Mr Melon Has a Dream, by Caroline Mohan

The Healer, by Rene Magritte (Belgium) 1936

Mr Melon Has a Dream

Mr Melon has been walking for a long, long time. It is hot. He needs a rest. The fields stretch on and on in front of him. They disappear behind him for miles and miles. To either side are more fields, filled with early wheat. Green shoots with fledgling ears lapping at the back of the hedges, destined to become slender yellow stalks, are waving in the warm summer winds, like a drowning man reaching out for a lifebelt.  

Mr Melon doesn’t like wheat or barley or corn or fields or the countryside. He wants to be back in his flat in the old part of town. He woke up maybe yesterday, maybe last week or month or year. He doesn’t know. He only knows that he had to start walking. His dream had shown him the way. He must walk until he can walk no more. And then he must wait. When the world is ready the path will open up in front of him and he will know everything that is known. He will know the full meaning behind his life.  

Mr Melon sits down on the nearest bit of hedge. It looks spikey with its branches, roughly trimmed by mechanical hedge-cutters, and its dark green holly-like leaves but it feels like the finest feather mattress with sumptuous layers of horse-hair for cushioning. He luxuriates in the unexpected comfort. He swings himself round to lift his legs onto this unexpected bed. He lowers his torso down and lets out a long sigh. He hopes this is it. Where his journey ends. 

Mr Melon closes his eyes and feels the rays of the sun on his face. They are warm. It must be summer here. It must be early afternoon. He feels a lightness as though he is floating. Birds chirp and caw and coo. He opens his eyes and sees a flock of doves swooping and soaring on the thermals. He smiles. He feels the flutter of wings as a dove lands on his chest, followed by another and another and another. 

Mr Melon surrenders to the dream of yesterday. So be it he thinks. So be it. Their claws look sharp but they are as soft as down. He is reminded of the cushioned drumsticks that the head of the annual parade in his Quarter uses to thrash the big drum he straps to his chest. He closes his eyes for a second time and waits. Slowly he feels his back lift off the hedge. Then his crumpled, ancient arse. Then his legs. Finally his feet. 

“I am levitating,” he thinks to himself. 

“I am levitating,” he says out loud.

Mr Melon hears the birds coo and feels the flapping of a thousand wings above him and beneath him and beside him. He is flying. He opens his eyes. The blue sky of afternoon has become the russet hues of evening. 

“Red sky at night, shepherds’ delight,” he thinks to himself. 

“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight,” he says out loud. 

Mr Melon flies with the birds until the sky becomes purple twilight. Ahead he sees a shimmer of silver light and the sound of more birds. The doves are singing now in harmony with the new white birds of the light. He feels very sleepy. Sleepy like he has never felt before. His arms and legs and head feel too heavy to move. 

“I can’t move,” he thinks to himself. 
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“I can’t move’” he tries to say out loud. He can’t speak. 

Mr Melon and the birds have reached the land of the shimmering light. The warmth of the light fills his body through to his bones. His warmed eyelids soothe his tired eyeballs and open his mind’s eye. He sees his mother, his father, his brothers, his neighbours, the raggedy children running around his streets. All the dogs he ever loved flash through his thoughts. He smiles. 

Mr Melon feels the lightness again. The birds are leaving now, one by one. He floats like a feather, gently buffeted by the thermals as he descends slowly slowly through the purple twilight and the russet sky and the blue afternoon. He sees the fields below him and the spire of the Cathedral in his town. The last two doves guide him carefully across the landscape and down, down into the familiar smell of his Quarter. The distinctive aroma of people who work for a living. Tobacco, freshly baked bread and warm dirt. The birds manoeuvere him between chimneys and washing lines and balconies. 

Mr Melon sees the front of his building. His blinds are pulled down. He must have forgotten to pull them up when he left for his walk. He sees the Cathedral Square up ahead. There is a procession. At first he thinks it is a feast day. Then he sees the coffin, raised high on the shoulders of six strong men. He recognizes Lucian, one of his nephews. Surprised, he looks more closely and sees two more nephews. Bringing up the rear is the stooped back of Marcel, his sister’s husband. Surely Veronique hasn’t passed in the time he has been away? No, there she is behind the coffin with his nieces on either side. Behind them, an elderly cousin. He spots his Pétanque friends. Jacques has Mr Melon’s distinctive yellow pétanque set in his hands. Monsieur Cheval, the grumpy tobacconist who sells him his Gitanes, and Ahmed, who runs the mini-mart, are here. He spots the mothers along the pavement, leaning on the shoulders of the boys he coaches football. He smiles. There’s little Nico, who could play for France if only his Italian mother lets him. Opposite are the stray cats he feeds, keeping their distance from the dogs of the town, the ones he pats and slips treats to on his daily promenade. 

Mr Melon feels the tears prick the back of his eyes. This is the meaning that the world had ready to reveal to him. His journey is over. His heart soars. He is ready to go home. 

Caroline Mohan
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Caroline Mohan lives in the North West of Ireland and writes sporadically - mostly stories with the occasional poem and mostly in workshops. She has had a number of pieces chosen for the Ekphrastic Challenges.