By Chris Pais
In the deepest innards of New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street, she waits for the last passenger to get off the last Greyhound bus and goes home disappointed again. He wasn’t there. In a ritual of waiting and longing unbroken for eighteen years, each day she takes the uptown train to Times Square after her city job. She makes her way from the subway station to the bus terminal through labyrinthine passageways and crowded escalators, passing street musicians, evangelists, soothsayers, pan-handlers, police officers, hustlers and hordes of peak-hour commuters.
Eighteen years ago he left her, no longer able to put up with their arrangement. They had a marriage of convenience. She worked and supported them and in return, he interpreted her dreams. It did not start this way; they were childhood sweethearts, they married young and led a conventional life in the leafy suburbs of the city. They couldn’t have children despite their fervent petitions during Sunday mass, despite all the prayers that their relatives offered on their behalf to saints specializing in this type of thing and despite numerous visits to fertility clinics. Her desperation and yearning for a child led to an unsettling anxiousness that found expression in her dreams.
Her dreams left her sweating and breathless in the middle of the night. She looked around for him but he was always away working the night shift. She used to lay awake waiting patiently for him to return home and recounted her dreams, but he had no idea what they meant. She grew hysterical and could not be consoled. She wanted him to say something. Anything. He had no idea what her dreams meant, and did not know what to say. She asked him again, day after day. After several weeks, weary, helpless, desperate and beaten down by the daily onslaught of her narrations, he said he knew what they meant. He told her that the dreams indicated that they were going to have a child soon. As soon as he muttered those words, she calmed down and hugged him tenderly. This ended the turbulence that had been rocking their lives. Although this brought her calm, he was fatigued from interpreting her dreams. It rendered him listless and unable to function. Soon, she made him quit his job so he could stay home every night to interpret her dreams.
Some days, she dreamed about a clubhouse full of animals. Some animals played canasta in the foyer while others discussed the Categorical Imperative by the fire and the rest watched college football on television. The squirrels rooted for the Lions, the elk rooted for the Gators and the porcupines rooted for the Eagles; while the animals with a philosophical bent of mind (such as the three-toed sloth, the spiny anteater and the tapir) didn’t care too much about picking sides in a mindless sporting spectacle. This means we’re going to have a child soon, he said. Some days, she dreamt about incongruous weather phenomenon; snowstorms in the Sahara, sandstorms in Alaska. This means we’re going to have a child soon, he said. Once she dreamt that all the bears went on a strike against hibernation, and instead pranced around the tundra singing Christmas carols around a bonfire. A Christmas-themed dream surely means we are going to have a baby, he said. When she dreamt she was chased by a dog down a dark alleyway, it meant they were going to have a child soon, he said. Some days she dreamt she was floating over a cemetery and could read the names on all the gravestones. Death means new life and we’re going to have a child soon, he said. Despite the monotony of his predictions and their patent inaccuracy, his confident, consistent, eloquent and soothing interpretation of her dreams brought her comfort and reassurance and held their marriage together. He was not sure if she believed him or if his words were just a salve to soothe her pain and gave her hope. He was not sure if his words had any meaning. He slowly lost a sense of who he was, and did not know if he could be taken seriously anymore. After years of marital stability resulting from mutual delusion, he cracked and decided to leave. Since then, her days have been filled with waiting, her nights have been ones of longing and her life has become an unending episode of anxiety.
It is past midnight as she emerges from the train at her stop and takes the long flight of stairs towards the exit. The station is dimly lit and she is the only passenger going through the turnstile. It makes a sound that reminds her of an old cash register and it makes this sound just once, unlike during the rush hour when the constant influx of commuters leaves no silent pause as the turnstile churns in quarter-turns. It is a foggy night and the mist is colored by the streetlights, some of which are flickering with white, while others have malfunctioned into a steady orange hue. Her apartment is only a few blocks away and she is in no rush to get home. As she turns into her street, she sees the shadowy figure of a man in front of her apartment building. He looks weary, with drooping shoulders, his chin almost resting on his chest. She is afraid, but the man shows no sign of hostility. She approaches the building with confidence and as she gets closer, he walks towards her. She does not recognize him at first, but soon she sees his unmistakable eyes, now nestled in sockets furrowed with age. They collapse in a hug as the streetlight bathes their beaten bodies which have coalesced into one. He wraps his arm around her waist, she rests her head on his shoulder and they enter the building. We will have a child soon he tells her, as they cross the lobby of the building and stumble towards the elevator.
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Chris Pais grew up in India and came to the United States to pursue graduate studies in engineering. His work appears in Poetry India, The International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Wingless Dreamer, Wild Roof Journal, The Literary Bohemian, Defunct Magazine and elsewhere. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where he works on clean energy technologies and tinkers with bikes, guitars and recipes.