The Weight of Dreams
The surface of the lake is calm, not a single ripple mars its surface. Earthen banks frame the deep water, forcing it into a rough oval shape reminiscent of the eye of Cyclops staring vacant at the new moon peeking through the tops of the pines. There is no hint of a breeze. Leaves dangle from the trees in an arrested still life painting. Gray clouds hover. Fish are not jumping to catch mayflies, for none land on the smooth surface. The frogs have silenced their singing. It appears as if the entire world is in a state of suspended animation, waiting for something.
Underneath the water, something is happening. Tiny minnows swim in and out of a teenage boy's baggy pants decorated with zippers, snaps, and drawstrings in strange places, while perch nibble at his bare puckered toes. A water snake lies coiled on the blanched flesh of his distended abdomen.
Strands of his long, blonde streaked hair are flowing with the movement of the water, mingling with the lake grasses growing on the bottom. His bloated face is turned toward the surface and blank eyes stare at the light filtering through the water. One arm is reaching for the bottom, fingers grasping a nylon rope attached to a bulging string bag.
* * * * *
In a three-bedroom cream colored cottage situated on a quiet street a block away, Donna is serving up fresh-grilled perch and hush puppies to her husband, Frank and daughter, Edna. She looks for a moment at the empty chair.
Edward is missing again at dinnertime. He has never managed to be where he is supposed to be, or to do what is expected. This time he has been gone for over a week.
Edward usually spends all his time alone on the lakeshores. No one knows what he does there. He appears to be sitting still for hour after hour, with only an occasional turning of the head to announce that life is still present. He has no friends, for no one understands him, and all are a little afraid of him.
In this community, and most others across the country, there are generally two children per family. Large families drain society, both economically and emotionally.
Donna and Edna both have short brown hair bobbed at their chins and sport straight bang, as do all females. Edna's hair color is natural, and Donna accomplishes hers with dye. Basic brown is the accepted hair color.
Frank's brown hair is cut in a flat top, identical to the other men's hair. It is trimmed exactly on the thirty-day mark.
The rules to dictate dress, appearance, manner of speech, life style and occupations are not written down in formal laws; nevertheless, all citizens have been conditioned from birth to comply. The unwritten rules are handed down from generation to generation like the folklore stories of olden times. Children are taught obedience in school along with reading and mathematics, and they generally comply.
Except for Edward. He was always the difficult one, the rusty cog in an otherwise well-oiled machine. He spouted radical thoughts of freedom to choose for oneself in this country founded so long ago by people seeking the same freedom. He added unapproved colors to his regulation brown locks, and altered his approved gender-less clothes to make unacceptable personal statements. He refused to understand that the unwritten rules are for the good of the people.
When the government makes all decisions for the citizens, individual stressors are eliminated, and as a result, the people are happier. When the basis for competition is removed, envy and greed are also discarded. Edward continually argued that a society of mindless automatons is not a society by even its broadest definition. His argument fell on a multitude of deaf ears.
Community gossip is that Edward's grandparents several generations ago were those free-spirited pioneer types who had to make their own way independent of the dictums of society. Bad genes cannot always be bred out. Occasionally, they will pop up in a weak-minded descendent.
The families in the other cream, three bedroom cottages with identical floor plans and furnishings discuss Edward at their dinner tables and express pity for Frank and Donna and their trials of raising that unruly boy. It’s sad that years of shunning by the community have not pulled Edward into line.
The other teens in town are getting ready to leave for college to study the professions chosen for them by the town council, determined by the current needs of the community. Tonight is graduation night. A gymnasium full of young adults will be striding to the stage in their identical khaki and brown dress pants, button up shirts, and waist length snap front jackets.
Edward announced at dinner the last night he made an appearance that he was leaving to find one of the radical communities he heard about on the underground radio station. The knowledge that he was not the only one came as a shock. He found encouragement when he realized there were other people and towns, though admittedly rare, who still believed in the ancient customs, long forgotten by the masses. The customs of personal freedom to choose, individual liberties, and pursuing one's own definition of happiness have been pushed to the brink of extinction. Edward's problem was that he did not know how to go about finding any of the little pockets of life, for they only survive in the shadows.
Edward had no need to live life to the extremes. He had no desire to climb mountains or take the world by storm. He wanted to build a house with a studio and paint it purple. The studio is where he would teach himself to be a painter, a useless occupation by the new standards. Edward dreamed of simply living his life on his terms, and connecting with one other like-minded person to ease his loneliness. His dreams were very close to being impossible, unattainable dreams.
* * * * * * *
Edward lies peacefully in the water, bobbing just beneath the surface. Life goes on above him. Men arrive at each new sunrise to fish. Donna and Edna still swim and sun themselves on the flat rocks. Town picnics still happen on the banks of the lake. Edward is still there, just under the surface of their lives, but he is never seen, for no one ever looks beyond the surface anymore. Everyone accepts that things are right and good in their sameness and normalcy, and never ask why, or what if.
One old man knows the truth of Edward's fate. He quietly watched Edward grow and silently applauded his spirit. The old man prayed for many years that Edward would be strong enough to grab hold of his dreams and hang on in the face of opposition from the masses.
The old man had not been strong enough himself. He started his life full of fire and vibrant dreams, but eventually caved in to all the voices telling him his dreams were not their dreams, so therefore were wrong.
Now he is wrinkled and scarred, his joints creak, and his idea of a good time is sitting on his porch watching the seasons change over the lake. Not a day goes by that he does not wish that his mind were as scarred as his body; thick rough scars to cover the memories of abandoned dreams.
The old man is known to all as Donald, Old Donald now, although he still secretly thinks of himself as Jack. He heard a mule called Jack as a child and thought it was a good name for a boy.
Old Donald was sitting on the small dock the night Edward left. He watched as Edward stood on the bank of the lake, alternately looking back at his house, and down the road heading past the other houses to the edge of town. He held his breath as Edward looked directly across the lake at the route to his future, afraid if he made the slightest sound on exhaling that he would distract Edward from his purpose.
Edward hesitated as if debating whether to chance going by the road and risk meeting a neighbor, or take the shorter but harder route straight across the lake. He tossed his shaggy blond-streaked hair out of his eyes with a decided jerk of his head, hitched up his baggy pants, clutched the nylon rope of a heavily laden string bag, and dove straight in. Donald knew without seeing that the bag was full of dreams, just like the bag made from an old flour sack that once held Donald's dreams.
He watched the sleek head as Edward stroked with sure movements through the water, and cheered the boy's courage. Midway across the lake, Edward stopped swimming, treaded water, and cocked his head with its long dripping tresses as if listening to voices calling him from the bank he left behind only moments ago.
Old Donald could not hear anything but the frogs croaking and an occasional splash of a fish, although he could well imagine what the voices were telling the boy. He wanted to yell to Edward to keep swimming, to keep moving forward, but the boy was floundering.
As Old Donald watched, Edward flailed his arms helplessly, his rhythm and momentum gone. The unfamiliar sting of tears surprised him as he watched the boy sink out of sight, weighed down by his unrealized dreams. He watched until the ripples stopped, until the surface of the lake was calm once more.
Old Donald knows the boy was killed by the kind of narrow-mindedness that destroys what is different or unique. He has heard tales of a time when dreams were regarded as entities full of magic and hope, to be attained and nourished by each individual. Now they have been relegated to the realm of mythology, except for a few scattered pockets of rebellious dreamers. Old Donald knows about the weight of dreams, but he has no one to tell.
He tightens his belt over a concave belly, straightens the seams of his khaki and brown pants, notices a button needs to be replaced on his shirt, and realizes tomorrow is hair cut day. He creaks his way down into the worn rocker on the porch, and settles in to watch summer finish its reign at the lake.
© 2008
