1.  Tangerine Sunrise

            It’s happening again and almost takes my breath away.

The pressure in my head pulls me down, down and…  Am I up, down, awake or asleep? Twisting in my covers like a bound mummy in the dark, I try to think. Will this kind of night circus rekindle or ruin my life? Desperate thoughts. I hold my breath as misty clouds twist and twirl into small cyclones in front of me. They whirl up, fade and... Who? What?

As mists fade, I see (or think I see) a small, middle-aged woman walking towards me. She’s wearing a dark bombazine turn-of-the-century dress and white bib-apron stained with yellowish spots. Tiny metal-rimmed round glasses balance on her nose and her brown-graying hair is pulled into a frayed chignon. Her mouth is pursed in a pucker and she has bright eyes and a determined gaze. She smiles primly and stares. I think she stares at me. Damn, where am I?

The image speaks softly in monotone French: “Eh bien, ma petite, I want…” She shakes her head impatiently and switches to accented English: “I ‘ave come to ‘elp weeth problems.” She shrugs. “You may not know of zeez problems yet, mais my presence is, I ‘ope,  ah…comfortable.”

She fidgets with a notebook hauled impatiently from a capacious apron pocket. “We shall ‘elp you.” She shoves the notebook back in her pocket, paces back and forth and gestures vaguely to an area where I see – like a faded sepia photo – long wooden tables with glass beakers, tubes and machine-like contraptions.

She speaks in a sharper voice: “My name ees Madam Marie Curie, and you ‘ave been put een my care. You weel need to note…ah, certain marques, clues. You are clever and weel remember.” She fidgets with her notebook and grasps a pencil stuck in her bun as if about to write, but instead waves it and speaks again.

“Jus’ remember…expérimenter ees important. There are many ways to do theez.  Changing one sing for anozzer or add or take away one or more elements. Zen too, attention to details ees très important.” She sighs. “Pierre, mon mari…ah, my ‘usband, and I were good at theez.” She smiles and becomes almost pretty.

“Ozzers weel ‘elp. Do not worry! Au revoir, ma chère, au...”     

Swirling mists rise and shroud Madam Curie until she melts into them and disappears in a reek of chemical odors. It is over. My wraparound dream or whatever is over.

Cool night air drifts in from the open window and creeps under white curtains that flap like dove’s wings in the dark.  

            I untangle myself and sit up, awake now – if asleep before – and try not to disturb my bedfellow. I must distance me from myself. Now.

Swell, it’s happening again. I’m glad Paris is still asleep. He worries about my night-talkers. Merde, as my visitor did not say…

Night-talker visits had not happened for more than a year, and Tangerine assumed she was free of them. This one made no sense whatsoever. Maybe she was a bit mad. Niggling fears abo