A scream woke her up. It wasn't a horrific scream, more of a squeal, but it felt a little like a horror movie scream heard from within her dream. What was that dream? The details were vague, but it was about him. About Eric. About Eric who had been visiting her dreams. Maybe it wasn't even about Eric, but that since she had been meeting up with him in her dreams every night for the past weeks. It was probably him. But she can't remember what was happening. She could start imagining, and the imagination would easily creep into her psyche and melt into her belief into reality.
She sat up with her pillow packed between her lower and the back frame. She made the final step off the bridge that spanned the river between her dream world and the reality in which the squeal had yanked her onto the bridge. What was it? She felt the warmth of her comforter, the warmth that itself was a blanket she had naturally quilted overnight. She felt the softness of the sheets, and she liked it so much that she unconsciousness started caressing the covers a little bit.
What was that squeal?
There it went again.
And there were other sounds like. Sounds of frolicking. Giggling. Things running up and down barks. She wanted to get out of bed and look through the window, to see what the little commotion was about. But the warmth she had woven overnight didn't let her go. The cocoon was too loving, especially in contrast to the suffering, both in the vast reality and the limitless dreams that have both made her feel like a cold iceberg floating aimlessly. Now, she was a tropical island, warmth abound, however isolated it was by that same boundless difficulty that awaited her at bay. She looked at the window from her comfort zone and saw just the white, overcast sky sketched by the bare winter branches, as if it was just a white sheet with thin, clear dark strokes of a master Chinese painter. The branches swayed a little, in the wind, and jerked a little when the squeals shot out.
They were the squirrels, no doubt. She had seen them sometimes when she worked from her desk, when she looked out. In her mind, the branches always seemed bare, abstract. There used to be a different painting in her mind, one of colorful, fiery flame of passion that was of her and Eric, six years, longer than she had lived here, within the warmth of her bedroom. There used to be that painting, autumn leaves, spring flowers. There had been many winters, but she, until now, had a very different painting. Now, someone has bleached the canvass and put on these bare, masterful black strokes of branches.
She was surprised she didn't want to cry. Maybe she was done, maybe she was too bitter to humiliate herself again. The warmth of her cocoon faded, replaced by a shudder as if the winter wind had found a crack in the window that she was looking at. Her big blue eyes looked away from the bright window and she lowered her head a little. She then remembered the phone call before she went to bed. The phone rang and she remembered hoping, again, that it was Eric calling. It was a sister, and her disappointment was barely contained in her voice. She was checking on her again. It's been three months, and she was still checking on her, rightfully, but it was becoming more and more humiliating. But she couldn't reject good intention. At that thought she turned to look at the phone lying on the bed stand. No calls. The the redness of the phone seemed so out of place in this mostly white bedroom. Beige bedsheets, pale blue walls, white ceiling, white bed stand, even the alarm clock is light brown, milk with a little coffee. And here was a red phone, with a black center on which silver letters spelling out the manufacturer's name were etched.
She pressed the black buttons, and the little screen lit up, showing no calls. No calls. No messages. And her cheeks reddened. Hot. Rage? More humiliation? More sadness? Didn't matter. She slowly slid back into her bed, her head resting back on the pillow that had supported her lower back.
That's bad. It became horrifically familiar, staying in bed, in this warmth that would become suffocating instead of comforting, trapped in there in her own self-pity. But it was too tempting. Why not? Why not continue the wallowing? More than three months, other people have had to endure longer. She was there already. She closed her eyes, ignoring the squealing that was disappearing anyway. In this darkness, figures came back out, images, the past. And rage and sorrow and love and desire, all mix up again. So familiar.
A flutter. What was that? A chirping. She opened her eyes. She looked out, her body propped up, betraying a deep-seated desire to actually break out of that cocoon. And there, in the painting of the window, the white bleached canvass with black, somber strokes, a red, alive flower.
Not a flower. It looked like it was blossoming. It moved, rotated on the branch. Its black eyes, its fluffy crown, all moving, as if talking to her. It chirped, quietly but confidently. She sat up, and her feet fell on the warm, cream color rug. She stood up, away from the comforter, in her light pink pajamas. She walked to the window, feeling the slight chill from the window panes, and she looked directly at the cardinal. At that moment the cardinal stopped moving, looking into the distance. She could see almost everything, including the golden beak, the brown eyes, details on that decadent red that breaks up the bleakness of the whole scene. She touched the cold surface of the desk and smiled. Just smiled, her blue eyes moist, her lips rosier, and she felt for the first time an ecstatic dizziness that unveiled the ember that was to revive her passion, passion for anything.
