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JACOB was only twelve years old when he started to see the dream. As the third son of a decorated General, he had spent his childhood days within the campus of their city quarters. Yet, almost all nights, a vivid account of a river flowing across a dense forest would come as a dream to him. At first it was just the river. Then, gradually, after many nights, he could see for himself how vast it was. Twenty soccer fields, no, forty soccer fields wide! A stretch of dense woods along the banks came to him next. And finally, after months, he could see a small boat daring a course down the river. Jacob would, sometimes, jolt awake in the middle of the night. He would try to drink from the jug on his bedside table, but he would fail. As the dream continued, recurring, each night, he told his mother about it. She could not help. Then, on a Sunday morning, after the holy mass, he told his father about it. As the words- river, forest and boat escaped his lips, he could see his father’s face turning grim. He did not utter a word. His eyes were fixed on the back of the front row seats. The driver kept checking on him by throwing quick glances at the mirror.
At some point of time during the quite afternoon that day, the Colonel shot himself in the head and fell down dead on to the expensive tiles which were imported from Italy. Blood formed a puddle and later the caretakers would caution each other not to step in it. Jacob’s mother went away and locked herself in their bedroom. And then Jacob sat for days in a corner of their living room, looking at the visitors, and at the police, and at the military officers, all rallying to their home, one after another. A humongous warhorse, right out of a large painting looked at him with awe. Rifles hanging on the wall seemed to be throwing sad looks at Jacob, having lost their purpose.
…A current of moist winds blew into Jacob’s face. He could hear the suppressed noise of the engines from below the water surface. There were a couple of men on the deck, talking cheerily. Jacob looked upward and saw a flag fluttering on a long, slender pole attached to the cabin of the boat…
‘…Jacob!!’ He startled from sleep another time. His mother was about to hit him in the face. She then carried him away, from the living room, to the lawn outside to make him meet a few of the colleagues of his father. One of those colleagues would later marry his mother and live happily thereafter without Jacob.
Later, over the years, as he tried to portray his peculiar dream -the river, the forest and the motorboat, Jacob discovered that had the talents to sketch and paint. Years went by and by the time Jacob was 20, he was living in his twelfth foster home near the National capital. Then, on an unusually cold day, he visited an old cathedral that stood right in the middle of the city and for some reason, he could drift no more. On the first day, he sold his wristwatch to fund a week’s rent at an old lodge. After a few days, he put up a couple of chairs and canvas on the street and started to paint live portraits of people. He bought back his watch after a month.
