Last I saw Rigson in person, I was passing through the coffee house last week. (Last time in a dream, he was tying me up.) I had dropped my trimmed Thoth deck when getting out of the car. While I was sure I had picked up every card that had fallen, my nerves would not be settled until I had arranged the deck in a proper order [1]. So what was supposed to be just a quick caffeine grab and run turned into a caffeine grab and sit while I quickly ordered the deck. The process only took me all of five long minutes, as the deck was already ordered when I dropped it. It was simply a matter of placing the errant cards in their proper places, then thumbing through the deck one by one to soothe my jittery nerves.
Five minutes. Long enough for Rigson to come in and see me.
I suspect I have something akin to Asperger’s syndrome. (Possibly.) That, or my childhood was isolated enough to socially stunt me. (Definitely.) I don’t get most subtle cues. Like a tinted car window, everything has an initial shade of hostility until a brighter light shows me otherwise. Rigson and I had been gently butting heads over the past five months about our relationship to each other, only to have the simmering pot boil over when a third party decided to settle the matter himself. In the process of clearing that clusterfuck out, I realized what role I was being herded into. I knew then, that my friendship with Rigson would have to come to an end.
He refuses to accept my “goodbye” as final. He gets points for tenacity. Each time he has spotted me since then, he tries to pick things up from where they fell apart. Each time, I have to remind him (gently), that I have reordered my life and my routine. I am not the woman he wishes me to be. The flower he guarded and protected has matured into a different bloom than he expected. Each time he walks away, he leaves an open ended farewell.
It breaks my heart, really. I do care for him. I’ll admit, I love him. I love him intensely. I just don’t love him in the way he wants me to. (Not all love is erotic/sexual.) I’ll not be shackled according to someone else’s whim. Perhaps this whole series of events is a lesson from Venus. (Or revenge for Nutsack/Netzach.)
Just as I finish confirming the deck is properly ordered and intact, Rigson comes in. He sees me, and pauses long enough to exchange polite greetings. He then asks me if I’m still in my “hermitage”. He doesn’t wait for an answer. He wishes me well and quickly enters the coffee house proper. The exchange encouraged me to complete the confirmation and quickly depart the area. His tone was contemptuous and derisive. It was the only time I have ever feared being alone with Rigson. The last time I heard a male change his speech to me that abruptly, he attacked me the first moment we were alone together. My fear has prevented me from returning to that coffee house since then. Indeed, I have avoided the area all together, for fear I will run into Rigson midst one of the many isolated haunts that he knows better than I do.
I keep telling myself, my social ineptitude in interfering with my understanding. But I keep coming to the conclusion, that he has finally understood I am not going to change to the way I was before. The fox is talking about the grapes.
A few days after running into Rigson in person, I ran into him in a dream. As the dream begins, I am sitting at that same coffee house again, at the outdoor tables, my meerschaum pipe in my hand. I’m trying to light it, but the tobacco refuses the flame. I hear a voice across the table say, “You really shouldn’t be smoking the pipe. You know cigarettes and cigars trigger seizures in you.” The voice spoke the truth. I look up and see Rigson sitting there, his trademark pencil bouncing in his hand. A fear strikes me and I start to get up from the table. My intent to leave the area via the cloth curtain fence that divides the smoking area from the parking lot. But the cloth is gone. An eight foot tall wood fence now stands where flapping cloth should be. I look to the door, which is there. But I instinctively know, the door is bolted shut. I look above us, where two decorative panels should be stretched across the sky. The panels are there, but the sky is rapidly cycling between day and night. I know then, I am dreaming.
And I know then, I am not controlling this dream. I may be lucid. But the effects of my will is stunted here. This is Rigson’s dream. I hope I don’t have to turn it into a nightmare. I sit back down in the chair I started in. The pipe feels solid enough, real enough. “The pipe has yet to trigger a fit. Should it do so, I’ll note the circumstances and avoid them.” I push my will over the pipe, and try lighting it again. The tobacco takes as it should. I draw several times on it, to ensure a good cherry in the bowl, to settle my nerves, and to plan my next action. Rigson is not a Craftsman. I wonder if I projected myself into his dream, or if he pulled me here.
Rigson looks on with disapproval. The more I puff on the pipe, the more settled I am, the more I gather my strength and will. “I don’t want you smoking. You put yourself at risk.” I continue gently puffing.
“I’m at risk all the time. You know my fits are random.” I feel the pipe shifting in my hand. It has become an extension of myself. A wand in disguise. My curiosity has overcome my fear. I want the dream to continue, to develop to whatever end awaits.
He furrows his brow, the pencil still bouncing in his hand. “I don’t like to see you putting yourself at risk like this. I’ve seen your ‘fitstorms’.” I hear only concern in his voice.
“They still happen. Just not as intensely as before. And I have advance warning, just like my migraines.” I look at the face of the friend I loved, and love still. “Stop dancing around the pleasantries, Rigson. You have something you want to say to me. Say it.” The pencil stops bouncing in his hand.
He lays it on the table and flattens his hand over it. The ambient temperature on the patio drops sharply. The smoke from my pipe envelops me in a warm blanket of Air. “Why do you torment me? You say you’re leaving me, but every time I come here, I either see you or have just missed you by minutes! You say you are not the same, but still you greet me just as warmly as you did before! Leave me be, witch!” He bangs the steel table with a tight fist. “Even here! In my DREAMS! You sit Just. Out. Of. Reach! Do you know how much I want you? I heard you have a lover. Why didn’t you tell me that it was our mutual friend this whole time. I hate you, Keri. I HATE YOU AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU!” He stands in his rage, bellowing pent up feelings to the sky above. “To see you touching her, to see her touching you, the way I have wanted from the beginning…” His voice trails off. He sits back down at the table, completely spent. Silently weeping.
I reach across the table and take his hand. He tries to flinch away, but I have him held fast. “I tormented you, because I did not understand that I was wounding you. I do not understand these things. I’m sorry. When the bartender pulled me aside and explained to me what he saw as a neutral third party, I stopped the public display.” He stops pulling against me, allows me to hold his hand without gripping it. “I do love you, Rigson. But not sexually. I do miss you, terribly. You are close to my heart. But you are not willing to let me grow beyond what I have been. I am grateful for the shelter you provided me when I was weak and struggling. I had hoped you could grow with me, grow beside me. But you kept trying to enclose me. You’re strangling me, Rigson.” I release his hand and sit back.
He pulls his hands to his face and continue weeping. With a surprise, I find myself also silently crying. I feel strong in my power now. I know I am able to leave this dream whenever I wish to.
A few more puffs on my pipe, considering what I shall do in this dream, and when I wake up. “You say my physical presence is a torment to you. I do not wish to hurt you. Truth is, coming to this coffeehouse is outside of my usual paths. I will not torment you any longer. Circumstances outside of my control has been making it harder and harder for me to come here on a regular basis, anyway. I don’t always get subtle cues, from other people, or from the universe.”
I stand up, and walk around the table. I come over to him and stand beside him. I am gathering smoke from the pipe, strength from within. The act I wish to perform, could backfire on me, could leave me vulnerable to him, or could seal the division once and for all. He realizes I have moved, and looks up in surprise. He opens his mouth to speak, but I do not give him the chance.
I reach down and blow the pipe smoke into his mouth, quickly covering his mouth with my own. I kiss him deeply, pouring my love into the act, blessing him with a love so deep I surprise myself with its intensity. I can feel him stirring in response, feel his desire to take over the situation. To take me over. I pin his arms with mine until I run out of smoke and feel myself poured out.
As I lift off of him, I lean my face against his and whisper, “Goodbye, Rigson. Goodbye, my love. Never more in this life will I cause harm to you. Go with my love, go with my blessing, go with the gifts I have given you both here and there. Do not reach for me, I will not answer. Goodbye.” I release him completely and back away from him. Deliberately, I turn my pipe over and allow the cherry and unburnt tobacco to fall out of the pipe’s bowl. The scene fades into hazy grey as the cherry descends to the cobblestone floor. The burning core is extinguished and disintegrates against the pebbly surface. The scene around me dissolves into fleeing dust. The ground under my feet also disappears and I begin to fall into nothingness. I yield to the enveloping darkness and surrender to the depths of deep sleep.
I wake up in my bed. My pillow and face is drenched with tears. I remember the dream completely, and know I have to abide by what I spoke. Never more can I go to that coffee house. My job may send me to that area, but I must not enter that building again. Over the next couple of days, I question the dream and my actions. I find other reasons to justify my self-made exile from the coffeehouse. I sit down and tally up the financial cost of going there. It is more than I had considered. It would appear, it is good to my wallet to refrain from going there anymore. The dream slips into my notes, quickly forgotten in my day to day activities.
Rigson texted me last night. I only saw the first couple of words. Enough to know, that the dream I experienced was all mine. Silly me, to base such a drastic action on a pain-induced dream. Right?
I deleted the text without reading it fully. The self-exile holds. For other reasons, I have to make a clean break of that place. This silly game I am playing with his heart, is only one of several reasons I have to make a change.
Yes, I know, he can read this post. I know of several mutual friends that stalk me here. It would not surprise me if one of them brought this post to his attention. I want closure for him. I can’t seem to bring it about directly.
[1] How I order the Thoth deck:
The Major Arcana, ordered from 0 Fool to XXI Universe. (Unless the Fool’s eyes creep me out again, then he is stuck last and the Magus I is first.)
The four Aces ordered Fire, Water, Swords, Discs
The Court Cards, ordered Knights to Princess within each suite. (Fire courts, Water courts, etc.)
The Minor Arcana, ordered from 2 to 10 within each suite. (Fire minors, Water minors, etc.)
I have a different order for the other two RWS-based decks I have.