Empty Podiums

"Doc, I've got a doozy for ya." Dylan said.  He settled down on the couch, an old grey thing that sucked you in. "I had a dream last night I want to explore. Need to explore."

"You’ve always got something for me, Dylan. Alright. Let's hear it." his therapist said, as he relaxed back into his chair. Dylan nestled his head against the armrest and looked up at the discolored ceiling tiles; the building had long since gone tobacco free, but the tiles looked like they never kicked the habit. Dylan closed his eyes. His brow furrowed as he tried to recollect; not that it was hard for him to remember, but he felt it right to show the effort.

"I was in pitch, doc, pure void. I could see myself and nothing else, just standing on invisible ground. I could walk around, but there was no sound, none at all. Every movement felt like I was swimming in honey. As I walked, I noticed I was dressed in my dad’s old suit, the cuffs went past my thumb and my tie was on backwards. Made me feel kind of small. There was nothing around me, nothing at all, so there was nothing to do, really… But all the same, I felt so compelled to walk, run even, to get somewhere. It was awful being stuck there. The worst part was that I felt that awfulness, deep in my bones, like I was late for a train that didn't exist. Like I made an appointment with a guru who would’ve given me the keys to enlightenment had I only met him; I just had to get somewhere, anywhere, but there was nothing doing." He grimaced and looked over at the doctor who just finished writing the date and time. The silence, save for the buzz of the fluorescent, compelled Dylan to continue.

"After a while, I just started to slow down. I wasn't getting anywhere... or if I was, there was nothing to indicate it. Not even wind in my ears or strain in my muscles. I might as well have been in space just flailing my arms. I got real quiet and just hoped for whatever was happening to be over soon. To die, if I had to.” He looked over to the therapist who was looking at something on his computer screen. He looked at Dylan when he noticed he’d stopped talking and nodded for him to continue. Dylan gripped the cushion tightly and let go.  His gaze returned to the ceiling. “It wasn't a sadness, but a... purposelessness, I guess. Like I was a stray mark on the edge of some masterpiece; just waiting for the great artist in the sky to spot me and rub me out." He wrung his hands together on his stomach as he gathered himself. "That's when I saw the podium."

"Sodium?" the doctor asked, his eyes raising a little in confusion.

"Podium. Puh." Dylan replied, shooting the doctor a glance. Doc's gaze drifted back to their half-closed state, his eyes rested on the LED fireplace keeping his office warm.

"Ah."

"Anyway, I saw a podium, big oaken thing, kind of ramshackle, like it's seen better days. There was an engraving on the front. Some face, could’ve been either a woman or a man. The face was pristine, but the area where the eyes should’ve been was just… empty space, like everything else around. Strange." he said, straining to recall. "I was afraid of this thing. Deathly afraid of it, but all the same felt drawn towards it, like it had a home-cooked meal ready for me if I did the right thing. It was like them sirens from that Odyssey story, I think, except I wasn't tied up."

The doctor checked his watch and huffed a little before he said, "Continue."

"Well, I stepped up behind it, I couldn't help myself. It was like the bottom half of me wanted to run and the top half of me wanted to cling onto it for dear life, like I was a lost child, and it was momma; like it was the only thing that could save me. I stepped up to it, put my hands on the work surface, and a huge blinding light consumed me with the sound of a metallic thunk, like someone had flipped a huge industrial circuit breaker."

 He reached for an invisible lever above him and pulled it down. "Ka-chunk! I blinked a few times, and my eyes adjusted to see that I was in an auditorium of some kind, with walls of red and blue panels, one after another, surrounding me in a semi-circle. They were coated with some tacky bejeweled crap; bullshit diamonds and plastic rubies, ya know? Interlaced with plastic vines. That caught my eye first. People started shuffling in from the entrances on the side.  I was frozen on the spot at the center of the stage.  Maybe five minutes passed until there was a full house. All individuals of different makes and models with blank faces, staring at me from their seats."

The therapist spoke through his yawn, "Ah, so they weren't happy to see you?"

"Doc, I mean blank blank. Like the most life-like mannequins I'd ever seen, with zero expression." He waved his hand over his face in a circular motion.

The therapist shrugged and tapped the pen to his notepad three times, nodding to him to continue.

"Yeah well, the place was silent. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to introduce myself but found that I couldn't speak above a whisper. No way anyone could hear me. They all continued to just face me, staring at me. I noticed that there was a notepad on the podium, now, several pages had been ripped from the bindings on it. There was a pen with a chewed end on it too, so I wrote ‘Hello!’ in big letters. What else was I supposed to say? I did my best to make it legible and understandable, and held it up. Nothing happened. I tore the page out, holding it higher. Still, nothing. Doc, I crumpled it up and swallowed the damn thing, just to get some kind of reaction. Not even a blink from any of them." He said, turning to look at the doctor now.

"In that silence I noticed to my left and right two podiums have appeared from thin air, just like mine, except they're painted blue and red, just like the walls. At each of them stood a mannequin that looked exactly like me, 'cept one was wearing that laughing mask and the other the crying one, you know, from theater class? The crying one was in a blue suit, and the laughing one in a red one." He hooked his fingers in his mouth and pulled a smile and frown upon his face.

"Then, as if like... we were glued to these damn things, we were wheeled around the stage like we had casters on our feet, the spotlights clicked on and followed us. Blue had blue light, Red had red, and I had a faint and dim white. We were wheeled around this stage, and I ended up behind both the imposters. I felt like my back had a big hook in it, dragging me backwards, maybe just centimeters at a time. My hands felt welded to the sides of this podium or I would’ve tried running, I think.  I craned my neck behind me to see that the stage broke off into jagged strips of broken splintered wood; a cliff back down towards that abyss that... that was darker than darkness itself. The darkness that only the dead and the not yet born know of… and thankfully, forget."

The therapist was staring at his blank notepad with empty eyes, nodding at every other word. Dylan felt a wave of cold wash over him as the air conditioning unit kicked on above the couch, the ruffling of a stack of old papers was held down by a plastic bobblehead of Freud. Dylan sighed before continuing, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"So…Mr. Red was to my right, and Mr. Blue was to my left and I was drifting backwards towards this pit of nothingness, shaking in my suit. With the lights blaring on them now, I noticed that my two dummies had this weird plaster of Paris looking stuff sewn into their backs, with jagged writing, my handwriting. Mr. Blue's said, 'Do you have?' and Mr. Red’s said, 'Anything to say?'"

He shivered a little, taking a moment to himself before continuing. "Doc, the second I stopped reading, I saw the audience stand and begin to slowly turn in unison, to look at all the pretty fake gems and stones that seemed to grow brighter every passing second. I started to panic, feeling myself inching towards the abyss. I tried to cry out, but nothing would come out. I looked down at my notepad, the torn scraps of page at the top felt like they were taunting me, like so much time and work had been torn away to be forever forgotten."

"I felt for sure that this was going to be the end of me; with everyone's back towards me, no one even knowing my name. I'd squandered a lifetime of opportunity to say something, anything, and now It’d all end without ever having had any say in anything at all. Makes me sick still thinking about that feeling… Reminds me of… Say, what's that thing Shakespeare said, about life being a powerful play?" he asked, looking to his therapist.

"The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. That's Whitman, not Shakespeare." he said in his monotone voice, as he checked his phone for any messages.

"Oh yeah... Well anyway, I'd always wanted to make something. To make something and for someone to see it and say, 'Hey, I like what you did.' and sincerely mean it. Not that family crap you get, that golf clap, that childish gold star of 'look at what Dylan made! It's going right on the fridge!' No, I’ve always wanted to make something impactful, with some oomph. I guess that’s why I felt like this was my last chance, on that stage. To give a part of me, a real part of the real me, not some pointless hallmark card presentation to be cooed at, but something bona fide... but I guess I never knew what to say or how to say it… but, this was my last chance, and I figured if I didn't at least try, I'd go to oblivion with one more regret than I needed to. I started writing, like a madman, just dumping my thoughts on the page. I don't even think I could recognize what I was writing, might as well of been in another language." Dylan sat up on the sofa, pantomiming his wrist movements as he spoke.

"I don't even remember what I put down now, funny the things you forget in a dream, but I heard Mr. Blue and Mr. Red speak what I was writing, in booming voices, but kind of paraphrased too. Like they couldn't accept what was coming out of my head and had to either emphasize or minimize my words. Some things they got completely wrong, some things they didn't say at all. My descent backwards was slowing, the podium just about three feet from the edge now. My hand cramped up, I looked up to see maybe two or three of the crowd turned back around towards me. The rest of them cared more about the shimmering wall, I guess, but at least I got a little attention.”

“I took some deep breaths and tried writing a little clearer, and as I kept going Mr. Red and Mr. Blue started making a bit more sense, too, albeit they never quite got the gist of what I was saying. It was like we were playing telephone, from my page to their lips." He grunted, his eyes downcast to the floor

"Ten minutes, Dylan." Doc said, ushering him to wrap it up as he tapped his wristwatch.

"Yeah, no worries. I know I'm long winded." he said, clearing his throat.

"When I noticed that the few who had faced the stage started to turn back around to the wall, I felt more annoyed than anything, angry even. Angry with the two misters, with the fancy wall, with the audience and their preference for it. I was even angrier at myself for having nothing to say to really 'wow' or capture their attention. Angry that I felt I even needed their damn attention. So angry that I gave up. If no one cares what I'm going to say, why say anything at all?"

He looked up at the therapist with a pleading expression. A moment of silence passed. "So I grabbed the notebook and marker, I gripped it tight and wrote: 'if all that was left on this miserable artificial rock was a little robin, it would chirp until it realized it was alone, and then no more.' I stared at it for a second, smiled at what I wrote, I thought that felt pretty true. Neither red nor blue said it, so it was left unspoken, but I didn’t care. The crowd was leaving the building, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care if anyone had heard it or not. I felt freer than I had in my entire life. I ripped that page and held it dearly to my heart, then I turned around and leapt over the edge. All of that happened last night. I never remember my dreams until this one…so I figured I ought to tell you.”

The therapist nodded, yawning as the clock struck 3 p.m. "Finished?" he asked, putting the bare notepad and pen on the desk in front of him.

"I guess so, yeah." Dylan replied, his gaze turned to the floor. "What do you think it means?" He looked up at him, searching his eyes, hoping his dream might've been worth something.

"I don't know, Dylan. Why don't you tell me what it means? In fact, why don't you go home, write it all down, and come up with some possibilities and we can discuss that instead?" he said, rubbing his temples, turning his back to him in his swivel chair to stand up from his desk. "If you even find it worth talking about by then, that is."

"Oh, okay, well, sure Doc." He nodded. Disappointment crossed his face. "Thanks for listening, I guess. I know it's a lot to ask someone to pay attention that long, especially nowadays. It means a lot to me."

He left the office in a little daze, having relived the odd experience all over again. He reached his car and grabbed the handle. He sighed and looked around the empty parking lot when he heard a bird tweeting in an old oak tree, its gnarled untamed roots bursting through the asphalt. He looked up at the robin, which flitted about and eyed him, curious. It chirped again. He smiled and whistled back.