Gabriel helps me out of the car, making certain I steady myself before standing up. I don’t use the cane anymore, relying instead on his sure hand, his muscular arms to navigate the urban terrain. We are going to the diner for lunch before catching a movie.
Peering into the plate glass window, he grumbles. It’s been a few days since he’s had a mood ‘tude, I figure he’s about due. The muscles in my hip begin to lock. I stumble, no longer matching his easy gait.
“Gabriel, what’s wrong?”, apprehensive of yet another brush fire.
“Nothing…old girlfriend is all”, he inclines his head toward a small gaggle of women seated at a horseshoe booth.
We do not have to eat here. I have cold cuts at home. We can see the movie another time. Ready to do anything that will maintain the blessed peace lingering over our home these last few of days.
“Listen,…..” my jaws lock. I cannot finish the sentence. By now, he’s familiar with the aura that precedes my visions and waits patiently for me to regain my composure. It’s that “knowing” thing again. “I know”, I stammer, “that’s the woman from the dream.”
Almost a week ago, I dreamed. Gabriel and I were underground in the “chute” standing at a card table in front of the cashier’s booth. Two women approach us. I don’t know them, but he does. They exchange some idle conversation. One of them stays behind the other leaves with us, following the train tracks seeking a way out. I discover a door leading to sunshine. Gabriel and the other woman continue searching, down the track still searching. I turn back after him. I know if I do not get him out now, he will get lost in the caverns with her. Forever trapped in the matrix.
I do not dream. I fall asleep, I wake up, that’s it. When I get night visions like this, I call it “talking to the angels”. The angels do not waste their time unless they have something important to say. When I described the women in the dream Gabriel got fuzzy -logical, said he wasn’t sure who they might be. My head started hurting, which meant, Gabriel was lying.
I’m looking at one of them now, the one who gave in and walked off is seated inside the diner. Who is the other woman, the one who leads him deeper into the tangible darkness? It will be several months before I come to know her by name. She’s Gabriel’s card reader. Persephone Bourgone-Braun, his barnyard lover, aka the “witch of eatsdick” of course. The angels tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. I tried to warn Gabriel, he wouldn’t listen either.
He claims I am obsessed, but I remember. I remember warning him of impending danger.
