transformation 1

        Burnished autumn sunlight. Its angle of entry from the apex of the eastern window attested to the lateness of the hour. Hank knew he had overslept. He lay there in his bunk and savored the moment. Fully rested and clear-headed, he remembered dreaming a lot. The nonlinear plots of his nocturnal mind-dramas had all been forgotten. Whatever they had been did not concern him now. He knew one thing for certain: a therapeutic cleansing had occurred.
        On the dream level something had challenged him and he had defeated it, ending a crisis within his subconscious. The phantoms and all their ambiguities had been banished. He felt rejuvinated, upbeat. Snug and warm beneath a tattered old quilt of Maxine's, he lazily stretched his legs, feet and toes, concentrating upon each in its order and addressing each with thanksgiving.
        "Good morning, Da."
        She stood beside him like a golden specter, not of this earth. Her cheeks were aglow.
        "How are you, Bern?"
        "Just fine."
        "I am happy to hear that."
        She had brought him a bedtray. She set it upon him and removed the embroidered cloth that covered a bowl of biscuits. "Sourdough. With blackberry jam."
        Her black robe fell open and he saw she was naked within it. Her flesh teemed and swarmed with an intricacy of tattoos. Symbols and glyphs alien to him. They seemed as alive as brightly colored beetles and butterflies. Overnight she had experienced a quickening, surreal as Salvador Dali.
        Until now she had kept her body hidden from him with the modesty of a nun. Clothed in robes and hooded cloaks.
        He had expected her to be ravaged by Karposi's Sarcoma. Purple lesions. Not animated tattoos!
        Taxol could work wonders, but not miracles.
        Nor did he believe in this new drug able to produce the Lazarus Syndrome.
        Media buncombe.
        Evidently his eyes were deceiving him. This was a hallucination. She was an apparition. Perhaps his dream state had yet to expire. For instead of being frail and emaciated, Bernice was supple and energized. Not to mention being cosmetically decorated. Her pendulous breasts (circumnavigated by bands of coupled cinquefoils and octagons) were like swinging  globes of firm custard, and her fullmoon belly reminded him of Maxine. The inklike totems upon her skin brought to mind the Maori of New Zealand. He thought of Melville's Queequeg.
        Then, as the tattoos possessed a life of their own, he wigged out.
        Bernice withdrew immediately, clasping together folds of her robe. Shutting him off from that phantasmagorical panorama. He noticed a white ash, fine as talc, streaking her robe. She saw him looking, and apologized demurely. "Excuse me. I didn't mean to flash you."
        "Where did the ash come from?"
        "It happens. You see, I bilocate."
        Aghast: "Seriously?"
        "Last evening I visited Grandfather Nathan before he died."


                                                                                  *


        Dressed, Hank found she had gone out. Probably to the screened gazebo he had built for her. Confusion spun supremely in his mind.
        In the kitchen was a mess on the formica. Somebody had been busy with a bindi henna body-art kit.  Ink, stylus and design templates were there,  ready for use. That, however, did not solve the riddle of Bernice's transformation. He sat down dreamily and before he knew it, he was tattooing his face.
        The phone chirrupted. It was Maxine calling from New York.
        "Hank, Dear."
        "Hello, Max."
        "Thought I should call you and tell you that Bern arrived here OK."
        "What?"
        "Last evening. God, she looked healthy."
        "I don't understand."
        "We all said goodbye to Dad."
        "Good-bye?"
        Maxine shuddered with a sob. "Dad passed away."