Unveiled

The Phone Call Dream

"A woman sits on a bench facing the busy main street. Behind her a green park spreads out, taking up an entire block. Trees are planted along the side walk that circles the vast lawn. On a far corner two covered pavilions sit empty waiting for the next family party to occupy their tables and benches. Opposite from them is a kids play ground.

The swings of the playground are full of children laughing and swinging back and forth. Other children climb monkey bars and slide down the swirled slide in the shade of big old oaks and birch trees. A mother is watching as her toddler plays with friends in the sand box making castles that really just look like hills of dirt. All around birds sing and call to each other. All this activity is invisible to the woman on the bench on the opposite side of the park.

No one even sees the solitary woman. If they do they ignore her and walk on. Drivers drive past on the street she seems to be watching. If you saw her you would think she was deep in thought and enjoying the shade and breeze. Reality is quite different.

The woman, Mara, has short dark brown hair. The sides of her head are shaved very short and down the center the hair is about 6 inches long and combed over to one side. Maras eyes are medium brown and ringed with a very faint green. Her ears are pierced four times each from lobe up to mid-ear. She also has a labret piercing on her bottom lip. Mara is about five feet six inches tall and average build.

Today Mara wears blue jeans and a black t-shirt. Her black sneakers are worn with the tread worn down thin. This is her work clothes. She has just pulled a long shift which was very busy. Her feet burn and are swollen. Her ankles throb and knees ache. It feels like her lower back is going to break if she moves wrong or too sudden. Everything hurts to her right now. The longer she sits the stranger things feel. Everything around her seems to be zooming past her with the speed of light and she is the only thing not moving.

But the physical pain is not what has made her stop and rest on the park bench.

What has made Mara pause on her way home was something much more painful than anything her body could make her feel. Mara got a phone call while walking home. She almost didn’t answer her phone. She now wishes she didn’t. Her head buzzes and rings. The air around her smells funny, too crisp too clean. It was instinct that made her hesitate, knowing what was going to be said on the other end.

Mara had been dating someone for almost a year now. A record compared to her other relationships. Tom seemed so in to her. They liked the same music bands, movies and similar hobbies. Tom even gave Mara a Valentines gift, something that never happened with her ex’s.

“Then the call happened. It was the police. There had been an accident. At first Mara thought it was a mistake. Tom wouldn’t be out driving, he would be at work. But then she remembered he had the day off, he said he wasn’t feeling well yesterday so he called in last night.

Mara sat staring out past the traffic in front of her seeing nothing. Her mind wandered from what she was just told to what needed to be done and back. Nothing made sense to her.

”It can’t be him, he was asleep in bed when I left for work. ” Mara had said to the officer on the phone.

”I’m sorry ma’am. Mr. Davies’ I.D. was in his wallet and the hospital staff identified him as well.“

”Where did it happen? ” she asked.

”In front of Rock Jewelers. He pulled out of the lot and...“

”Rock Jewelers?“. Mara remembered drawing a blank on the place at the time then when she remembered a conversation she and Tom had a couple of nights ago she burst into tears on the phone.

Tom was going to take her to LA so they could find their favorite singers star on the star walk and at least be in the same city as him knowing they had no chance of meeting him. “He was going to propose!...OH MY GOD! “

The officer on the other side of the line tried calming her down but it took some time and trying to distract her to make it happen. In the end Mara accepted a ride from an officer to the hospital, since she was on foot and did not drive.

That is what Mara was doing right now, waiting. It was starting to feel like an eternity. Cars drove past, children laughed and birds sang but Mara sat motionless and silent. Oblivious to life going on around her. Everything she knew, her world, her life was now wrong. She didn’t know exactly how wrong until an unmarked police car pulled up to the curb and asked her if she was Mara Keane.

As she walked into the hospital’s Emergency room the only thing Mara wanted to see was that this was all a joke and Tom was ok. That is Not what happened.”