John Matthews - Past Imperfect

The nightmares and the time awake had sometimes been difficult to separate: the friendly face of his uncle Stuart, voice echoing, telling him his parents were dead; doctors with tests and monitors, smiling faces telling him that everything was going to be alright, his uncle was coming to see him, explain. 'You'll stay with us now, we'll take care of you. Everything's going to be fine, Tessa's looking forward to seeing you.' The rhythm of the band pumping through his body, people cheering, smiling as they clinked glasses; everyone seemed so happy except him. And so the sleep became a welcome release, transported him back where he wanted to be: the warmth of the wheat field where he might meet Jojo and they could look for his parents again.

The first dream had been two nights after awaking from the coma. The doctors said that he'd been asleep for nineteen days, but he couldn't recall anything, not even the accident; the last thing he remembered was his mother reaching back, soothing his brow, staring at her blonde hair as he sunk back into sleep.

Only when he saw Jojo in the dream, did fragments of the other dreams start coming back to him, that they'd been on this adventure before of trying to find his parents. After the dream by the pond, there had been another with him and Jojo pushing their way uphill through thick woodland and bracken. Jojo had said that there was a clearing towards the brow ahead, and from there they would see his parents waiting for him in the valley below. After thrashing through, a light had shone ahead and Eyran could see the trees and bracken thinning, see the clearing, and he ran expectantly towards it, hardly feeling the barbs of the bracken pricking his legs. But as he finally burst free into the light, he awoke.

Since that night, he'd willed himself back into the dream each time before sleep to try and reach the brow and find his parents. Though there had been no more dreams with Jojo, only one with him alone sitting in a stark hospital corridor waiting for news on his parents from one of the rooms, expecting Jojo to come out at any minute and say that he'd finally found them. But in the end it was uncle Stuart and a doctor, faces forlorn, eyes sad, saying there was nothing that could be done, the doctors tried their best… but your parents are dead. Dead! He'd hid his face and his tears momentarily in his hands, and when he'd looked up again the corridor was empty, his uncle and the doctor had gone. He began to fear the entire hospital was empty — that he was the only one there. The last thing he remembered was calling out for Jojo, but no answer came except the hollow echo of his own voice from the corridor walls.

And so all he was left with was the stark solitude of those waking hours; and sometimes those hours seemed like the nightmare, and the hours asleep and his dreams — the possibility of meeting Jojo and being able to find his parents — became a welcoming and warm reality.

Familiar objects had been placed in his room — his computer, the Daytona racetrack and Baywatch posters — to make him feel at home, as if nothing too much had changed. But unless they could tell him that they'd made a mistake, that his parents were alive and had survived the accident, none of it held any meaning for him. Uncle Stuart and his wife Amanda and Tessa — who tried so hard to play with him and cheer him — became little more than vague, background voices. He was always trying to remember, play vivid scenes in his mind of how it was: picnics on Mission Beach, a visit to DisneyWorld, hot dogs at the Chargers game, going fishing on his father’s boat. Sometimes he could hear his father or mother speaking, recall whole phrases and sentences. The other voices around became an intrusion.

Eyran wondered how far it was to Broadhurst Farm. Four miles, five? He got up and walked towards the window. He left the light off so that the faint moonlight might pick out objects in the garden and the field beyond. A large oak and two elms had lost nearly all their leaves; only two large fir trees at the end of the garden moved with the wind. The hedgerow separating the garden from the farmer's field beyond, Tessa's climbing frame, the rockery and pond — even small objects became clear as his eyes adjusted. The field beyond was still indistinct, except the faint silhouette of the line of trees on its brow. He wondered if he closed his eyes and willed it hard, if his mind could sail across the farm fields to Broadhurst Farm, put an image in his mind so that when he went back to sleep his dreams might take him there again. But he wasn't even sure which way it was. Was it over the ridge ahead, or over more to the west?

The moon was a watery half through faint mist and cloud. For a moment he thought he saw the dull shapes of figures moving beyond the garden — but as he looked more intently, they were no longer there. It was just the shadow of tree branches moving on the breeze. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the wheat field beyond the hill, let his mind drift until it was before him. But he'd never been there at night, felt too frightened to let the image linger, and he tried to cast his mind back to how he remembered the wheat field in daylight, running through the sheaves with the warm sun on his back.

But the image never came, it remained dark and cool; shades of grey under the pale moon. And the field for him in that moment became yet another symbol of death, something that could only serve a purpose in his dreams if he could recall it in daylight. Perhaps he would ask his uncle Stuart to drive past Broadhurst farm the next day.

The first dream Stuart became aware of was six days into the new year. Eyran had awoken screaming, bathed in sweat. Stuart asked him if he'd dreamt like that before and he'd said yes, but they hadn't turned bad like this one. 'What happened in the dreams?

'Different things. It was confusing. Some of it was at the hospital, some at the farm where I used to play.'

'Is that the farm we drove past the other day, just down from your old house?'

'Yes.'

Stuart thought it was quite a normal request that Eyran had wanted to see the old house. Relive old and fond memories. They'd stopped while Eyran studied the front of the house, saw the changes, the different colours on the window frames and doors, along with the familiar: the basket ball hoop still above the garage door that Jeremy had put up. Stuart had a quick flash of Jeremy and him playing basket ball, showing off for the kids. Jeremy had twisted his ankle, sending the kids into guffaws of laughter as he'd hobbled off. They thought it was all part of the act: Abbott and Costello do the Harlem Globetrotters. They'd been quite close then, lived only five miles apart; in fact Stuart had been drawn to the area on Jeremy's recommendation. And then after only two years, Jeremy left for America.

As they drove off, Eyran asked him to turn right at the end of the road. It was a narrow country lane, and after another two hundred yards or so, Eyran asked him to stop again. Stuart pulled into the first available farm gate entrance. This time they got out of the car and stood, misty breath showing on the crisp air, looking out across the fields. Stuart asked him if that was where they used to play.

'Yes, there's a small pond in the copse over there.' Eyran pointed towards a wooded area in a dip between the fields, oval in shape, no more than a hundred yards at its widest point. 'Then the wheat field on the other side rises up towards the woods at the back of the house.'

Little more than stubble now, Stuart noted, looking bleak in the cold, misty air. The sun was weak and low in the sky, hardly penetrating a faint mist which obscured its far end. Two crows suddenly crawking loudly and flapping away from a nearby tree broke them out of their moment's reverie.