Flight

In the early stages of epilepsy there occurs a characteristic dream .... One is somehow lifted free of one’s own body; looking back one sees oneself and feels a sudden, maddening fear; another presence is entering one’s own person, and there is no avenue of return. —George Steiner Outside my window the wasps are making their slow circle, dizzy flights of forage and return, hovering among azaleas that bob in a sluggish breeze this humid, sun-torn morning. Yesterday my wife held me here as I thrashed and moaned, her hand in my foaming mouth, and my son saw what he was warned he might. Last night dreams stormed my brain in thick swirls of shame and fear. Behind a white garage a locked shed full of wide-eyed dolls burned, yellow smoke boiling up in huge clumps as I watched, feet nailed to the ground. In dining cars white table cloths unfolded wings and flew like gulls. An old German in a green Homburg sang lieder,Mein Herz ist müde. In a garden in Pasadena my father posed in Navy whites while overhead silver dirigibles moved like great whales. And in the narrowing tunnel of the dream’s end I flew down onto the iron red road of my grandfather’s farm. There was a white rail fence. In the green meadow beyond, a small boy walked toward me. His smile was the moon’s rim. Across his egg-shell eyes ran scenes from my future life, and he embraced me like a son or father or my lost brother.