Free Dead Down East by Carl Schmidt

plodding along in pursuit of them.
    I knew that I was dreaming, and I also knew
dreams evaporate with the light of day. So I began instructing
myself, resolutely, to not forget this…to bring this way of
thinking back with me. I wanted to begin seeing the whole and not
just the straight lines extending to points. The last thing I
remember was commanding myself to remember. Then I was back.
    My dream had the texture of a near death
experience. While it lasted, I felt disembodied, impervious to the
laws of physics. Perhaps I might one day remain “out there,” if I
could find a way to resist the pull of gravity, and reject the
appeal and the attraction of this planetary existence—what Van
Morrison refers to as glamour . That was beyond my reach at
the moment, but it wasn’t beyond my imagination. In fact, in the
euphoric remnants of my dream, death seemed an inviting alternative
to earthly life.
    Dazed by this overview, I looked around my
room and was confounded to see everything just as I had left it. It
was dusk. I wasn’t sure what day it was. According to the clock on
my side table and the twilight in the western sky, it was nine
o’clock in the evening. I could only assume it was the same Sunday
that I had left behind. If that were true, then I had been in space
for several hours.
    The thought returned, “ Cherchez la
femme .” I wondered, “Does this apply here —on earth?” I
figured it must.
    My heart suddenly quickened as I thought of
Cynthia sleeping in the next bedroom. She most definitely was une femme .
    It was clearly a case of bad news and good
news. The bad news was that danger, perhaps even murder, had wormed
its way into the Thorpe estate. The good news was that I was now
convinced that death was not as unwelcome as it’s cracked up to
be.
    In any case, my rustic Maine farmhouse was beginning
to resemble a harem. Not counting Becky, who was resting
comfortably in the console of my Forester, there were four
prominent women in my life. Kathleen, Angele, Cynthia and Rhonda:
an apparition, a lover, a client, and a .38 Special.

 

8
     
A Deadly Tale
     
     
     
    The rain had stopped. The evening was cool and
subdued. I eased out of bed and put on a flannel shirt. As I
entered the living room, Cynthia was standing at the window looking
at the road below and Leroux Pond beyond that. The sun had already
set.
    She turned as I came into the room and managed a weak
smile. “It’s like a dream,” she said.
    “It sure is,” I replied, confident that I was on the
same page.
    I wanted to give her a hug, to console her from the
shock and grief she was feeling, but that was a road too far. I
offered her a cup of tea.
    “That would be nice. It’s getting a little chilly,”
she said.
    I went into the kitchen and rummaged through the
drawer that held the only tea in the house. “Will peppermint
do?”
    “Sure,” she said.
    Cynthia remained where she was, staring out the
window, while I put on the kettle, got two cups from the cupboard
and began watching the pot that never boils.
    The next few minutes were quiet, inviting an inner
dialogue to fill the space between my ears. It began with the trial
scene in My Cousin Vinny :
    Attempting to deflate the prosecution’s
timeline, Vinny Gambini is cross-examining Mr. Tipton about his
cooking. The dialogue went like this:
     
    Vinny: “How could it take you five minutes to cook
your grits when it takes the entire grit-eating world 20
minutes?”
    Mr. Tipton: “Um...I'm a fast cook, I guess.”
    Vinny: “Perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist
on your stove.”
     
    I was fairly certain that the laws of physics still
existed on my stove. I had studied those laws during my four
years at Colby College, and I had never witnessed any of them being
violated anywhere, let alone in my kitchen. Heisenberg’s
Uncertainty Principle held its ground tenaciously upon my
stove, even though Werner himself never intended it be applied
beyond the quantum realm. But then,