Hey,
So I know the site doesn't update much, and I know that's my fault, but I am working on something very big, and very different (for me at least) so it will probably take me a while. Rest assured as soon as it is ready enough to be here for all of the no one who comes here to read it will be. I'll also try and put up some smaller stuff if I create anything of quality in the mean time.
As always thanks,
-dale (one step closer to Oprah)
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Emerald Butterfly
This story is something that has been brewing in my mind for a really long time. I would say I thought of the basic story 6 or 7 years ago. I first wrote it down 3 years ago and since then it's gone through countless changes. I think it's significantly stronger now than it was then and I hope that in the coming months - and who knows, maybe even years - it will get even stronger. I am going to post the story now, despite its unfinishedness, just so that the land will not lay fallow for so long.
enjoy and as always comments welcome.
-dale
In the beginning everything is white. Blinding light surrounds me, an intense ethereal glowing, as if you tried to photograph the sun with a five second exposure. There is a faint swishing noise behind me, like curtains blowing in the wind.
I turn around and see a radiant green butterfly fluttering in circles, full of seemingly boundless energy, leaving a brilliant emerald wake. It flies in dizzying patterns in front of me, weaving a luminescent tapestry, trying to impress me. As I stare the glow begins to fade, and the world comes into view.
It is midday and clear. The sun is directly overhead, an ever-present flash bulb. There is a soft breeze. The butterfly is excitedly circling a girl who has been in my dreams for years. She is standing in a long white dress with her back to me, her flaming red hair billowing gently in the wind, a tranquil fire rising from her shoulders. She turns her head slightly as the butterfly lands on her left shoulder.
She is now looking directly at me, unblinking. Her jade eyes mirror the emerald wings of the butterfly perched on her shoulder and framed by her blazing hair. She smiles at me, and for a moment I feel perfectly content – there is no where I would rather be.
I try to walk towards her, but I don’t seem to move. I try, but I can't remember how to run. The effort is draining. My body begins to grow weary and I fall to the ground breathing heavily.
The world around me begins to collapse into itself. The light breeze has become a hurricane wind and everything is being sucked out. In just a few moments everything disappears and I am once again alone in whiteness. “Find me” echoes through the emptiness.
I wake up covered in sweat and tangled in my blanket. That was the fifth time. The light filtering through my blinds in vertical streaks makes my room look like a prison cell. The messiness doesn’t help. I haven’t cleaned it since Jolene dumped me a month ago. It could be the headlining photograph in a new gallery – Solitary Confinement – except I haven’t done any work since she left either. I grab three bottles off my nightstand, each containing some form of pill-shaped happiness. I have been taking the pills for so long now I no longer think about it. Even without water they go down easily.
I stare at the ceiling for about half an hour debating whether I should get out of bed or just sleep forever. I’m not sure if the argument ended because one side mentioned pancakes or because the medication started to kick in, but either way I was out of bed and on my way to the kitchen.
My roommate, Brian, is already sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper and munching on a bowl of Apple Jacks. “Ood Orning” he says, his mouth full of cereal, his eyes never leaving the paper. I nod as a response, which I do pretty much everyday since I know it annoys him.
“I had the craziest dream last night,” he says to me, his mouth no longer full.
“…” I look at him expectantly.
“We were at O’Callaghan’s, but it wasn’t really O’Callaghan’s it was just a bar and it looked nothing like O’Callaghan’s but in the dream it was O’Callaghan’s and I knew it, you know. Anyway, we were at this bar, which is and isn’t O’Callaghan’s bar and we were playing pool with a bunch of – shit I don’t know if I should say this out loud, but what the hell – we were playing pool with a bunch of thirteen-year-old girls who were dressed like pirates – not regular pirates either, some kind of really skanky band of pirates.”
(One eyebrow raised)
“Don’t judge me.”
“I’m not.” (Eyebrow still raised) “Just continue.”
“Anyway they were unbelievable at pool, apparently they play pool on their pirate ship, which made sense to me at the time, but thinking about it now it seems very unlikely ‘cause how would a ship be stable enough to play pool on, unless they had some sort of gyroscopic balancing device… whatever it doesn’t matter. So they were really good at pool and I was really sucking, which I guess is pretty close to reality, but you, you were fucking dominating. I can’t remember what the stakes of the game were, but I know they were really intense so it was a good thing you were playing the best pool of your life. And then out of nowhere, Jolene shows up and she is the leader of this band of thirteen-year-old pirate skanks.”
“Then what happened?”
“I woke up, came in here, and poured myself some Apple Jacks. Pretty fucked up, no?”
“Pretty? Dude, I could have you committed for that dream.”
“Yeah.”
“I had a dream last night too, I’ve actually had it a bunch of times.”
(Expectant look)
I tell him the dream.
“Jolene doesn’t have red hair.”
“It’s not Jolene.”
“Well then who is it? I mean I’ve never seen you even talk to a girl other than Jolene.”
“Well that’s the crazy part, I mean I’m not sure about this, but I think it’s this girl from Meadowbrook”
“From camp? You had a dream about a girl from camp?”
“I think so”
“But, you didn’t know any girls at camp.”
“Well not publicly.”
(One eyebrow raised)
“I never told anyone about Daphne.”
“A red headed girl named Daphne? Did she ride around in a van and solve mysteries with a talking dog?”
“Well we were only thirteen at the time, so I don’t think she had started working for Mystery Inc., but who knows, it would be an interesting career choice.”
“Ah, so I wasn’t the only one dreaming of thirteen-year-old girls!”
“No, you were. In the dream she was our age or maybe a little younger, like early twenties or something.”
“Damn. So tell me about this girl, this Daphne.”
I have never told anyone about Daphne, never even mentioned her to anyone, but Brian is my best friend so I guess I can tell him.
“Well, as you might recall I was not very popular at that time.”
“You were a nerd.”
“I guess you could say that.”
“I did say that.”
“Anyway, I was having a very hard time at camp. I was not making friends, even you weren’t friends with me at the time.”
“You were a nerd.”
“I think we covered that already. Let me tell this story. So I was having a very hard time. I was really depressed and lonely and I didn’t enjoy any of the activities either.”
“That’s cause you were a nerd.”
(Glaring.) Maybe I shouldn’t tell him.
“Sorry… Go on.”
“So anyway, I was really upset and basically just miserable. So at night I used to climb out the broken screen window over my bed and wander around. Just looking for a good place to be alone, just to sit and not be bothered.
(Swallows.)
“It wasn’t your fault. So remember the night of the talent show? When the counselors did that song, and there was a line about each of the campers?”
“Yeah, that was hilarious.”
“It wasn’t for me. You might remember that the chorus was just them making fun of me repeatedly.”
Brian is looking at his feet. I can tell he feels bad, even though it’s been so many years and it wasn’t anything he did.
“So that night was probably the worst night I had had in the camp. And so I went out to this particularly nice clearing, by the upper tennis courts, where the moon would come through and there was a great view of the stars. And I was sitting there, thinking about how great it would be to be liked, to have friends, a girlfriend, when I saw a butterfly glinting in the moonlight. In the reflective light it appeared to be green, but it could have been any color.”
“The butterfly from the dream?”
“Is that a serious question? Yes, obviously the butterfly from the dream.”
“Right.”
“So anyway, I followed it for a while as it flew along a creek. It was a distraction, it gave me something else to focus on. I even tried catching it, but I could never get close to it.”
“But, wait a second, I thought butterflies don’t go out at night?”
“Well I thought so too, even at the time I thought it was odd, which is probably why I followed it. And after following it for a while I came to another small clearing. This clearing was less well lit, because the moon was obscured by some branches, which actually gave a very cool dark-green shading to everything – something you might do with Photoshop. And there she was. Sitting on the ground under a tree crying. The butterfly, who had been flying away from me the whole time immediately flew over to her and landed on her shoulder, and I just sort of stood there.”
“Did you say anything?”
“Well after about a minute or so I asked her if she was okay, which was a pretty stupid question because she was obviously not okay. So she looked at me, for a few seconds with these huge eyes and I felt like she was just sizing me up entirely, like when she was done looking she would know everything about me. I won’t pretend I wasn’t creeped out. It was eerie, but it was beautiful. And then she just said, ‘I am fine now, thanks.’ Then I went over to her and sat next to her and we talked for a while.”
“Did you see her again?”
“Yeah, we met in that spot five or six more times over the course of the summer.”
“Oooh. Romantic.”
“Actually, yeah. We even carved our names into a tree.”
“No way. With the heart and everything?”
“No it was a butterfly.”
“You’re such a fag.”
“We were thirteen.”
“Still. Anyway, what happened to her?”
“I don’t really know.”
"Didn’t you ever try to find her again?”
“I assumed she would be at camp the next year and so I went to the clearing a few times in the first week, but she was never there. And at this point I was doing a lot better at camp, I had already made a couple of friends and was actually enjoying camp, so I just stopped looking for her.”
“Right.”
“But, I figure Jolene has been gone for a while and finding Daphne might help me get over her.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
I can see that Brian is skeptical – can I blame him? – but I’m sure I can convince him.
“I know it’s crazy, but I’ve had this dream like five times already. I just feel like I need to do something.”
“How, exactly, do you plan on doing this?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping maybe you would have an idea.”
“She could be anywhere. She may not like you. She could be a figment of your imagination. She could be married. She could be dead! There are millions of possibilities here.”
“Does that mean you won’t help me? It’ll be good for both of us. I can use it as an opportunity to take some photos, maybe put together a new gallery, and you can do some writing or something.”
“… Fine, I’ll help.”
There is an awkward silence followed by the rejection of some incredibly dumb ideas – “How about a hit man? They can find anyone!” – and the realization that a private eye is out of our price range.
“Well we could try the Internet,” I suggest.
“Why? Is there a chance she became a porn star?”
“The internet isn’t only for porn.”
“It is for me.”
“You’re ridiculous. There are all these really shady stalkeresque websites where you can find like old high school classmates and stuff. I bet we’ll be able to find her with that.”
“Well if she became a porn star I’d probably already know about it anyway, so I guess we could try one of those websites. To the Darkroom!”
“After pancakes.”
When Brian and I were first looking for apartments together, it was important to me that there be an extra room that I could use as a darkroom. Fresh out of college I harbored my professors’ antiquated notions about digital photography, and felt that a true photo-artist needed to be working with film. This was stupid. Within three months I made the switch to digital photography – a switch that earned me my first show – and the darkroom was converted to a digital photo lab, essentially a room with a computer in it. Brian still called it “the darkroom,” to mock me for insisting that we have it.
Google.com. Search. Daphne Carrol. Click Search. 69,600 results. That’s not helpful at all.
Google.com. Search. Find a person. Click Search. 254,000,000 results. Yellow pages at switchboard.com. Click Find a Person. Name: Daphne Carrol State: unknown. Click Search.
Please Enter a State.
“What should I do, it requires a state?”
“Well let’s just try New York.”
“Fine.”
Name: Daphne Carrol State: New York.
104 results.
“Fuck.”
“How are we going to do this?”
“Can we filter for age?”
“Not on this website.”
Google.com. Search. Find a person. Click Search. 254,000,000 results. Find-a-Person at Peoplefinder.com. Sounds promising. Name: Daphne Carrol. Age: 24. Click Search.
Please Enter a State.
Name: Daphne Carrol. Age: 24. State: New York. Click Search.
5 results. Two are 23, one is 24, one is 25, and one is 74. Can’t explain that one.
“Which one should we check first?”
“Start with the 23 year olds.”
Click Daphne Carrol.
Would you like to buy: Comprehensive background report ($39.95), Criminal record ($19.95), 24-hour people finder limited report membership ($25.00). Click 24-hour people finder limited report membership. Enter Credit Card information.
Welcome to Peoplefinder.com America’s #1 people finding website, please enjoy your 24-hour membership.
“What if she doesn’t live in America?”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.”
Click Daphne Carrol.
Name Daphne Y. Carrol. Address: 33 Birchall dr, Fishkill, NY, 12524. Phone: (845) 867 5309. Education: BA in Physics, University of Vermont.
“This thing is scary.” I am genuinely freaked out by how easy this is.
“Just call her.”
The phone barely rings once before she picks it up.
“Hello.”
I’m in a daze. Could this be Daphne?
“Hello?”
I still can’t say anything. If it is her, what do I say? Will she remember me? What if she doesn’t? What if she thinks I’m creepy? So many questions race through my mind.
“Is there anybody there?”
Click.
“What happened?”
“I got flustered and hung up.”
“So call her back, and this time don’t be such a fucking pussy.”
Again she picks it up in the middle of the first ring.
“Hello?” She sounds irritated. Would Daphne get irritated so quickly?
“Um, Hi… I’m looking for Daphne Carrol.”
“Speaking, who is this?” She is chewing gum while talking on the phone and it is irritating me. Would Daphne chew gum on the phone?
“Okay, so my name is Dustin Ogden and I was wondering, did you go to Meadowbrook as a kid?”
“Who?” The gum chewing is becoming almost unbearable.
“Dustin Ogden.”
“Did I do what?” Smack Smack Smack is pretty much all I hear her say.
“Did you go to Meadowbrook? It’s a camp upstate.”
“I didn’t go to
Click. It wasn’t her, I knew it couldn’t be her, Daphne would never be that unbearable. I try the other three possible Daphnes, leaving out the geriatric, with similarly disappointing results, though thankfully none of them were chewing gum.
Then I try looking for Daphne Carrols in New Jersey, then Massachusetts, then Delaware, and then the rest of the states. Then I try alternate spellings, Dafne, Carol, Carroll, Caroll, among others. I make almost a hundred phone calls to women in their early twenties named Daphne Carrol or some variation and not one of the women I call went to Meadowbrook.
Over the next week I spend all my time in the darkroom. It is all I think about. I try dozens of websites, from Zabasearch to Anywho. The search drives me day in and day out. I no longer need the pills to get out of bed. I have purpose. But the search isn’t going well. Each small success – a new age appropriate Daphne and the hope that comes with it – is ultimately a major failure.
For all I know she could be dead.
Google.com. Search. Obituaries. Click Search. 44,200,000 results. Online Obituaries at eons.com. Click Find a Person. Name: Daphne Carrol Date Range: unknown. Click Search.
Please enter a date range.
Name: Daphne Carrol Date Range: 10 years
26 results. A quick glance eliminates all but two of the Daphnes on age issues alone. Of the remaining two only one even remotely resembles the Daphne of my memory, but according to her obituary she spent her summers in South Carolina.
A feeling of relief runs through me. She isn’t dead.
“Why do you think she wouldn’t come up on People Finder if she isn’t dead Brian?”
“I don’t know, maybe she isn’t real.”
“Maybe the system isn’t perfect.”
“Try looking for yourself.”
“Why?”
“Well if it doesn’t have you, then you know it’s not perfect and you need to try another method.”
Peoplefinder.com. Name: Dustin Ogden. Age: 24. State: New York. Click Search.
4 results. None of them me. I can’t believe I paid 25 dollars for this.
My hope is restored.
“I wasn’t there!”
“Awesome.”
“Now what?”
“We could hire a hitman?”
“Do you think the camp used to keep records?”
“Shit, I feel like an idiot. How did we not think to call the camp and ask them for records?”
“Hello. Meadowbrook summer camp. Mrs. Levitt speaking.”
The name brings back a rush of memories. Mrs. Levitt was a sweet old lady. I remember she used to keep a bowl of watermelon Jolly Ranchers on her desk that always seemed to be full. In the later years Brian and I used to sneak into the office at night and eat ourselves sick. “Yeah hi, this is Dustin Ogden. I doubt you remember me, but I was a camper there ten years ago.”
“Of course I remember,” she says with a laugh. “You were such a little hellraiser. You and you’re little friend Brian used to pinch all my candy at night. How are you?”
I chuckle. The memory, actually makes me smile. “Would you believe Brian and I actually live together now? And we buy all our own candy.”
(Laughing) “How can I help you hon?”
“Well I was wondering if you could give me information on another camper, Daphne Carrol?”
“I’m sorry hon, we’re not allowed to give out records for security reasons.”
They have the records! “Please. It’s very important.”
“I’m sorry hon there’s nothing I can do, we’re not allowed to give those out except to relatives.”
“Oh, did I not mention that I am her cousin?”
“Nice try.”
“Damn. Well thanks anyway.”
“So nice to hear from you. You have a great day now.”
We used to break into that office all the time. I can’t imagine it’s gotten anymore difficult in the past ten years. Maybe if we’re lucky, Mrs. Levitt will still have a full bowl of candy on her desk.
“Brian, pack your things, we’re going to summer camp.”
The drive to Meadowbrook is a long and scenic one, the type of drive Jolene would have enjoyed. According to Mapquest all we have to do is take 87 north forever and we’ll eventually arrive at the exit for camp Meadowbrook. So we pack up the car – a couple juice boxes, some sandwiches and a crowbar, just in case – and get on 87 north.
It is five o’clock in the afternoon and I’ve been behind the wheel for nearly four hours. Brian is passed out in the passenger seat. The trees up here are so tall and close together I can no longer see the sun, despite the fact that it will still officially be day for a few more hours. In this light I can barely make out the street signs. I am getting very tired, so I wake Brian up and we switch drivers.
Everything is white, an intense ethereal glowing, curtains are blowing in the wind. I turn around and once more the butterfly is weaving its magnificent luminescent tapestry. As I stare the glow begins to fade, and the world comes into view. I am standing in an unlit office. A streetlight outside casts long shadows through the window to my right. The butterfly is excitedly circling in front of the second door in the hallway. Slowly I approach it and turn the knob. Within the door is the clearing. I see the rock where she cried that first night, the tree where we carved our names in a butterfly, and a large white filing cabinet. I open the cabinet and see that there is only one file. The butterfly lands gently on the nametag, illuminating it in a faint green glow: Dustin Ogden.
I wake with a start.
“You ok?”
“Yeah, just tired. Let's eat.”
“We’re almost there.”
As I eat my sandwich I try to snap out of my dream state, my mind still feels foggy. Within half an hour we pass the sign for the town of Meadowbrook – we stop to take pictures. Only a few more minutes until we arrive at the camp.
We arrive at a quarter to seven, and make our way towards the office. We leave the crowbar in the car, something about it makes us feel wrong – it’s one thing to break into the office like we used to as kids, its another to use a crowbar to bust a lock. It doesn’t matter. Getting in proves to be as easy as ever since the door is unlocked.
The only light in the office is coming from a lamppost just outside the front windows. Brian and I are both afraid to turn on the light, so we stand in the unlit office and wait for our eyes to adjust. We are standing in front of Mrs. Levitt’s desk, her bowl full of sucking candies. Behind the desk is a cluster of filing cabinets. There appear to be too few of them for it to be campers, but I decide to check anyway. I remove a folder and carry it over to the window.
“These are employee records.”
We walk down the hallway and arrive at the first door. It is marked Mr. Popkin. Mr. Popkin is the camp owner. It is unlikely that the camper records are in his office, but Brian seems extremely excited at the opportunity to enter this once sacred space. There is only one filing cabinet, definitely not camper records. I assume it is expenses. I step back into the hallway. Brian stays in Popkin’s office, enamored with the trinkets on his desk. The second door does not appear to be marked. I approach it slowly and turn the knob.
Inside I find a windowless room full of filing cabinets. Could these be the camper records? I pull open the drawer closest to the door and with shaking hands grab the first folder. I walk out of the room towards the orange light from the front windows.
Aaronson, Betsy 1973.
I have found the campers. Soon I will find Daphne.
I return to the room and try to estimate where the cabinet for 1993 would be. I pull open a drawer and take a folder at random. Hands still shaking, I walk back to the window.
Bysmark, Jonathan 1992.
Off by one. In moments I will find Daphne. I run back to the room, pull open the next drawer and grab as many envelopes as I can.
I get Brian out of Popkin’s office and together we flip through the newest stack in front of the window.
Campbell, Michelle 1993
Carawack, Jamie 1993
Carraway, Rick 1993
Caruso, Danielle 1993
No Carrol.
How could this be? I run back to the room, turn on the lights and start feverishly going through all the drawers. Maybe she is out of alphabetical order. Maybe it was 1992. Maybe they misfiled her completely. She must be in here. I pull files at random
Frommer, Benjamin 1984
Abernathy, John 1991
Patel, Peter 2003
Brian has already put it together. “Dude, let's go.”
“No. I’m going to find her.”
“No you’re not.”
I look at him. He’s standing in the doorway trying to look compassionate. He can’t figure out how to phrase his next words in a way that won’t hurt me. I don’t give him the chance. I bolt from the room.
I run to our old bunk. Very little has changed. The white paint on the outside of the bunk is still peeling off, the door is still only on two hinges instead of three, and the screen above my old bed is still broken. I stand underneath it and begin walking north, towards the clearing, which I reach in under ten minutes. It takes me a little longer to locate the path to the other clearing because it has been blocked somewhat by branches, and I've also gotten taller in the past ten years. The creek that the butterfly flew along has all but dried up now, making finding the clearing that much more difficult. After some wandering, I arrive at the second clearing.
It is exactly as I remember it. It is as if it has not been occupied since Daphne and I left. I go over to the tree where I first saw her crying all those years ago and sit down. Our names are still carved there, Daphne loves Dustin enclosed in a butterfly. I trace my finger along the names, over an over, until it hurts and I have to stop.
Brian steps into the clearing, and just stands there for a minute.
“Are you ok?”
His presence is coming. “I am now.”
He sits next to me on the ground under the tree.
“Here. I stole some jolly ranchers from Mrs. Levitt’s bowl.”
We both laugh.
In the ensuing weeks, Brian and I work on a narrative-based photo gallery – a first for us. Brian writes the story from my perspective and has me recount the events to him as best I can while I edit the photos – my bedroom as prison, the glowing butterfly as guide, the internet as useless helper. The exhibit is called Emerald Butterfly.
The first picture is of the tree. The trunk is on the left side of the picture, its lowest hanging branches falling around the right, creating a frame around a pervasive darkness. This is the focal point. An emptiness, with presence is an odd thing to imagine, yet there it is. An emptiness so complete that looking at the picture makes you long to fill it. Carved into the side of the tree, moving away from the viewer, two names can be seen, carved years earlier into the bark, enclosed in a rudimentary butterfly. A prayer for the eternal love of its occupants. The photo is called Narcissism.
People mill around the gallery, some take it in proper order – reading the story as they move from picture to picture – others move randomly back and forth – disregarding the narrative. Brian and I make mostly polite conversation with people, tell them about some of the photos or about parts of our account that they find interesting – many people ask about Brian’s dream, which he tells them is a fabrication. It’s not.
The final picture is the only picture that both Brian and I are in. I suggest to people that this is the viewpoint of the imaginary observer as she realizes she is no longer needed. Brian says it’s a tripod. The picture shows the two of us sitting under the tree, laughing. There is a butterfly in the upper corner, its wings a blur, but not glowing. It looks like any other butterfly, and it is.
enjoy and as always comments welcome.
-dale
Emerald Butterfly
In the beginning everything is white. Blinding light surrounds me, an intense ethereal glowing, as if you tried to photograph the sun with a five second exposure. There is a faint swishing noise behind me, like curtains blowing in the wind.
I turn around and see a radiant green butterfly fluttering in circles, full of seemingly boundless energy, leaving a brilliant emerald wake. It flies in dizzying patterns in front of me, weaving a luminescent tapestry, trying to impress me. As I stare the glow begins to fade, and the world comes into view.
It is midday and clear. The sun is directly overhead, an ever-present flash bulb. There is a soft breeze. The butterfly is excitedly circling a girl who has been in my dreams for years. She is standing in a long white dress with her back to me, her flaming red hair billowing gently in the wind, a tranquil fire rising from her shoulders. She turns her head slightly as the butterfly lands on her left shoulder.
She is now looking directly at me, unblinking. Her jade eyes mirror the emerald wings of the butterfly perched on her shoulder and framed by her blazing hair. She smiles at me, and for a moment I feel perfectly content – there is no where I would rather be.
I try to walk towards her, but I don’t seem to move. I try, but I can't remember how to run. The effort is draining. My body begins to grow weary and I fall to the ground breathing heavily.
The world around me begins to collapse into itself. The light breeze has become a hurricane wind and everything is being sucked out. In just a few moments everything disappears and I am once again alone in whiteness. “Find me” echoes through the emptiness.
I wake up covered in sweat and tangled in my blanket. That was the fifth time. The light filtering through my blinds in vertical streaks makes my room look like a prison cell. The messiness doesn’t help. I haven’t cleaned it since Jolene dumped me a month ago. It could be the headlining photograph in a new gallery – Solitary Confinement – except I haven’t done any work since she left either. I grab three bottles off my nightstand, each containing some form of pill-shaped happiness. I have been taking the pills for so long now I no longer think about it. Even without water they go down easily.
I stare at the ceiling for about half an hour debating whether I should get out of bed or just sleep forever. I’m not sure if the argument ended because one side mentioned pancakes or because the medication started to kick in, but either way I was out of bed and on my way to the kitchen.
My roommate, Brian, is already sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper and munching on a bowl of Apple Jacks. “Ood Orning” he says, his mouth full of cereal, his eyes never leaving the paper. I nod as a response, which I do pretty much everyday since I know it annoys him.
“I had the craziest dream last night,” he says to me, his mouth no longer full.
“…” I look at him expectantly.
“We were at O’Callaghan’s, but it wasn’t really O’Callaghan’s it was just a bar and it looked nothing like O’Callaghan’s but in the dream it was O’Callaghan’s and I knew it, you know. Anyway, we were at this bar, which is and isn’t O’Callaghan’s bar and we were playing pool with a bunch of – shit I don’t know if I should say this out loud, but what the hell – we were playing pool with a bunch of thirteen-year-old girls who were dressed like pirates – not regular pirates either, some kind of really skanky band of pirates.”
(One eyebrow raised)
“Don’t judge me.”
“I’m not.” (Eyebrow still raised) “Just continue.”
“Anyway they were unbelievable at pool, apparently they play pool on their pirate ship, which made sense to me at the time, but thinking about it now it seems very unlikely ‘cause how would a ship be stable enough to play pool on, unless they had some sort of gyroscopic balancing device… whatever it doesn’t matter. So they were really good at pool and I was really sucking, which I guess is pretty close to reality, but you, you were fucking dominating. I can’t remember what the stakes of the game were, but I know they were really intense so it was a good thing you were playing the best pool of your life. And then out of nowhere, Jolene shows up and she is the leader of this band of thirteen-year-old pirate skanks.”
“Then what happened?”
“I woke up, came in here, and poured myself some Apple Jacks. Pretty fucked up, no?”
“Pretty? Dude, I could have you committed for that dream.”
“Yeah.”
“I had a dream last night too, I’ve actually had it a bunch of times.”
(Expectant look)
I tell him the dream.
“Jolene doesn’t have red hair.”
“It’s not Jolene.”
“Well then who is it? I mean I’ve never seen you even talk to a girl other than Jolene.”
“Well that’s the crazy part, I mean I’m not sure about this, but I think it’s this girl from Meadowbrook”
“From camp? You had a dream about a girl from camp?”
“I think so”
“But, you didn’t know any girls at camp.”
“Well not publicly.”
(One eyebrow raised)
“I never told anyone about Daphne.”
“A red headed girl named Daphne? Did she ride around in a van and solve mysteries with a talking dog?”
“Well we were only thirteen at the time, so I don’t think she had started working for Mystery Inc., but who knows, it would be an interesting career choice.”
“Ah, so I wasn’t the only one dreaming of thirteen-year-old girls!”
“No, you were. In the dream she was our age or maybe a little younger, like early twenties or something.”
“Damn. So tell me about this girl, this Daphne.”
I have never told anyone about Daphne, never even mentioned her to anyone, but Brian is my best friend so I guess I can tell him.
“Well, as you might recall I was not very popular at that time.”
“You were a nerd.”
“I guess you could say that.”
“I did say that.”
“Anyway, I was having a very hard time at camp. I was not making friends, even you weren’t friends with me at the time.”
“You were a nerd.”
“I think we covered that already. Let me tell this story. So I was having a very hard time. I was really depressed and lonely and I didn’t enjoy any of the activities either.”
“That’s cause you were a nerd.”
(Glaring.) Maybe I shouldn’t tell him.
“Sorry… Go on.”
“So anyway, I was really upset and basically just miserable. So at night I used to climb out the broken screen window over my bed and wander around. Just looking for a good place to be alone, just to sit and not be bothered.
(Swallows.)
“It wasn’t your fault. So remember the night of the talent show? When the counselors did that song, and there was a line about each of the campers?”
“Yeah, that was hilarious.”
“It wasn’t for me. You might remember that the chorus was just them making fun of me repeatedly.”
Brian is looking at his feet. I can tell he feels bad, even though it’s been so many years and it wasn’t anything he did.
“So that night was probably the worst night I had had in the camp. And so I went out to this particularly nice clearing, by the upper tennis courts, where the moon would come through and there was a great view of the stars. And I was sitting there, thinking about how great it would be to be liked, to have friends, a girlfriend, when I saw a butterfly glinting in the moonlight. In the reflective light it appeared to be green, but it could have been any color.”
“The butterfly from the dream?”
“Is that a serious question? Yes, obviously the butterfly from the dream.”
“Right.”
“So anyway, I followed it for a while as it flew along a creek. It was a distraction, it gave me something else to focus on. I even tried catching it, but I could never get close to it.”
“But, wait a second, I thought butterflies don’t go out at night?”
“Well I thought so too, even at the time I thought it was odd, which is probably why I followed it. And after following it for a while I came to another small clearing. This clearing was less well lit, because the moon was obscured by some branches, which actually gave a very cool dark-green shading to everything – something you might do with Photoshop. And there she was. Sitting on the ground under a tree crying. The butterfly, who had been flying away from me the whole time immediately flew over to her and landed on her shoulder, and I just sort of stood there.”
“Did you say anything?”
“Well after about a minute or so I asked her if she was okay, which was a pretty stupid question because she was obviously not okay. So she looked at me, for a few seconds with these huge eyes and I felt like she was just sizing me up entirely, like when she was done looking she would know everything about me. I won’t pretend I wasn’t creeped out. It was eerie, but it was beautiful. And then she just said, ‘I am fine now, thanks.’ Then I went over to her and sat next to her and we talked for a while.”
“Did you see her again?”
“Yeah, we met in that spot five or six more times over the course of the summer.”
“Oooh. Romantic.”
“Actually, yeah. We even carved our names into a tree.”
“No way. With the heart and everything?”
“No it was a butterfly.”
“You’re such a fag.”
“We were thirteen.”
“Still. Anyway, what happened to her?”
“I don’t really know.”
"Didn’t you ever try to find her again?”
“I assumed she would be at camp the next year and so I went to the clearing a few times in the first week, but she was never there. And at this point I was doing a lot better at camp, I had already made a couple of friends and was actually enjoying camp, so I just stopped looking for her.”
“Right.”
“But, I figure Jolene has been gone for a while and finding Daphne might help me get over her.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
I can see that Brian is skeptical – can I blame him? – but I’m sure I can convince him.
“I know it’s crazy, but I’ve had this dream like five times already. I just feel like I need to do something.”
“How, exactly, do you plan on doing this?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping maybe you would have an idea.”
“She could be anywhere. She may not like you. She could be a figment of your imagination. She could be married. She could be dead! There are millions of possibilities here.”
“Does that mean you won’t help me? It’ll be good for both of us. I can use it as an opportunity to take some photos, maybe put together a new gallery, and you can do some writing or something.”
“… Fine, I’ll help.”
There is an awkward silence followed by the rejection of some incredibly dumb ideas – “How about a hit man? They can find anyone!” – and the realization that a private eye is out of our price range.
“Well we could try the Internet,” I suggest.
“Why? Is there a chance she became a porn star?”
“The internet isn’t only for porn.”
“It is for me.”
“You’re ridiculous. There are all these really shady stalkeresque websites where you can find like old high school classmates and stuff. I bet we’ll be able to find her with that.”
“Well if she became a porn star I’d probably already know about it anyway, so I guess we could try one of those websites. To the Darkroom!”
“After pancakes.”
When Brian and I were first looking for apartments together, it was important to me that there be an extra room that I could use as a darkroom. Fresh out of college I harbored my professors’ antiquated notions about digital photography, and felt that a true photo-artist needed to be working with film. This was stupid. Within three months I made the switch to digital photography – a switch that earned me my first show – and the darkroom was converted to a digital photo lab, essentially a room with a computer in it. Brian still called it “the darkroom,” to mock me for insisting that we have it.
Google.com. Search. Daphne Carrol. Click Search. 69,600 results. That’s not helpful at all.
Google.com. Search. Find a person. Click Search. 254,000,000 results. Yellow pages at switchboard.com. Click Find a Person. Name: Daphne Carrol State: unknown. Click Search.
Please Enter a State.
“What should I do, it requires a state?”
“Well let’s just try New York.”
“Fine.”
Name: Daphne Carrol State: New York.
104 results.
“Fuck.”
“How are we going to do this?”
“Can we filter for age?”
“Not on this website.”
Google.com. Search. Find a person. Click Search. 254,000,000 results. Find-a-Person at Peoplefinder.com. Sounds promising. Name: Daphne Carrol. Age: 24. Click Search.
Please Enter a State.
Name: Daphne Carrol. Age: 24. State: New York. Click Search.
5 results. Two are 23, one is 24, one is 25, and one is 74. Can’t explain that one.
“Which one should we check first?”
“Start with the 23 year olds.”
Click Daphne Carrol.
Would you like to buy: Comprehensive background report ($39.95), Criminal record ($19.95), 24-hour people finder limited report membership ($25.00). Click 24-hour people finder limited report membership. Enter Credit Card information.
Welcome to Peoplefinder.com America’s #1 people finding website, please enjoy your 24-hour membership.
“What if she doesn’t live in America?”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.”
Click Daphne Carrol.
Name Daphne Y. Carrol. Address: 33 Birchall dr, Fishkill, NY, 12524. Phone: (845) 867 5309. Education: BA in Physics, University of Vermont.
“This thing is scary.” I am genuinely freaked out by how easy this is.
“Just call her.”
The phone barely rings once before she picks it up.
“Hello.”
I’m in a daze. Could this be Daphne?
“Hello?”
I still can’t say anything. If it is her, what do I say? Will she remember me? What if she doesn’t? What if she thinks I’m creepy? So many questions race through my mind.
“Is there anybody there?”
Click.
“What happened?”
“I got flustered and hung up.”
“So call her back, and this time don’t be such a fucking pussy.”
Again she picks it up in the middle of the first ring.
“Hello?” She sounds irritated. Would Daphne get irritated so quickly?
“Um, Hi… I’m looking for Daphne Carrol.”
“Speaking, who is this?” She is chewing gum while talking on the phone and it is irritating me. Would Daphne chew gum on the phone?
“Okay, so my name is Dustin Ogden and I was wondering, did you go to Meadowbrook as a kid?”
“Who?” The gum chewing is becoming almost unbearable.
“Dustin Ogden.”
“Did I do what?” Smack Smack Smack is pretty much all I hear her say.
“Did you go to Meadowbrook? It’s a camp upstate.”
“I didn’t go to
Click. It wasn’t her, I knew it couldn’t be her, Daphne would never be that unbearable. I try the other three possible Daphnes, leaving out the geriatric, with similarly disappointing results, though thankfully none of them were chewing gum.
Then I try looking for Daphne Carrols in New Jersey, then Massachusetts, then Delaware, and then the rest of the states. Then I try alternate spellings, Dafne, Carol, Carroll, Caroll, among others. I make almost a hundred phone calls to women in their early twenties named Daphne Carrol or some variation and not one of the women I call went to Meadowbrook.
Over the next week I spend all my time in the darkroom. It is all I think about. I try dozens of websites, from Zabasearch to Anywho. The search drives me day in and day out. I no longer need the pills to get out of bed. I have purpose. But the search isn’t going well. Each small success – a new age appropriate Daphne and the hope that comes with it – is ultimately a major failure.
For all I know she could be dead.
Google.com. Search. Obituaries. Click Search. 44,200,000 results. Online Obituaries at eons.com. Click Find a Person. Name: Daphne Carrol Date Range: unknown. Click Search.
Please enter a date range.
Name: Daphne Carrol Date Range: 10 years
26 results. A quick glance eliminates all but two of the Daphnes on age issues alone. Of the remaining two only one even remotely resembles the Daphne of my memory, but according to her obituary she spent her summers in South Carolina.
A feeling of relief runs through me. She isn’t dead.
“Why do you think she wouldn’t come up on People Finder if she isn’t dead Brian?”
“I don’t know, maybe she isn’t real.”
“Maybe the system isn’t perfect.”
“Try looking for yourself.”
“Why?”
“Well if it doesn’t have you, then you know it’s not perfect and you need to try another method.”
Peoplefinder.com. Name: Dustin Ogden. Age: 24. State: New York. Click Search.
4 results. None of them me. I can’t believe I paid 25 dollars for this.
My hope is restored.
“I wasn’t there!”
“Awesome.”
“Now what?”
“We could hire a hitman?”
“Do you think the camp used to keep records?”
“Shit, I feel like an idiot. How did we not think to call the camp and ask them for records?”
“Hello. Meadowbrook summer camp. Mrs. Levitt speaking.”
The name brings back a rush of memories. Mrs. Levitt was a sweet old lady. I remember she used to keep a bowl of watermelon Jolly Ranchers on her desk that always seemed to be full. In the later years Brian and I used to sneak into the office at night and eat ourselves sick. “Yeah hi, this is Dustin Ogden. I doubt you remember me, but I was a camper there ten years ago.”
“Of course I remember,” she says with a laugh. “You were such a little hellraiser. You and you’re little friend Brian used to pinch all my candy at night. How are you?”
I chuckle. The memory, actually makes me smile. “Would you believe Brian and I actually live together now? And we buy all our own candy.”
(Laughing) “How can I help you hon?”
“Well I was wondering if you could give me information on another camper, Daphne Carrol?”
“I’m sorry hon, we’re not allowed to give out records for security reasons.”
They have the records! “Please. It’s very important.”
“I’m sorry hon there’s nothing I can do, we’re not allowed to give those out except to relatives.”
“Oh, did I not mention that I am her cousin?”
“Nice try.”
“Damn. Well thanks anyway.”
“So nice to hear from you. You have a great day now.”
We used to break into that office all the time. I can’t imagine it’s gotten anymore difficult in the past ten years. Maybe if we’re lucky, Mrs. Levitt will still have a full bowl of candy on her desk.
“Brian, pack your things, we’re going to summer camp.”
The drive to Meadowbrook is a long and scenic one, the type of drive Jolene would have enjoyed. According to Mapquest all we have to do is take 87 north forever and we’ll eventually arrive at the exit for camp Meadowbrook. So we pack up the car – a couple juice boxes, some sandwiches and a crowbar, just in case – and get on 87 north.
It is five o’clock in the afternoon and I’ve been behind the wheel for nearly four hours. Brian is passed out in the passenger seat. The trees up here are so tall and close together I can no longer see the sun, despite the fact that it will still officially be day for a few more hours. In this light I can barely make out the street signs. I am getting very tired, so I wake Brian up and we switch drivers.
Everything is white, an intense ethereal glowing, curtains are blowing in the wind. I turn around and once more the butterfly is weaving its magnificent luminescent tapestry. As I stare the glow begins to fade, and the world comes into view. I am standing in an unlit office. A streetlight outside casts long shadows through the window to my right. The butterfly is excitedly circling in front of the second door in the hallway. Slowly I approach it and turn the knob. Within the door is the clearing. I see the rock where she cried that first night, the tree where we carved our names in a butterfly, and a large white filing cabinet. I open the cabinet and see that there is only one file. The butterfly lands gently on the nametag, illuminating it in a faint green glow: Dustin Ogden.
I wake with a start.
“You ok?”
“Yeah, just tired. Let's eat.”
“We’re almost there.”
As I eat my sandwich I try to snap out of my dream state, my mind still feels foggy. Within half an hour we pass the sign for the town of Meadowbrook – we stop to take pictures. Only a few more minutes until we arrive at the camp.
We arrive at a quarter to seven, and make our way towards the office. We leave the crowbar in the car, something about it makes us feel wrong – it’s one thing to break into the office like we used to as kids, its another to use a crowbar to bust a lock. It doesn’t matter. Getting in proves to be as easy as ever since the door is unlocked.
The only light in the office is coming from a lamppost just outside the front windows. Brian and I are both afraid to turn on the light, so we stand in the unlit office and wait for our eyes to adjust. We are standing in front of Mrs. Levitt’s desk, her bowl full of sucking candies. Behind the desk is a cluster of filing cabinets. There appear to be too few of them for it to be campers, but I decide to check anyway. I remove a folder and carry it over to the window.
“These are employee records.”
We walk down the hallway and arrive at the first door. It is marked Mr. Popkin. Mr. Popkin is the camp owner. It is unlikely that the camper records are in his office, but Brian seems extremely excited at the opportunity to enter this once sacred space. There is only one filing cabinet, definitely not camper records. I assume it is expenses. I step back into the hallway. Brian stays in Popkin’s office, enamored with the trinkets on his desk. The second door does not appear to be marked. I approach it slowly and turn the knob.
Inside I find a windowless room full of filing cabinets. Could these be the camper records? I pull open the drawer closest to the door and with shaking hands grab the first folder. I walk out of the room towards the orange light from the front windows.
Aaronson, Betsy 1973.
I have found the campers. Soon I will find Daphne.
I return to the room and try to estimate where the cabinet for 1993 would be. I pull open a drawer and take a folder at random. Hands still shaking, I walk back to the window.
Bysmark, Jonathan 1992.
Off by one. In moments I will find Daphne. I run back to the room, pull open the next drawer and grab as many envelopes as I can.
I get Brian out of Popkin’s office and together we flip through the newest stack in front of the window.
Campbell, Michelle 1993
Carawack, Jamie 1993
Carraway, Rick 1993
Caruso, Danielle 1993
No Carrol.
How could this be? I run back to the room, turn on the lights and start feverishly going through all the drawers. Maybe she is out of alphabetical order. Maybe it was 1992. Maybe they misfiled her completely. She must be in here. I pull files at random
Frommer, Benjamin 1984
Abernathy, John 1991
Patel, Peter 2003
Brian has already put it together. “Dude, let's go.”
“No. I’m going to find her.”
“No you’re not.”
I look at him. He’s standing in the doorway trying to look compassionate. He can’t figure out how to phrase his next words in a way that won’t hurt me. I don’t give him the chance. I bolt from the room.
I run to our old bunk. Very little has changed. The white paint on the outside of the bunk is still peeling off, the door is still only on two hinges instead of three, and the screen above my old bed is still broken. I stand underneath it and begin walking north, towards the clearing, which I reach in under ten minutes. It takes me a little longer to locate the path to the other clearing because it has been blocked somewhat by branches, and I've also gotten taller in the past ten years. The creek that the butterfly flew along has all but dried up now, making finding the clearing that much more difficult. After some wandering, I arrive at the second clearing.
It is exactly as I remember it. It is as if it has not been occupied since Daphne and I left. I go over to the tree where I first saw her crying all those years ago and sit down. Our names are still carved there, Daphne loves Dustin enclosed in a butterfly. I trace my finger along the names, over an over, until it hurts and I have to stop.
Brian steps into the clearing, and just stands there for a minute.
“Are you ok?”
His presence is coming. “I am now.”
He sits next to me on the ground under the tree.
“Here. I stole some jolly ranchers from Mrs. Levitt’s bowl.”
We both laugh.
In the ensuing weeks, Brian and I work on a narrative-based photo gallery – a first for us. Brian writes the story from my perspective and has me recount the events to him as best I can while I edit the photos – my bedroom as prison, the glowing butterfly as guide, the internet as useless helper. The exhibit is called Emerald Butterfly.
The first picture is of the tree. The trunk is on the left side of the picture, its lowest hanging branches falling around the right, creating a frame around a pervasive darkness. This is the focal point. An emptiness, with presence is an odd thing to imagine, yet there it is. An emptiness so complete that looking at the picture makes you long to fill it. Carved into the side of the tree, moving away from the viewer, two names can be seen, carved years earlier into the bark, enclosed in a rudimentary butterfly. A prayer for the eternal love of its occupants. The photo is called Narcissism.
People mill around the gallery, some take it in proper order – reading the story as they move from picture to picture – others move randomly back and forth – disregarding the narrative. Brian and I make mostly polite conversation with people, tell them about some of the photos or about parts of our account that they find interesting – many people ask about Brian’s dream, which he tells them is a fabrication. It’s not.
The final picture is the only picture that both Brian and I are in. I suggest to people that this is the viewpoint of the imaginary observer as she realizes she is no longer needed. Brian says it’s a tripod. The picture shows the two of us sitting under the tree, laughing. There is a butterfly in the upper corner, its wings a blur, but not glowing. It looks like any other butterfly, and it is.
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