11 Dream Avenue

SHIVA

I wake up at the same time every morning.

No alarm clock, no one close to shake me. I’m just up. It doesn’t feel random, it feels planned. By someone, or something, other than me. I don’t even check the time anymore. I sleep with my phone in another room but I am sure that at 6:14, I’ll open my eyes. I won’t be tired and there’s no use in trying to get back to sleep. It’ll never work. So I just rise, poop and brush my teeth before heading to my desk to write.

I dream in detail every night. My dreams are active, familiar and consistent. I go to the same world, I see the same people and I have a fairly normal life peppered with mini adventures. My best friend Ngozi lives there so I spend my time with her. You know how people say, “they don’t make ‘em like that anymore”, there are so many things that no longer exist and Ngozi’s beauty is one of the past. She’s 6 feet tall, 200 pounds with obsidian skin. Her hips are wide, her smile is wide, her nose is wide and so are her feet. Her eyes are yellow and so are her teeth but they look more golden because they emanate light just a little. We meet daily at a bodega for egg and cheese bagels and black coffee. Everyone there knows us and we walk in at the same time, 11:00am (in Dreamland). We love to tell each other about our waking lives in our different worlds. We know that we are sleeping and we choicefully spend our few hours in bed with each other. Nomad works behind the deli counter and has our sandwiches prepared before we arrive. “Hi my beautiful friends” he says as we enter this morning.

“Hey Mad Man,” Ngozi says. “Go Gooo” I say to Ngozi, and eventually “Good morning Sir Nomad”

He laughs and offers us our sandwiches over the counter which we grab and take to the same table daily or nightly, depending on how you look at it. I never touch my food, and it eventually just disappears and Gozi typically eats hers in one bite, no chewing, just a gulp. We sip coffee and chat until adventure time and when the coffee sets, I feel the urge to poop, I open my eyes and it’s 6:14.

“My wife read my dream journal and thinks I’m having an affair with you because I like to keep this world to myself” Gozi starts. “Girl what?” I continue.

“Yes, but whatever, I told her she exists in this world in my heart but I’ve never seen her here so technically that’s impossible because I’m not married” She laughs aloud “she didn’t think it was funny, I’m just amazed at the audacity of her to think that even in another universe I need to belong to her, it’s been bothering me.”

“Why didn’t you tell her we’re just interdimensional besties?”

“Because THAT’S not the point. I am MINE here and I like that.”

“That’s real.” I say, quietly wishing I had someone to be jealous of my dream life in the waking world. We both sigh and then we both laugh.

`

In this world there are “regulars” and “irregulars” aka people who know they’re asleep and people who don’t. Ngozi and I love to go on adventures with irregulars after our table top catch up. On this particular day, we feel drawn to a man with wild red hair and a green tracksuit. He’s tall and handsome with freckles all over his face and hands. He seems flustered when he enters the bodega and asks Nomad where the bandages are. His sweaty forehead and hurried breath let us know he’s trying to fix a problem and it feels urgent. We follow him out, waving at Mad Man and holding hands. We never have long together outside of the bodega so we have to dive right into the wild and feel what we can.

The Redhead approaches a skate park where another man lays on a bench gripping his arm.

“Shit bro” the injured one says, “I’m bleeding like a chick with a heavy flow”

“You slid man, that shit was crazy!” They had gauze but no tape.”

“I have some tape!” I call over. I always have a bag with randomly useful things in it that I’m working on keeping up with. There are rules and games in this world but I’ll share more on that later.

“Clutch.” Redhead says.

I run over and hand it to him and then I sit and watch as he dresses his friend's wounds. Gozi sits next to me and asks if the injury marks the end of their day or if they are getting into something else. Redhead is DJing at a party in an hour so we ask if he can have a plus two and hop on the subway with him headed uptown. The trains are packed as usual and we all ride in silence observing the other passengers. I notice Redhead is mostly watching Gozi. Understandable, she’s breathtaking.

“Regulars” are aware that you can’t feel touch, you can’t see yourself in the mirror and you can’t die. You mostly recognize people because they FEEL familiar, not so much look it, but for some reason, the bodega is the one place where I see the familiarity as well as feel it.

We hop off the train at Rockefeller Center and follow Redhead up the world’s longest elevator. In the elevator, we feel the energy shifting and our Redhead friend’s eyes adjust as though he’s entering a battle ground when the doors slide open. He looks to Ngozi and I and says

“Y’all Ready?”

One the other side of the doors is a world full of masked individuals, all wearing red. They greet Redhead and call him Chief. Chief? Gozi and I are realizing this is not a typical DJ gig. FKA Redhead walks behind the DJ booth and with a wave of his hand silences the room.

After a chilling pause, he says “Do you all belong to me?” and everyone quickly says

“Yes Chief.”

It’s at this moment that Ngozi and I catch eyes, thinking perhaps this man isn’t as “irregular” as we thought. You see, “irregulars” are pretty passive in Dream World. They respond to seemingly dangerous situations with fear because they forget they can always just wake up. To wake up, you MUST stay calm. The game here is to remember you don’t have to stay but you can take the journey as far as you like because you know you can’t die. Most people don’t even know how to get back to a particular Dream Avenue after they wake up so they really could just leave and never return. Returns require lots of practice which both Gozi and I are adept at so we’re always down for a weird party but this one feels a bit sinister.

“Should we go?” she mouths.

“Absolutely” I whisper.

Just then every eyeball in the room is on us. FKA Redhead is no longer on the mic, now it’s his injured buddy who says “Everyone welcome our guests.”

They all clap and then stop and say welcome at the same time, I’m pretty freaked out and my insides respond. I take a deep breath and too late make a decision.

“Shit.” I think and immediately wake up. I try and ultimately fail to get back to sleep. It’s 6:14 and I have to poop right now so I hop out of bed and into my tiny bathroom. I’m worried but I know my friend and she knows that world so I’m trusting all is well and I head to my desk to write before the memories slip away.

GOZI

Apparently, Shiva had to shit because now I’m in this weird ass “party” by myself and these creeps have surrounded and lifted me up announcing me as their new Queen. I’m confused and curious so I won’t leave, yet.

I’m a big girl in this world, a whole 6 feet and 200 pounds. I love that for me because in my waking life I’m pretty small. My wife is obsessed with how small I am there. 5’2’ 110 pounds. I dream myself large and here, they love it.

Redhead’s ol’ suspicious ass is just beaming as the crowd carries me atop their heads to the stage. “My Queen,” he says.

“So, I take it you’re not an irregular” I respond. He winks. A chill goes through me. I can’t feel touch here but I can feel, if that makes sense. I think my physical world body still reacts to my emotions in Dreamland.

“Will you take my hand?” asks Redhead and before I even think, I’m pretty sure my head nods my head nods because the crowd erupts. They are a sea of red that actively changes colors as they cheer. Green. The room is moving, the crowd splits making room for me and this possibly crazy, certainly interesting man to make our way through. The music returns. I can’t even really say it’s music because I can’t hear anything but I can feel it and everyone around is dancing. Redhead and I enter a room with a golden door. Inside is his formerly injured friend who seems perfectly fine now and two blonde women with low haircuts. They speak at the same time.

“Ngozi, we have been waiting for you.”

I nervously chuckle.

“You have been traveling here for many moons, we have noticed your keenness to the rules of this world.”

“Well, I didn’t really know it was a world when I first started coming. I thought I was making it up in my mind”

“You are. We all are.”

Hmm. I think to myself. That makes a lot of sense. There’s so little that I actually share with Shiva. I tell her some truths like I am married in my waking life and I do write about Dreamland in my journal daily but she doesn’t know that I have designed my look here and that I was coming here for years before I ever met her. I remember when she was irregular. She would stumble into Nomad’s and eat chips in the aisle then try to run because she thought she was stealing but there’s no money here. She would ask me for help because she was running from something in a totally different world, not knowing that fear helps you to dimension hop. She was a mess but when I’d finally seen her in the bodega a fourth time, I knew she had potential and I’ve been teaching her all that I know ,subtly, ever since. We’ve been interdimensional besties for a couple years now but she does know I stay here a few hours longer than her almost every night and she never asks about the night before when I see her at the bodega.

“We would like to invite you to become a permanent resident here” The Blonds.

“Permanent? Oh no thanks, I like my life outside”

“Do you?” Says Redhead.

“That’s what I said and that’s what I meant”

“Ok my loves, thank you.” He says to the Blonds. “Ngozi, will you look into my eyes? I want to show you something.”

“I’m ok, I’m actually ready to go”

“No” I feel him say directly into my mind.

I take a deep breath and try to hop.

“Not so soon my Queen. I must show you.” And suddenly, I’m looking deep into the forever of his eyes.

SHIVA

One of the ways we learn about Dreamland is by setting intentions before bed. This morning I wrote about a party I went to with Ngozi. I remember leaving in the middle of something, I don’t remember what but I do remember that Gogo was still there when I left. My intention for the night is to remember to ask her if she stayed and what happened. I’ve tried to remember this before but I’ve never been successful. I rip the page with the written intention from my journal and place it under my pillow. Off I go.

Bodega.

“What’s up Mad Man, where’s Gozi? What time is it?”

“I’m not sure Shiv, I was hoping you’d tell me. It’s 11:01. That’s unlike her.”

“I’m supposed to remember something, I’m not sure what.”

“Well yesterday you and Ngozi left with a man wearing a green tracksuit at around 12:35”

“Oh yes! I was supposed to ask her what happened last night at the party!”

“What party?” Nomad asks, suddenly serious.

“We went to a party with a bunch of people wearing red and dude in the tracksuit, it was cool but they were being weird so I hopped home”

“Hmm” and after a moment of deep thought, Nomad says, “No bagels and coffee today Shiva, we must leave right away. I’m going to change. Wait here.”

Nomad is an average height brown skinned man with a pot belly and noticeably small hands. He wears the same clothes every time I see him with a black hat covering his loosely wavy hair. That’s the man who walked behind the two swinging doors into the storage area of the deli. The man who walked out was at least 6’5” with a muscular build, deep chocolate skin and possibly the biggest hands I’ve ever seen. He had on all black with combat boots and a ring on each finger.

I screamed. Partially out of terror and partially out of shock that I was seeing the most beautiful man I’d ever seen in my life.

“Who are you and where is Nomad!”

“I am Nomad,” he said.

NGOZI

What I saw was ineffable but I feel like I saw everything that ever happened, at the same time. It was painful, exhilarating and absolutely exhausting. Honestly, it just made me want to go home but for some reason I keep coming back and I can’t figure out why.

The two blonds have explained to me that permanents are people who have decided to prioritize their lives in Dreamland over their waking life. In that world, Chief is in a coma and has been for years. The two blonds, called Balance and Chaos are close friends who are addicted to sleeping pills in their waking life and here have been serving as Chief’s shepherds. They train his flock and keep the party going.

I miss the bodega.

SHIVA

Apparently, you can change your body here??? They’re called suits! I am learning something new! Nomad tells me I just have to close my eyes and imagine a different look. I imagine a chubby, pale medium height woman with long raven hair, blushed cheeks and long red nails. I hold this image until Nomad tells me to open my eyes. He witnessed the change. I look down at my hands, the perfect shade of crimson.

“You’ll have to act like an irregular. Do you know how to do that?”

I want to say yes but I’m really not sure, I’ve never thought about it.

“Irregulars are often confused but try to act like they aren’t. They often think they’re stealing, they’re constantly running from or toward something and they are often missing shoes, pants or clothes all together. But one of the telling signs is that they always call you by the name of someone you remind them of but that’s not who you are.”

“I see.”

“Ngozi has been a regular for maybe 6 years but she doesn’t have experience with any permanents except me. I don’t know if she even knows about permanents. Most don’t. I never leave here because in the waking world, I am never awake. I have been in a coma for 10 years at least and my family won’t let go. So I run the bodega and observe the regulars and irregulars. Some permanents are dangerous, they are not in control awake, so they possess and dominate here. I’m afraid Ngozi has been captured by a devious permanent.”

NOMAD

I have lived in this world longer than anyone I know. Most regulars and permanents here use my store as a portal and they just don’t know it. I observe everything and everyone. Most of them come around the same time and leave around the same time. I particularly look after the permanents because I know none of them wanted to end up here. Connor started coming here as a child. He was twelve when he slipped into a coma. It’s been a while now and he’s gone by many names and worn many suits. I feel him when he enters my store but I don’t bother him too often. He needs this place more than most of us. But this time, I just can’t let him go too far.

Shiva doesn’t know this but permanents are magnetized to one another but she’s a fast learner so we made it to Connor’s easily. Permanents know that we can quickly find each other with just the right amount of focus so when I walked into Connor’s lair in my original suit with Shiva in her new one, he knew the party was over. I simply put the words “you’ve gone too far son” into his mind. He’d been manipulating Ngozi to use his portal upon her returns here although she’s grown familiar with the casual freedom of mine. I reached my hand to her. She didn’t recognize me but she felt me and knew I was safe. She felt Shiv too. As we descended the elevator silently. Ngozi shed her suit and showed Shiva her first form. This was the last time I saw either of them as they both hopped before I made it back to the Bodega. I have a feeling they will find each other somewhere on another Dream Avenue.