Fork in the Road

A Fork in the Road

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Yogi Berra

Until it started, I lived a normal life --wife, two children, nice house, good job; nothing exciting. It brought a little excitement in the beginning, but when it continued night after night, I began to worry. Although I told myself, it’s a dream, just a dream, telling this didn’t help much. It seemed the day before the dreams began was the last day of happiness I would ever have. When I woke and opened my eyes, I immediately narrowed and then shut them. I didn’t want to leave the world of the dream. Maybe I just live in these dreams and forget real life altogether? It wasn’t an option; I got a life to live.

I tried everything I could come up with to stop the dreams:  I got to bed early, late, tired, drunk, caffeinated. Nothing changed, the dreams continued night after night like a soap opera.

Hope to keep my worries hidden didn’t succeed. One day, during dinner my wife, moving a vase of slightly wilted flowers aside, asked, “Honey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, Laura.” I wasn’t. “Just have some trouble sleeping.”

She just resumed eating. I shifted my sight from her to the flowers and kept them there for a moment.

“Is everything okay?” asked my boss, when I made some mistakes. The same answer worked well. The same lack of interest from her. If I were the department head, as I should, I would handle the situation differently.

I was alone in this and it was up to me to do something. Reading on the subject was the first thing that came to mind. So, I began to read about dreams, then about psychology, then about the subconscious, then sci-fi, and finally about mental illness. A story about parallel Universe intrigued me, but it was science fiction; and fiction is not the reality even if it’s called science. Some of the books I just skimmed, and some of them I read and even reread the most interesting pages. When I finished with about have a dozen books, I banged the last one down on the desk and exploded like a flushing toilet. Blood thundered in my ears. Am I crazy, or is the goddamn world crazy? Maybe there is a problem with the whole Universe we don’t know about?

Every night I went to bed with anxious anticipation and woke up with the same thoughts. Am I losing my mind? I need to talk about what’s happening with someone who will listen and might be able to offer some insight.

I needed a professional.

I spent a few days researching, at home and work. One website impressed me. Doctoral degree from an Ivy League school, an office in a prestigious downtown building, and I liked the picture.  Intelligent eyes, confident smile, resolute chin. It took a few days until I made a final decision. Then I called the office.

“Hello, this is Stephanie, Dr. Miller’s assistant. May I help you?” She sounded like I was the only person she cares for.

“Hi, I would like to make an appointment, if possible after 6 P.M.”

“Let me check … At the requested time, the earliest appointment is available two weeks from today.”

She is young and professional. Like an assistant, not a receptionist, I thought

“No, I need something sooner.”

“Let me see… we have a 4:30 P.M. cancelation two days from now”

“Okay.” I decided to take a sick day.

“Arrive half an hour earlier to fill out the paperwork.”

On the day of the appointment, I stayed in bed longer than usual and told my wife that I took a day off.

“Honey, are you okay?” she asked again.

“Yeah, I told you I have some trouble sleeping.”

“Okay, enjoy.” She kissed me on the cheek and left for work.

I lingered in bed, went for a long walk, and showered. It was after eleven when I began making breakfast.  After finishing the meal, my eyes drifted up to the clock above the kitchen window. The clock was teasing me. ; it was merely twelve. Another fifteen minutes to clean the kitchen still left me with a few of hours to kill. I looked around the kitchen. Saw the wilted flowers and put them in the garbage,

How would I explain what’s going on to her? No, I wouldn’t be able to explain. Would she help me with questions? The thoughts ran through my mind in a loop. I decided I need to distract myself with something before the appointment. I picked up a book but soon put it aside. TV got me away from my thoughts for a while. I checked the time again. It was still more than two hours to the appointment time. After sitting with my eyes closed, I began pacing the room. The edginess that coursed through my body made me antsy and impatient. I made my mind up, went in my car, and drove downtown.

Arriving, I found a parking space near the building among other boxy glass-and-steel skyscrapers. They towered over me and looked like pale or black crystals laid by aliens. Having more than an hour till the appointment time, I decided to take a look around and see if I could notice some differences from my dreams. Seeing a yellow M on a McDonald’s restaurant, I recalled that in my dreams it was a yellow K instead of M.

At ten to four, I entered the building. The lobby was empty save the counter with a uniformed guard, just a long wall of pale stone with slits that must lead to elevators because there was a steady stream of people coming in and out. All of them, both men and women, seem to be wearing expensive black suits and dresses. Places and people like this--rich, moneyed, self-confident—aren’t my cup of tea. At the wall near the elevators, I checked the directory and rode the elevator to the twelfth floor.

A young blond in a tailored outfit greeted me, pointed to a sign-in sheet. “Have a seat, the doctor will see you shortly,” she said giving me the paperwork. “Just fill it out.” I sat and began answering the questionnaire. Most of the answers were “no.”After finishing, I picked up a magazine and looked at the date; current.  I began to leaf through it. At a quarter to five, the door from the office opened and a woman walked out at a snail's pace. I glanced at the assistant, and she held up one finger. I kept my gaze on her for a while. A few minutes later, her phone rang and she said pointing at the door, “The doctor will see you now.”

I entered the office and shut the door behind me as if cutting off the possibility of changing my mind.

“Good afternoon,” I said.

           “I’m Dr. Miller,” she stood up.

We shook hands, and she pointed for me to sit down. Definitely confident.

Sitting on the couch, I looked through the glass of a wall-wide window that reached almost to the floor. It flooded the inside with light. The cityscape looked familiar and normal; skyscrapers with banks' names at their tops, the clock, the distant mountains with cloudy caps. But so it was in my dreams. Something is not normal; with me, or the world around me, or the whole Universe?  The sun has shifted, and the shadow of a skyscraper darkened the room. I scanned the room. Expensive furniture, on the wall pictures that looked original, a fresh flower arrangement in a fine-looking vase. No wonder she charges so much.

My eyes moved and focused on the woman in the chair dressed in a tailored pant suit. She looked around thirty, but I knew she was about forty. The well-cared-for face was framed by bottle-blond hairs carefully coifed in an elaborate style. Did an architect design her hairdo? Her manicured hands rested on legs covered by black pants.  A few rings, but no wedding band. We looked at each other. She looked calm, and I started fidgeting. No help from her. It behooves me to break the silence. No lending a hand

“I am not crazy.” I stopped. “No.” I searched for words. “But obviously, something is wrong.” After a pause, “Otherwise I won’t be sitting in front of you on the couch.” After what seemed like a long time, “I really need you to help me to figure out what’s going on.” Still, no word from her.

I looked again through the window. It was getting darker.

“So, let me start from the beginning. Every night for the past few months, I have dreams, same dreams.” I searched for words to explain what I meant. “Same in the sense that a TV series is about the same. But every episode is different. I’m trapped in those events like a fly in the paint.” I stopped, “Do you understand what I mean?” She was silent for so long I thought that’s all the answer I was going to have.

“A dream could be a wonderful thing or a terrible thing,” she finally said something. “It’s an erratic thing.”

“Yeah, I’ve read a lot about dreams. They distort and mix events. Stories are mingling, and facts are growing new unforeseen shots. But they are not supposed,” I banged at my knee “to follow each other night after night like chapters in a book.”

She just waited.

“Usually, dreams don’t linger, and you dissolve like rising smoke from a chimney.” I closed my eyes, then continued, “They are gone, and reality is around you. For a while, you try to catch the disappearing pieces, but the dream vanishes.” I took a deep breath. “I’m not so lucky, my dreams are reality. A different reality. And they don’t vanish.”

I have fallen silent. “No, that’s not the beginning.”

Silence again. The past was playing out in my head as I struggled to find words to explain to a stranger what I couldn’t explain to myself.

“It might sound strange, but I was dating two girls simultaneously, Laura and Hope. Can you believe this?” Have I really loved both?

She just looked at me.

“I married only one, Laura,” I continued. “She was more forceful. No, it’s not what I mean. Persuasive? Persistent?” A long pause, “It doesn’t matter now.”

There was a long silence.

“Why don’t you ask any questions? Aren’t you supposed to?”

 “I’m listening.” An answer that discouraged further questioning.

“Life wasn’t bad…Two children, two girls, Emily and Sarah…a nice well-maintained house, satisfying job. Life became a routine.”

Wouldn’t she ask questions, one question? Why I am paying her so much? No help from her.

“Then I had a dream. It wasn’t a fitful dream. It seemed like it lasted the whole night.” After a long pause, “I lived another life in my dreams. The world I’d been seeing in my dreams didn’t differ much from the real world. Some details were different, but basically, it was the same life—the same company, only I was the department head, same suburb, mostly same friends. Two kids, Sarah and Emily, but now Sarah was older… The main difference, I was married to the other girl, Hope…Hope.” I stood up and then sat again, “And so night after night. It drives me nuts.”

I fell silent. I won’t talk until she asks a question. Eyes on my shoes, I waited. So did she. The silence stretched on like a drop of honey, getting thinner and thinner until it snapped with her question. “Are you happy in your marriage?”

“What do you mean?”

“I meant, do you love your wife?”

I must be looking uncertain, because she said again, “I’ve practiced for more than a dozen years, I’ve heard it all.”

“I…suppose,” I gave a half shrug

“Now, what does it mean ‘I suppose’?” she questioned me.

“Are you married?”

“No. But it’s not about me.” A smile touched her lips. She waited.

“You know, when I researched for a specialist, in my dreams I still chose you. Same website, same picture, same address. Only your last name was different.”

“Alternate reality?” She smiled, and for the first time, she looked genuinely interested.

“What do you mean, like a parallel Universe? I thought about it, but it’s my life, not science fiction.” I took a deep breath, “No. It can’t be.”

Her dark brows pinched together. “What was it?” She hid her interest well while fiddling with her ring, but I sensed some tension in her face.

“You mean the name?” I closed my eyes, “It was…Reznik.”

The smug smile she was wearing disappeared. Her face turned into ice and looked above forty. She was silent for a moment, then let out a sigh, leaned her head back, and destroyed the intricate architecture by wriggling her fingers through her hair.

“How…How do you…It…it… it’s time to finish for today.” Her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, as she pointed to the door.

What the hell? Could it be? What am I going to do now?

I carefully closed the door.