A Strange Land

The ivy crept over the house, a green plague, relentless. The house, that human construct lay beneath, consumed. Some looking would call it quaint, ivy covered halls, hallowed halls. I called it death, a slow strangulation, suffocation within the leafy legion. Its progression was incremental, measured in inches, brick by brick, one crumbled mortar joint at a time, a progression if not quite sapient, then certainly malevolent in its indifference.

I dreamt I dwelt in hallowed halls, ivy covered halls, dreams of greenness, of decay. Think you green is life and spring and rebirth. No, it feeds; it feeds on us, our constructs and fabrications. Green is the predator and we its prey.

Each year, in spring, I stripped it from the walls. Patiently, carefully detaching the delicate tendrils, the creepers, that had wound themselves into the walls, insinuated themselves into the mortar rendering what had bound the brick into structure, instead into crumbling ruin. I started gently, as if extricating my hand from that of a child or lover and ended by madly hacking at the trunk. Seeking to sever the main vine and end it all, abruptly, completely.

Each spring I free the house by tearing away the green. Red brick emerges, rich and earthy. The windows come alive with life and light, the eyes into a soul. But summer passes and fall comes, inexorably the ivy returns, the fine tendrils grow back, seeking, prying, invading. The light goes out, the life dies and dark within dark, the windows reflect only the emptiness inside.

Jenny carefully slid her key into the apartment lock and gently opened the door. Peering in, she looked to see if they were there waiting for her, Leonard’s dreams. The moment they heard her they would come, biting and snarling to tangle in a pile at her feet. There was a time when the apartment had been filled with laughter and teasing and she had loved Leonard’s dreams, Leonard’s passions, Leonard. Her own dreams were tame. She had domesticated them long ago and eventually she noticed that they were just gone, dried husks of themselves that she must have swept out unnoticing one day.

Creeping in she spotted Leonard at the kitchen table. He sat there; browsing through the pile of sailing books, and petting cruise to Baja as if it were a large cat. In fact, cruise to Baja was purring quite contentedly. Soon he would be foolishly talking about buying a boat. They couldn’t afford that and anyway, she was working now. The other dreams were arrayed around the room in varying degrees of somnolence. They lay strewn across the piles of dream paraphernalia, the old electric guitar, the cameras, the books, and pile upon pile of junk.

Quiet though she had been, eventually the dreams notice her and came boiling and hissing to swirl around her, with the older ones content to snarl nastily from their perches. She was slowly suffocating in Leonard’s dream. “Get rid of them”, she yelled. “When are you going to face reality and get rid of them?” Jenny cried as she slammed the door on her way out.

Hours later, Jenny came back to the apartment and found piled on the stoop, blocking the door, the piles of junk from inside. The dreams perched in various places, some snarling, some howling, and some crying softly. Reaching for the door, Jenny saw the note resting in front of the electric guitar. “You were right Jenny. I’ve gone to look for a job”. Jenny smiled softly for a moment until distracted by the wild laughter of rock star who sat happily ensconced on her bulging suitcase.