May 27, 2020
Review, Edit and Update:
We visit the apartment home of Desperanza Eliot, the rather amusing character that opened Situationally Theirs before it even became the saga that evolved. Dreams and Reality - Episode 22, shows Dez's experience with another aspect of difficulties created by the Covid19 pandemic situation. This writer has repaired typos, added detail and improved sentence structure.
Dreams and Reality
Dez fell asleep reading the latest issue of Artist’s Brush. But when she turned over into the couch cushions and stretched out, the lap blanket slid to the floor, one corner still tucked under her legs. Clutching her magazine as though it were a doll, she scrunched it up.
“Ow!! What?! What’s going on?”
It took a minute for Dez to realize that she had a paper cut about to drip on the upholstery. Faded upholstery, but it didn’t need any blood spots on it. She kicked her legs out from the banished lap blanket, and knocked over the glass of water that had been on the coffee table. Dez was not unfamiliar with four, five and six letter words and let go a string into the night air.
“What time is it?”
No one answered. After a quick pat down of the couch and looking under the coffee table, she dug her cell phone out from between the couch cushions. “Midnight! I have to be at the impound early, so I’d better get to bed.” But Dez had to pick up the water glass and mop up the water on table and floor. She thought about leaving it, because after all, it was just water. But she got up and went to the kitchen for a bandaid for her finger and paper towels to mop up the worst of the water. All my paint things are still out and I won’t get back to them until tomorrow - I guess it is tomorrow - so the day after that then. She was about to take the painting down from the easel when she saw a spot that needed fixing. This will only take a minute. I’ve got the right brush in my hand and my colours haven’t been put away yet. Four hours later, when birds outside her window were welcoming the coming dawn, Dez rubbed ultramarine blue across her forehead. She looked at her finger. “Damn! That's pretty sore. And I need some sleep if I’m going to get my car in the morning.” Dez had forgotten all about the water spill. She just put her brushes in to soak, covered the paints and her canvas and stumbled off to bed.
She slipped easily into a dream that she’d had when sleeping on the couch. It didn’t happen often but, once in a while she would dream, wake up for some reason, and then go back to the same dream. This dream made her smile. She was with Sergeant Eye Candy, the officer that had helped her get in touch with Emmie. He was taking her out to dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant that he apparently owned. He was also the Head Chef. In this dream, Dez had to wait while Luigi - Sergeant Eye Candy - went into the kitchen to make Veal Carbonerra. While she waited she painted a new sign for the restaurant. Cut to dancing on another planet and she was telling him they couldn’t because they were supposed to be distanced. Then a train whistled. It was coming right at them. Luigi disappeared and Dez sat straight up in bed, still asleep. But the train whistle wouldn’t stop. Dez sat up again and shut her cell phone alarm off. She was wide awake and hungry. There was no time to get even a bowl of cereal.
Dez caught the bus that would get her within four blocks of the Impound Lot. She didn’t like taking public transit while the restrictions were on, but there was little choice. She certainly didn’t have the time to walk the 2 km. to get there. There was only money enough for gas and for coffee, until she could get to the bank. It was a very lovely morning, so a short walk would clear her head before she had to drive. Her plan was to go to the park, that wasn’t really a park, with her coffee and wait til the Employment Insurance Office was open at 9am. Dez picked up where she left off the previous night wondering what she would do with her life. She gazed out the bus windows at the still sleeping houses passing them by. Few people were up and going to work these days. And I’m almost 45 years old and still trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I grow up. Dez laughed a silent laugh. Doesn’t look like I’m going to grow up, so I’d better stop waiting for that to happen.
Dez pulled the cord for the next stop. As she walked away and towards the Impound she ran through all the jobs she had had over the years. In her mind she labelled ‘Like’ ‘Hated’ and ‘Not too Bad’. There was the one in a restaurant - she was hired as a dishwasher, but did a whole lot of other jobs. The one she liked was the waitress. She really didn’t get to do that very often unless they were really short handed. And then there was delivering newspapers. She had done that off and on since she was a kid. Emmie would help her with it sometimes. Those were fun times. Not much call for that any more. Cleaning houses…that one was not too bad, but the company that hired her didn’t pay very well and she had to buy all her own supplies. Dez practically ran into the fenced in Impound she was so intent on her mental lising.
“Oh, hi. Are you Kevin or Jim?”
“I’m Jim. Kevin won’t be in for about an hour. Can I help?”
Jim’s a nice young man. “Yes. I’m Desperanza Eliot and I’m here to pick up my car - it’s a 2010 Ford Escort.”
“Can I see your driver’s license and can you tell me your license plate number.?
Dez pulled out her Driver’s License and at the same time, rattled off her license plate number. She handed the Driver’s License to Jim.
“Thank you, miss. Come around here with me. There is an exit on the other side of the lot so you’ll be able to drive right out.”
At first Dez couldn’t see her little car in the midst of pick ups, SUVs, CRVs, service vans, Mustangs and Jaguars. But then she recognized her rather bulky looking little car. It needed a paint job and the front right fender had a huge scratch from a cement post in a parking lot. But it was her car and she loved it. Dez, winced at the charges, used her credit card to pay the Impound fee and drove back into town. They had charged a lot of money but they had filled up her gas tank, so she could drive straight to the park. The park was a long green space that meandered through the small city of Hartley. A trickle of a stream had been widened and deepened for water to flow more easily from underground. Grasses and cattails grew along it’s banks. Songbirds and fireflies busied the air around the stream. Dez picked up coffee on the way from the Impound lot, and sat in the sun. The bench she chose had been moist with dew until the sun warmed the day and all around it. The air was still a cool breeze. Dez sat quietly and took a drink of her cooling coffee, the mental list in her head still brewing.
“We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even
if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.”
~ E.B.White
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