The City of Dreams -- Part 13

[Sorry for getting it out so late in the day.  Illness is still chasing around in our home (which might explain some of what Mrs. Humphrey says in this section).  Other than that, not much to say about this bit, except for some self-referential humor that I hope my friends will appreciate and new readers won't find too out of place.  Enjoy!]



She pulled out a piece of bread, broke it into pieces, and scattered them into a planter of pansies.  The bread was gone in moments.
The woman chuckled.  "Hungry tonight, are we?  Well, you're all hungry every night.  'Hunger like a stone, grinds the soul 'twixt longing and need.'"
I slipped past some type of shrub and sat next to her, though at the far end of the bench--not that there was that much bench for having far ends.
"Was that Shakespeare?" I asked.
"Sounded formal, did it?" asked the woman.  "No, not Shakespeare.  Humphrey.  Patricia M. Humphrey.  Ever heard of her?"
"Not that I know of," I admitted.
"Of course not," she said, breaking up another slice of bread.  "That's because she only published three plays, two novels, a mess of poetry, and none of them classics.  Not a single one."  She looked up at me through her glasses.  Her eyes were blue and watery but her smile was genuine and gentle.  "What's your name, young man?"
"Perry," I said.  "Perry Crows."  I realized she'd let go of the bag to offer me her hand.  I shook it.
"I'm Patricia," she said.  "Patricia M. Humphrey."
"Pleased to meet you."
"You can call me Patricia, if you like, though I know young people aren't always comfortable doing that with us old folks, so Mrs. Humphrey works just as well.  Besides," she said, tossing more bread to the waiting flora, "a touch more formality wouldn't hurt us, not in our world where everyone is 'friends' with everyone else.  It wouldn't break us to look on each other as objects worthy of respect--to see each other as works of art, instead of as something common, like a nail or a plate or a footstool.  No, wouldn't hurt us at all."  She smiled at me again and tossed more bread.
After a minute I spoke up.  "I didn't mean to invade your garden," I said.
"Pish," said Mrs. Humphrey.  "Nothing to be concerned about.  We usually decide where we lie down to dream, but we hardly ever manage to control where those dreams take us, do we?  'Dreams lurk behind us, waiting until we let down our guard, until we let our attention slip for just a moment--and then they snatch us up and take us away, captive in their wondrous prisons.'"
"Humphrey again?" I asked.
"You catch on quickly, young man.  I once had many things memorized, but it seems in the City that all I can remember is what I myself said once--or wished I'd said.  Here I suppose it amounts to the same thing.  Piece of bread?  For you or the plants, doesn't matter to me, though if you do eat some try to be discreet.  They can be irritable about what they consider 'their' food."
I blinked and realized I was hungry.  "Thank you," I said, taking the offered slices.  I tossed a few pieces and sneaked one for myself.  "This is good bread," I said, surprised.
Mrs. Humphrey smiled.  "Looks like the generic styrofoam you buy in any grocery store, but the taste...the taste is what I remember from when I was a girl.  Convenient AND delicious.  It's a difficult combination to argue with."  She peered at me through her glasses.  "Do you want to argue with it?"
"No, ma'am," I said through a full mouth.
Her smile brightened.  "I like you, Mr.--Crows, was it?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What a curious name."
"We think it was Polish."
Her eyebrows went up and the corners of her mouth turned down.  "Could be, I suppose.  They did change so many names as newcomers made their way into America.  Couldn't leave well enough alone, could we?  Everything had to sound English.  Or Irish.  Though I suppose I can't complain too much.  Before the Humphreys made our way to the United States we were still called Humphrey.  It was my people who did all the name changing.  What silly people we all are at times, don't you think, Mr. Crows?"
"I do, Mrs. Humphrey."  I was smiling at her, too.  I liked this woman.  Yes, I wanted to go find Brie, but who knew if she were even awake?  I somehow felt I'd find Brie when I needed to, but for right then, right there, spending time with an author in her roof garden--well, there were much worse ways to start out the night in the City.
"Have you been coming to the City long?" I asked, tossing more bread to a tuft of decorative grass.
"Oh, my, yes," said Mrs. Humphrey.  "Years and years.  Writing is not a business most are ever satisfied with, Mr. Crows.  We write and write, and what fame we get still never proves to us that we're any good.  No, writers are never content, so I suppose that's why you'll meet so many of us here."
"I'm not sure I have met any other writers here," I said.
"Well, there is that, too," she admitted, nodding.  I wasn't sure what 'that' was, but I enjoyed the way she nodded so I didn't want to interrupt.  "Did you know," she went on, "I once wrote an entire play about a boy and his dog.  The dog wasn't imaginary, but it wasn't real, either.  It was like it knew him inside and out, prodded the boy when the boy was too delighted with himself, lifted up the boy when he was discouraged.  It was an entire Greek chorus wrapped up into one insubstantial canine."
"How did the play do on stage?"
"Oh, no, bless you, Mr. Crows.  No one ever staged the thing.  It was a disaster, really, but your comment about meeting all types here got me thinking: so many of us have parts of ourselves that we're unhappy with, that we argue with, that we'd be glad to set aside for a day or a year or forever.  It would be so pleasant, wouldn't it?"
“Um,” I said.
“What is it, Mr. Crows?”
"I'm not sure I said that, Mrs. Humphrey."
"Didn't you?"
"I don't think so."
"About meeting all types?"
I shook my head.
She took a deep breath and sighed.  "I suppose I must have thought it, then.  Doesn't matter.  The thought is true, still.  Each of us have a dog in us, a part of us that we don't quite know what to do with.  It's how we respond to that dog that really shows who we are, don't you think?  Are you laughing at me, young man?"
I was, though I was trying not to.  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Humphrey, really I am.  I'm just having so much fun being with you.  I have no idea what you're going to say next, and that's really...really...fun."
"Come now, Mr. Crows, certainly you can find a better word than 'fun.'  'Delightful' has perhaps been overused, but still has definite merits.  'Exhilarating' doesn't apply to all situations, but still might be relevant.  Dig deep in your vocabulary, young man.  It adds zest to life."  Her mouth was stern as she talked to me, but her eyes through her oversized glasses had happiness in the wrinkles around them.  I was glad I hadn't offended her.
“And now, lest you think my mind is entirely gone,” she said, “let me finish my point.  Since most of us have parts of ourselves that we seldom trot out to show the neighbors, it’s not surprising that few of us are content.  So, it stands to reason that you would meet all types in the City, and not just writers.  There.  Did that make sense?”
I nodded.
"Very good," said Mrs. Humphrey.  "Though, confidentially, I do expect that most of the people you meet here have fancied themselves as writers at some point or another.  It's a disease, you know, this language that we speak.  It breeds in our minds like bacteria, words and words spilling and swilling around with each other, until we're so ill with it all that we must vomit it out.  For most it comes out in idle chatter and useless pontification--which is a wonderful word that I haven't had opportunity to use in far too long--but for some it comes out in beautiful phrases and cogent expression.  Language is a disease and a cure, Mr. Crows.  It is the Balm in Gilead and brimstone on the tongue.  It is sacrosanct and anathema.  It is manna and mothballs."
My mouth twitched involuntarily.  "I got that last one," I said.
"Smelled mothballs recently, have you?"
I nodded again.  "Helped my mom clean out a trunk at our neighbor's house.  She passed away and had all kinds of stuff, piled in every part of her house.  It was unbelievable, and I had to shower twice before I could stop smelling like her closets."
"Another disease, Mr. Crows," said Mrs. Humphrey, handing me two more slices of bread.  "Possessions are yet another disease, though I won't wax as poetic about things as I do about words.  So often words seem more real to me than objects I can touch with my hands or feel rough against my cheek.  Or trip over in the dark, for that matter."  She reached out and took my hand, looking deep in my eyes.  I held very still.
"Words we can take with us wherever we go, Mr. Crows.  Words we can take with us to heaven or to hell.  Things are all left behind, dust to dust to dust."
She released my hand and looked back to the plants that, while still quick to snatch up any morsel we threw, were less frantic to get our attention.
"Words and memories, what we've seen and said, heard and done.  Those follow us everywhere, Mr. Crows.  Everywhere."
I looked up at the moon, so low overhead.  I wasn't sure why, but I didn't want to look at Mrs. Humphrey right then.  Something about her made me blink away wet a the corners of my eyes.
She sighed again.  "But that's not why you came to visit me, is it, young man.  You didn't want to hear an old author pretend she had something to say worth hearing, did you?"
"I really don't mean to be rude," I said, "but I didn't come to visit you on purpose at all.  This is just where I woke up."
"Exactly," she said.
"Exactly what?"
"We all find people we need in the City, don't we?  Not that we always know why.  This is a place where we come looking, and looking is the first step to finding for most things.  So what is it that you're looking for, Mr. Crows?"
I shook my head and ate another piece of bread.  "I have no idea.  Mr. Punctilious told me I'm looking for something, Father Thomas told me I'm depressed, and now I've met you."
"Depressed, is it?  Silly concept.  Something they invented in the last fifty years, I'm sure, made up to give a new name to unhappiness.  What was wrong with 'malaise,' 'discontent,' and 'distress?'  Perhaps you've come to me to find new words to describe this silly thing you think you have."
"I...never actually thought I was depressed," I said.  "People just told me that.  Is it made up?"
"Depression?  No, certainly not.  I didn't mean to give you that impression, Mr. Crows.  I apologize.  My argument isn't with the state of being, it is with the word as it is applied.  A personal quibble, and a losing battle that I'd better set aside.  I don't know this Father Thomas, but if he wasn't the only one to tell you that you face 'depression'--terrible word for it--then I expect they're right.  So what do you do for a hobby?"
I blinked at her.  "I'm sorry?"
"A hobby.  Do you draw, paint, crochet, dig ditches?  Heaven help you, do you write?"
"I don't really have hobbies.  I just do school and...that's kind of it."
"Use strong language, Mr. Crows.  Is school 'it' or is school not 'it?'  Choose one or the other, elaborate, clarify, and leave 'kind of' for the lesser minds who deserve such a useless phrase."
I was smiling again.  "Yes, ma'am."
"Language is a serious thing, Mr. Crows."
"Yes, ma'am."
"We've been over this."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Now answer my question."
"I don't have any activities I'd consider a hobby.  I do school, spend time with friends and family, but don't have anything else that I spend regular time on."
"There," she said with satisfaction.  "Clear.  Interesting.  Strong.  Now I know more about you, not only through your information, but also the way you presented it.  You can think clearly and distill the essence of what it means to 'have a hobby.'  I'm glad you'd think it worth your while to come visit me."
"But I didn't come--"
She interrupted me with a glance.  "It is not polite to keep reminding one's host that one is an accidental visitor, Mr. Crows.  Also, we always choose what we do, do we not?"
I thought about many of the hours I'd spent in school.  I suppose my doubt showed on my face.
"Think clearly, young man," said Mrs. Humphrey.  "If you didn't want to visit with me, could you not be elsewhere at the moment?  If you truly didn't want to be in school--which, I surmise, is at least one boring activity you might have been thinking of in the moments just passing--couldn't you find any number of other activities to occupy your time?  You cannot deny it, because it is true.  You choose to be in school, at least in part because you'd rather not choose the consequences that come from avoiding school.  And now you have chosen to spend time with me.  And I appreciate it.  And I thank you."
She was smiling at me, and I smiled back at her.
"You’re welcome," I said.
"But that time is done."  Mrs. Humphrey stood and brushed bread crumbs from her trousers.  "I'll show you out and expect an answer for next time."
"An answer to which question?"
"Did I ask more than one?  Heavens.  In that case choose which pleases you, but if I only asked one, then use your memory and your creativity to find both the question and an answer.  In the meantime, walk faster, Mr. Crows."
She walked toward the stairwell quickly and I had to hurry to catch up.  I dropped what was left of my bread onto a potted cactus and managed to catch the door before it swung closed.  The stairway was narrow and made narrower by piles of paper lining one wall.
"I apologize for the mess," called Mrs. Humphrey from down the stairs ahead of me.  "It seems that every book I meant to write but never 'found the time for'--another useless phrase, I might add--has ended up here.  They're piled all over this narrow disaster of a home--no, not your fault," she said, patting the wall, "so you don't need to groan at me, you beast--and with every manuscript I hoped to produce, I hardly have the space to move, as small as I am.  Come along, Mr. Crows, sleep is a fleeting thing."
She charged ahead, down three floors of stairs.  The landings gave me views of rooms, all filled with equal parts furniture and paper, until Mrs. Humphrey was holding a door open ahead of me and I spilled out into the night, accompanied by a spray of loose-leaf.
“What does a hobby have to do with depression?” I asked, laughing at Mrs. Humphrey’s rush.
"See if you can’t tell me, and come again soon, young man."  That was my only goodbye before the door was shut behind me.  I looked at the solid wood, amused.  I didn't know what to make of the aging author, but I did think I'd visit again.
I turned around to go find Brie, wherever she might be, and almost ran into Brie.
"Hi," she said.