Essay
Needle Broken Sunlight
I Know the Cats See All
By Vivi Sojorhn
I was lying in a hammock at our home in Silverlake, Los Angeles. It was the middle of the week, and it was warm, but not too warm. It was March. My happiness sunk in deeply because we had this wonderful garden. You see after the Northridge Earthquake we had received a generous settlement from our insurance company for damage to the old house we lived in. In fact, it was more than we needed to fix it, as much as we needed to fix it, and we invested the rest in relandscaping the backyard, a virtual park for any home in Los Angeles as inexpensive as ours. We replaced bamboo and abandoned toilets with a mixed orchard of trees leaving only the giant ponderosa pine that stood about two-thirds up the hill. My hammock was under that ponderosa pine in the needle broken sunlight.
I was sublime and simply enjoying the moments I had without my husband around. My flame point Siamese cat, Blue, and my black and white cat, Dot, were hunting lizards, little ones. The lizards were extremely fast at climbing back between the rock walls here and there that had been built to stave off floods. They and the stones zig-zagged down the hill to our back patio drains. Anyway, I was fully immersed in this little paradise I had created.
I was looking up at the sun coming through the branches of the tree from the west so it must have been late afternoon, when two people or beings, dressed in white gowns and definitely effusing light themselves were standing in front of me. They were very tall I thought. Almost looming. It took me a moment to focus on their noble faces.
They didn’t introduce themselves exactly, yet somehow, I felt I knew them well. The taller one stood in front of the slightly smaller one, and they both looked a bit stern but also peaceful. I took a deep breath for what they might say to me. The taller one spoke for them and said, “Amanda, we are here because you are entering your last chance to fulfill your promise to us.”
This was said without sound, but both of my cats had come to sit nearby, and seemed to be listening too, with their heads slightly tilted and their gaze set upon the people of light. I thought, “What do they mean about a promise?”
“We can hear your thoughts.”
The smaller being communicated now, “You promised.”
I thought, “Okay, if you can hear my thoughts then you know I don’t remember this promise.”
They looked at each other and then the taller one said without sound, “You promised you would bring us into this world.”
“Hmmm. Well, I could try one of my rituals, but I don’t promise it would work. I’m just a novice.”
They seemed to laugh, and that broke some wall between us, and he said “No, no, we won’t come into the world that way.”
“You are to be our mother,” laughed the smaller one.
I sat up and nearly fell out of the hammock at that point, “Oh no! No, I’m not having children with my husband.”
“It is not ideal, but as I said before we are entering the last period when you can fulfill your promise. We will accept the risk.”
“We are broke. We have no money to raise a child, or children. Are you twins? Why didn’t you come sooner? Why did you wait?”
“We must come in imprinted with some poverty. Both of us. It doesn’t have to be more than a perception of poverty, but we must experience that in our formative years.”
“If I have children, I want them to experience abundance. I want them to be able to manifest what they want. I want us to have peace.”
“You have manifested much here. This is peace.”
I had to admit that was true. My backyard was a paradise. Yet, something was still very wrong with my life. My husband was abusive, not at all the love I hoped for eventually, and I had not been able to help him overcome that anger that just popped out arbitrarily and just as quickly he would deny it or he flipped the invasion back on me, no matter how peaceful and prayerful I was afterwards. Yet, we had had a peaceful run for about the longest time since we first met, six weeks. We had been together for eleven years at that point, and I had made some progress. These Beings could be here to report they were coming in to finally seal this peace, or something like that.
They just looked neutrally at me.
“All right. We have been together for 11 years now, and I have never been pregnant. Are you sure that we can have children?”
They both nodded.
“So, what is holding you back?”
“Your medication. You must stop taking your medication today,”
“But that medication keeps me from breaking out into hives.”
“But you will not be able to carry a child with it in you. Besides, they will discover it is poisonous.”
“Are you sure?”
They both said “Yes.”
I looked at these two people trying to imagine them as children. It seemed unlikely. They were fading. Suddenly, I thought, “these two amazing beings want me to be their mother?” And I was stunned by their insistence and humbled that they wanted me, of all people, to be their mother.
“This is our last chance in this world,” the smaller being pleaded, “and we love you.”
I felt the intense warmth. Believe me, I did not want to lose this attachment I felt. I already loved them too. As the sun reached the other side of our rooftop. They were brighter in the shadow than anything else even as they were fading.
“Remember this is part of our plan together,” the taller one insisted, “And, the time of poverty is truly short, as all things are. I promise already is the potential for plenty of money in your life, and then you will see that it doesn’t matter. Wealth and poverty through monetary means is like a thin veil.”
“Important veil. And your father?”
“We will accept him, even as we accept you.”
“It is a lot to think about.”
I had been on the verge of asking for a divorce many times through the years. His charm had won me over even without apologies for his terrible behavior. I wanted to help him get his anger under control. It confused me. I wanted to stop being his victim.
As I thought, the beings disappeared, and I was sorry that they left. I had many more questions to ask. Were they going to be men or women? Would they become abused? Would I be a good mother or a terrible mother? Would I die after they were born, as my grandmother did?
It all seemed frankly impossible now that they were gone. The lights along the zig-zag path were glowing by the time I rose from the hammock. Blue and Dot followed me down, using their short cuts through the lupine and California poppies.
When I reached the patio, my husband, Mike, burst through the door and shouted at me, “Why haven’t you made some dinner?”
I passed him and went back inside to find the mess that was our house splayed. At least, I had put lids on the paint cans. I was painting spirals on the dining room walls. I now imagined it could be a nursery. The narrow stairs I had fish painted on a stream of water, swimming up the stairs. I could see it was a danger for children learning to walk. No railing existed. Somehow these would have to be changed. The large opening to the crazy kitchen with magenta and yellow cabinets would have to be closed. What is he talking about now?
As I was thinking this, Mike was yelling at me for my short comings because he’d invited our best friends to come and stay with us, as they were now teaching yoga in Santa Monica, leaving Santa Barbara. “Couldn’t you have asked me before extending the invitation? Will they pay for anything?”
“You would have said, yes, anyway, bitch. What did you pay for today? You’re useless. I am out trying to find work and you’re sitting in the yard looking at spiders, I know. Get a job.”
“I have multiple jobs. Multiple paying jobs,” I defended myself in a quiet voice, without even addressing his language. I had learned over the years it was best to avoid confronting him.
My mind was racing now. I thought silently and intensely to send some message to the beings who were so mature compared to this man, “I cannot bring you into this. Maybe use our friends as substitutes?”
He chased me into the bathroom, and pulled the doors shut around us, blocking my escape no matter how I moved. “Please, Mike. I know you had a distressing day. Take a deep breath.”
He squeezed my arm so tight, I knew there would be bruises, then he thrust me away into the door.
“Why don’t you scream anymore?” He flipped the switch on the old fan, “No one can hear you. Cry!”
“Is that why you wanted a house so badly?” I knew that he was the one who needed to cry right now.
He leaned his face into mine and screamed with his hands clutched around my neck, “Scream. Ask for mercy.”
I became as still as I could and looked into his eyes with little feeling left in them. His fury completely melted eventually. I don’t think it was long. He left the bathroom with the door open. I took a most quiet breath in so slowly. He couldn’t hear it. I didn’t want him to know I was alive in that moment, as I leaned over the sink and then watched him in the mirror, then saw my cheek was flushed with fingerprints.
He’d gone to the refrigerator and pulled out the salmon I’d prepared for the grill, “What else are we having? Let me guess, grilled asparagus?” was what I heard coming from the kitchen before I decided to follow him.
Actually, I had planned to make a salad, but I didn’t feel like doing anything at that moment. I didn’t say anything.
The cats were at my heels. It was time for their dinner, and so I focused on them, on opening a can of food slowly, and splitting it into two bowls dedicated to them. I changed their water out and avoided looking at Mike. Laying the feast out on the floor.
“I will make this, just tell me what else.”
This was his way of apology. He was happiest working on something. Now that I thought of it, it was probably looking for work that was tugging on his ability to control himself. That was the first time he’d lost it in a while. I looked up at him, and said, “We don’t have asparagus. How about salad?”
He came towards me, and I backed away, he said, “Sure. I’ll make the salad if you’ll make the dressing.”
I nodded and threw away the empty can of cat food, before heading into the small pantry for vinegar and oil, and the other ingredients. Focusing on making dressing helped calm my heart. I used the spoon used for tossing the salad to measure, and poured olive oil twice into the salad bowl. Then I poured one spoon of red vinegar, tossing it into the salad bowl, as I spilled a little more. Olive oil and vinegar were so different. I used a teaspoon and scooped sugar out of the red glass sugar bowl that was once my grandmother’s, this settled my heart more somehow. I grabbed a jar of Dijon mustard from the fridge and scooped out a spoon of that for the bowl. Then I added dry herbs — thyme, oregano, rosemary — in big pinches, a half spoonful of salt and several twists of pepper. Then the garlic. I peeled the clove of garlic as much as possible and put it in the garlic mincer that my grandfather had given us for our wedding present 9 years before. All those other ingredients with such different liquids, oil and vinegar, make the dressing. I stirred quickly until the oil and vinegar went from separate to a creamy.
I washed my hands and looked out of the kitchen window contemplating how to get the smell of garlic out of my fingernails as I had thousands of times before. I was suddenly tired. I hoped his anger was over, but I wasn’t sure, as I had not been sure a thousand times before.
Mike came back with the salmon grilled about 15 minutes later. While it set, he chopped up romaine leaves, cucumber, radishes, and tomato for the bowl with dressing in it. I left the kitchen for a moment.
I lit a few citronella candles on the patio table outside. It still wasn’t entirely dark. I searched for the light beings all over the yard, but I didn’t see them. The cats laid out on the warm cement, licking their paws, and cleaning their faces in perfect time. I sighed and went back inside.
When I came back, I tossed the salad and he set the salmon portions on our plates. I followed, putting salad on the plates. We carried out our plates to the back patio to eat at late twilight, as if nothing had happened at all.
The next morning, I took my Seldane, and looked how many pills I had left, and called the pharmacy to have the prescription refilled.
Truthfully, I could not stop thinking about the light people who had visited though. They stayed in my mind, and grew in my heart and eventually, eventually nothing else mattered but to see them again. They had transformed everything about me in, who knows, a few minutes, a few hours. The two light beings were love as I had never known it. They wanted me.
Needle Broken Sunlight © 2022 by Vivi Sojorhn
