Kaspar's Dream

On the day that he would discover that he was dying, Kaspar sat in a park, reading and feeding pigeons and trying to think of anything except the possibility that his own cells were in revolt. It was early spring, and in three hours time he would be told that there was hope, that he had a good chance, that perhaps he could live for several more years. He was 61, and the pigeons’ iridescence flickered delightfully in the clean light.

He thought of Aleanna, at home and unaware that in six hours her husband would return to her to not tell her that he had cancer. He thought of her now, reading undoubtedly, occasionally raising her eyes to the strange silver light of those days as it glowed against the window, wondering whether and when and what to eat, and thinking of him, ignorantly thinking of her well husband as if he still existed. He hunched over his book to hold the pages down as the wind rose, and felt tiny prickles of rain against the back of his neck. He thought of Aleanna not feeling this feeling as he raised the curls of hair from his nape and exposed the skin to the wind, the drizzle, and the warmth, and wished she were with him to feel this and to hold his hand, and wished that he could bring himself to tell her that his body was a traitor and he would have to go soon.

He remembered a dream from many years before. In the dream, he walked into a living room – theirs, but not theirs – to find Aleanna sitting on the couch, reading an old leatherbound book. She lifted her head from the book, looking straight ahead, and then turned her face toward Kaspar – one movement, slow and fluid, no extraneous motion, like a brand new machine – looking at him with grey eyes. She said ‘I can’t read this anymore,’ and opened her mouth wide to reveal a 20 pence piece on her tongue. This she removed and offered to him, before returning to her book, once again in that single slow movement, a divine crane moving without hesitation. Thereafter she would periodically remove a 20 pence piece from her mouth, placing them gently beside her on the sofa as she read; some came forth easily, others were coughed up; she started to look as if the effort were making her ill; she raised her head again, nervously this time, and her eyes were bright blue but bruised, and she opened her mouth despairingly and it was full of twenty pence coins, and she vomited them and vomited them, wretching so much that a rupture seemed inevitable, and he rushed to her but she could not stop vomiting the coins over him; trying to sob but only bringing forth shower after shower of twenty pence pieces.