Fantasy

Fantasy

Prologue:

For kicks, some write insipid jokes, others moan about loneliness, and still others pontificate and issue cryptic oracular pronouncements. As for me, I indulge in fantasies, romantic and not sexual. Sexual fantasies are for the coarse, the crude, and the common; romantic fantasies are hard to do and much harder to write about, especially when one is his 60’s and about to enter a nursing home. But I always do things the hard way. I always like to write about women who inflamed my imagination.

Fantasy itself:

You saw her. She saw you, too. The two of you stopped where you were and looked at each other. Finally, panting like you had just finished a marathon, you made a few steps closer to her. She smiled and then shyly looked down at the floor. She remembered me, your mind said to yourself. Your heart was leaping out of your chest; you could hardly breathe. You said, “Is it possible that we get outside and talk?” She said nothing but her cheeks were getting red. You walked out of the library and looked back. She followed you.

She is of course much older now. A lot of water has passed under the bridge; many moons have waxed and waned. Still, she has the same figure and the same beautiful features though wrinkles start marking their presence. She and you stand under the same sycamore tree in the yard. The tree is much bigger now. There are also several smaller trees and bushes of flowers.

- I thought I would never see you again. I’m here on a visit. I’m living in the United States now.
- How wonderful! What city?
- Houston of Texas. You still live in Saigon?
- Yes.
- You graduated from medical school, I assume.
- Yes, but I’m retired now.
- I’m still working, still hunting. I could have retired, but I was stupid. I still don’t know your name.
- Oanh. Hoàng Oanh, like the singer. And yours? (You told her your name). I didn’t know why all of a sudden, you stopped coming to the library.
- I was about to tell you why. I got a scholarship to study overseas. I meant to come to say goodbye and ask for your address so I could write to you, but I was stupid and I was shy and I already had a girlfriend and I have regretted ever since. Anyway, I want you to know that now I read books and sometimes I write because of you, now I study languages because of you, and now I adore women because of you. Listen, listen closely because I don’t know if I can get this out right.

She nods, biting her lips so that they fold into her mouth while looking at you with those large, beautiful almond-shaped eyes of hers.

-Whatever it is, it has never gone away, that summer of 1971….I’m talking for me. Okay? Just for me. It is like one of those unforgettable melodies people talk about. What I’m talking about is vibration. It pulsates. It quivers and quavers, and it never stops. It doesn’t. I feel it. I hear it during my waking hours. I hear it from one year to the next. It’s getting stronger as I get older. I let it, let you, haunt me, own me, and drive me on so I could become a better person. I let it hum and resonate and sing to me. And I longed for the day I ran into you again. That was why the first thing I did when I got into this city was to visit this library. I’m not going to ask you about your personal life, nor am I going to disclose mine. All I wish for is that you allow me once a year, around New Year, to email you a letter to let you know what has happened to me during the year, to share with you my thoughts and feelings on certain things which are dear to me.

She nods once more and scribbles down her email address and hands it over to you and walks back inside the library without looking back. You see that she hesitates and stops momentarily at the entrance before stepping inside.

And you get to the street and hail a taxi to meet your wife for dinner at the hotel. Something stings in your eyes. It could be the ever present acrid air in the city, something you have not got used to; it could be something else. All you know is that tears are welling up in your eyes. You look back at the beloved library before stepping into the taxi.

Wissai
September 21, 2009
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Epilogue:

I wrote the above fantasy in one stretch of forty five minutes and went back to add a word here and there after I took a short sleep. I borrowed five sentences from a story I had read. (It would be wonderful if the reader could identify those sentences). The rest were mine. I felt at peace after I opened my heart on paper. I doubt if I ever run into her again in real life. I was stupid and I am stupid still. Stupid is my name and I wear it like a crown of thorns. Yet I’m entertaining hope against hopes. I am an inveterate dreamer. I like dreams and fantasies. They make my life bearable. They help me put words on paper. I like to make words leap and dance and sing and hopefully people will remember my words long after I am gone.