Isis

The dream was a vivid one, sketched and drawn by seasoned artistic dexterity but colored by the zealous Crayola hands of a left-handed three-year-old. It was the kind of dream a senate of sleepless nights approves, but at the same time, the kind that quenches the wrath of the active red-eyed mob. Indeed, it was a product of the tumult taking place inside my mind. My youngest daughter, my baby, was soon to be a young woman; therefore, a sweet sixteen drifted on the horizon. A hall. A gathering with friends and family. A puffy dress. Balloons. A cake. A deejay. And a special evening with a tacoman. However, a hyperventilating bank account, a procrastinating nature and the total loss of words objected every motion of the plan, bringing forth the series of sleepless nights that ultimately peaked into this fireworks show of a dream.

In the dream, I stepped into one of the outdoor courtyards in Mount Olympus, where the ancient Grecian deities, demigods and demigoddesses celebrated with exuberance and style. Zeus. Hera. Grey-eyed Athena. Demeter. Hermes. Aphrodite. Hephaestus. The twins, Apollo and Artemis. Everyone was present…even the god of tacos. There was abounding Nectar, ambrosia, an endless supply of mirth under a dense cloud of wine and a stunning musical performance by the Muses.

Chitter-chatter orbited around the tall cocktail tables that peppered the courtyard. Dionysus pranced around them, dispersing a boundless supply of spirits from his wineskin. However, what beckoned my curious mind wasn’t Dionysus. Neither was it the cyanic eyes of Andromeda that glimmered midst the multicolored dancing lights. Nor the jovial roar of Poseidon. No. It was a warm red glow that radiated from behind the eight-foot fountain in the center of the courtyard.

I flowed toward it.

Athena bumped into me, droplets of wine spilled out of a goblet she held in one hand. She reprimanded me with her stunning gray eyes, swept her curls over her shoulder and kept her direction.

I kept mine.

Behind the fountain and under the pink umbrella of a cherry blossom Sakura tree, a lonesome figure sat on the azure tiles of a concrete bench. Slender. Petite. Tender. Beautiful. Yet somehow out of place. Her paper skin blushed with grace under a red translucent halo. A wrestling match of light shades of brown took place inside a pair of small eyes that lurked behind thick eyeliner. They exhumed maturity and wisdom. A veil of straight black hair draped around the innocence on her face with exactitude like a frame on a painting at an art gallery.

She twitched a smile and released serenity.

“Who are you?” I stuttered.

She responded by patting the bench with a manicured hand.

I sat.

Somebody whooped.

“Why are you alone?” I asked.

“Oh, I was just pondering…”

“What were you pondering?”

“Did you know that the word, ENVIRONMENT, has three N’s?”

“Huh?”

“Many people don’t know this. They think it only has two, because the second N, the one in the middle, is silent.”

Somebody whooped again. It might’ve been Andromeda.

“But it’s there alright,” she stared at the festivities taking place around us. “Right smack in the middle, lurking between the O and the M to challenge writers and young spelling-bee contestants.”

Ixion squeaked by on his wheel.

“You might think that I fall out of place in a gathering of Olympian deities, but I can assure you that my relevance is as important as the silent N in ENVIRONMENT.”

“And who are you?”

“But enough with the grammar lesson,” she ignored me. “What’s important is why you’re here.”

“And why am I here?”

“You’re here because you’re looking for words, right?”

I nodded.

“Words and advice,” she continued. “I know. I know. Your baby is turning sixteen. You have so much to say about it—so much to tell her—but your procrastination pushed your emotions into hysteria and overpowered your ability to think. Now your creativity is mute. What a shame. Tsk, tsk, tsk. A sweet sixteen is quite the milestone…you know, a special occasion.. an opportunity to give quite the speech…a special message…a legendary discourse…a rhetorical work of art, but you have nothing. Not a word. Not a chirp. Zilch.”

“I mean, I wanna tell her that I love her.”

“And?”

“And that I understand her…”

“And?”

“And that I care for her but…”

“Cringe is what she calls you when you say it, right?”

“Yes!” I said. “Whatever that means.”

“So, instead, you wait for this special occasion to try to combine all these sentiments into some kind of master piece.”

“That’s correct.”

“How’s that working for you?”

“Well,” I looked at my hands. “I haven’t slept…”

Dionysus approached us and offered his wineskin, which we both kindly declined. Once he moved on, I continued, “I’m stuck. I had this idea of starting my speech with this incident that happened when she was four…”

“What happened?”

“Well, I was watching her and cleaning our pool at the same time. At some point, I became more engaged with the pool. Seconds later, I noticed that I didn’t hear her anymore. I looked up and searched for her but didn’t see her anywhere. I panicked and, splash, fell into the pool. When I reemerged, I heard her giggling. It was a funny incident that wasn’t so funny then—one I would never hesitate to relive a million times to see her that small again.”

“So?”

“So that’s it. I didn’t know how to tweak it into the speech,” I said with exasperation. “I moved on and started writing another speech that began with a call-and-response thing we’ve had since she developed her vocabulary skills.”

“What was that?”

“I would ask her, why are you so beautiful? And she would respond with, uh, I don’t know.”

“Oh, that’s cute.”

“Yeah.”

“So what happened to that one?”

“Again…I didn’t know how to tie it into this spectacular speech I plan to make.”

Somebody whooped again. No doubt this time it was Andromeda.

“So then this metaphor about how life is like a race began to take shape in my mind…how she needs to keep trotting along at a steady pace and how stamina overrides speed and how she needs to focus on what’s ahead of her and not behind her and how we, her dad, her mom, her siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents…how we all gather along the sidelines and cheer and whoop for her.”

As if on cue, Andromeda whooped again.

“And what happened to that speech?”

“I’m still working on it. When it’s done, however, it’s gonna be the mother of all speeches…the confetti at a New Year’s party…creatively original and…”

“Sorry to pop your bubble…”

“Whatta you mean?”

“This race-and-life metaphor—tsk, tsk, tsk—that’s an old one.”

“What?”

“It’s as unoriginal as the cried-a-river metaphor. As cliche as light-as-a-feather or cold-as-ice,” she laughed. “It’s older than dirt.”

“Okay! I get it.”

She placed her hand over her mouth and chuckled again.

“Very funny, Miss I-didn’t-get-your-name…”

“Never mind that, let me break it down for you, Shakespeare,” she pierced me with her golden irises. Her thick eyeliner glistened and curled at the edges of her eyes.“Not everything has to be done in a grandeur fashion. You should listen to your wife every once in a while about these things. Have you ever heard of the KISS method?”

“No. What’s that?”

“Keep It Simple, Stupid.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind—that’s also as old as your life-is-like-a-race speech. What I’m trying to tell you is that sometimes an embrace with the old conservative, I love you, speaks a thousand emotions.”

She spread a pair of turquoise-feathered wings that weren’t there seconds ago.

“Just tell her you love her, that’s all. Then give her a hug.” She reached for my hands, held them over my heart and said, “trust me on this one…I know.”

She fluttered her new wings and rose.

“Wait,” I said.

She stopped.

“You never told me your name.”

“Isis,” she fluttered those gorgeous colorful wings again. “My name is Isis, the Egyptian goddess of insight, wisdom and, as of today, grammar—for you will never again misspell the word, ENVIRONMENT.”

She ascended high above and circled around Mount Olympus several times as the Grecian gods and I looked up in awe. Her laughter rippled across the sky.

When I woke up, I could still hear her laughter.

And armed with three simple words, I was prepared for my baby’s forthcoming sixteen-year celebration.

BIO: J. Marquez Jr. is a proud father; a loving grandpa; a happy husband; a fan of music and lyrics—especially those of Pink Floyd; an aspiring admirer of the arts and a mad-writer with something to say.