Somewhere in Dreams

      Rebecca smiled at me. It was a sunny day at the café I used to visit in my childhood. They had just served my favorite dish: half a cheese pizza, a whole Maine lobster and a side of chocolate glazed donuts.  

      "You know what's weird?" Rebecca asked me. 

      "What?" I replied.  

      "Every time I turn on the microwave, my phone bill goes up twenty dollars," she said.  

      "Oh, just turn it off. That's what I did."  

"You okay?" She asked. 

      "Yeah," I said as I put the tooth in my pocket. "I miss you." 

      "I miss you too."

      We gazed at each other for a long moment. Just then, I noticed my coworker Arthur walking by our table.  

      "Buddy!" He exclaimed as we did a high-five. Then in a flash, he was gone. 

      "Who was that?" Rebecca asked.  

      "That's Artie, but he's not here right now," I replied.   

      "Would you like some gum?" she said. I shook my head. She took a piece of gum, unwrapped it, and stuck the wrapper in her mouth instead of the gum.  

      She then looked very sad and said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."  

      "No, don't apologize. I should have reacted sooner," I replied without hesitation.

      Just then, an alarm clanged in the distance. I looked up toward the sound but when I looked back at Rebecca, she had vanished. I found myself alone at the table. Another soothing female voice called out to me from above. 

      "Wake up, sleepyhead!" Julie said. 

      With a gentle push, I began to feel my body being poked by my wife's hand. 

      "Chris?" she said. 

      "I'm up!" I shouted from my chair. I tried to open my eyes but couldn't budge.  

      "Chris? Chris!" Julie shouted. I could hear panic in her voice. 

      The sky above me dimmed as I shook back and forth. I could feel her rocking me back and forth.

      "C'mon! This isn't funny!" She cried out. It was then that I heard her rummaging through her nightstand for her cell phone. There was a clear drone of a dial tone, and then someone picked up on the other end. 

      "My husband isn't moving! I don't know what to do!" She said. 

      The 911 operator took a beat and then said, "Is he breathing?"

      "I don't know!" She immediately retorted. 

      "Can you check his pulse for me?" 

      "I don't know how to do that!"      

       A storm appeared in the sky above the café. I paced back and forth. "Julie!" I cried out but to no avail. 

      "Look at his chest. Is it rising and falling?" The 911 Operator said. 

      "Yes!" 

      "Stay with him. We're sending an ambulance."

       A clean-cut waiter approached me. "Do you need something for the storm?" he inquired. 

      "No, I'm just trying to wake up," I exclaimed. 

      The waiter's demeanor changed into an angry rage. He took out a radio and screamed into it, "I need back-up! Now!" 

      Four children all around the age of twelve emerged from the inside of the café. Their leader was a child with straight, reddish hair. He pointed to me and roared, "Get him!" 

      I bolted from the café as the angry children chased after me. I ran down the busy city street, which morphed into a lush forest.  

      In front of me was an old oak tree. I dashed behind it just as the four children caught up to my spot. The children right past my hiding spot.

      Before I could compose myself, I found myself being lifted. Multiple pairs of hands were on my arms and legs. 

      "Gently!" Julie called out. I slid on the grass as the paramedics wheeled me away on the stretcher. I tried to direct my movement, but I couldn't sense the direction in which I was headed. 

      Amid the forest clearing, I saw a small office building. I found myself able to stand up and able to run toward it. I ran up the stairs and entered Doctor Gerald Samsa's office. Mr. Marbles, Dr. Samsa's purple hand puppet, glared at me from the reception area with his button eyes. 

      "You can't go back there! He's with a patient," he said in his high-pitched falsetto voice. 

      "Shut-up, Mr. Marbles!" I shouted back.  

      The puppet jumped out of his seat and tried to block me from entering. He grabbed my ankles and but I kicked him off with my right foot. 

       "Stop!" He screamed at me. 

       Forcing my way over to Dr. Samsa's door with all my might, I slammed the door shut behind me. It was then that I saw the 65-year-old doctor sitting comfortably at his desk. He looked up at me.  

      "I need your help!" I shouted.  

      "I'm with a patient," he responded. 

      "No, you're not," I countered. Samsa rubbed his eyes and looked at me.  

      "How can I help?" he asked. 

      "I can't wake up from this dream."

      "This is a dream?" He said. 

      "Yes."

      "How do you know?" 

      I went over to his desk and grabbed a framed picture off of it. It showed a man and a woman with their young son with reddish hair. 

      "Do you know who any of these people are at all?" 

      Dr. Samsa didn't know how to respond but still seemed unmoved. I grabbed a book from the bookshelf nearby and set it on the table. It was a book of short stories by Ambrose Bierce. 

      "In a dream, you can read words but not complete sentences," I began. "Listen to this: "As she closes adjacent around the ton, this up minute, lets only." 

      Dr. Samsa glanced at the book and froze. He pushed away from the desk and grabbed a small white bottle of pills. He popped two in his mouth.  

      "What is it?" I asked. 

      "I just realized I'm a figment of your imagination, so I'm grappling with this existential dread. One minute," he replied. 

      I sat down across from him as he and I both began swaying from side-to-side. I knew instinctively that the ambulance was carrying my body to the hospital.  

      "When did this start?" Samsa asked, settling into his therapist role for me. 

      "Last night, I think. We had steak and mushrooms. The sauce tasted funny, and the meat was bloody," I said. 

      "It might be a chemical imbalance. Maybe a toxin." 

      "Is there a way I can shock my body into waking up?" 

      "Not a shock, but maybe if you can fall asleep in this dream, you can trick your brain into waking up in reality," Samsa said. 

      I nodded. Why didn't I think of that? I jumped up as Samsa led me to a bed that emerged from the floor. I threw myself down on top of it, but it felt like it was full of needles. 

      "What's wrong?" Samsa asked.

      "I can't get comfortable," I said. 

      "Here." Dr. Samsa said as he handed me a beige teddy bear. The nametag on the bear read, "Bradley's." 

      "This isn't mine," I protested. 

      Dr. Samsa ignored my protest and pushed the bear into my hands. "Take a deep breath. What are you feeling?" 

      "I can feel Julie's hand on mine." 

      I looked at my hand, which gripped an unseen hand. 

      "Think of all the people who love you and want you to wake up," Samsa said. 

      I closed my eyes. I could feel myself sliding away from Dr. Samsa and his office and disappearing into another room entirely. I breathed in and out softly. I was cheered on by hearing Julie talking to what I can only assume was a doctor. 

      "Mrs. Lansdale?" a voice asked. 

      "Yes?" Julie said in a worried tone, close to my bed. 

      "I’m Doctor Beaumont. Your husband is suffering from what we believe to be an opioid overdose," she continued. 

      "Oh, God."  

      I could hear the doctor take out a pen from her clipboard and click it, "Does he have a history of using opioids?" 

      Julie gulped, "He told me he took them after his first wife died, but he stopped after therapy."  

      There was a silence. The doctor’s tone then became intense and probing, "We have him on naloxone now. It should reverse the effects. There's some more paperwork I need you to fill out.” 

      "Is he going to wake up?" Julie asked.

      "We'll know soon," Dr. Beaumont said. She spoke a little bit about my condition, but it was muffled. 

     I clutched the teddy bear close to me. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. After a couple of moments, I heard another person's voice breaking in the darkness. "Hey!" 

      Arthur? I was touched by the idea my assistant would come to visit me. I never thought I left that much of a genial impression on him. 

      "Shhh," Julie hushed him. 

      After a bit of shuffling, I heard Julie walk over to Arthur in the doorway. They whispered to each other. 

      "What the hell happened? That stuff should have killed a horse," he said in a loud whisper. 

      "I think the sauce diluted it," Julie responded. 

      I sat upright in my bed, and my mouth suddenly felt like sandpaper. Images of the bloody steak with the weird sauce on top flashed in my mind.  

      "He just opened his mouth," Arthur said. 

      "No, he's in a coma, you idiot. You need to get more." 

      "And what? Sneak that in here? Are you crazy?" 

      "Just two milligrams. I'll put it down in his throat. They'll never know." 

      "I'll run down to my car. Ten minutes." 

       Arthur scurried out of my room as quickly as he came. I couldn't process what I was hearing. Before I was able to fully grapple with this notion, the four children ran into the darkened room.

      "Haha! Got you!" their leader said. 

      I jumped off my bed and ran into the darkness as the children tried to grab my legs. As I raced through the black void I found a slit of light and leapt through it with all my might I fell on top of a large blue blanket in a public park. 

      I was having a picnic with Julie in a park which seemed to resemble Central Park but not as a big. She reached into a big glass bowl and took out a strawberry. She pushed it to my face and tried to feed it to me. 

      "Why are you doing this?" I said as I swiped away her hand.  

      "Because I love feeding you!" She said. 

      "You're killing me!" I cried out. 

      "I would never try to kill you! I love you. I love that you ignore me and spend all your time focused on work. I love all your little odors," she said as she bopped me on the nose. 

      "I love that you call out your dead wife's name in your sleep. It's sweet." She said. She spoke from the heart, which is how I always believed she would be. She then reached into her pocket and pulled out a fistful of dollars. She laughed as she threw them in the air. 

      "I can't believe I let this happen," I muttered to myself. 

      "Oh, hush! What you are hearing outside your dream is also part of the dream. You saw some crappy movie on TV, and your mind is just incorporating it." 

      Angered, I tried to step away from her, but she grabbed my arm. "You're so ridiculous!" She said as she pulled me down to the ground with inhuman strength. I felt her climb onto me and pin me on the field. The four little children emerged from out of nowhere and grabbed each one of my limbs. There was no escape. 

      "Stop!" I cried out.  

      "Just relax. I do nice." She cooed back to me. She started kissing my face, which suddenly became little nips on my cheek. Then her mouth grew bigger and began biting my face. I felt a chunk of my skin tearing away. Just as I started to shriek in pain, I heard-

      THWACK! 

      The sound cracked several more times. I looked to see Dr. Samsa knocking the children away with a giant baseball bat. The children began to scamper away from me. Julie growled and screeched at him, but Samsa charged at her, and she ran off on all fours like a wild animal. Dr. Samsa pulled me off the blanket with one arm. 

      "Not bad for a figment of your imagination, huh?" He chuckled.  

      "You're worth the hundred and ninety dollars per hour," I replied. We hugged. It felt like I had won. 

      It was only then that I heard Arthur's voice echo in the hallway. 

      "Got it, babe!" he said.  

      "Be quiet!" She countered. 

      My own death was imminent. Each step that Arthur took toward Julie was a nail in my coffin. I could feel Julie's hands on my own mouth, prying it open. 

       "Hold him still!" she whispered as loudly as possible and still be considered a whisper. 

      I struggled and screamed in my hopeless dream world. 

      "He's waking up!" Arthur cried out. 

      "He's not going to wake up! Hold him!" She demanded. 

      I found myself falling to the ground, rocking back and forth. Dr. Samsa knelt next to me, trying to get my attention. 

       "Chris!" he shouted at me. 

      I turned and focused my attention on him.  

      "Think about where you are. Think of what you can do."  

      Samsa's words stung in my brain. Of course. I could do something. I could do the one thing that someone in a hospital could do. 

      I closed my eyes and concentrated all my strength into my left hand. I could feel it moving, stretching toward the tiny console at my bedside. 

      While my murderers were distracted, I tapped all the buttons on the console, hoping one would be the "Call Nurse" button. 

      Just as I felt a particle of dust enter my mouth, a stern voice boomed from the doorway. 

      "Hey! What are you doing?" She bellowed.  

      All at once, I felt their hands lift from my body. 

      "Security! Code white! Code white!" the nurse yelled. There was a scuffle in the room. What I imagine to be a security guard entered and escorted Arthur and Julie away. 

      I relaxed on the blanket. "We did it," I said. 

      "You did it," Samsa responded. 

      As happy as I was, I still found my eyes unable to open. 

      "How come I haven't woken up yet?" I said. 

      "You have to want to." 

      "I want to! Maybe my subconscious doesn't want me to." 

      "If your subconscious wanted that, I wouldn't be here," Samsa said. 

      Nothing was making sense again. What was I supposed to do? 

      "C'mon," he said.

      We took several steps forward and arrived at the beach. It was a sunny, clear day, and we were alone. I looked out into the water and saw a tall figure wearing a long, black cloak in the ocean. 

      "You have to face that figure. Alone." 

      "Why?" I asked. 

      "Because you don't want to." 

      "Can you come with me? I said as I turned around. However, when I looked back at the shoreline, Samsa had vanished. The waves knocked me backward, but I pushed onward. The water began to feel soft, almost like fresh linen to my touch. 

   The figure took off the cloak to reveal the child with the reddish hair holding a gun at me. 

      "I got you!" he shouted.  

      This was it. This was who I needed to face. The boy pressed the gun to my face, and I looked downward, ashamed. I knew all along who this boy was. He was in the framed picture on Dr. Samsa's desk, the nametag on the teddy bear, even the little league cap on the giraffe on the subway. 

      "Bradley…" I said. It was a long time since I said that name.  

      "Shut up!" he yelled back at me.  

      Then a couple of words trickled out of me, something I needed to say, although I couldn't remember why anymore, "I'm sorry." 

      The child lowered his weapon. He fought back his own tears, "Why did you leave?" 

       I fell forward, letting the waves push me upright. I knew the answer. I just never articulated it before. "Because...you reminded me of her. Because I thought you blamed me for her death. Because I'm a failure." 

       When Rebecca had died, my life died with her. I was selfish and terrible, and Bradley didn't deserve a lousy father like me. I ran. I ran right into the arms of Julie, who promised me love without question. 

      I took a step closer to my child, but he pulled back. 

      "It's okay…" I whispered. 

      Bradley shed a couple of tears as I finally gained the courage to hug him. The waves roared around us, swaying us both to their forces.

      "I want to go home," he said. 

      "Me too," I replied. I took the boy's hand, and we counted to three. We dove underwater just as a huge wave crashed on top of us. 

      The water was light and airy. I saw the light ahead of me.  

                         * * *  

      Around two o'clock in the afternoon, Chris Lansdale awoke in his hospital bedroom. He rubbed his eyes and took in his surroundings. He sat upright with a fair amount of difficulty, considering he was a man in his early sixties.  

      He saw his cell phone sitting on a table nearby and reached for it. Once in his palm, he scrolled through a list of contacts and stopped on the name Bradley. It showed a tall, thin, red-haired man in his early thirties. He then tapped the call icon. 

      After ringing three times, a voice picked up on the other end and said a word Chris hadn't heard in a long time. 

      "Dad?" 

      Chris smiled.