We Are the Light(47)

In closing, I must inform you that your window for being in our movie has sadly and officially closed, as we begin shooting tomorrow and it would be unfair to take the role of Jungian analyst away from Isaiah at this point, being that he’s already been fitted for his costume and has attended all of the table readings and meetings and all the rest. He’s also always pulling me aside—away from The Survivors. In quiet alone places, he’ll touch his forehead to mine, look me in the eyes, and say he’s proud of me. Then he’ll slap my back really hard while yelling, “Thank you, Jesus, for men like Lucas Goodgame! Ahhh-men!” which always makes me laugh, because he sort of sings his amens in a way that lets you know he’s truly as happy on the inside as he appears to be on the outside.

I feel pretty lucky to live in the town of Majestic among such kind people.

Your most loyal analysand,

Lucas





15.


Dear Karl,

I want to tell you about the first few extremely eventful days of our movie shoot, but before I get to those amusing anecdotes, I feel overwhelmingly called to share a dream I had. I suspect your analytic insight would really help my psyche stabilize.

Unfortunately, I have to admit that after the tragedy I stopped updating the dream diary you require me to keep. I mostly failed because I was forgoing sleep to be with winged Darcy and you can’t dream wide-awake. My wife is still, unfortunately, MIA. And now I’m losing sleep worrying about her whereabouts. You can’t find an angel who doesn’t want to be found, so there is little I can do, right? I’m trying very hard to be patient, while remaining calm, trusting that Darcy’s and my love will transcend all.

But back to my dream, which the unconscious gifted me the night before the first day of our monster movie shoot, right after I finished writing the last letter I sent to you.

In the dream, I’m in the third grade. We’re taking a math quiz, and I’m worried because the answer to every problem is thirteen. I check my work over and over, but I always come up with thirteen, which seems terribly improbable. I wonder if I’m being tricked or if I received a different, personalized test designed to catch cheaters who might copy from my paper, because none of my fellow students seem alarmed. I begin sneaking peeks at my classmates’ answers. I can’t find a single thirteen written down anywhere else in the room, which makes me worry I’m failing the test.

“Lucas Goodgame!” my teacher, Mrs. Falana, yells. “Get your eyes off your classmates’ work and bring your test up to me right this second.”

The rest of the students begin taunting me in unison, like a Greek chorus, singing, “EwwwwwwWWWWWW!” as I trudge, test in hand—head hung in embarrassment—to the front of the room.

When I reach Mrs. Falana’s desk, I extend my paper full of thirteens toward her, but when I look up, she’s turned into a naked skeleton. You’d think my dream self would be terrified, but it’s not. The skeleton says, “Report to Mrs. Case immediately.”

Then I wake up.

You always ask what feelings are associated with the dream, so I’ll list those here. I felt a deep sense of shame. I felt as though I was all alone. Maybe even like I had been given something I didn’t want.

For context, I should probably tell you about what I think I remember happening to me in the third grade.

One fall day, right around Halloween, Mrs. Falana pulled me aside and said, “You’re going to spend Friday mornings with Mrs. Case, down the hall.”

I remember thinking I had done something wrong, or that I had flunked some sort of test and was, therefore, being sent to a remedial class.

That first Friday morning, as I walked the empty hallway toward Mrs. Case’s room, I remembered the strange exam Mrs. Falana had given us a few weeks back. There were no spelling or math or geography or reading comprehension questions on this particular test. Instead there were just rows of strange pictures. We were asked to pick three images from the many columns and then explain why we had made those particular selections. I had never taken a quiz like that before. All of my classmates also found the experience quite odd. Stranger still, after discussing it at length in the lunchroom that day, all of us simply forgot about the bizarre test and no one ever spoke of it again.

When I entered the classroom at the end of the hall on that first morning with Mrs. Case—whom I’m not sure I had ever seen in the building before—I saw a woman with long black hair and pale skin. She was seated at a round table. I see Mrs. Case in my mind now wearing a dark green dress and many silver rings on her fingers. She also has a long silver chain hanging around her neck, at the end of which—right between her breasts—hangs a silver ball that reflects your warped image back at you, only upside down.

“Enter, Lucas,” she said. “And take your rightful seat at the table.”

“Am I in trouble?” I asked.

She laughed and said, “Quite the opposite.”

“Then why am I here?”

When Mrs. Case said I had been added to the elementary school’s Gifted & Talented program, I protested, saying, “I never get As. I’m not smart. This is a mistake.”

“There are different types of intelligence,” she said, and then spread out a deck of cards before me on the table. She asked if I knew what the cards were and—after I shrugged—she said, “These will help me understand you better. Take a look.”