Breathing Together

He dozed peacefully with a half-smile dancing on his lips and the
smell of freshly mown grass lingering on the air, shaping his dreams of
a childhood long ago and rarely called to mind these days. Nearby, he
tried not to hear his wife talking to someone, a familiar voice, but
one he couldn't be bothered to place just at present. All he wanted to
do was lie in the sun and dream. He tried to concentrate on his dream
again, tried to clear his mind of all the unpleasant day to day things
that cluttered it, tried to just dream. That's all. Just dream.

The voices had grown closer and, he noticed with some irritation, had
become quite loud and excitable. His wife's voice in particular seemed
almost frenzied whilst the other was high-pitched and full of
alarm.

"You see!" He opened one eye just slightly and peered slyly out of it,
just making out the sight of his wife's delicate feet and childishly
painted toe-nails. Too old for pink he thought.

"Look there!" her voice faltered on a sob, "Every day the same thing.
Just lying there like that. Every day."

The other voice, which he was pleased to note belonged to his eldest
daughter who, in being very much like himself had secretly always been
his favourite, held an embarrassed tone. He tried to open his eye a
little bit further without them noticing in the hope of catching a
glimpse of her beautiful face.

"Father&;#8230;?" her face came suddenly into view, hovering above
him "father, it's me, Elena. Wont you come inside? Shall I help you
up?"

"My darling, I'm fine here. I want to dream."

"Well yes, I'm sure you do," she sounded frighteningly like her mother
all of a sudden, "but you must come inside now at once. Mum's going to
call the doctor out if you don't."

"Doctor? I'm not ill."

"You've been strange lately, Vinod." His wife again with that silly
voice she had taken to using, "The neighbours are probably talking.
Someone will call the police. You ought to come in now. Enough is
enough."

He ignored their pleas and resumed his dreaming, blanking them out
easily because he was bored with them. The last thing he heard was his
wife, sobbing and spluttering and asking "Why?" as Elena led her back
inside. He heard them close the door behind them and gave a sigh of
relief.

The roar of the sea deafened him and the smell of the mown grass was
replaced by the taste of salt on his lips. It was so hot and he was
sweating, his brown skin shining. He was naked, just as he was supposed
to be, walking on red hot sand, feet scorching but he was calm, always
calm. Inhaling, exhaling, inhaling. Deep breaths from the pit of his
stomach like an opera singer. At first he had had to concentrate on
this new way of breathing, deep, slow breaths, calm. Always calm. Now
it was second nature to him. He could not recall how it was before, the
way he had learned to breath immediately upon leaving his mother's
womb, forced out into the world with a violence he was only now
learning to remember and forget. That instinctive first breath, sucked
inwards painfully causing him to wail and bringing a smile to the face
of his mother, weary in blood and sweat. In dreams he found the
answers, felt the warmth of the womb again. Was safe.

The sea became still, gulls circled and swooped above him before the
smell of grass came back.

Beneath him, the ground was still damp from the fine drizzle earlier in
the day. He had laid down at 8 o'clock and not moved. He felt if he
stayed there long enough he would sink into the earth, become one with
the garden, perhaps grow with long limbs twisting towards the sky. Now
he opened his eyes, squinting against the glare of the sun and
languished in its warmth. He was growing.

For now though, there had been enough dreams. The last one had told him
all he needed to know.

Inside the house, the two women stood huddled by the window, peering
out at him. His wife's eyes were puffy and red. They would not look at
him when he entered the house, his daughter in particular was
embarrassed by his nudity.

Ignoring them, he leant over the sink running water from the cold tap
until it became icy, then he splashed it on his face and body and then
drank it from cupped hands.

"For God's sake Vinod," his wife again, rude, complaining. "Look, water
everywhere." She threw her hands up in the air, "See Elena, I told you.
How much more of this can I take?"

"Mum's got a point, Dad" Elena tried to be diplomatic but still would
not look at him. Instead she kept her gaze averted, concentrating on
the roses that were climbing over the shed. Deadly thorns.

"There is no sin in being naked," he wiped the water from his face,
chest and under-arms with the tea-towel causing his wife to storm from
the kitchen, slamming the door in anger.

His daughter, uncomfortable at being shut in so small a room as the
tiny kitchen with her unclothed father, hurriedly followed after
her.

Upstairs, he shaved hair from every part of his body and felt more
naked than before and freed. He opened the door to his wardrobe and
pondered over the many items of clothing hanging there, different
fabrics nestling against the next, all colours. How he had loved the
richness of the colours, the cut of the cloth, the feel of the fabrics.
Now he felt ashamed of himself. He pulled the clothes from their
hangers roughly and stuffed them carelessly into black plastic sacks,
three in all, which he knotted carefully before carrying them out onto
the landing. His wife, who was creeping up the stairs to see what he
was up to no doubt, could not conceal her dismay at his new shaven
look.

"Vinod," she cried out as though in pain, "your lovely hair. You have
shaved it. What is happening to you?"

"Why are you crying? You should be pleased I have found this peace
within myself. My dreams tell me what to do, I follow my dreams and
have found such tranquillity. All I wish for now is that you, too, will
find this serenity."

"Vinod, you are naked and have shaved off your hair, would you wish me
to do the same? This peace you talk of - will it pay the bills? You
have not been to work. You've done nothing for weeks apart from this
naked thing and lying out on the lawn. I see madness, not serenity. You
are not the Vinod I married all those years ago." She struggled not to
cry but failed.

He did not want tears. He could not understand sadness now. All was
clear to him, apart from the mystery of why she couldn't see things as
he did. He reached out to her, touching the buttons on her
blouse,

"Undo these things. Take them off. Release yourself. Let us be free
from the confines of our society. We do not need clothes or bills or
the pain that other people cause us. I can tell you about my dreams,
you might understand&;#8230;"

"No!" she screamed, "No. Elena, Elena - he's gone mad. Phone for the
doctor. Look at him, look at what he has done&;#8230;"

Elena appeared at the bottom of the stairs, amazed at the
transformation of her father with his newly shaven head. She did not
look at his body.

"Phone for the doctor," his wife was screaming again, "Do it Elena,
call someone please, to help him."

"Father, what should I do?"

"Your mother is right, of course," he said gently, "perhaps you should
call someone."

"They'll think you're mad, put you away."

"Perhaps," he nodded, "and it will be a shame to lose my freedom now
that I have finally found it. Am I mad, do you think?"

She hesitated, wondering at this peculiar state of affairs, standing on
the bottom stair, staring up at her father so unashamed of his own
nudity and surrounded by bin-bags full of earthly baggage, with his
naked head strangely illuminated by a stray ray of light from the
fading afternoon sun. She knew she had always been her father's
favourite child. They were alike in many ways, not just looks or
mannerisms. Above all they were friends and she had always admired him.
Now though &;#8230; she just didn't know..

"Elena, don't be fooled by him," her mother interrupted her thoughts.
Elena looked from one parent to the other, not sure of anything
anymore. Which one of them was mad, which one of them was sane? How to
know anything for certain.

"I cannot wait," Vinod's voice echoed down the stairs, "all I want to
do now is continue finding my way, the right path. I need to sleep so
that I might dream." He turned to his wife, "Come with me and share my
dreams, just one time. Just one time is all I am asking, so you might
see what I see."

"Perhaps you should mum," Elena said. "I think you should. Just
once."

She felt shy lying naked beside him on the covers, but he seemed not to
notice how her body wasn't as firm or beautiful as it once had been,
before the children, before the years had taken their toll. Instead he
threw her a smile full of white, white teeth and stroked her fingers.
The room was quiet and she felt calm. She heard him breathing,
differently somehow if that was possible. She was familiar with the way
he usually breathed, having shared his bed for the past 40 years. Now
though his breathing seemed more in rhythm with life, not so much an
automatic action but a controlled, measured one&;#8230;

Beneath her feet the ground was springy, mossy. It had been raining and
the smell of the earth invaded her senses, she felt the mud squelch
between her toes, a sensation she very much liked. Together they
walked, ferns brushing their legs, cobwebs dusting their shoulders.
Bluebells nodded at them as they crept by. She felt closer to the earth
than ever before. Overcome with emotion she looked towards Vinod who
had stooped to admire a particularly beautiful cowslip, only to find
him watching her curiously. She no longer felt self-conscious of her
nakedness before him, was not ashamed of her body and the flaws that
life had inflicted on it. She wanted to carry on walking forever, to
capture this moment and keep it.

"Breathe with me?" Her husband's dark eyes regarded her solemnly,
waiting patiently for the answer as though he had all the time in the
world.

She took a deep breath from somewhere deep down inside her. She felt
her chest rise and fall. She knew she could learn to breathe to a
different rhythm, a slower pace and reached out for his hand to share
his dreams, his life.

Quite suddenly, she realised with a start that they were breathing in
rhythm, as one.

Just as he had promised.