Thirty Thousand Feet Below Lucid

Richard flew through the air, spreading his arms wide, trying to make himself as large as possible. He spread his fingers in an attempt to hold the vast emptiness that surrounded him. As he soared, he whisked through thin clouds, allowing the moisture to pepper his face in a layer of dew. Richard loved the feeling of freedom he felt as he flew through the air. Sometimes he imagined what would happen if he fell 30,000 feet to his death, his intrusive thoughts never subsiding even in his state of bliss. He imagined how painful it might be, and how long that agony might last.

The thought was wasted.

Here, Richard was in control of every single movement, idea, and breath.

He twirled mid-air using the momentum of his body to finish the movement before diving. His eyes were forced wide open by the wind as he accelerated towards the ground. As he neared the ground, he shifted his weight again, landing feet first, slowly easing his weight back onto the ground. The open patch of luscious green grass brightened his vision, a stark contrast to the seemingly endless blue and white sky. Or, perhaps he had landed next to a small creek, livened by some fish and insects.

Richard summoned it into existence, but only in the most fleeting and indifferent way, as if sheer apathy had conjured it. Effort was not required here; He commanded the universe’s full attention in this sacred space. It was because he wanted it to be that way. He was at the center of everything. Though he loved the feeling, his time was up for the day. It was time to go back, just as it always was; too soon. Back to his kids, back to his family, back to his home.

He shook his head of those thoughts, not wanting them to taint what little time he had left. He held his hand up and began to count his fingers.

“One, two, three, four, five… Six!” He smiled, savoring the last moments of his solitude and freedom. Then the time came, and he willed himself awake. The ground shook, and the earth moved, all at his command as he closed his eyes.

Richard woke up next to the bleary sight of his wife, Diane. He blinked his eyes, trying to clear his vision, and then a few more times before his eyes focused. A slick streak of saliva ran down the crevice of Diane's lips, escaping her beauty. After ten years, he had grown accustomed to waking up next to her, involuntarily inhaling the stench of her morning breath. During the first few years, Richard had found it endearing. Now, after years of built-up resentment and unmet needs, it had become a part of his miserable routine. This was the ugly reality of his marriage.

As if in response to Richard's brooding, Diane clumsily rolled over, pulling her arm across her face. Her arm smeared the saliva across her lips and chin, eliciting a judgmental scowl from Richard. Despite not feeling ready, he wiggled his way out from beneath his side of the covers. He was careful not to wake his still-sleeping wife. He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment. A weight built up across his chest. He released it with a sigh; It was time to make breakfast.

It was still early, so he had time to prepare a full breakfast before Diane woke up. He was only halfway through the first two eggs he had made when she groggily walked into the kitchen.

“Richard,” She said softly, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, “I thought you had work today?”

“No,” he replied, his voice straining to answer the question.

Her next breath was a labored huff, “What about the kids? Are they still sleeping?”

Richard stabbed his fork into the second uneaten egg, bursting the yolk and spilling its guts. He spun the prongs of his fork in the yellow gore before looking up at Diane. He hadn’t even bothered to check on what the kids had been doing.

“They’re probably still sleeping. It’s early.” Richard grunted with half an effort. He found that when it came to his family, his full effort rarely realized its equity.

Diane stared at him for a moment, her arms crossed over her chest, before her eyes fell to the mess Richard had made on his plate. The corner of the lips that used to kiss his so frequently twitched involuntarily.

“Please clean that up when you’re done. That’s disgusting.” Her resentment was transparent in her tone, eliciting that heavy weight in Richard’s chest once more.

He clenched the fork in his fist tightly before slowly letting the muscles relax and release the tension. The fork fell onto his dirty plate, mixing with the yolk. He looked at his palm, watching the redness from his tight grip slowly begin to fade. Instinctively, Richard began to count his fingers.

One, two, three…

Diane's voice interrupted him, “This isn’t a dream! This is real.”

He looked up at Diane mid-count. She had never believed in his lucid dreams. When he had first started having them, he would tell her the stories about his dreams. In the beginning, she would indulge him, back when she still loved him. Now, after the years had weathered their relationship, Diane no longer bothered to sweeten her words.

Four, five…

No sixth finger this time.

He abruptly pushed the table away from himself and said, “I’ll be in my office,” before leaving his dirty plate and utensils behind on the table.

Richard spent most of the day in his office, which was hidden away in their basement. Years ago, when they had first bought the place, they had promised each other to clean up the dingy space. It was to be his haven, a hospitable and respectable place to work, but their plans never came to fruition. All that was left of the project that had started all those years ago was Richard’s makeshift desk—a cheap wooden block that struggled to serve as a sturdy surface on which to work. That is where he sat when he wanted to hide from the world. That is where he was now.

The heavy feeling never left his chest this time. The infinitely crushing and elusive weight did not loosen its grasp. He didn't want to tell his wife that the reason he was avoiding his professional responsibilities today was that he was likely going to be fired. Richard had found it increasingly difficult to find the motivation to appreciate his job or any aspect of his waking life. The weight of his responsibilities pressed down on him, trapping him in this suffering of his own making.

Richard held his hand up, counting his fingers once again for the eleventh time in the last fifteen minutes. Five fingers. Or maybe six? He had to be sure, so he counted again. It was five, but maybe he had miscounted. He counted again, swearing it was six this time. This had happened to Richard a few times before, the slow, insidious stress of his life fraying his mental faculties.

“One. Two..” He counted out loud this time. His eyelids could no longer support their weight and slumped over his eyes, obscuring his vision and ruining his count. He used the jagged edge of his index finger's uneven nail to graze the outer edge of his eye to scratch an imperceptible itch.

“One. Two…”

His mind wandered during his count to Diane. Diane, his wife for so long, hated him. Richard met her disdain with equal hatred. Their once blissful love was now not even a shadow of what it had been. He used to care about how she felt back then. Back when they used the word “love” and meant it. Now, the word only served as a hollow reminder of what happiness used to mean to Richard.

If things continued on their current trajectory, he gave it six months before she would divorce him. Not that the thought of divorce bothered Richard, anything had to be better than this.

He shook the underlying thoughts out of his mind as he began to focus on counting again. Since he had started his obsessive counting, a small hope had been growing inside of him. Every time he restarted, he would feed that hope, until it grew to an immeasurable size. He needed six fingers today.

Richard encouraged his hope, until it betrayed him, spiraling him back to his reality. No sixth finger this time.

A loud noise came from above, as heavy footsteps echoed down the basement stairs. Richard waited as Diane’s shadowed form hobbled down and peeked around the dimly lit basement, her eyes scanning the room until they landed on Richard sitting at his desk.

“Richard,” She said once she spotted him, “I’m going to sleep, it’s late.”

She paused, waiting for a response, but Richard said nothing.

Diane continued, “The kids are in bed.”

Her voice was flat. There was no gentleness to her tone, no affection, no genuine concern or love. She didn't care about what he had been doing for the entirety of the day. Diane was giving a report, not inviting him to follow her to bed.

Richard hadn’t realized it was so late already, the basement had no windows, and as he often did in his insipid office, he had lost track of the time.

Richard nodded and looked at his hand, fighting the urge to count his fingers again.

“I’ll be up soon, just finishing up down here,” he finally said, shuffling around some random stack of papers on his desk in an attempt to look like he had accomplished something today. Diane nodded and went back upstairs, where Richard followed behind soon after.

Some time had passed since they had come up from the basement and gone to bed. Richard had been lying there for a few hours, struggling to find peace in his addled mind. Perhaps he was already dreaming and only missed the chance to celebrate that realization.

Swiftly, he got out of bed and walked to the kitchen. A glass of water would help him clear his mind. He flipped on the light switch, and the kitchen lit up. He poured himself a glass of water and slaked his thirst. As he drank, Richard ran his hand across the kitchen counter. The smooth marble was broken up by soft grains and tiny food particles that had been embedded and consumed by the hard surface. In a matter of moments, his hand had traced years of history.

Then he lifted his gaze to the table, where his dirty plate from that morning waited, the popped yolk now dried and coarse, parasitically absorbing the fork and fusing it to the plate.

He averted his gaze, turning back out of the kitchen, switching the lights off as he left.

As Richard walked back up to their bedroom, he stopped in the doorway. His gaze cut through the darkness, watching as Diane slept on her stomach, her face pressed into her pillow. He brought his hand to his face, struggling to see the details of his palm. He started counting the fingers of his left hand when he noticed a glint in his peripheral vision. His eyes didn’t have to move more than a millimeter to his right before he saw the white glare of a knife.

How did this get into his hand? Richard blinked, and the room's darkness exhaled a cold air that suffocated the room. Now he was sure he was dreaming.

Diane slid her arm on the bed before she tucked it under her body and rolled onto her back. Barely awake, she lifted her head slightly off the pillow.

“Richard? I thought you were in bed,” she said drowsily, letting her head fall back onto the pillow, indenting it so intensely that the edges briefly came up and touched her ears.

“I can’t sleep,” Richard said softly.

There was no response. Diane was asleep again.

Richard let his arms hang as he gripped the knife in his right hand. He felt the room get colder and tighter. The darkness gripped him with a tension that left no room for release. He shuffled his feet, sliding towards the bed, now standing next to Diane’s side. In the dark room, Richard once again lifted his left hand to his face to count the fingers, staring for a moment before his tongue crept out of his mouth and slowly traced his bottom lip.

Raising his right arm above his head, the glimmer of the knife lit up the corner of his eye.

“Six.”

His arm dropped.