.IV.

There in the darkness, for a moment June Williams felt her eyelids pressing on the tops of her eyes. They held them and sheltered them. The eyelids were umbrellas over her head, huge fleshy rooftops keeping the rain from her eyes. She looked out from under them.

She stood under the roof which was supported by for posts, one in each corner. The shelter was entirely surrounded by woods. Oak trees made a canopy over the low palmettos, stretching as far as she could see through the heavy downpour. All the wood was alive; each leaf and frond jumped with every raindrop that hit it, so that everything was in motion. And yet it was somehow peaceful. The rain roared softly, and yet the whole scene was calm. Everything was still, and yet everything moved a little all the time.

The rain ran off the corner of the roof in a little stream. June reached out and let it splash in her hand, and it smacked and splattered all over. The little stream collected in the sand in a little depression, then flowed in a small rivulet out into the woods. June was walking beside this little creek, following it downstream. A small path ran beside the creek as it twisted around dark trees. The water ran through the bottom of a little ravine, about four or five feet across and about two feet deep. Roots stretched out over the stream where it collected in black pools. In several places, trees had fallen and lay across the ravine, and June saw banana spiders had made webs across the width of the ravine under the fallen trees. She continued walking, and saw in the distance a break in the trees. The stream ran black in the bottom of the gully. Raindrops cast rapidly expanding circles all over the surface, which crossed each other in ephemeral criss-crossed patterns.

June had come to the end, where the stream met the bay. It ran out into the open water, as gray as the sky above. She stood on a dirt ledge, the rounded corner where the stream met the bay. Over her head hung the boughs of a huge magnolia tree that was all in bloom. Pods with bright red seeds littered the ground among the brown fallen leaves. She looked up at the branches. Creamy magnolia blossoms filled the tree like white doves among the deep green, glossy leaves. They were falling...the big flowers came fluttering down, falling into the water. The air filled with the sweet fragrance of the falling blossoms. June watched as they sank slowly, drifting out into the bay. One by one, they succumbed to the dark water. Brown water rose over the petals, and they looked dark and spoiled as they disappeared into the bay.

It broke her heart to see these pure blossoms, these creamy white doves fall and flutter into the water, drift away and disappear. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she wanted to cry out. What injustice that dark water smothers such fragrance, that white petals are stained so cruelly brown! She looked at the sky as if to pray, and the clouds were gone, and the sun shone bright and huge. June Williams looked down at the water, looked behind her at the tree, then pitched herself over the edge, into the water among the drowning blossoms. She sank with them, and as the water closed over her head, she looked up again and saw the sun through the stained water. It glowed with the soft, clear amber of Rose Bay. Everything was right again. She sank with the beauties, in water filled with the scent of magnolia flowers. All around her, the flowers floated, suspended, and everything cast in that amber brown, in the filtered sunlight. She filled her lungs with the sweet water, floating there in the center of her marble. And then she awoke.

June opened her eyes to a bright morning. Sunlight streamed in through the window and fell across her knees. She had fallen asleep in the chair, holding the marble in her right hand. Mockingbirds called crazily across the yard, and they day was bright yellow and green. She sat there a while, letting the dream fade slowly and taking the day in sips like hot tea. Slowly, her eyes adjusted and her mind accepted the reality of the morning over the dream. With one hand on the dining table and the other on the window sill, June Williams lifted herself out of her chair. She was sore and stiff from sitting, so she just stood and watched morning happening outside her window.

I bet heaven’s like that, she thought. She always heard that with death came rest, that dying was like falling asleep. June never believed that, and now less than ever. Surely when a person expires, they draw a last earthly breath, close their earthly eyes, and in an instant, they awake to something more real. They draw their first wakeful breath, and their eyes adjust to the brightness of the new morning. And gradually, their mind will accept that their earthly life was less real; it was just a passing dream, and they will accept the new, bright morning. A new kind of mockingbird will call out in the yard, a lovelier sun will cast life and light upon the earth, and this life of dark waters and falling flowers will seem dreamlike and distant in the new light.

I’ll tell Isaiah about that dream if he comes home today, June decided. He should be coming home soon.