Mallory's Camera

Now that I think about it, Ben really is Childermass from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. The same archetype—what would you call it? Vagabond spellcaster? Autodidact magician? Loki? But anyway, I dreamed about him last night, and as happens every time I dream about Ben, the connection was strong enough to throw me out of my everyday life entirely. I woke up thinking, This world is an odd place to be.

In the dream, there were a lot of people and some kind of Renaissance Faire-y setup through which Ben and I were circling each other. At the very end of the dream, he made a clumsy, unexpected sexual advance—and I remember thinking, This isn't fun! No, wait—maybe it is, 'cause I could feel my body beginning to loosen and orgasm.

I haven't thought about Ben for months.

And I can't imagine why my psyche booked him a ticket to last night's dream world.

Except maybe he's still the sphinx that guards the entrance into the Temple of Writing.

He was the best writing partner I ever had—and I like having writing partners, that other voice in the inner dialogue you can bounce ideas off. We worked together very, very well in that capacity, seamlessly you might say, so that it was impossible to tell where my ideas left off, and his began. A world-class banterer, too! And very, very smart. I find myself wondering this morning what his take on artificial intelligence and diminishing human returns might be.

And, of course, I recognized the changeling streak in him from the very beginning. Did not have enough self-preservation instincts to steer clear. But on some level, I knew what I was getting. Though when I met him, I was brokering in mere verisimilitude: I didn't have a whole lot to give up. It never occurred to me that over time, I would acquire those things that would make the deal I struck with him a bad one in hindsight.

Whatever, I am thinking the karma between us is resolved, and I'll never have to encounter him again in subsequent lifetimes. I mean, I may see him from a distance. I'll smile. I'll wave. But I won't circle closer for conversation.

###

On his deathbed, he struggled out of his coma to grasp my fingers and croak, "I love you."

"I love you, too!" I chirped. But I was lying.

Whatever the thing between us was, it wasn't love.

But you don't lay ambivalence on a dying man.

###

In other news, I finished approximately half the things on my To-Do list yesterday.

The stuff that didn't get finished was all the housecleaning shit.

My bathroom is absolutely disgusting, so much as I hate housecleaning, I really must tackle that today. And vacuum!

I also have a couple of bananas that got overly ripe overly fast, so I thought I might hunt down a banana pudding recipe. I do ❤️LUV❤️ me some banana pudding!

In the late afternoon, I tromped back up Malloy Road. I wish I had a name for the old farm acreage up there! It's Harrier Ridge so maybe Harried Plateau? Right across from one of the super-deluxe five-zero-price-tag McMansions (with its own gazebo and faux corral), I saw this:



Photo doesn't allow you to read the fading paint letters, but apparently it was once a packing house for an ancient apple orchard whose ghost haunts the McMansions and whose last few gnarled trees still struggle to put out blooms (all blighted by last night's frost, no doubt). This part of upstate was once famous for its apple orchards.

A few yards to the right of the packing house sat the trashiest trailer you've ever seen. I saw movement in its window when I looked at it—somebody lived there still. I made up an elaborate fantasy: It was the great-great-grandscion of the original apple orchard owners who, for some strange reason, will not sell out to the McMansion developers. (Attachment to ancestral lands? Tax problems? Tertiary syphilis?)

When was the last time this building had been painted?

Probably, in the 1980s.

And I realized that's what's wrong with today: Everybody thinks the 1980s is "long ago," but it isn't 'cause I was young and gorgeous in the 1980s.

The 1930s were long ago!

The 1980s were yesterday.

Dreamed the Little Store was reopening!!!!!

And I was thrilled. Except that Ben had already begun selling stuff out of the shop, and the shop was not yet set up for selling stuff, no functioning point-of-sales system, no bubblewrap, no bespoke Slow Burn bags. There was inventory, though—hot sauce and the most cunning miniatures you can imagine, shelves & shelves of them.

Ben had special-ordered a bottle of Marie Sharp's carrot habanero hot sauce (in my never-humble opinion, the finest hot sauce in the world) for an Asian woman, and she was standing there patiently waiting for the order to be processed—except I couldn't process it because no POS system! And I was running around getting more & more hysterical and madder & madder at Ben—how could you put me in this situation??? Throughout my hysteria, the Asian woman remained very calm—and this only made me more hysterical because I kept wondering, What secret judgment is she passing on me???

Part of the dream was our homelife—RTT as a nine- or ten-year-old to whom I kept trying to explain, We can't afford to do this, not yet. But maybe after the Little Store officially reopens...

And on the very top floor of our apartment building lived a painter-cum-magician who had gifted us with multiple fish tanks in which lived the most magical fish! In particular, I remember the elephant fish—they had perfect tiny trunks & pillar-like legs and gills behind their large floppy ears...

###

In other Ben-related news...

The peace lily I took from Ben's apartment after he died (can it really be...?) six years ago appears to be dying itself.

Peace lilies are supposed to be really easy to grow. I have never found them so. They look the same whether you are overwatering or underwatering them: Their leaves develop big brown spots.

Anyway, this particular plant has never done well under my care, and, of course, I fantasized that when Ben's soul fled his body, it took up occupancy in the peace lily, so in essence, I have spent the last six years slowly murdering my feckless X.

It is down to its last four green unspotted leaves now. Should I try to replant it into a smaller pot? Or should I just let it die? Decisions, decisions!