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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “My Name Is Equality” Down in the Dirt, v198 (the 8/22 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Final Frontier the Down in the Dirt May-August 2022 issues collection book		get the 420 page May-August 2022 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Manaloosa Memories

Vic Larson

    The dreams come more frequently now. Distorted images, intensely familiar but haunting, that shake me from my sleep, gasping for air and heart pounding. It’s such a relief, waking to first light, the sound of distant, exuberant mockingbirds and the smell of coffee brewing. I calm myself with several deep breaths before setting my bare feet on the cool tile and head into the kitchen.
    I blow away a swirl of pungent steam and sip. “Hot coffee for a cold day,” I laugh. It is summer in Florida. The temperature will reach into the mid-nineties by late morning. The beverage is comforting, a ritual between us. Shared time before we set about our separate tasks.
    “Was there a barn?” I ask my mother, now in her fifties. Her memory is my window to a past I can no longer access. The accident left me only fragmentary glimpses of my forgotten life, snapshots and short scenes that play out during my troubled sleep, intensifying as my brain begins to heal.
    “At Lake Manaloosa, yes, on about ten acres I believe,” she answers softly. “The summers were long, and oh the wildlife, it was wonderful...” she trails off, a subtle smile gracing her kind face, eyes still as blue as a crested pool in Yellowstone and just as misty, gazing out the kitchen window.
    “How old?” I always ask, reconstructing my timeline one frame at a time.
    “Two perhaps,” she says, shaking her head in admiring disbelief. She has come to respect my remembrances, my dreams and the details I question her about most mornings. That I can recall events so early in my life is met by general disbelief, but there are clues. I remember more than just the visuals someone could have told me. I can almost feel strong, warm hands lift me upward from under my arms for a glance through a window beyond my reach.
    “I remember a train, riding in a train, how can that be?” I continue. The sooner I recollect images from the night before the better my chance of avoiding losing them beneath the undulating surface in an ocean of forgotten thoughts.
    “Daddy, Grandpa built a little train track on the property, almost a half mile long. It was his passion. It was a working steam engine just big enough for him to sit in and drive you through the woods. He worked on it endlessly. Your sister loved it too...” she ends, face saddening and staring at her hands in her lap. She gets up and brings her mug to the sink, rinses it more thoroughly than necessary, sets it carefully in the dish rack and reaches for a towel.
    The dreams are building upon each other now, like a television show of my own creation, with continuing sets and characters, almost lucid. Not like some random, anxious retelling of the same story, lost-on-the-first-day-of-school type of nightmares. These have a nostalgic feel, visiting a favorite place from long ago. A lifetime ago. When I knew my name.
    They tell me I’m Josh. The wreck took that away from me too. And a beloved sister I can’t remember no matter how hard I try. She is not in my dreams. Not yet. I wonder how I’ll react when she comes calling. For now, her picture is lovingly placed around Mama’s house. Carefully presented to me, as if I may jolt out of this suppressed reality with the force of a car hitting a Live Oak. I’m told that’s what happened. And I’d been drinking.
    It’s weird that I like grits and order “Co-Cola” down at the diner, but can’t recall the important stuff. It’s not like I’ve forgotten how to count or read or write. There seem to be vestiges of my true self, lurking in my dense inner forest, glimpsed briefly like some Skunk Ape emerging in the distance. And then I’m gone. I’ve grown used to the sidelong glances from others. Maybe he’s remembering, coming back.
    “Can we go there?” I ask, hesitantly.
    Mama becomes rigid at the sink, stares straight ahead, then carefully folds a dishtowel and lays it on the counter.
    “Yes. Yes we can,” she nods and turns, still sad-eyed, but with a spark of hope I can only guess at. “It’s about two hours out Route 17. Maybe Saturday?”
    I’m not allowed to drive. There will be mandatory classes before I’m granted the right to test for my license, like a stroke victim, with some substance abuse counseling thrown in for good measure. For now, I’m fine letting Mama drive, and I admit that being in the car makes me nervous. I don’t know why.
    There’s not much to see along the way. So much of Florida is still in its natural state, crisscrossed by occasional roads, like veins on gangrenous skin. It gives me time to doze and dream and to ask Mama probing questions.
    Thick, overhanging vegetation along the highway filters mid-day sun into near darkness, flickering splotches of green, dark and light, and drags me unwillingly into a vision of flashing lights through a windshield engulfed in shattered branches, spattered with shredded scrub palms and bloody hand prints, consuming my vehicle and threatening to reclaim it into the roadside jungle. I shake it off and close my eyes.
    Sleep shortens our trip as if by magic. The hours seem like minutes, except to Mama, who is visibly fatigued. We pull onto a gravel road, not overgrown, but seldom used. The car bounces on worn springs, over bumps and hollows, tree roots and rocks. Before long the road will be impassable.
    “There it is,” says Mama as we enter an overgrown, grassy field where a boarded up house, gray and black and green with neglect, a broken fenced yard and a disintegrating barn all face the shore of a surprisingly picturesque small lake. The property must have been stunning in better days, private and secluded.
    We close the car doors gently behind us, with respect for the serenity of the setting, or out of fear of disturbing its ghosts. I head straight to the barn. The one from my dreams. Mama walks toward the lake.
    The abandoned building stands open. From deep within its shadows come small train tracks, still recognizable but utterly useless. They head out to the border of the acreage, into the ragged woods. Holes in the roof allow light in and are accelerating the barn’s demise. Florida weather is notoriously hard on structures of any kind. Absent a caring owner to maintain and repair, it looks centuries old and would be dangerous to explore further. I join Mama at the lakefront.
    “This is where the sun sets in my dreams,” I marvel. Towering white thunderheads in the distance flash yellow lightning from within, illuminating patches of cottony white folds and varying shades of billowing vapor.
    “Better than a fireworks show,” says Mama. We sit on the shore, sand and grass, soft and warm underneath us as we hug our knees and watch in silence.
    But rather than enjoy my immersion in a calming and serene setting, my anxiety quickly grows. I am trapped in a waking dream, with no way to shake myself free as uncomfortable thoughts begin to boil over. Private images flash through my mind; rapid and unrelated, creating an inner turmoil that sets me trembling.
    “Are you ok, Josh?” Mama notices. “Maybe this wasn’t a good...”
    I hold up my hand. I feel ready, but like final withdrawal from a powerfully addictive substance, clinging like spider’s silk to the final remnants of my mind’s protective web, the barrier I’m breaking through is resilient and resentful, protecting me from thoughts and truths previously unbearable. The barn, the house, the lake, even the drive to the ancient family property has become a catalyst that is igniting a cascade of memories heading off in multiple directions. They come too quickly to comprehend fully, but each avenue is a rapidly moving scene that ends abruptly, and then lurches instantly off in another direction. Connections upon connections. My old life is coalescing before my eyes.
    My limbs feel leaden and slow, like splits of dense wood, and I feel paralyzed. Mama leans toward me, wraps her arm around my shoulders and holds me tight. I lean and shudder, then dissolve into deep and tearful mutterings.
    “Oh Mama, I’m so sorry!” I sob, speaking, crying. “I didn’t mean to...”
    “I know you didn’t, baby, I know,” she tries to console me.
    “Janey. Oh, God, Janey!” I fold into Mama’s lap, shaking.
    The lightning hints at an approaching afternoon storm. We take little notice. Reflections of the trees from the distant shore ripple beneath the broken sun and towering clouds on the surface of Lake Manaloosa.
    Mama rocks me in her arms. Her boy. Forgiveness need not be spoken. One of her babies has returned.

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