R³, page 3
Maybe I was. “What time is it?”
“Noon. Head over. I have some new, fun stuff for you. I wanna hear about your trip.”
I promise to stop by.
Like the rising tide, a sudden impulse takes over, wanting to balance out the chaos. Seeking some sense of control, even if it were a placebo in the long run, I quickly stuff a trash bag with Bill’s pills, bottles, and vials. I don’t need them. At least not tonight. There is no need to have them sitting out on full display. He was right, it isn’t wise. Perhaps my bloody dream would materialize.
It only takes a few minutes to clean up the living room. It’s still a mess, but a drug-less mess. I check my pockets for petty cash and find one dollar. Same pocket as in my dream. Coincidence? Sure, but things are never that easy.
As I open my apartment door, I find myself face to face with two officers. Two officers with boring faces, displaying their boring badges, blocking my way. I interrupted them mid-knock by the looks of it.
The fat one sputters out, “John Hammond?”
I don’t speak. Not sure why.
He reads off a notepad, “John Hammond, correct?”
Suddenly their faces fold into themselves and go blank. No eyes, no mouths, no noses—just smooth skin. I fall into the well again… and fly out of my apartment, in-between the officers’ heads, extending not into an apartment complex, but into what seems to be a large, nondescript space that extends to some sort of infinity. I see my door in the distance.
I fly away and everything grows smaller in size, until eventually all I can see is a speck of white against vast pools of darkness.
I realize it’s only a light reflecting off the fat officer’s left eye. For some reason I feel pale. I know I’m pale. I wonder if they can see it? They exchange glances. Do they see I’m pale?
“Mr. Hammond, are you alright?” the tall one butts in.
“Yes, fine.”
“We wanted to ask you a few questions –”
“Regarding?”
“Your building manager has gone missing. He’s been missing for three days. Have you seen him?”
Maybe I killed him. “No.”
“Do you remember the last time you saw him?”
Bleeding profusely on my floor a few minutes ago. “No”.
They exchange glances again. Why do they do that? “Will you please contact us if you do?”
I nod and stuff his business card in my back pocket without even looking at it. I lock my door and push through them with my large bag of drugs. They don’t move an inch. Dicks.
“Need a hand?” the fat one scoffs.
Dicks.
“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” my mom asks, just like she asked the time before and the time before that. No matter what I say, it never gets through, never goes into her head. Her thick skull is impenetrable; everything bounces off like ping-pong balls to the rhythm of the grandfather clock in the living room. Tic-Toc. Ping-Pong. Tic-Pong. Like her stuffy, overcrowded and yellowish house, this never changes. Why does she insist on living in a house with three bedrooms all by herself? Beats me. Maybe she puts her little porcelain figurines to bed. It’s not like they have enough room on the shelf.
She squints, pushing her glasses back and forth like a magnifying glass, trying to read the instructions on an InstaMeal box. She’s made them everyday for the past twenty or so years. They are the same instructions. Not sure why she feels the need to read them every single time. Frustrated, she wipes her hands on her floral mumu and pops in a snowflake pill.
“Can’t ma. Busy. I’ve got things to do, you know?” I say as my eyes scan for small, valuable objects, knicks and knacks I could easily sell, but instead my eyes land on a large painting: The Golden Bough by J.M.W. Turner. I’ve known this painting ever since I can remember, always on the same spot, depicting some sort of dream-like, religious ceremony. To me it always looked like a day in the field, plain and simple.
Mom hollers from inside the kitchen, “Wouldn’t that help your money problem?”
“Who said I had a money problem, ma?” I say as I dig through her purse, finding a lonely twenty-dollar bill. I leave it. Why bother?
“Maybe you should move in with me? That could be fun.”
Oh, Jesus. “More like a nightmare,” I mutter.
“What??”
“I’m not moving in with you, ma! I’m an independent, grown-ass man.” I snap back as I play with a set of Russian Dolls, removing each of the smaller dolls and placing them in a straight line, in order of height.
She walks out of the kitchen. “Sweet bug, then how am I supposed to help you?”
For the first time today, I look at my mother. “You don’t look how I remembered.”
“I fixed my hair,” she says fishing for a compliment.
“Can I borrow some money?”
She looks down for a second. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner? I bought this new InstaMeal—”
“No, ma. God.”
“Oh, alright! Here,” she digs through her purse and snatches out the twenty dollars—all the cash she has. “Take it.”
I don’t. “Don’t worry about it.”
“What do you mean? Here, take it!” She shoves the cash into my back pocket and calls it a day. She wipes my face with a napkin as if I were two. I let her. Not sure why.
“I had a dream last night.”
“What are you talking about? You don’t dream.”
“I’ve dreamt before. I used to tell you my dreams when I was a kid. Why are you lying?”
She digs her wrinkly fingers through my hair. “Sweet bug…”
I brush her off. I hate it when she does this. Doesn’t listen.
“You’re special,” she adds. “The doctors feared you’d be born with a deformity. With your eyes stuck shut, or even worse, with a single eye. They wanted to terminate my pregnancy, you know? But I didn’t let them.” Why is she telling me this? “And here you are...” her eyes beam with love, “my beautiful boy.”
“Ma, you’re not listening. This dream –”
“You always had a vivid imagination.”
“It was a dream. It was real.”
She fidgets. Why is she so nervous? Her shaky hand digs up a card from inside her purse. She reads it and hands it over. “Take this. He’s a really good doctor.”
“Ma…”
“Just talk to him! He’s good. He studies the brain.”
He studies the brain, she says.
The brain.
Like an Algebra textbook.
It’s one of those perfect autumn days in sunny California. Sunny, but cool enough to wear a hoodie. I love hoodies. There’s something about the way they wrap around me, feels like a hug. Unless they’re made out of a thick fabric, then it feels like I’m getting chocked or suffocated. Today is nice. Even for the Valley.
An old homeless woman has set camp at a bus stop right outside my mother’s house. Her dark skin glistens in deep contrast with her hot pink jumpsuit and her golden curly hair, partially covered by a translucent neon visor. Her shopping cart is packed with plastic bottles, cans, plastic bags, and books. Every book ever printed by Pandora Publishing—makes me wonder why? Her eyes follow me everywhere—what is she, the Mona-fucking-Lisa?
I duck into my hoodie as I walk past her.
“Her dream has wrapped itself around your mind,” she says while giving me a toothless smile. Then she bursts into sharp but broken cackles.
I hate crazy people. They scare the shit out of me.
What did she mean by that?
Her dream?
Whose dream?
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF INTELLIGENCE
Report: AXZU, Worldwide Blackout Incident, March 14, 21**
Dated: March 20, 21**
Archive Number: XYW-10390009____B
Name of the Civilian: Cassandra Walker
Age: 50
Occupation: Editor/Head of Pandora Publishing
Interviewer: Lieut. Carl Dean
Where were you at the time of the incident?
I was driving home, taking the same route I always do. It must have been around two in the afternoon, as I remember it being an extremely hot day. Up until then, there had been nothing out of the ordinary; traffic was as dense as expected. It was like any other day. Until it happened.
It was dark when I woke up, which sent me to an instant panic. My mind started racing. My initial thought was “what happened to the sky?” In retrospect, it almost looked as if someone had flicked an OFF switch. Thoughts ranging from nuclear wars to our sun suddenly dying crossed my mind. I didn’t have enough time to clearly go over each single one of them, as the next thing I noticed was the time. It was a bit over 7:00 PM. That was impossible. How had I suddenly lost five hours of time? Where had they gone? For a brief instant I thought I had a tumor, or some anomaly deceiving my brain, warping my perception. But I wasn’t the only one. My neighboring cars were also completely stationary. Engines were running, but no car was moving. Drivers were stepping out of their vehicles, looking up at the dark sky in confusion. Others remained inside their cars, scared something would happen – hoping to ignore it, hoping to forget and go on with their normal lives, but this was far from normal.
The moment I arrived home, I spoke to my husband, Dr. [name deleted] who was already up to his neck attempting to put the event under a microscope. Yet he couldn’t find a starting point, only a handful of hypotheses that didn’t stick to anything – some to a science fiction degree – but for him everything had to be considered. As a man of not only science, but also deep-rooted metaphysics, this had become his new obsession. As you can imagine, it only worsened.
When did you discover you had lost the ability to dream?
Only after the fourth night. Lack of dreams usually signified deprivation of or bad sleep, at least for me. They didn’t have to be linear narratives, or elaborate sequences, but after a good night’s sleep, I always recalled bits and pieces. I used that as a sign of good sleep. However, no dreams came that night. Before the third night, I made it a point to check the time and go to bed early. Even drank some chamomile before going to sleep. I slept a good, solid eight hours, but couldn’t recall a single dream. Not even a single image. It was as if my mind had become a vacuum for eight hours. The thought truly frightened me. Something was not right.
I wanted to be put under observation. I was worried after the event there had been some kind of damage to my brain. I immediately went to my husband, sharing my concern, when I found him sprawled on his office desk. His body was inert, his eyes wide open, unblinking. I shrieked in horror. He’s dead, I thought. But his body suddenly reanimated, as if woken by my scream. I was terribly frightened.
Nonchalantly, even annoyed to a certain extent, he adjusted his glasses up the bridge of his nose and asked, what’s with the ruckus?
I explained everything immediately. I trust no one else would have believed me, but he knew I wasn’t the type to feed into superstition or exaggerations. We ran a few tests and concluded that, not only were we not able to dream during sleep, but we were also unable to close our eyes during. REM had suddenly become a thing of the past. This made absolutely no sense, biologically nor chemically.
What results was Dr. [name deleted] able to extract?
Everything was submitted to your department as requested. We really do not understand how or why this happened, but I don’t believe that’s the true issue at hand. I fear what will happen next. That’s the big mystery, the unnerving question mark. Our existence has been changed completely, yet the change is deceivingly minimal. It’s not as if we woke up missing all four limbs – we lost something untraceable, something deeply rooted in our subconscious. There’s no physical evidence of such a loss. What can we do? How will we adapt? How will we change now that we live in a dreamless world? That’s what’s keeping me up at night.
Chapter 5: All infinite possible potentials and outcomes in one.
All infinite possible potentials and outcomes in one.
Not really sure whose living space is more crowded, ma’s or Bill’s—or why do I even surround myself with such chaos. I’m gonna say Bill’s, mainly because his place is smaller. He lives in an RV—a large RV—, but an RV nonetheless. Home-on-wheels; the American style. He hates that. It’s almost as if he’s made it a point to personalize his home slash vehicle, to the extent of hoarding. There’s paraphernalia everywhere. Crystals, candles, incense (all burning at the same time, mind you), small gongs, big gongs, chimes, framed Hindi images, framed Jesus images, a small Buddha, the solar system, psychedelic and geometric images, beads, large seating pillows he got from India and lots and lots of neon. It’s a minefield.
Bill moves swiftly among the clutter, preparing an InstaMeal in his tiny kitchen. He plops three small jell-o-like cubes into three bowls and adds a drop from a dropper to each. They instantly sizzle, as if suddenly boiling. The jell-o-like cubes immediately turn into a liquid—something resembling a noodle soup. That’s the basic chemistry of it. He hands two bowls to a crystal-smoking couple sitting in a corner. The other, he brings to me. Sun is almost down.
“You had Nina’s Dream,” he assures, twitching his nose like a rabbit. “That’s Nina’s Dream. You say you met her? That woman, from your dream?”
“Last night – wait, two nights ago, before the dream. After I drank the R³.”
“You met Nina?”
“Yes. Red-head? Kaleidoscope eyes? Why?”
“It’s unusual. That’s all.”
The wheels in his brain are turning, that much I can tell, but he doesn’t push any further, so neither do I.
“It’s the R³, right? You’ve had her dream before?” I ask.
“I have. Where did you get it?”
He won’t drop it. “I don’t know. It slipped my mind.”
“But you knew where to find it?”
“I think so. I don’t know. It’s almost as if I put it there myself. I just knew.”
“But then it slipped your mind?”
“Slipped away.” Attempting to change the subject, “I killed a man, Bill.”
“What do you mean?”
“My building manager. I smashed his skull in with a hammer.”
“Jesus. Did you call the police?”
“No. Well – there was a bit of a problem. He vanished.” There was no other way of saying it.
Bill’s eyes narrow. “Vanished? Did he walk away?”
“No, he was gone. Entirely. No blood, nothing, almost as if it had never happened. Except then, I woke up. Again. I thought I might’ve dreamt it, but you said Nina’s Dreams were—”
“…prepackaged dreams,” he interrupts, then ponders on this, biting his lower lip. “Are you awake now?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It’s hard to tell the difference between the sea and the sky on the horizon. Your worlds are mixing,” he says. “Waking life and dream. But John, is this your dream or is it Nina’s?”
“How do I know for sure?”
Bill leans in, secretively. “Do you believe in parallel dimensions? Black holes?”
“Like—aliens?” Dumb answer.
“There seems to be a warp in this reality. I’ve noticed it too,” his eyes look around, searching for who knows what. “It started three days ago. Our reality is off-axis. It’s been uncalibrated.”
“How do you know?”
“Come with me.” He leads me towards the window. Outside, the sun has set, but the sky still has a faint glow of light blue. “There. Do you see it?”
At first I don’t, but I squint hard and finally see it. Amidst a small clump of clouds, a narrow, undulating patch of color streaks faintly pulsates. It almost looks like light refracting off a bubble, but on the clouds. It’s small, but it’s there. “What is that?”
“Not sure. Could be a hole in the stratosphere. Maybe a portal. It appeared three days ago.” He goes back to his seating cushion. “This is a syncopation, interrupting the regular flow, the regular rhythm.”
“How do you fix it?”
“Only the absolute can.” The what? “Only it can calibrate it; neutralize it; merge all the loose and continuously multiplying time lines into one.”
“Time lines?”
“All the infinite possible potentials and outcomes in one. The primordial one that contains all numbers. Infinity within the water drop. The all-seeing-eye,” he says, his own eyes growing wide.
I feel my eyebrows suddenly furrowing, creating some sort of intense wrinkle on my brow, as if my brain were straining, trying hard to grasp this concept. But of course it doesn’t. “You’re shitting me?”
Bill shakes his head. He’s dead serious.
“Where do I find this… eye?”
“You don’t.”
I can feel my frown growing back.
Bill continues… “I read it in a manuscript years back—in an old diary. I used to think it was a work of fiction, a goose tale, a scam for the weak of mind, you know? Or part of a vivid dream—since a dreamer wrote it years ago, but now… now I know... it’s real. It’s factual. It has to be.”
“What is? What is this thing?”
“A point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping, or confusion,” he says as he licks his thin lips.
That’s not possible, I think. “That’s impossible,” I say.
“It’s real, John. Just like you. Just like me.” He leans in, stressing even further secrecy. “I’ve felt it. I was a lab researcher at the institute that developed R³. I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt it, through her, through Nina. And I’ve been looking for it ever since. And somehow, I know you—don’t ask me how, but I know—you, you are supposed to take me to it.”
“Me?? How am I involved in this?”
“The universe is telling you to find it. It wants you to find it.”
