THE RECURRING RED SCARF
As I was recording this it occurred to me that the most important thing about this story is the enormity of the word almost. To be almost anything allows the possibility of its opposite. Almost certain means uncertainty. Almost hopeless means hope.
Thanks for being here.
The Recurring Red Scarf by Sherry Cassells
My father flies down the street, that’s it, that’s the dream.
As far as recurring dreams go I think it's fabulous, whenever I think of it during the day it sort of zooms around my insides a while and then always I get the dream that night, sometimes twice in one night, once when I was sick it came all night on repeat, that was the night I nearly died, they said they didn't know how I pulled through with a temperature that high.
He doesn’t actually fly, nothing Superman or Icarus, there is no effort on his part, he simply floats but with v-v-v-verve.
He wears a suit. He is slim. A white shirt and tie. Like the day he died. Briefcase dangling at his side. Through the living room window of my childhood I saw him walking down the street and in the dream it's the same except he's flying. I’m looking up the street and it’s snowing, I don’t know what I’m looking for in the dream so each time it’s a surprise when he flies through the snow, I can’t tell what kind of a surprise it is, it's almost like nothing, and please note that the word almost is enormous in this context.
And it's always snowing. I never used to think about it but now I worry he might be cold, I am disappointed in this dream’s complete inability to evolve, he should by now at least be wearing a scarf. No wait. I take that back. I do not want the dream to evolve. Forget the scarf, for should it evolve one knitted row at a time surely he would age, he would diminish in lustre, flightability and frequency. Forget I mentioned it.
My grief is also non-evolving, it remains enormous, and perhaps I choose this, he walked home from work handsome in his suit, fell into my arms and died, that’s it.
My mother is old now, she sits in the half-hospital by the window and looks out, a pile of red knitting on her lap, she picks it up occasionally and manages a few stitches, some days a full row, I ask her what she’s making and she always says the same thing, a scarf for your father, maybe she sees him too.
I sit by her side. She is tired. I know there will be nothing left of her when she dies, it's already happening, she will disintegrate and be gone but my father will fly forever.