Fever Dreams

I don’t, as a rule, have nightmares. Not anymore. They’d been more common when I was a child; dreams of walking into a nest of spiders, or of being chased by an unseen pursuer - although the latter kind was more thrilling than truly frightening, running through a landscape of ever-shifting and impossible architecture. Certainly, I almost never have dreams about monsters.

But I did have a cluster of bad dreams a while back at the height of a cryptic illness which turned out, eventually, to be a simple infection in the gut, but which at the time eluded numerous doctors and specialists for months, leaving me in a distended state of discomfort and paranoia. Though it ended up being nothing serious, at the time I didn’t know that. I’m still a young man, and, while I’d had medical issues before, this was the first time I was seriously unwell.

It was almost never an overtly debilitating illness, and in a way that was the most harrowing part of it. I could tell something was wrong with me, but exactly what remained vague and shifting, sensations fading in and out, only to return again the moment I began wondering if it might be gone for good. There was a crawling, itching sensation in my abdomen, sometimes heightening into sharp, stabbing pain. My appetite was gradually diminishing further and further, and I felt perpetually just on the edge of fever. And I had no idea why. My own body had become a mystery to me, as though I was lying on my belly on a slowly fracturing panel of glass, awaiting the crack that would drop me onto sharp shards below. As the months dragged on without answers, I began having grim fantasies that this affliction might be more serious than I had imagined.

I had four dreams that night, one immediately, restlessly, after the other.

In the first, I was back in my childhood home in the Midwest. I’d always hated it there. It was rural, in a small town a forty-five minute drive from the nearest large city. It wasn’t the countryside itself I had a problem with (besides the mosquitos), nor was it that my parents were bad parents. I simply didn’t get along with them very well, which is why as soon as I was able I moved out from under their roof and halfway across the country to the West Coast - as far away from them as I could get. I didn’t talk to them much anymore, except for on holidays and birthdays.

But here I was, back in my old bedroom in the farmhouse. The carpet was a dark, mossy green, with a large wrinkle that ran through it, impossible to flatten, and the walls were a sandy tan. The ceiling, however, was white, and as it was an upper level room, it rose up into vaulted peaks, stained with old cobwebs out of the reach of any broom. I went into my closet, which at that point was where most of my old things were stored. Nothing useful or important, as I’d already removed anything like that long ago. Old, musty clothing of mine that no longer fit, textbooks and papers from classes I took in elementary school, toys I’d outgrown and that weren’t worth treasuring. The derelicts of childhood. I turned to leave again, only to find that the old clothing was piled up so high that it was difficult to get to the door. As I was struggling to get out, I discovered I was fighting against my blankets. I was feeling far too warm anyway.

In the next dream, I was alone in an unfamiliar city. Seattle, probably, as we live not far from it. I was in a crowded streetside cafe, like the ones I’d sometimes go to write in when I’d wanted to get out of the apartment, back when my husband and I lived in California. It had been years since I’d done that, though, as the place we lived in now wasn’t within easy walking distance of any. I had with me a notebook, which was strange as I haven’t used one for years, and also because it wasn’t a writer’s notebook but rather a big, wide, and spiral-bound one with blank pages like artists use. I couldn’t find my pen, and, looking around, I realized I couldn’t find my backpack either. I had left it unattended, and it had my laptop in it. In a panic, I got up to search the cafe, pushing through the crowd of unfamiliar faces. It was bright and sunny, and the people were packed so tightly into the cafe, even right around my table, that it was difficult to move. I found the backpack only a few feet away, on the ground, emptied of its contents. I swore and woke up.

In the third dream, I was alone in an unfamiliar city. I was walking in alleyways, behind buildings. It wasn’t that I was lost, exactly, more that I was directionless, moving through an endless maze of constantly shifting architecture. I don’t think I had any destination in mind. The labyrinth of the city was all there was, and so I walked it. Can you be lost if it doesn’t matter where you are? If all the places you pass through are the same everywhere and nowhere? I passed a group of people on a sidewalk, and then turned down a corner. There, I saw a black dog the size of a bear, with two heads, growling at me. It was a mutt - maybe a mix between a labrador and a rottweiler - with long, shaggy fur that clumped together, white on its underside and dusty black on its top. I shouted “two-headed dog!” more out of amazement than fear. It was strange, but, in the logic of the dream, I remembered hearing that such a thing was possible, so my surprise had more to do with witnessing something rare than something impossible. Although even then I could feel my mind grasping for a rationalization; a way to make sense of something that didn’t. Not wanting to approach the animal, I turned to go back the way I had come, only to immediately see that the dog was already waiting for me in that alley as well. It had not moved, nor was there another one. It was simply already there, growling.

I woke up. I don’t remember if I shouted or not. I lay there in a fevered sweat, my heart pounding and my skin clammy, with twin stabs of pain pulsing through my abdomen. I couldn’t help but remember that, in folklore, black dogs are often omens of death. At the time, the doctors suspected that the illness I was suffering from might have been a problem with my kidneys, and it didn’t escape me in that moment that I have two of them. I pulled the blankets around me again and closed my eyes, trying to get back to sleep.

I was alone, in an unfamiliar city. I was walking along a crowded sidewalk, elevated about six feet above the street below. There was no railing, and I moved towards the edge in the direction of a flight of stairs down, in order to cross the street. But before I could reach it, I lost my footing and slipped off the edge. I felt my skull crack against the concrete on the way down and landed hard on my knee. As I stood up, woozy, a young man approached me and asked if I had hit my head. Then he had a pistol in his hand, and was asking me something else. I was getting dizzy, and could smell iron. I knew I had a concussion. I woke up and didn’t try to go back to sleep for the rest of the night.

That evening, my husband was meeting with some friends at a restaurant in Seattle and invited me along. I hadn’t had any real appetite for weeks, and was feeling worse than ever, but I didn’t want to be alone, so I agreed to come. The restaurant was a gourmet pizza place, serving small, flatbread squares on rectangular white plates. There were about six other people in our party, all in couples, and all seemingly young professionals. They were all his friends, and strangers to me. I was feeling disoriented and not particularly hungry, so I ordered something that sounded small and unchallenging: the potato pizza. And it definitely was small: a few slices of thin crust with a thin layer of cheese, and thin shavings of grilled potato on top of it. I don’t remember if it even had sauce. It was barely an appetizer, and, normally, I think it would have left me starving. And I’m sure it was delicious, but I was too unwell to appreciate the flavor, and could barely make it through a few bites.

I did my best to be polite and engaged, but I didn’t know anyone, and was struggling to muster up the energy for conversation. I mainly ended up sitting there silently while everyone else chatted, trying to ignore the crawling itch inside me. And I did make it through the dinner, but by the end I had to quietly beg my husband to head out early. It was night by the time we left the restaurant, and, when we reached the parking garage where we’d left our car, we found that the door we’d gone out through was now locked. By then I was fading, and struggling to walk, and certainly didn’t have the energy to explore the darkened city streets for another way into the garage. So I waited on some steps while my husband went off to get the car. I was alone, in an unfamiliar city, surrounded by people I didn’t know. A maze of buildings stretched off in every direction. No way out. I prayed I wouldn’t hear growling.

He took me to the emergency room. Of course he did. This creeping, ghastly mystery had gone on long enough. Sitting in the waiting room, I had no idea what was happening to me. I thought I was too young to have a serious illness, but, then again, serious illnesses happened to young people all the time. For the first time in my life, I wondered if I might actually die. I didn’t want to - not so far from home, in an unfamiliar place, in the company of so many strangers. I took out my phone.

I called my parents.