The Reincarnation

In his dream, David walked through a thin sheen of pale white light that evaded his touch like a cumulus cloud. Once through, he found himself in his mother’s living room. Adorning the walls were the religious icons that had attended him throughout his childhood and that his mother never removed. She had only added more, until by now they were arranged in a crazy quilt, covering almost all of the living room wall that was once white, but was now a sepia yellow. He could see cracks and bubbles in the plaster under the shadows of the graven images.

David was twenty in his dream. He had two years left of college, and was home for his summer break. It was hot outside, but in the living room where he stood, it was boiling. His clothes itched. Perspiration fled from his face and trickled down his cheeks and neck. He wanted to throw open a window, and walked toward the nearest one. Before he could reach it his mother appeared, ever doting.

“Now, come on, Davy, you’ll miss the surprise,” she sang as she led him – more like dragged him – into the kitchen.

“Happy Birthday!” David looked around the room, seeing no one but his grandfather. That was all, David thought, that was everyone. David had lost his father before he could pronounce the word, and his father’s parents wouldn’t come close enough to David’s mother’s house to smell it if it was on fire. It was just as well, he hardly knew them anyway. David was relieved that his mother had sense enough not to invite her Church friends here for his birthday party – at least she understood that much about his resentment toward the Church.

David was suddenly seven years old.

“The religion did that,” his mother told him, trying to explain why David grew up with the benefit of only one set of grandparents, cuddling him as he sat on her lap, pawing at his shirt, straightening it. “The religion doesn’t take to everybody like it took to me, Davy. And how I know it’s going to take to you when you’re old enough.”

David was twenty and at his party again, and he still wasn’t “old enough.” He hated what the religion had done to his mother. She spent all of her time on it. It consumed her. It had wormed its way into her brain like a parasite, eliminating all thoughts that had a hope of vanquishing it. But she was all David had for so long, he didn’t protest too much. He simply ignored it, hoping she would get over her infatuation.

His mother’s “surprise” was what he might have expected if he hadn’t stopped going with his mother on her religious outings when he was old enough to see right through them; a certificate. That was a birthday present for a twenty-year-old boy. How much did they milk her for that? he thought.

“Now, Davy, you read it aloud to your grandfather,” his mother gasped, flailing her hands and finally placing them together in a sloppy prayer position. “I’m so happy,” she crooned.

David lifted the certificate in its dimestore frame. Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose and onto the glass. Wiping it away with the side of his hand, he read: “The Medical Church of America hereby...”

David awoke in a sweat. His memories came flooding back to his subconscious mind, but he wasn’t able to hold onto them. They wouldn’t lodge in his consciousness where he could study them and utilize them.

Quickly falling back asleep, he dreamed no more of his birthday party.