishers craved his work for illustrations, advertisers prayed for him to create background and concept boards, galleries entered bidding wars for the chance to be the next exhibition. In his present time in his waking world, he was wanted, desired, paid well, and very wealthy. In his dream world, he was a ghost, invisible, unknown, an observer.

Whenever he could, he would escape from the eye of the public and the private to hide away in far off places. He would seek out new landscapes and dream of new places and new faces that he had never been before. He desired that, he knew, to be no one at all, just the eyes that saw, the ears that heard. He also knew that his hands would not let him, that his imagination would flow out his fingers and create that which might have been, but is not now.

In dreamscape, he floated unbodied away from the dock and up the hill. He saw, down the other side a small house, old, pale weather-worn wood keeping time with the torn tar paper roof. The two windows were small here on the backside of the house. Its front was hidden from him, but he could see one side, where there was a single window.

Ghostlike, he floated up to the window and watched the family at dinner. Simple fare, only mother and son were sitting at the small table. The chairs were simple, high backed, three slats. The table, plain, small, square. On it there was glass shakers of salt and pepper, two red glasses made of some metal. The dinner was fish, which was no surprise at all, and served on small china plates, that showed their age in the cracked glaze and the small chips on their edges.

"Mom?" The boy had stopped eating to ask this. "Ma? When's dad coming home?"

The mother, pretty in an ordinary way, slender of face framed by shoulder length chestnut hair, put down her bite of fish and said nothing for a very long time.

"Brad, I don't know. He will be back when he comes back." She turned to look out the window that John was looking in. He could see the brightness in her brown eyes, the crease between her brows. There was something in her face that would have made him catch his breath, if he had any breath to catch.

Even in his spectral form, John could feel the emotions, the sadness and the depth of it, from her. He felt there was a sadness there she could and would not share with her son. He knew, without having any knowing, that the father and husband had gone and was not coming back.

He made no judgment. It was her decision, and it was her burden. Still, it broke his heart to see the emotion on her face, pouring out to be felt. It broke his heart further to see the boy, the son, Brad, watching his mother. John suspected that the boy was not fooled by her answer, as his eyes had a preternatural shine as well.

"Well, when he gets back," Brad continued, "I have got to show him the newest fishing spot I just found. Why it's just about the most perfect spot there is!"

John estimated the boy to be about thirteen years old.

The tone in Brad's voice dropped when he said "I'm sorry, mom." He rose and came over to where his mother sat, looking out the window, looking at, but not seeing John as he watched the drama inside. The boy wrapped his arms around his mother and he hugged her, hard. "I know he's been gone for..." his voice faded. "But he'll come back! I know he will!"

His mother nodded, slowly. Swallowing hard, she said, "Let's finish dinner, all right? You still have your studies to do." She turned back to her place, and hugged Brad back, one-armed. "Thank you honey. I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't have been for you. You're a blessing, it's true."

"Aw, ma!", said the boy, as he went back to his dinner. "It will all turn out all right, you'll see. Dad'll come back in time. And if he doesn't..." realizing what he was saying, his volume dropped and he continued in barely a whisper "... if he doesn't, then we'll still do all right. We've done this good with out him." He tore into his meager dinner with a ferocity that belied his internal anger.

The world before John's eyes grew bright, then dark, then bright again. The sounds of his dream world faded and was replaced by the sounds of his room at the hostel. A couple was arguing through the wall, while someone was moving into the empty room on the other side.

John sighed and got out of his bed. He walked to the bathroom and looked at his reflection in the mirror.

Blue eyes stared back, redly. Had he been crying? He wondered. After washing his face, he walked back to his little room, pulled out his pastels and charcoals and began to draw what he didn't want to forget.

Her face.