Touching the Roof of the World: An Anthology of Stories

By Naomi Karon Bagel

Dreams exist in that other realm...the night-world of sleep. Th ere all
things are possible. Every hope and fear has the potential of becoming
the ingredients of stories that weave the prosaic with the fantastic.
I have grown to feel comfortable with the freedom that dreaming
provides and enjoy surrendering to whatever stories unfold when I go to
sleep. Th ere I can pass through doorways into other worlds that I only
hear about on the radio. Dreaming creates a space for me, where I am
no longer Paul Davis, the taxi driver who has only once left his home city of Southampton.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477214176

Book preview

Touching the Roof of the World

Dreams exist in that other realm...the night-world of sleep. There all things are possible. Every hope and fear has the potential of becoming the ingredients of stories that weave the prosaic with the fantastic.

I have grown to feel comfortable with the freedom that dreaming provides and enjoy surrendering to whatever stories unfold when I go to sleep. There I can pass through doorways into other worlds that I only hear about on the radio. Dreaming creates a space for me, where I am no longer Paul Davis, the taxi driver who has only once left his home city of Southampton.

I am transformed and become a different person. I see through the eyes of a man who is rich in experiences, even though I really have no desire to travel or explore. Everything I need is here in my cab, the radio, a good book for quiet moments, and my fares and the stories they leave.

The last time I left town was when I was nine years old, and the school took me on a trip to the Houses of Parliament. It seemed to be a helluva journey and a whole lot of fuss to get there and walk around a stuffy and boring place. We could have stayed in Southampton and been taken round the docks, or on a tour of Vosper Thorneycroft. I couldn’t see the point in going to London as it seemed so much better in my imagination that it had in reality.

I was born and bred here, I’m forty-four and I’ve have my own flat. It’s about a mile away from Mum. I moved out and brought my own place before Dad died, just before I got engaged to Lisa. Property prices were low then, and we planned a long engagement, and it made sense to get a foothold on the property ladder. Especially as Lisa could sleep over sometimes, and share my bed, something we could never have thought of if I was still living at home.

In sleep I cross a threshold into a place where I am no longer defined by gender, class or creed. With that freedom, the impossible can happen. I can give birth and suckle a child that in my waking hours as a man I could never do!

I really like that free-fall sensation that I get when I lose control in my sleep. In dreams people that I’ve spoken to in my taxi just that very day mix with other characters that I have never met, and some that I imagine I will meet one day.

In the otherworld the dead may dance with the spirits of those who are, as yet, unborn. I can travel through landscapes that may be beautiful, ugly or simply incredible.

What I like about dreams is that they remain the private realm of the dreamer. Horrific or beautiful, they can be both powerful and momentary, sometimes they are so real that I wake up and wonder if what I was dreaming about really did happen. But then I remember that real life is never as exciting as fantasy.

Some dreams are so terrifying that I cannot bear them and I force myself out of them. It can be disturbing when fancy takes flight and magnifies those events that I don’t want to remember.

Last night I dreamed of the sea. I was standing on a sandy spit of land where I was surrounded by a warm darkness. High above appeared a glistening red sphere that pulsed and moved across the sky slowly and sensuously. It had a strange transparency, illuminated from the back which made it glow against the shadowy blackness like a never-changing traffic light. Pinpricks of bright constellations punctured the sky while all along the horizon orange tongues of flame were licking upwards.

I relax and surrender to the experience. I presume that I am now some-where in a land of warmth, colour and spices on the shore of the Indian Ocean. I can hear the sound of waves breaking, feel the warm air, and smell the harsh bite of salt on the air. I am alone, and I feel alone.

I turn and there are lights on the shore…a few lamps and a small fire burning, and from that direction a female voice begins to chant, the chanting that I associate with temple worship. It sounds familiar. Soon others join with the single voice, but I turn away and watch the sea and the sky again. I hear a plashing in the water, and a small boat, a coracle shaped like a lily moves swiftly towards where I stand. I am thrown a rope, which I catch easily and am amazed at its softness and silkiness. I pull the little boat alongside.

A woman gets out, takes the rope from me and coils it expertly, before placing it gently in the coracle. As I watch, the rope turns into a hooded cobra and I realise that the largest mongoose that I have ever seen is paddling the boat away.

I turn to look at the woman, and I know who she is, although her appearance has changed since our last day together. Her smoky eyes remain the same, but her skin has taken on the blue colour that I associate with the Indian deities. It is Lisa. My lovely girl is back. I haven’t seen her since she died in my arms outside the Hope & Anchor. A teenage joy-rider had mounted the pavement and killed her as we walked to the Odeon.

My love is now reincarnated into a barefoot fisher-woman wearing white cotton baggy trousers and an aquamarine waistcoat concealing her small, tight breasts. Together in our silence we have no need for words. We can communicate without speech. The sound of the waves become louder and I know that we must turn to walk towards the shore, where the chanting is increasing.

When I turn my back to the dark red ball in the sky I notice that my darling beside me is stretching her hand aloft. I watch her arm growing longer until it reaches far up to touch the sky. Her fingernails elongate until they rasp the roof of the world; then I hear a sound like tearing silk. For a brief moment I am unable to breathe, I must force my body to take breath again. Incredulous, hardly believing in what I have seen, I realise that now she holds a garland of stars in her right hand. Bathed in an eerie light I walk beside my woman towards the figures on the shore.

The water’s edge is ablaze with semi precious stones that sparkle in the light; garnets, emeralds, topaz, amethyst and pink quartz are unmistakable by the depth and richness of their colouring. Large crystals of watery quartz are washed by the waves of the incoming tide, intensifying their colours. Lapis lazuli, so distinctively deep blue with gleaming gold flashes are set close together glowing like wolves’ eyes in the dark. When I step towards them I am aware that my feet are bare, but I have no idea what clothes I am wearing. I suspect that I am naked because as I move I feel a gentle breeze on my body.

The smooth warm stones lead me to a path, laid like a roman tessellated pavement in a mosaic cut from pieces of those same jewelled stones from the shoreline. Intuitively I know that if I follow this trail I will leave Lisa behind.

I look into the eyes of my lover, the circlet of lights dim and I hold out my arms towards her. I taste her lips and her nipples. I am on a voyage of exploration, my tongue deep into her navel and about to move further downwards, when a large origami cockerel flies towards me and lands in my hair. As I straighten up to ward off this unwanted intrusion the wine-coloured sky dims.

I am alone again with a glowing row of ruby marbles lighting the path through the woods. As I walk the terrain changes from palm trees to copper beeches, and then to tall pines. Suddenly I am walking with a tarmac road beneath my feet and the sky ablaze with sunset and fire.

There is a dark stagnant lake to my left giving off a smell of marsh gas that explodes into dancing flames that have no power to burn or consume. A ringing of bells and a cacophony of random horns and trumpets heralds a cavalcade of people. They are walking, dressed in bright robes that were not of this time, or any known time past. As they appear on the horizon the sky clears to cerulean blue, and a pair of red kites can be seen gliding on the thermals.

I know that the motley crew approaching cannot see me as I wrap myself in a cloak of invisibility. Why this had happened seemed unimportant as I stand to one side and watch the people go past as a funeral procession, close enough for me to see the textures of their clothes. Most were of homespun wool woven with rough slubs in the cloth, but the colours were brighter than could be achieved by any natural dye.

I move forward and touch the sleeve of an androgynous person wearing purple, blue and green clothes, but my hand just passes through, and the cavalcade vanishes, leaving a row of plump rats sitting by the edge of the path watching me. They are handsome, sleek rattus norvegicus, huge brown and white with intelligent faces and glorious tails. Their yellow teeth gleamed like amber and they wave at me with their plump paws. The biggest one steps forward, and again I felt a sense of recognition. I bend down slowly and reach my hand out and he runs the length of my arm to sit on my shoulder, his weight and warmth reassuring after the intangibility of the last presences that I have come across.

The big rat nuzzles into my hair and speaks to me in clear North Country tones, telling me that when I get to town there is a film on at the cinema that I must not miss. It was the film that we were going to see that night she was killed. He then scampered down my arm and jumped off, running to meet his companions. With an almighty squeaking he scurried off into the long grass and ferns that were growing by the wayside. I noticed that he was escorted by a group of red parakeets who flew low over the bracken in a vee-shaped formation, their wings moving in slow motion.

I watched a long red feather fall from the leading bird’s tail and ran forward to catch it, my hand stretched out to grasp that treasure as it spiralled to the ground. Eluding the outreach of my hand the feather landed in my hair and, as my fingers searched to retrieve it, my fingers touched something as cold as death. I lifted from my head a tiara fashioned from silver and small red feathers, set about with glowing emeralds that were contrasted with the icy cool of tiny aquamarines. It looks like the one that Lisa had chosen for our wedding.

The tumult of the rats reached cacophony, before silence fell when I placed the coronet on my head. It fitted, it was comfortable and it seemed inevitable that I must continue walking, over a bridge, where the path disappeared and I was then in a formal garden of rose bushes that grew in such profusion that I was overwhelmed by their beauty and aroma. I lay on the ground to rest under a bush that was abundant in overblown sugar pink roses stolen from some huge wedding cake. Glow-worms dripped in their dozens from the leaves and began to envelop me.

Looking up through the roses, their stems all thorns and leaves, I could see the sky was blue. Some straggly white clouds had formed and they scudded and darted about making patterns that I had never seen before. The face of a very old woman showed through the roses, she was beautiful with a deeply wrinkled face that put me in mind of an old russet apple.

I intuitively knew what she was there for, so I stood up, shaking the warm glow-worms from my clothes and handed over to her the tiara that I was wearing. As I did so, bright rays from the sun illuminated the jewels and we both became ablaze with the light reflected through the rubies. Rainbows burst from the crystalline facets and dazzled my eyes.

When I looked again, my lost love stood before me, her smoky eyes the same as ever they were when last I held her to me. Her pure voice expressed love, desire and longing. Then she was lost from my view, as she dived into the water and joined the fish that were swimming upstream. She vanished behind the waterfall as the fishes leapt, for she lives forever in that place that I cannot visit, not even in my dreams.

A Circlet of Embroidered Flowers and a Diamond

My daughter Ferdia was asleep in her little bed beside me, she seemed frail and almost doll like in her stillness. Her dusky skin and dark hair the legacy from her father with whom I had a passionate affair while I travelled in India. I felt a sense of belonging to that busy smelly fervent country when I lay in the arms of my lover Vajramani, but when I told him that I had conceived our child; he explained to me the cultural differences that meant he must leave me. Vajramani, my lover, my soul mate, with whom I had united bodies in more ways that would I have ever considered possible.

His name means diamond, and to me he was my shining one, but he left one morning before the sun rose, and four months later Ferdia was born, new life from my body and of his entering the world in that moment before the dawn.

I often feel that have done a lot of travelling, although sometimes I have stayed around in one place for a while. To make a home for myself and Ferdia I brought a bus and we have made it into a comfortable home. If we are parked up at a festival I can use the downstairs as a café. But now it is past the winter solstice and we are parked up with a few other people, who are all living on a disused railway siding.

The only thing I have with me, apart from myself, that carries any connections with my childhood is an old patchwork blanket and I shook out well before spreading it back over my bed. I glanced at the squares that had been cut out of the very garments that I had worn as a child but now have long since grown out of. My hand brushed over the navy blue serge square that had been cut from one of my gym tunics that I had worn at boarding school. Instantly I could remember the smell of school laundry and disinfectant.

Then I recalled the damp mornings when the entire garden disappeared in an ethereal mist, leaving only a huge cedar tree with branches that almost touched the grass, standing sentinel over the world behind the veils.

Was there ever a garment as poorly designed as a heavy gym tunic? As I contemplated this I remembered tearing a particularly large and flappy school tunic on the day that I went exploring. I had wandered off into an overgrown corner of the extensive grounds in which the school was set. There, amongst a thicket of bushes that were twisted into astonishing shapes, I discovered a little path through the rhododendrons.

I noticed that there were edge markers still showing through a dense carpet of leaves. Dappled sunlight filtered through the green canopy as I crawled my way along this secret path and my senses filled with rich earth and leafy smells. The path opened up to what had once been a formal pond, edged with mossy stones, where water lilies grew.

That was powerful moment for me at a school where I spent most of my time feeling confused and terrified. Afraid of what punishment would be meted out to me for the damage to my tunic, I wet myself and knew that whatever I had been afraid of, it would now be so very much worse.

Recalling this childhood cameo I was still in a reflective mood as I looked at the patchwork blanket again. It offered a myriad