Dragonflies E-Book

Anthony Caine

• Herausgeber: Europa Edizioni
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Inspired by his zoom call with Kundera, Dostojevsky, Borges, Hemingway, and Joyce Carol Oates, the author embarks on a literary journey in search of personal revalidation after his recent divorce. The journey takes form in a sequence of 20 short stories, sometimes solitary, others often interconnected. Together, they take the reader on a tour of magical realism, encountering a spectrum of characters such as Mr. Bojangles, Sancho Panza, Bartholomew Columbus, Dante’s Beatrice, Gabriel Marquez’s Macondo Family, and many others, all brilliantly remembered in this text.
It is left to the reader to interpret where the dragonflies are flying in the midst of this journey.

Educated as an architect and engineer, Anthony Caine is an American living in Prague, Czech Republic. From 1976 to 1989 he practiced as an architect in New York City, where he was active in the development of lower Manhattan’s loft conversions. In 1991 he accepted an invitation from the Chief Architect of Prague to assist in that city’s transformation to a market economy. He has lived in Prague ever since, holding dual citizenship, developing properties, teaching university students, and consulting on matters of urban development. Dragonflies is Anthony’s third literary work to have been published. It is preceded by two novels: Passage to Yarmouth (2024) and the award-winning Fog Bound (2023).

Leseprobe

Anthony Caine

Dragonflies

© 2025 Europe Books | London

www.europebooks.co.uk | [email protected]

Copyrighted in Prague November 2022

© Anthony Caine

ISBN 9791256970841

First edition: February 2025

DRAGONFLIES

A collection of 20 sequential short stories

Still Life

Breakfast at the James Dean

Nursery Square

The Promise

Promise in Pursuit

Recurrence

Beautiful Maps

Café Central

Mystic Affection

On To Castile

Ivan’s Promise

Society for the Rehabilitation of

Supporting Characters

The Court of Public Opinion

Renee’s Labyrinth

Ascending Towers

Antarctica

The Sea Cow

The Dark Café

Fantastic Voyage

Celtic Grove

The Child Came Out to Wonder

‘Genius,’ Baudelaire observes, ‘is none other than childhood with precision.’ I believe that … [he] intended the word ‘genius’ to be understood in this context as the ‘daimon’, which the ancient Greeks believed is in every man: his character, indeed his essence. If Baudelaire is correct, then in a sense childhood never ends, but exists in us not merely as a memory or a complex of memories, but as an essential part of what we intrinsically are.

Every artist knows the truth of this since, for the artist childhood, and the childhood conception of things, is a deep source of what we used to call inspiration, if for no other reason than that it was as children that we first apprehended the world as mystery.

… John Banville “Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir”

- - - - -

For my grandchildren.

Isabella, Hudson, and Austin.

Picture albums may tell you what your grandfather has done in his life. These stories have been written to help you know who your grandfather actually is.

As Sancho Panza writes in story number 4,The Promise:

“If it is not too heavy for you, carry this book as you walk on. I wish you good luck and contentment in the promise of your quest.”

-- -- -- --

With special thanks to Petra…

… yes, really.

She fired up the Bessemer from which these stories subsequently emerged

Still Life

…the universe is a library where we search in vain for an overall purpose to the vast, geometric edifice in which we are trapped. It is a library, endlessly circular, in which the same volumes are repeated in the same disorder, time and again…

… Jorge Luis Borges,The Library of Babel

- - - - -

It was shortly after the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic ended in Prague that I received an email from V Zatíší Restaurant. I have been a longtime member of its dining club, but I had not shown my face there in recent years. The email asked me if I might explain my absence. Did I have problems with the restaurant menu? Was there a problem with the restaurant service? Was the price list too expensive? Had there been a bad experience?

I typically don’t respond to marketing surveys, yet I decided to answer this one: No, it was none of these things. V Zatíší has always been and continues to be my favorite dining venue in this city. It is just that ten years ago, I moved my residence and my business out to the suburbs. I don’t often get back to the restaurant’s neighborhood anymore. Possibly more to the point, my wife left our marriage three years ago. We have since divorced, so I have no one with whom to share the V Zatiší experience. But… as an anecdote, I offered: if someone on the restaurant staff might introduce me to a slim and elegant woman between the ages of 55 and 65, intelligent, sympathetic, engaging, with a fine sense of humor, then I would be very pleased to rekindle my previous, frequent patronage at V Zatiší.

Of course, I didn’t expect the restaurant to respond to this. I just wanted its staff to know that the problem wasn’t on their side.

Quite to my surprise, shortly after Prague went into its second pandemic lock down, I received another email from the restaurant. This time it was signed by Martina, the marketing manager and longtime maitre d’. Would I please participate in a video call to follow up the survey?

Assuming that the video call would focus on the restaurant’s strategy to survive this new lockdown, I responded “Sure, happy to be of help.”

- - - - -

A few days later, I clicked on Martina’s zoom invitation. Apparently, I was the last guest to join the call. Martina made a point of welcoming me particularly.

“I have taken the liberty to invite a few international friends with whom, I am told, you might be reasonably familiar. Let me welcome Mr. Milan Kundera, Mr. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mr. Jorge Luis Borges, and Mr. Ernest Hemingway. For female flavor, I have added to this group, Ms. Joyce Carol Oates. Do you know her work? She is American, and like you she grew up in upstate New York.’

‘Also joining us – but certainly not so well known – is Lukáš. You may remember, Lukáš has been our head waiter since we opened. He is managing the logistics of this call. Skilled in the magic of modern technology, Lukáš is playing with digital mysteries of space and time to bring us all together. Questions / comments from any of you before we start?”

Milan Kundera was quick to respond.

“Yes, Martina, I have a few. Firstly, thank you for your invitation. It is always nice to have the opportunity to return to my home country, even if I am taking on only a virtual presence. Lukáš, any chance that you might arrange for us all to share a virtual lunch while we talk?’

‘No? Well maybe next time. With all of us epistolarians at this roundtable today, what is to be the appropriate protocol as we address each other? Since we have Americans in our presence, any objections if we speak on a first name basis?’

And, please, one last question: can you explain to us all why we have been summoned?”

“Sure. Of course. Our American guest, here, has been a longstanding resident of our city and a patron of V Zatiší. His patronage dates back to 1993, even before the restaurant’s dining membership program first began. As you might expect, like all restaurant venues in Prague since this last March, V Zatiší’s restaurant business has been hurt by the Covid-19 virus. Fortunately, we have a sustainable catering service that we have been operating in parallel for years. To encourage our restaurant patrons to make more use of our catering, a short while ago the restaurant ran a survey, asking its customers what we might do better while we continue to serve them during these difficult times. Our American, here, responded that the restaurant offers excellent food and fine service, and remains his favorite. It has apparently been for personal reasons that he has not been dining with us in recent years.’

‘Evidently abandoned by his wife, he has asked to be introduced to an attractive, refined woman appropriate for his age. We, of course, understood that he did not really expect us to meet his request; matchmaking is not one of our many services. But we, within V Zatiší, do take pride in the care we show our customers. We are aware that when a noteworthy loving relationship breaks apart, deep emotional scars appear that do not readily heal. They need to be confronted before one can build a relationship with a new partner.”

Hemingway piped up. “Do you have a college degree in psychology? Or psychiatry, perhaps?”

“No, but as the restaurant’s maitre’d I get to observe a lot of people. V Zatiší has interpreted our guest’s responding email as a subliminal call for help. The pandemic has given our staff more time to focus on valued customers. As marketeers, we take a long-term view. Simply said, we want our guest to find comfort in a new life. As we are his preferred dining venue, we want to recover his regular patronage.”

“Ok. We get it. But with all respect to this American, why focus on him particularly? For being in his late 60’s, he seems pretty healthy. He may possibly be hurting inside, but you know, there is plenty of pain to go around. Fyodor, are you nodding your head? Please speak up.”

“Yes, with all due respect to this guest, everyone has a cross to bear. A cross is personal. It cannot be carried by someone else. Life brings us all eventually to the realization that we each create and reside within our own prison.”

“Of course,” Martina responded. “But we can help make the prison more tolerable. To those of us who know this guest and his ex-wife, their divorce came as quite a shock. They were a notably elegant couple: both of them attractive, strong, intelligent, focused, and outgoing. Together, they projected a special harmony. He… trim, affluent, sympathetic. She… with angelic eyes and a sweet voice. He from the USA, she from Moravia. They were the reflection of our country’s modern link to the west. Together, they transmitted positive energy, passing it on to the people around them.”

“Martina, if I may?” Lukáš added. “Our restaurant enjoyed a number of noteworthy experiences with them over the years. Let me give you just a couple of examples.’

‘In 1995, this gentleman reserved a special table for lunch, to entertain the American developer, Gerry Hines, and his wife, Barbora. We were warned in advance that Mr. Hines was in his 70’s, and apparently had experienced one or more serious health events related to high cholesterol. He needed to follow a very strict diet: absolutely no butter and no oil.”

“The year before,” I now explained, “Gerry had come to Prague to meet with the school board of the International School of Prague, to consider if he would invest with us in its adjacent housing project, Malá Šárka. He stayed downtown at the Intercontinental Hotel. Room service delivered him his breakfast, cream of wheat. It was covered with butter. He sent it back to the kitchen… twice. I had to go to the kitchen myself to be sure that breakfast would not return with butter a third time. So, when I approached V Zatiší, I wanted to be sure Gerry would not encounter a similar experience.”

Lukáš continued. “So, we set up a special menu for Mr. Hines. I reserved a special table, set off from the others so I could give the table my undivided attention. If I remember correctly, there were eight guests for lunch.”

“Yes, we were all new employees of Hines Interests. Gerry and Barbora had arrived just that morning by their private plane. Over lunch, Gerry was criticizing Barbora for having had a cup of coffee on the flight, listing all the bad effects coffee can have on her metabolism. He was very persistent in this. I sensed that this was a recurring point of contention between them. I was afraid that it might escalate to an unpleasant confrontation over lunch. So, ignoring any thought that my intervention in their debate might adversely impact my professional future, I volunteered that last year during Gerry’s meeting with the school board, he had reached into his bag for some chocolate.’

‘Wine was then served. I remember that the restaurant sound system was playing Jerry Jeff Walker’s Mr. Bojangles, …the version sung by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Lukáš placed toasted, unbuttered baguettes in front of Gerry. Garlic bread was placed around the table for the rest of us.”

Lukáš now continued: “Without any hesitation, Mr. Hines reached across the table, exclaimed ‘Garlic bread! I love garlic bread!’ and grabbed two large pieces for himself. I screamed, ‘No! No! It has BUTTER!’ and went running toward the table from the far corner of the room.”

“Yes, an unforgettable moment, to be sure.” I noted. “Lukáš lost his footing and landed on the floor at the foot of Barbora’s chair. Gerry, savouring the garlic bread, he looked down at Lukáš, then at his wife pensively. And then, to the rest of us with a big smile he said with pride, ‘These days, my cholesterol is so low!’ Before lunch was finished, and to our ongoing surprise, Gerry had shared my wife’s dessert: chocolate mousse, covered with a rich vanilla sauce… Just like that, an enduring corporate myth about Mr. Hines’ gastronomic discipline had been unceremoniously discarded.”

Martina moved on:

“In February, 2009, in the midst of the financial crisis, our guest organized with us a surprise 40th birthday party for his wife. Their friends and family filled our restaurant beyond its limits. Her parents came from Moravia. Golfing partners, friends from business, his wife’s colleagues from ‘Women in the Arts’ attended. Even a number of people who had attended the couple’s wedding 16 years before. The event was full of warm feelings. It was a wonderful and celebrated tribute to her… and to them as a couple.”

“Everyone had brought my wife bouquets of fresh flowers,” I noted. “For the next 3 days, every room in our apartment was full of them. The apartment looked almost like we were mourning a funeral. And, maybe we were. Due to the escalating financial crisis, my wife had just then started to work at a bank, ending her work with me in our family real estate business. Our life together as a couple was beginning to change.’

‘These days, when looking around,” I added, “sometimes I wonder how I ever got here: my solitary life, my apartment, even the horses and cats that today structure my daily routine. The last 30 years passed so quickly. Of course, I remember the events and the achievements of these years. But it is like reading the CV of someone else…”

Martina noted that the last time I had dined at V Zatiší was early in 2018.

“Yes, to be specific, it was January 30th, 2018. Although my wife and I had separated three months before then, we had agreed to meet on this day for dinner at V Zatiší in recognition of our 25th wedding anniversary.”

“I remember serving you that night,” Lukáš said. “Good feeling was not rising from your table. Totally different than in the past.”

“Yes, well, it was on that night that my wife informed me that she would not be coming back. No reasons were provided. No explanation of what she was planning to do, or where she was planning to live. The evening left me with an intense feeling of just being old. It was painful.”

After quietly listening until now, Jorge Luis Borges spoke up. “There is profound violence when one person causes another to feel ‘just old’. It is more severe than inflicting physical pain on another. It is a direct attack on the inner soul. It is not like a broken leg or arm, or being wounded by a knife. In these other cases, the brain can isolate, encapsulate, and separate the pain from your inner sense of being.”

Jorge Luis Borges continued.

“Much of what governs human behavior is driven by a desire to avoid feeling ‘old’, ‘marginalized’, ‘spent’. It is not a matter of when we were actually born, what physical limitations we may be contending with, or what daily physical pain we may suffer. I believe that we are each driven by two primary motivations: First, the avoidance of feeling ‘just old’ – this is tied to our inherent fear of death. And, please note: real, sensible death need not be physical; it is firstly an emotional state of mind. The second motivation is the will to power, so convincingly explored by Nietzsche.”

After showing little if any interest in the discussion until this point, Ernest Hemingway suddenly stepped in.

“Nietzsche’s concept of the will to power is certainly true, but with all respect, he did not take this concept far enough. His work understates the importance of competition as life’s most governing driver.’

‘For most people, the motivations that drive our actions are in ascending importance: Principle, Love, Greed, Fear, and ultimately, Social Prestige. But societal standards do not permit most of us to acknowledge these motivations. Rather, we men justify our behavior by fabricating arguments based upon law or principle. Women trump any concern for law or principle by wrapping it within the decorative folia of ‘love’. The real value of either justification – principle or love -- is that each screens its audience from the more real, more potent motivations of greed, fear, and prestige.’

‘Making use of these screens does not show courage. Calling upon either screen is a sign of personal weakness.’

‘Men are warriors, women are society builders. Both genders are by nature highly competitive within their respective sex. Men confirm their strength, dominance, and influence via combat: physical, financial, psychological, whatever… Having established dominance, they secure the right to call upon women to procreate, to make passionate love.’

‘Love that is true and real creates for man a respite from death. Cowardice comes from not loving – or not loving well, which is the same thing. A man can truly be brave because he has loved with significant passion. This puts death out of his mind. Later, when the fear of death returns, he must make passionate love again.”

The restaurant sound system was now playing a medley of songs by Frank Sinatra.

“Women achieve dominance over other women via social prestige. Men and family are the first and foremost venues by which most women establish and hold onto social position. This social prestige builds security for the woman and her offspring. In this context, it is better to have been married and divorced then to never have been married at all.

‘Listen’ Do you hear? It is as Frank sings: “…when the sweet talk is done, a woman’s a two faced, a worrisome thing, who’ll leave you to sing the blues.” For most women, social position confirms self-esteem. Since her position is consequently dependent on what others think of her, a woman’s self-esteem (and feeling for others, I might add) is inevitably variable and volatile. Inside, they are constantly reevaluating themselves, chewing on one bone or another.’

‘The concepts of personal integrity and honor can thereby only be profoundly understood and achieved by the male species.”

Upon hearing this, all eyes turned to Ms. Oates for comment.

“Ernest, please, let’s leave aside any postulating about women, their integrity, and self-worth. You do not live in our shoes, and yet you presume that you understand us. I am sure Martina would agree with me. Your standpoint calls for counter argument, but it is not relevant or appropriate here. There may be some logic to what you say, but the logic is underpinned by an outdated, exclusively male idea of how one measures integrity.”

“Joyce, what I speak of is governed neither by archaic nor modern ideas. OK, tell me then, what drives the woman who cannot have children? I would say that she is thereupon by default destined to be a hedonist.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky intervenes.

“Joyce, I have two possibly relevant questions about your own work. In your novel, Blackwater, what has motivated Kelly to get in the Senator’s car that night? The narrative suggests a perceived opportunity that may not come along again… Is this not the pursuit of social prestige? And then in Beasts, what triggers Gillian’s obsession with Professor Harrow? A venue to break away from established morays, a striving for independence? Does the obsession instead grow from Harrow’s superior position as her English professor? Or is it the toxic mix of the two?”

I felt the need to depersonalize the conversation and get it back on an even keel.

“Fyodor if I may? Here is a still literary, yet real life example for you all: For a long time I have wondered what motivated Joyce Maynard to leave her studies at Yale University to live -- basically in isolation – with J.D. Salinger in rural New Hampshire. He was notoriously anti-social. Did she see Salinger as a better source from whom to learn to write than she could get at Yale?”

Milan Kundera took up my question. “Possibly, but Maynard left Salinger within one year. By her own admission, Maynard left Salinger because he refused to have a child with her. What does that suggest? Could it be that her actions were as equally motivated by her pursuit of social prestige as it was by her respect for Salinger’s skill as a writer? Salinger was an icon; to have had his child would catapult her to the center of the literary world.”

“Let’s get back to addressing our guest and his situation,” Fyodor politely but firmly suggested. “His wife’s departure came to him as a complete surprise, as a black swan. Looking back now, I am sure that he can identify a number of signals that the marriage was breaking down, but for our discussion this is irrelevant. For him, his wife’s declaration that she was leaving came as a black swan.’

‘You, sir, are consequently caught in a predicament: Even still today, your ex-wife apparently has not felt the need to apologize for giving up on your partnership, to give you reasons why she left you, or to provide you any information about where or with whom she is now living. She has broken all human ties, placed you in a shoe box along with old photographs, and closed the lid.’

‘We all prefer to place the blame for our personal predicaments at someone else’s feet, but it is ourselves who are ultimately held to accounts. As said before, we create our own prison. You are living with this reality. You can choose to bury yourself in its denial, or you can face its music.”

As if just on cue, the restaurant sound system started to play an anthology of Van Morrison songs.

“It matters not who or what brought the black swan to our doorstep. It is our obsessive struggle to overcome its consequences that has the power to drive us into what Jorge here would refer to as the ‘labyrinth of despair’. Were we loved or were we not? Are we worthy of love, or are we not?’

‘By definition, black swans are not anticipated, but they are not really rare events. They continually reappear among us. Your predicament is by no means special. Indeed, listen to this music: the lyrics of half of all modern songs are focused on a sudden realization that love has taken a dramatic turn for the worse.”

Joyce now joined in. “Friends, especially female friends, may try to rationalize this predicament by suggesting that your wife just doesn’t have the strength to provide you the explanation you are looking for. But, even if she did offer some response, you will inevitably never really know the truth.’

‘The fact that she has not apologized for giving up on your partnership might even suggest that she never saw your marriage as a true partnership. As an unattached expatriate in 1991, you appeared to her as an astute, well-educated American with a promising future in Prague. She may very well have regarded you from the beginning as just a venue, a way to leave her provincial home for a cosmopolitan life in Prague. Or even, a venue to get entrance to the USA. For her, any sense of partnership may have been secondary. Important, yes, but her notions of “love” could have grown from -- and be subject to -- convenience and compatibility. Does that make notions of love less real?’

‘There may be many reasons why she left you when she did. You were 65, and she 48 when she left, isn’t that correct? Your own social and professional activity by then was slowing down. Whereas for her, she was entering the age primed for a woman’s social prestige. Obviously, in her mind, your stock value was dropping. Simply said, new opportunities presented themselves.’

‘Sure, out of respect for twenty-five years of marriage, she can be criticized for not telling you how and with whom she has now chosen to live. But really, what’s the purpose of doing so? It might only create for her the risk that you would without welcome intervene in her new life.”

It was now Milan Kundera who spoke up. “So, if these questions have not been -- and cannot be – answered, our guest here is left with an unsolvable dilemma. He is confronted with a 25 year black hole in his life, a hole he cannot fill. He does not know – will not know and cannot know -- if there was indeed a loving partnership that once existed and subsequently expired. Or, maybe it never existed at all. For his wife, it may have been just business. He, being merely a means to help her climb a social ladder.”

Martina passed the baton to Mr. Borges.

“Jorge, it appears that you have something to add …”

“Yes, thank you, by our guest’s own words, those 25 years passed by so quickly that sometimes he doesn’t know how he came to be where he is today. For 25 years, life’s mystery appeared to have been understood. Love apparently satisfied, there was little need to focus on -- and thereby slow down -- the passing time. Now, faced with his black swan, fear has taken hold. Life’s mystery has returned. The last 25 years may have been nothing more than a dream, love nothing more than a lie, and he nothing more than a phantom.”

“Gentlemen,” Joyce suggested, “let’s turn this instead to the positive. If this is indeed the case, then our guest is in a certain sense fortunate. He is now re-confronting the world’s mystery. He has returned to the center of the labyrinth, able again to try to find his way through. How many of us get a second chance? Better late than never, I might say. This can be life’s most profound joy!”

Milan chimed in. “If our guest rises to the challenge, is true to himself and is courageous, life shall now pass more slowly.”

“I think I can speak for us all here.” Ernest, said, sensing closure. “Let your questions stay unresolved, sir. This focus on the world’s mystery can continue to burn inside you. Look for new passion. Do not fear death…’

‘You might try some serious writing. You have played around with it in the past. Some credible but rudimentary stuff has come from it. Especially now when you confront your black swan and are immersed in your labyrinth, in writing you might find redemption.”

Van Morrison was singing Into the Mystic.

“I’ll think about it...You know, Martina, when I came to this conference, I expected the question would be about the business of V Zatiší, namely: what ‘Still Life’ has been in the past; what should it best become? The focus has instead turned out to be about me. Thinking about it, though, the question hasn’t really changed, has it?’

‘Gentlemen, Ms. Oates, thank you. You have all been very kind to focus your interest on me today. Especially, since – as I suspect – Lukáš probably conjured you up here without asking your permission or telling you his purpose in advance. I have read work from each of you. Not being a scholar of literature, I am certainly not competent to critique it. What I can be certain of, though, is that in your own way and under your own terms, by writing you confronted your own black swans.’

‘Martina and Lukáš, you are amazing to have conceived and organized this. Thank you. You are really fine people.’

‘So, to the point: I believe that I am quite comfortable with thoughts of death. I am not afraid of it. And I am worthy of love. This leads me forward.’

‘I sense, though, that my first step is not an intellectual one. It is not to try my hand as a writer. Instead, I feel that I first need to learn from Mr. Bojangles how to dance...’

‘Oh, yes, Lukáš please, one more thing: Since, V Zatiší remains closed for the time being, may I ask you to deliver to my home a plate of chocolate mousse? The vanilla sauce included, of course. V Zatiší’s chocolate mousse is still the best I have ever tasted.”

“Are you sure that you are ready for it?”

“Yes, I think so.”

- - - - -

… the object of poetry / indeed, of all art forms / is to convert the outrage of the years / into a music, a murmur and a symbol / for it returns like the dawn and the sunset, and like a mirror, it may reveal our own face to us or give us a sight of home, like Ulysses’ Ithaca, but since all in the end is transience and dreaming, poetry, like time, like ourselves, is what passes and remains, the same and yet another / like the endless river, itself…

… Jorge Luis Borges, Arte Poetica

Breakfast at the James Dean

When traveling, a subtle but really enjoyable life experience for me has been to have breakfast in a local street café amidst local residents.

I remember San Francisco’s steak & eggs with avocado, bean sprouts, and oranges; Perugia’s prosciutto with mozzarella, basil and tomato; Manhattan’s bagel with lox, cream cheese and cucumber; Montreal’s thick French toast with blueberries and maple syrup; Reykjavik’s thickly sliced, toasted sourdough bread with herring, Danish blue cheese & parsley… The memories are not just about the food, though. The cafés provided an opportunity to connect with each city’s unpretentious daily life. These experiences have given me a less editorialized, more meaningful impression of their residents…

Soon after the millennium, The James Dean Café opened in Prague. It is an iconic reproduction of an early 1960’s suburban American diner. With its extended breakfast bar, leather-padded metal bar stools, and fluorescent lights highlighting a daily menu above, the café takes you back in time. No matter whether you are dining alone or with a group of friends, it provides separate banquets for dining comfort. Each booth comes with a remote music selection box, where for a few coins you can play your favorites from that era on the Wurlitzer. It is a place where you can find classic American lunch dishes: burgers, BLT, grilled cheese, and Reuben sandwiches, enhanced by the vision of slim, long-legged waitresses dressed in pink uniforms with short skirts and pitched caps. Its breakfast menu highlights oat meal, bagels with cream cheese, eggs benedict, Canadian bacon, sausages, and pancakes. Each dish comes with orange slices, toasted English muffin, and a bottomless cup of coffee. The café could be the stage set for a reenactment of the film, American Graffiti.

This morning, I have come to James Dean to take my breakfast --- choosing to sit on a bar stool, watching this morning’s collection of local patrons, and enjoying the virginal, morning atmosphere cultivated by its friendly waitresses.

According to the tag on her costume, the waitress tending the bar is named Renee. As she pours out my first cup of Americano, she recites the day’s specials. Not bothering to review the menu, I order 2 eggs, sunny side up, stacked on top of 3 buttered pancakes, with thick slices of Canadian bacon sandwiched between. A generous amount of maple syrup on the side, please, plus a large glass of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice.

Waiting for my food to arrive, I leisurely look through the offering of songs listed inside the nearby music selection box. I look around. Seats in the café’s banquets and at its bar counter are quickly filling up.

Some early morning patron has called on the Wurlitzer to play Roll over Beethoven.

A colorfully dressed – almost to the point of being clownish -- elderly man has taken the seat next to me. He is studying his menu when my food arrives. Evidently, not yet decided what he will order, he glances over at my plate as I pour maple syrup on top of my stack of eggs, bacon, and pancakes. We briefly make eye contact.

“You are obviously not Czech,” he declares.

“Czechs won’t mix sweet and salt like that in the same dish.”

“No, I’m not. I am a long-tolerated expatriate from the States. My choice of food this morning is what I used to eat for weekend brunch when living in Vermont more than 30 years ago.”

“So, this morning you are indulging in a diet of nostalgia?”

“No, not really. It might be more correct to say that I am substituting a breakfast at the James Dean for what might have otherwise been an impulsive weekend trip to a different city, one not previously visited. When I travel, I like to take breakfast in a street café among the neighborhood’s residents. I find it to be an enriching experience. People are particularly interesting to watch in the morning before they go to work. But as we all know, the Covid pandemic has closed bars and restaurants throughout the continent; short, impulsive weekend trips abroad remain for the time being impossible.”

“Yes, as I said, you are indulging in a diet of nostalgia. Not for a specific place, perhaps, but for the recurrent experience.”

“Ok. Fair enough. If we are going to converse over breakfast, may I ask your name?”

“Just call me Ziggy.”

Renee roller-bladed down to our end of the bar and asks Ziggy for his order.

“I will have the same as my friend here. Thank you.”

“Ziggy, you say? So, should I assume from your breakfast order that you are also not Czech?”

“Correct. My blended roots cook up a bowl of minestrone: a considerable number of them come from southern Italy, both the east and west sides of the Apennines. I have been advised that some of these Italian roots may extend back further to Greece or the Balkans, some also from Spain or Morocco. More recently, some roots have been cultivated in America.”

“Minestrone soup seems be a good metaphor. Its mix of ingredients helps to explain the colors in your attire. The combination is a bit dreamy.”

“I suppose so… and complementary, I might add, to this morning’s immersion in nostalgia. You know, nostalgia is just another form of recurrent dreaming. Less obscure, perhaps, just expressed through a different Microsoft window in our psyche.”

“Are you a psychologist?”

“Not at all. Simply observant… I might add that the converse of this paradigm is also true: dreams can be a form of nostalgia. They continuously reinterpret our past. They keep returning until our psyche finally lands on an acceptable rendition. Considering that we, ourselves, keep changing, reaching an acceptable rendition is not so easy.”

We both turn to watch Renee and her long legs as she skillfully glides past us on her way to serve another customer. On the Wurlitzer, Aaron Neville is singing Tell It Like It Is.

“Do you ever have recurring dreams? I do. I have been having them for years. The context and focus of the dreams have shifted with the decades.”

This conversation appeared to me to be getting a little too personal. We are merely two strangers sharing a breakfast counter. I am not sure if I am ready to listen to this guy dig into his head while I eat. I start to play with the music selection box, looking for a tune that might help raise the local atmospheric pressure a bit.

Ziggy persists.

“I started to have recurrent dreams as a teenager. While in high school and college in the States, I played soccer. In a recurring dream, I am playing in a key game. The ball comes to me. It is just out of reach, and I can’t get to it. My legs are really heavy. Weighted down. Can’t move them to reach the ball. Invariably, I can’t make the play. It is almost painful… I wake up sweating, nervous, and exhausted.”

“Well,” I comment as I sampled my pancakes, “I have been told that this kind of dream is quite typical of ambitious, young men who suffer from some deep seeded feelings of inadequacy.”

I found Good Vibrations in the song box, and dropped in a coin.

“Maybe so,” Ziggy demurred. “Interestingly, the recurrence of this dream continued long after leaving university, straight through the first decade of my marriage. The dream finally stopped returning after I divorced my first wife.”

With the coffee pot in her hand, Renee rolls up to us. Her bump into the counter brought her to a sudden stop. To stabilize herself she leaned over, resting her elbows on the bar. She seems to be in her late teens. Quite pretty in a wholesome kind of way. Her long brown hair had slipped out of its cap. It was now resting comfortably over her otherwise visible cleavage.

She coyishly gazed at each of us, first at Ziggy and then at me.

“You gentlemen appear to need more coffee. May I refill your cups?”

Ziggy immediately answered in the affirmative. I hesitated, but eventually agreed. Her green eyes, soft shiny hair, and the cleavage were impossible to resist. Renee refilled our cups and moved on to another customer.

My neighboring breakfast terrorist continues. “Then, in my forties, when my professional activities were beginning to yield results, I started to have dreams about flying. In these early dreams, I would sneak to the local airport and steal a small, single prop airplane. It didn’t matter that I didn’t technically know how to fly it. Somehow, alone in the clear sky, I was able to manage the flight: take off, landing, cross winds – everything. I would fly to the other side of a mountain ridge, not really knowing where that was. From there, I could look out over the distant panorama. Afterwards, I would successfully return the plane to its hanger without being seen. In later, sequential dreams, the airplane was first replaced by a jet-propelled motorcycle with wings, then by a jet-propelled chair, like what you might expect to see in an old James Bond movie. Then by the same chair, but without the jet engine. No matter what form of transport I used, I would inevitably fly to the same ridgeline and back. Always taking in the broad panoramic view. It was all really great fun! Flying free, without restraint, the wind in your face… As you might imagine, each of these dreams left me feeling great in the morning and ready for the challenge of another day.”

Ok, he had now triggered my curiosity. “Was this after your divorce? Were you living alone during this period?” I asked.

“Yes and no. I had remarried shortly before the flying dreams began. This second time, to a much younger woman.”

“I presume that your new marriage was then in its honeymoon period.”

“Yes, you might say this… Still later, in the next – and unfortunately, last -- era of my flying dreams, the chair would rise, but not travel to the ridge. Ultimately, the chair became unnecessary. I could rise up into the air without it. All I had to do was take a deep breath, lift my shoulders, and I would naturally rise. Sometimes, I would be playing basketball, extending myself above the rim of the basket to easily dunk the ball. More often, I would just rise to the ceiling like Ed Wynn in the musical, Mary Poppins.”

“For how long did the era of flying dreams continue?”

“Not long enough. Roughly 10 years. Long before the flying dreams had ended, though, I encountered a new set of recurrent dreams. These were less vivid and often clouded in mist. As a collection, these dreams had more variety in their details. The progression seems less linear, you might say. They all occur within an early 19th century house in New England that I had renovated back in the 1980’s.”

Having finished my breakfast, I signal to Renee to please come and collect my plate.

“This house was pretty interesting. It was constructed using timber frame technology, typical of the period. Its façades were of an austere neo-classical style, but containing a level of sophistication that was more typical of Boston and its surroundings. The scale, proportion, and arrangement of rooms all were very noble. The house had obviously been built by an enlightened, affluent family. When I bought it in the early 80’s, it had already been saved from demolition, and relocated from its previous town setting to a country hillside.’