Illusory Love at the Nighthawks Diner (A Midsummer Night's Dream/Seventh Seal/the Man who Mistook..)
Title: Illusory Love in the Nighthawks Diner
Author: merlintriss
Rating: K+
Pairing/Characters: Puck, Oliver Sachs, Titiania/Oberon, Helena/Demetrius, Jof/Mia
Fandom(s): A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Seventh Seal, Nighthawks and The Man Who MIstook His Wife for a Hat
Summary: Written for my Honors class (which was centered on the Renaissance.) Puck and Oliver Sachs talk about love in the Nighthawks Diner.
Disclaimer: A Midsummer Night's Dream belongs to Shakespeare, The Seventh Seal I will attribute to Ingmar Bergeman, Nighthawks was painted by Edward Hopper, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is an excellent book by Oliver Sachs. What follows is an "academic" exercise and I gain nothing from it. Except the grade I received in the class. The endnotes were one of the requirements for the class. Kind of RPF, though I'm taking the Oliver from the books and not from the interviews I've seen of him.
The diner is old, kind of timeless when Oliver walks in. For a minute he is out of time. In here it could be 1975 or 2009. The counter is worn, but not ancient. The silverware is polished to a dull sheen. There’s a couple at the end of the bar, two hippies who look to be in deep conversation, drinking from off-white coffee cups, though he can tell the woman is drinking tea, the bag still steeping in the mug.
Oliver sat down, mindful of the wooden stool, smooth under him. He wasn’t nosy, he really wasn’t, more of a professional observer, and the couple across from him was incredibly interesting. The woman had flowers twisted in her hair, framing her aristocratic face. Her green dress was the color of leaves in a summer forest, seeming to both conceal and reveal most of her thin form.
“Ah, I see you have observed fair Titania.” Oliver finally paid attention to the man behind the counter, an impish looking character wearing a white hat and an apron. Closer perusal revealed that he was also shirtless and wearing pants made of fake fur. What was this place?
“Titania?” Oliver shook his head as the strange man behind the counter poured him a cup of coffee unasked. “And I’m supposing the man with her is Oberon?” He laughed at his own joke, then looked up and saw that the counter man was serious.
“Well he’s certainly not Bottom.” He pulled off his hat and scratched gently at one of the two delicate horns on his head. Oliver tried not to stare and thought of when he was younger and spent a night consuming amphetamines, cocaine and PCP. Maybe that had happened now? He was in the hold of a very strong trip, only this time he didn’t have the sense of smell like a dog.[1] He had to be suffering some sort of flashback.
“And you?” Oliver put his attention back to the man, deciding that since he was here, he might as well enjoy the experience.
“Me? I’m just your simple barkeep. But if you have a wish to name me, I suppose Robin Goodfellow would suffice.” Their attention was drawn back to the couple at the bar, who were now involved in quiet a heated argument. “Ah, those two, at it again. Love, isn’t it beautiful?”
“Love?” Oliver looked around the empty bar to confirm that he was talking about Titania and her king. “Them?”
“Naturally. Look at the passion. The romance. Why, he’d convince her to fall in love with a ass-headed man just to get her attention.” Puck caught his lip between his teeth and grinned. “Already did that. Almost forgot.”
“That’s not love.” Oliver looked over at the couple again, the man with his classic looks attempting to once more woo his lady, though she was having none of it.
“Isn’t it? The passion to do most anything? To move heaven or Earth, or perhaps just one man?” Puck smiled before refilling the coffee cup Oliver hadn’t realized was empty.
“I know the story, though. Love in your tale is an illusion.” Oliver strained to remember what he had learned many years ago, the English classes he’d taken as a bored undergrad on the plays of Shakespeare.
“Speak of the devil. Or a pair of them.” Puck motioned to the diner’s door, behind Oliver on the far right. In came a well-dressed young man with hair he probably assumed was roguishly long, and a tiny woman with a nest of hair. Both were dressed as if they were from 1800’s[2], and the man had to pull the woman into the diner as she reached back towards the street. But there wasn’t any animosity in his game of tug of war, but rather a pleasant acceptance, as if he had grown used to her eccentricities.
“But my bike…” she gave up and followed him inside, smiling when she saw Puck, though there was no recognition in his eyes. She sat down at the bar next to Oliver as her partner excused himself to the restroom. With a gentle smile on her face, she reached over and offered her hand.
“Helena.” Her hand was thin and genteel, light calluses on her hands from holding the handles of a bicycle.
“Oliver, Oliver Sachs.” He took her proffered hand, which she then offered to Puck.
“Robin.” He smiled, “Tell me, dear, if you will. The good sir and I were just having a conversation about love. Would you be adverse to love, if it were just an illusion?”
“An illusion?” she smiled, in remembrance, “Illusions aren’t as bad as they seem. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.”[3] She smiled again, that enigmatic kind of smile that made her the Mona Lisa.
Her Demetrius returned and they moved over to a booth along the right wall, holding hands like long time lovers. Puck took them coffee and returned.
“Does she know?” Oliver asked when he returned, and Puck smiled.
“I am often in awe of what women know. He loved her once; she hopes he will truly love her again. That such mystical eye juice will not keep him distant.” Puck smiled, “Who knows? Maybe she is right? Maybe the illusion isn’t the love, but whatever stopped him from loving her.”
“I knew a couple once. I referred to the man as Dr. P. Brilliant musician and teacher, but he started suffering from visual agnosia.” Seeing Robin’s confused expression, he explained. “He was confusing things. He thought fire hydrants were little children, he couldn’t make out who a person was based on their physical appearance, and in one case, he mistook his wife for a hat.”[4]
“That is nothing. Did not fair Titania mistake an ass for her love?” Puck took out a washcloth and started wiping down the counter unnecessarily.
“Well, the point is, he and his wife, they didn’t really feel anything was wrong. He didn’t feel there was much of a difference; she thought it was artistic progression. The only reason they came and saw me was he feared it was caused by his diabetes.” He smiled, “They were a wonderful couple. That is love.”
“But isn’t it also an illusion? Hiding from each other what they both know? Isn’t that an illusion, Oliver?”
“But your own story, the tale of Hermia and Lysander. Isn’t there’s a pure love? A non-illusory love?” Oliver was grasping at straws, trying to remember what precisely the relationships were.
“All it took was an illusion to draw Lysander from his love into the arms of that woman over there,” he pointed towards the booth and the now happy couple, “even as she tried to cast him away from her.”
“Then it’s not their love that’s the illusion. Their love is the truth, his hatred for Hermia, that is the illusion.”
“There’s nothing in the eye juice that makes men espouse hatred to their former loves. That was Lysander’s choice. Now what is the truth and the illusion?” Puck smiled as newcomers entered his bar, the dark green of the door flashing color on the cream walls.
“We’re talking in circles here.” The newcomers were a young couple and their son, dressed in incredibly old clothing, but seeming no more out of place at the diner than he did. He assumed they were Renaissance re-enactors. The man, a jovial man with happy eyes and an open smile, smiled even wider when he saw Robin.
“A spirit of the Earth, a merry trickster if there ever was one,” he reached across the counter and gave Puck a solid handshake. Puck took the hand and returned the gesture before reaching behind the counter and pulling out three glasses of milk and a bowl of fresh strawberries.[5]
“Don’t mind him. Jof is always getting visions. He once saw the Virgin Mary playing in a field with the baby Jesus.” She picked up the glasses of milk and the strawberries, handing the bowl to her son, who toddled to the closest booth.
“It’s as if the whole world were filled with illusions. At least you’re positive ones. Why just yesterday I saw Death playing chess.” He smiled, sitting on the stool next to Oliver. “I didn’t tell Mia about that one, not really anyway.”
“He’s a wonderful chess player, Pluto is. Always had a fondness for the game. I have the stinking suspicion he invented it. After all, I’m a trickster and merrymaker, and I’ve never been able to trick him in a game of chess.” Puck rambled on, but Jof’s attention was on the two hippies at the far end of the counter, who had sorted out their disagreements and now held hands comfortingly.
“I see crowns, but surely they’re not kings or queens?” he looked to Puck for answers, and he just smiled.
“Is not a man a king in his marriage? Is not a woman his queen?” his smile was broad, before he looked back towards Jof’s companion, “Your wife, is she not?”
“Mia? Of course. And the son is ours as well. Mikael.” He sipped from the glass of milk that Mia had left behind for him on the counter.
“And what say you of love? You’re the married one of the lot.” Puck smiled.
“Love is wonderful! It is kind. It is what gets me through the darkness. I know that I always have her with me, even when she doesn’t always believe me.” His smile darkened a little, “I had a friend once who said ‘If everything is imperfect in this world, love is perfect in its imperfection.’[6] I’m pretty sure I saw him dancing with Death a few nights back. He was a smart man.”
“Indeed, indeed. Let’s not commiserate on lost comrades. Tell us, oh married one, do you think love is an illusion?” Puck looked over at Oliver, who leaned in to listen more closely to his response.
“No, of course not. In this world of visions and queens and fairy sprites, love is the only thing that is real. Sure, you can fake it, it can be an illusion in itself, but it’s not always an illusion. It’s the most real you’ll ever feel when you’ve fallen in love.” He smiled as Mia got his attention, feeding strawberries to their ebullient son. “Must go. The wife calls.”
“Oh love.” Puck grinned lazily, dropping his elbows to the counter, rag still in his hand, soap and water sliding down his arm onto the wood below.
“You’re an awful sap, aren’t you? All this talk about love and illusions.” Oliver shook his head ruefully, sipping more of the coffee.
“All you need is love. John Lennon. Smart man. Shot in the back. Very sad.”[7] Puck smiled before wiping down the counter, going back to the king and queen of the fairies, who were now once again so in love. Oliver’s eyes traveled down the counter to the booths, to Demetrius and Helena, in their quiet acceptance of what may be illusory love. To Mia and Jof, carefully feeding strawberries to their young son. He hoped Jof was right, that love wasn’t an illusion. He knew far too many people who couldn’t always see what was right in front of them, but could fall in love.
Laying a couple of bills on the counter to pay for the never-ending coffee, Oliver left, walking down the empty streets and into the night.
[1] According to the Wikipedia article on The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, the story of “Stephen D.” was autobiographical.
[2] Reference to usage of the movie version of a Midsummer Night’s Dream.
[3] A Midsummer Nights Dream, Scene i.
[4] The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sachs
[5] What the family ate with Antonious Block in the meadow in The Seventh Seal.
[6] Jons, The Seventh Seal
[7] Quoted from Independence Day, referencing the song “All You Need Is Love” from the Beatles album, Magical Mystery Tour, credited to Lennon/McCartney
Author: merlintriss
Rating: K+
Pairing/Characters: Puck, Oliver Sachs, Titiania/Oberon, Helena/Demetrius, Jof/Mia
Fandom(s): A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Seventh Seal, Nighthawks and The Man Who MIstook His Wife for a Hat
Summary: Written for my Honors class (which was centered on the Renaissance.) Puck and Oliver Sachs talk about love in the Nighthawks Diner.
Disclaimer: A Midsummer Night's Dream belongs to Shakespeare, The Seventh Seal I will attribute to Ingmar Bergeman, Nighthawks was painted by Edward Hopper, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is an excellent book by Oliver Sachs. What follows is an "academic" exercise and I gain nothing from it. Except the grade I received in the class. The endnotes were one of the requirements for the class. Kind of RPF, though I'm taking the Oliver from the books and not from the interviews I've seen of him.
The diner is old, kind of timeless when Oliver walks in. For a minute he is out of time. In here it could be 1975 or 2009. The counter is worn, but not ancient. The silverware is polished to a dull sheen. There’s a couple at the end of the bar, two hippies who look to be in deep conversation, drinking from off-white coffee cups, though he can tell the woman is drinking tea, the bag still steeping in the mug.
Oliver sat down, mindful of the wooden stool, smooth under him. He wasn’t nosy, he really wasn’t, more of a professional observer, and the couple across from him was incredibly interesting. The woman had flowers twisted in her hair, framing her aristocratic face. Her green dress was the color of leaves in a summer forest, seeming to both conceal and reveal most of her thin form.
“Ah, I see you have observed fair Titania.” Oliver finally paid attention to the man behind the counter, an impish looking character wearing a white hat and an apron. Closer perusal revealed that he was also shirtless and wearing pants made of fake fur. What was this place?
“Titania?” Oliver shook his head as the strange man behind the counter poured him a cup of coffee unasked. “And I’m supposing the man with her is Oberon?” He laughed at his own joke, then looked up and saw that the counter man was serious.
“Well he’s certainly not Bottom.” He pulled off his hat and scratched gently at one of the two delicate horns on his head. Oliver tried not to stare and thought of when he was younger and spent a night consuming amphetamines, cocaine and PCP. Maybe that had happened now? He was in the hold of a very strong trip, only this time he didn’t have the sense of smell like a dog.[1] He had to be suffering some sort of flashback.
“And you?” Oliver put his attention back to the man, deciding that since he was here, he might as well enjoy the experience.
“Me? I’m just your simple barkeep. But if you have a wish to name me, I suppose Robin Goodfellow would suffice.” Their attention was drawn back to the couple at the bar, who were now involved in quiet a heated argument. “Ah, those two, at it again. Love, isn’t it beautiful?”
“Love?” Oliver looked around the empty bar to confirm that he was talking about Titania and her king. “Them?”
“Naturally. Look at the passion. The romance. Why, he’d convince her to fall in love with a ass-headed man just to get her attention.” Puck caught his lip between his teeth and grinned. “Already did that. Almost forgot.”
“That’s not love.” Oliver looked over at the couple again, the man with his classic looks attempting to once more woo his lady, though she was having none of it.
“Isn’t it? The passion to do most anything? To move heaven or Earth, or perhaps just one man?” Puck smiled before refilling the coffee cup Oliver hadn’t realized was empty.
“I know the story, though. Love in your tale is an illusion.” Oliver strained to remember what he had learned many years ago, the English classes he’d taken as a bored undergrad on the plays of Shakespeare.
“Speak of the devil. Or a pair of them.” Puck motioned to the diner’s door, behind Oliver on the far right. In came a well-dressed young man with hair he probably assumed was roguishly long, and a tiny woman with a nest of hair. Both were dressed as if they were from 1800’s[2], and the man had to pull the woman into the diner as she reached back towards the street. But there wasn’t any animosity in his game of tug of war, but rather a pleasant acceptance, as if he had grown used to her eccentricities.
“But my bike…” she gave up and followed him inside, smiling when she saw Puck, though there was no recognition in his eyes. She sat down at the bar next to Oliver as her partner excused himself to the restroom. With a gentle smile on her face, she reached over and offered her hand.
“Helena.” Her hand was thin and genteel, light calluses on her hands from holding the handles of a bicycle.
“Oliver, Oliver Sachs.” He took her proffered hand, which she then offered to Puck.
“Robin.” He smiled, “Tell me, dear, if you will. The good sir and I were just having a conversation about love. Would you be adverse to love, if it were just an illusion?”
“An illusion?” she smiled, in remembrance, “Illusions aren’t as bad as they seem. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.”[3] She smiled again, that enigmatic kind of smile that made her the Mona Lisa.
Her Demetrius returned and they moved over to a booth along the right wall, holding hands like long time lovers. Puck took them coffee and returned.
“Does she know?” Oliver asked when he returned, and Puck smiled.
“I am often in awe of what women know. He loved her once; she hopes he will truly love her again. That such mystical eye juice will not keep him distant.” Puck smiled, “Who knows? Maybe she is right? Maybe the illusion isn’t the love, but whatever stopped him from loving her.”
“I knew a couple once. I referred to the man as Dr. P. Brilliant musician and teacher, but he started suffering from visual agnosia.” Seeing Robin’s confused expression, he explained. “He was confusing things. He thought fire hydrants were little children, he couldn’t make out who a person was based on their physical appearance, and in one case, he mistook his wife for a hat.”[4]
“That is nothing. Did not fair Titania mistake an ass for her love?” Puck took out a washcloth and started wiping down the counter unnecessarily.
“Well, the point is, he and his wife, they didn’t really feel anything was wrong. He didn’t feel there was much of a difference; she thought it was artistic progression. The only reason they came and saw me was he feared it was caused by his diabetes.” He smiled, “They were a wonderful couple. That is love.”
“But isn’t it also an illusion? Hiding from each other what they both know? Isn’t that an illusion, Oliver?”
“But your own story, the tale of Hermia and Lysander. Isn’t there’s a pure love? A non-illusory love?” Oliver was grasping at straws, trying to remember what precisely the relationships were.
“All it took was an illusion to draw Lysander from his love into the arms of that woman over there,” he pointed towards the booth and the now happy couple, “even as she tried to cast him away from her.”
“Then it’s not their love that’s the illusion. Their love is the truth, his hatred for Hermia, that is the illusion.”
“There’s nothing in the eye juice that makes men espouse hatred to their former loves. That was Lysander’s choice. Now what is the truth and the illusion?” Puck smiled as newcomers entered his bar, the dark green of the door flashing color on the cream walls.
“We’re talking in circles here.” The newcomers were a young couple and their son, dressed in incredibly old clothing, but seeming no more out of place at the diner than he did. He assumed they were Renaissance re-enactors. The man, a jovial man with happy eyes and an open smile, smiled even wider when he saw Robin.
“A spirit of the Earth, a merry trickster if there ever was one,” he reached across the counter and gave Puck a solid handshake. Puck took the hand and returned the gesture before reaching behind the counter and pulling out three glasses of milk and a bowl of fresh strawberries.[5]
“Don’t mind him. Jof is always getting visions. He once saw the Virgin Mary playing in a field with the baby Jesus.” She picked up the glasses of milk and the strawberries, handing the bowl to her son, who toddled to the closest booth.
“It’s as if the whole world were filled with illusions. At least you’re positive ones. Why just yesterday I saw Death playing chess.” He smiled, sitting on the stool next to Oliver. “I didn’t tell Mia about that one, not really anyway.”
“He’s a wonderful chess player, Pluto is. Always had a fondness for the game. I have the stinking suspicion he invented it. After all, I’m a trickster and merrymaker, and I’ve never been able to trick him in a game of chess.” Puck rambled on, but Jof’s attention was on the two hippies at the far end of the counter, who had sorted out their disagreements and now held hands comfortingly.
“I see crowns, but surely they’re not kings or queens?” he looked to Puck for answers, and he just smiled.
“Is not a man a king in his marriage? Is not a woman his queen?” his smile was broad, before he looked back towards Jof’s companion, “Your wife, is she not?”
“Mia? Of course. And the son is ours as well. Mikael.” He sipped from the glass of milk that Mia had left behind for him on the counter.
“And what say you of love? You’re the married one of the lot.” Puck smiled.
“Love is wonderful! It is kind. It is what gets me through the darkness. I know that I always have her with me, even when she doesn’t always believe me.” His smile darkened a little, “I had a friend once who said ‘If everything is imperfect in this world, love is perfect in its imperfection.’[6] I’m pretty sure I saw him dancing with Death a few nights back. He was a smart man.”
“Indeed, indeed. Let’s not commiserate on lost comrades. Tell us, oh married one, do you think love is an illusion?” Puck looked over at Oliver, who leaned in to listen more closely to his response.
“No, of course not. In this world of visions and queens and fairy sprites, love is the only thing that is real. Sure, you can fake it, it can be an illusion in itself, but it’s not always an illusion. It’s the most real you’ll ever feel when you’ve fallen in love.” He smiled as Mia got his attention, feeding strawberries to their ebullient son. “Must go. The wife calls.”
“Oh love.” Puck grinned lazily, dropping his elbows to the counter, rag still in his hand, soap and water sliding down his arm onto the wood below.
“You’re an awful sap, aren’t you? All this talk about love and illusions.” Oliver shook his head ruefully, sipping more of the coffee.
“All you need is love. John Lennon. Smart man. Shot in the back. Very sad.”[7] Puck smiled before wiping down the counter, going back to the king and queen of the fairies, who were now once again so in love. Oliver’s eyes traveled down the counter to the booths, to Demetrius and Helena, in their quiet acceptance of what may be illusory love. To Mia and Jof, carefully feeding strawberries to their young son. He hoped Jof was right, that love wasn’t an illusion. He knew far too many people who couldn’t always see what was right in front of them, but could fall in love.
Laying a couple of bills on the counter to pay for the never-ending coffee, Oliver left, walking down the empty streets and into the night.
[1] According to the Wikipedia article on The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, the story of “Stephen D.” was autobiographical.
[2] Reference to usage of the movie version of a Midsummer Night’s Dream.
[3] A Midsummer Nights Dream, Scene i.
[4] The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sachs
[5] What the family ate with Antonious Block in the meadow in The Seventh Seal.
[6] Jons, The Seventh Seal
[7] Quoted from Independence Day, referencing the song “All You Need Is Love” from the Beatles album, Magical Mystery Tour, credited to Lennon/McCartney