Something Seven Saw

One time not long ago I saw something happen to the one who loved me. She was the one who saved my life, twice. When I was one day old I was left on a doorstep in a box, shivering and crying. She said I was like a black little pickle, bitter and sweet. She took me home, and that was the first time she saved my life. Days later, after a difficult time of growing without my natural mother, I stopped breathing in the night. She held me in her great hands and blew her breath into me, and that was the second time she saved my life. She would say that is why my name is Seven, because I have only seven lives left.
    Now I am quite old. My recollections of this one who loved me are simple and of her love. She would look me in the eye and smile and talk to me. She would say, "Want some lunch?" or "Brush?". She would say, "Love", too, and pick me up and hold me in her arms with mine around her shoulders, and we would touch noses. She knew I was fascinated with what is outside the big window, so she would let me go outside and she would come with me. I was fascinated but afraid, and she would always watch over me. I would roll in the gravel and chew the long grass. I would get excited and confused and run to the far side, she would call me, "Here, Seven," and carry me back to our home.
    She would cry sometimes. We would sit on the bed where we slept at night. She would be looking far away at something I couldn't see, her eyes half open like in a dream. A tear would roll down her cheek, and I would feel unhappy and nuzzle up against her side as we sat on the bed. She would reach down to put her arm around me and run her soft fingers through my hair.
    One morning she was awake and tears were rolling down her cheek. It was still dark, it was quiet outside the window. She seemed to be having a dream, she was speaking to someone in the room, but it was not to me and there was no one else I could see.
    "Mother", she said. "Mother, Mother, Mother... please get me out of here, Mother." I didn't know what she meant. Why was she crying? Why did she want to leave, and why did she need Mother's help? I crawled up on her pillow, so that I could look over her shoulder to see where she was looking, and I saw into her dream.


She was visiting a house, not unlike ours but not our home. The walls were dark and the air was thick with blue smoke. There were rooms with familiar things and rooms with things I did not know. I could hear sounds of machines but they were from far away. There was a strange smell, something I've never quite encountered before or since — and I am an expert on recognizing the many categories of scents I've encountered. It was not a scent from our home, something foreign and unnatural.
    She looked beautiful, wearing a blue evening gown and long elegant gloves. Her skin was soft and pale blue, blue like the smoky air of the rooms. Wisps of white curled around her eyes when she looked side to side. She was looking for something, something she expected to find in the next room. She seemed hopeful then lost, then hopeful again. She walked and looked, wandering through the house.
    The clock struck midnight and, as she began to call out again, someone came into the room with her.


I looked over her shoulder, I closely watched. I heard a soft rustling of wings in the dark blue air of her dream. A pale yellow glow appeared around two gentle faces. Angels heard her calling out and came, I could see them looking into her sad eyes. They asked her in a whisper, I could barely hear them, "Tears, my dear loved one? Why are you crying?"
    "Oh, please help me. I am so happy that you are here. I've been looking and looking but I am very alone. I cannot find Mother and I am so very, very afraid", she said to the angels. They came closer and she bowed her head in surrender and fatigue. The angels soothed her with their soft gentle eyes and calmed her with their caressing wings. Her tears began to stop.

"Dear loved one," they said, "We know how it is to be afraid and to be very alone. We had wandered the world looking for someone to help us, someone to hold us, so that we were not alone anymore. We felt the fear of wandering the rooms, looking for the ones we love in our life and the ones who loved us, only to wander alone in the dark." The one who loved me sobbed softly in their embrace. She said, "Have mercy on me, have mercy on me. Please take me away from here." The angels, tears rolling down their cheeks too, asked her, "Dear loved one, if you could go, where would that place be?"
    With a weary ring, she said, "I've been so long here in this place. I've been loved by my dearest ones, and I have loved my dearest ones with every atom of my being. I've been hurt by my dearest ones, and I have hurt my dearest ones with every regret that could be. I've felt soft, lovely things, been warm and held, seen the most beautiful views that can be held by eyes. I've seen terrible things, horrific pain, unexplainable cruelty and greed, all with these eyes. I have a mother, and I am a loving mother of another. But I am so alone now and afraid. Would you help me find a place where I can be safe and free of this fear forever?"
    The angels shuddered, and a great shake passed through my loved one. She shivered and shook me so, I had to hold fast to the pillow with a claw. The angels began to glow pale blue then white, and as they held my loved one in their feathered embrace, she began to glow too. I looked over her shoulder, and as I watched I felt all the judgments passing out of my loved one's heart. I saw the fears pass from her tearing eyes and ease replace the lonely lines around her lips. The angels smiled at each other and held their arms around her as she began to grow quiet, and the sobs faded to faint echoes.
    The dream turned pale green. And a peaceful, yellow light filtered down upon my loved one's body. As the angels' glow faded and the green and yellow light grew strong, I saw my loved one's smile. She turned as she floated alone in the green and yellow water of a warm, embracing sea. She waved her hand and touched my cheek with all the tenderness I have ever known, and I knew she was now at peace.


The dreamscape faded and I found myself alone, on the pillow. I let my grip go and recognized that, although there had been so much pain in the room only moments ago, there was now only a peace and a calm and the fullness of her freedom as she floated in the yellow light of the warm green water.
    This is what I saw as my loved one passed from view. I am now to sleep alone on this bed where I once nuzzled her leg and felt her fingers in my hair. I recollect when I was young and she saved my life, twice. She watches over me and carries me back to our home, until the end of my days, while I dream of her peace.

Deep gratitude for these illustrations by little Intava, who sits and sells her paintings in the window of her mother's shop on Hayes near Gough, rain or shine.