THIS WORK IS FULLY PROTECTED BY U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. NO PORTION OF THIS WORK MAY BE COPIED OR REDISTRIBUTED BY ANY MEANS WITHOUT THE EXPRESS CONSENT OF ITS AUTHOR.
THIS WORK DEALS WITH A FICTIONAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TWO MEN. IF READING ABOUT HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS OR SEXUAL CONTACT BETWEEN TWO MEN IS EITHER ILLEGAL IN YOUR AREA OR OFFENDS YOU, PLEASE DO NOT READY ANY FURTHER.
ANY SIMILARITIES TO ANY PERSON LIVING OR DEAD ARE PURELY COINCIDENTAL. THIS WORK IS ENTIRELY FICTIONAL.
DYLAN'S HOPE
Michael A. Raburn
Chapter 11
"Daddy"
"Shit!" I exclaimed as my fingers tore through the side of the clay on the potter's wheel.
"Guess I need to learn not to sneak up on you, huh?" Dylan asked, giggling. "Did I ruin it? He asked.
"It's no big deal. I'll just add it to the wonderful art I've created already this morning." I sighed as I crumpled the wet mass in my hands and pitched it towards the recycle bucket. "What's up?" I asked, looking up towards my lover. He leaned over to kiss me and placed another mug of coffee on my worktable.
"Just wanted to check on you. You've been out here for hours. Lunch is almost ready. Getting anything done?"
Sipping the coffee, I frowned and gestured towards the ever-growing pile of mangled lumps of stoneware clay. Each passing hour demonstrated how out of practice I was. Eye hand coordination obviously had gone straight to hell over the years. That frustration coupled with the exertion of using muscles that had long lay dormant had me sweating like crazy in spite of the chill in the spring air. I stood up from the stool and walked over to stand in the opened doorway. Dylan moved towards the woodstove so he could stay warm.
"It'll all come back I'm sure." I moaned. "It's supposed to be like riding a bicycle, but I'm getting tired of falling all over myself." I laughed.
"Remember, Jon. It's all about having fun."
"And I am. Well, okay, I'm not. But I will! Come here, you." I reached out for him.
"Yuck, you'll get me dirty."
"Didn't you see "Ghost"? It'll be fun. Come here, little boy, so I can smear a little mud on you."
"Don't think so, big guy." He danced away from me as I approached.
"Okay, you win." I smiled, moving towards the sink to wash my hands and forearms. "Mark and Jake will be here soon anyway. Wouldn't want to scare them."
"Yeah, like that's going to happen. I don't think they would be scandalized to find us going at it here on the studio floor."
"Nah, it's not like they don't do it too. What've you got planned for the afternoon?" I tossed the towel back at the sink and took him in my arms. He melted into my embrace, moaning that Dylan sound when I kissed behind his ear and nibbled on his neck.
"I think I'd better feed you before you eat me." He breathed in my ear.
"Oh, dessert!"
I stirred the embers in the stove and added another log so it wouldn't get too cold while we were in the house, grabbed his hand and escorted him out the door. I stopped near the woodpile and pulled Dylan to my side. Glancing back towards the studio, I marveled at how little was left to be done before the project would be finished.
Mark and Jake had started the Monday after out meeting and made amazing progress in just a couple of weeks. They leveled and poured the concrete pads for both new buildings the first day and left those to dry. The next day they started to build the extension on the back of the barn so we could move the farm equipment and clean out the main area of the new studio since I knew that the supplies would be delivered quickly. Dylan and I had barely gotten the last tractor moved before the delivery truck pulled in the driveway laden with my purchases. We managed to stall the driver long enough to sweep out the space before he started unloading the two tons of clay, the wheel and the two kilns I ordered. That and the endless boxes of chemicals and glazes almost filled the space I was supposed to work in.
All four of us worked the next couple of days constructing shelving and trying to organize everything into its rightful place. They left us to that task and started the construction of the kiln house so we could move those beasts out of the way. Electricity still needed to be run to that building so we could connect the kilns but at least they were out of the studio for now. It's not like I was producing anything worth saving at that point anyway.
The only remaining construction was all finish work, hanging the last of the doors, running the electrical service to the outbuilding and installing the central heat and air and special HEPA filters to capture the silica dust and other particulate matter. I still wanted some skylights in the studio and a few more lighting fixtures but those would get fitted in as time allowed.
"Got it all planned out?" I asked looking at the drawings spread out on the table. I was trying to make us a place to eat lunch while Dylan finished our beverages.
"Yeah, pretty much. What do you think?" He asked as he brought the glasses to the table.
"Farmer Dylan. I like the ring to that." I grinned at him.
"Funny, funny, old man."
"Seriously though, when will it be time to plant?" I started in on my sandwich and continued to scan the drawings.
"The almanac says not till after..."
I burst out laughing. "You, with an almanac? I thought you were the scientist in the family not into this old wives' tale stuff." I giggled.
"Hey what do I know about gardening? The proprietor at the feed and seed told me it was the most accurate way of knowing." He looked a little put out that I was making fun of him.
"Baby, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh at you." I tried to soothe him.
"Yes, you did. It is kinda funny isn't it?"
"So after...when?"
"A couple of more weeks they say." He shook his head at me.
"I'll be glad to help if you want me to." I offered.
"Sure, sounds like fun. I've got to practice driving the tractor some more. Don't want to wreck or anything when I plow the fields." He altered his voice to imitate some of the accents we had heard in the area.
The sound of Mark's diesel truck coming up the road roused us from our dreamy gazing at each other. We had retired to the sofa after lunch for a cuddle and a little rest. Dylan was lying half on me with his head nestled against my neck and his hand lazily stroking my chest hair. We would have dozed off it the guys hadn't returned when they did.
We quickly gathered up the lunch dishes and rinsed them for the dishwasher. By the time we got outside the guys were already hanging the doors for the kiln shed. Dylan and I pitched in to help.
I knew something was wrong but wasn't sure what it was. The images that haunted my sleep were getting stronger, yet I still didn't understand what they meant. A pattern was beginning to be develop I was sure but I couldn't quite make it out. The shapes were still too unfocused, too dim for me to recognize. They reminded me of photographs being developed where the subject would slowly emerge on the white paper, the tones darkening with each passing minute. And yet, it was almost on an emotional level as well; I could feel the terror growing from just glimpses, quick flashes of fear. Every night it seemed that those seconds would grow longer and I could feel them more acutely.
Most nights I would stand drenched in the sweat of my terror and look out the window at the night sky trying to analyze, dissect the dreams. Standing there knowing everything was all right outside would comfort me, help me calm down enough to sleep. As the images intensified those hours staring out at the night changed into something more, a vigil against the coming storm. I felt that if I could see it before it came into reality that I could stop it somehow.
Eventually I would either release enough where I could feel sleepiness or distract my mind enough to put the nightmare away, take a quick shower and then climb back in bed to the loving arms of my husband. He and I never talked about it but he knew about the dreams and would pull me more tightly to him when I returned, as if to ensure me of his love and his protection.
I was beginning to get quick glimpses of it during the day as well. I would turn in the studio and see only a fragment of something flash behind my eyes. I would get just a snippet of something like smoke vanishing and it would be over. I had several times looked up from washing my hands in the bathroom or washing dishes at the kitchen sink and seeing movement outside the window. I would blink and it would be gone, but I was sure I had seen something there, something vaguely familiar. I never mentioned that to Dylan, I was afraid that he would think I was going crazy. I just hoped that I wouldn't regret that I hadn't warned him, prepared him for something that I knew was coming.
Whatever it was, it was near and somehow I knew it would take all of us to survive. If we could.
"Oh, hey." I said, looking up from the wheel. Dylan had convinced me to turn my workstation around so I no longer had my back to the door and so he couldn't startle me so much when he came in to check on me.
"Jon, it looks great." He exclaimed as I wiped my hands on the towel and grabbed the cut-off wire.
Grinning back at him I cut the piece loose then removed the massive bowl from the wheel and placing it with the ten others that matched it. Over the last weeks my proficiency had returned and I was now feeling like I understood or at least my fingers understood what to do. Ware carts stood around the studio filled with bowls and pitchers in different stages of drying. Feeling the clay move to my touch instead of me fighting it was reward enough for my efforts but now I also had all these pieces that had to be finished then fired. I was beginning to think I might just make it as a potter after all.
The green shoots of our first plants, well, Dylan's first plants, were sprouting above the rich soil of our plot. We had gotten the garden planted in spite of our hilarious efforts at plowing straight rows with the tractor. He had never driven one before moving here and I had only helped my grandfather a few times with the garden. I accused Dylan of trying to run me down the first time he started across the yard. He only laughed and asked where the horn was located as he chased me around the house.
We spent endless hours weeding and enlarging the beds that Granddad planted around the house. Andrea and I had basically ignored them all the years since his death since we were rarely at the cabin more than a couple of days throughout the year. Now they were cleared and replanted with azaleas, all sorts of lilies that would bloom in the late spring and everything else we could find at the garden center that interested us. I wanted gardenia bushes to remind me of my grandmother and mother and Dylan wanted some camellias, his mother's favorite. Our last trip to town we returned with ten fern baskets that now hung from the ceiling between the columns on the wide front porch.
Our lives, like our garden was coming along. We continued to grow closer in our newly acknowledged love for each other. We never argued and only occasionally had any sort of disagreement; usually that was only limited to where to locate the newest child in our ever growing plant family. We rarely were far from each other and we both seemed to know exactly where the other was even if we didn't see him. Mark and Jake and occasionally Sarah were our only real contact with the outside world. We did go out to shop for groceries and our faces were beginning to be known around town, but we pretty much enjoyed our lives away from everything and everyone else. We were so busy with the things we were trying to accomplish and with each other that our focus really changed that first few months in North Georgia.
I heard the car coming up the hill and walked out from the studio to see Dylan coming out the backdoor of the house. We walked together towards the front of the house to see who was visiting. Andrea and Robert were just getting out of their car as we rounded the side of the house. The phone rang and Dylan waved and ran off towards the house.
"Daddy!" She came running towards me. "I've got great news"
"Hey pumpkin. It's so good to see you." I pulled her into my arms, kissing her on the cheek.
"I'm pregnant!" she screamed in my ear.
My breath caught in my lungs, I couldn't swallow and tears began to run down my face. The news took a few minutes to get past my gut emotional response to being a grandfather. I swung her around me kissing and caressing my daughter. As I sat her back on her feet I looked over her shoulder to congratulate Robert. The grimace on his face stopped me cold. Thunder rumbled around us, rattling the windows.
"Jon!" Dylan screamed, running out of the house, tears streaming down his face. "Oh God, Jon." He sobbed. I released Andrea and headed toward the steps to get him. Something whizzed past my ear, shattering the glass in Robert's car. Dylan stumbled, falling from the steps into my arms.
TO BE CONTINUED (sorry guys, you know I love cliffhangers)