R³, page 7
Haggard Bill creeps into the run-down locker room, scanning the perimeter making sure he wasn’t followed. He pushes his stringy, gray hair back and goes to the locker marked “314”, punches in the code, and opens it. He stands motionless.
As expected, the locker is empty. Color bleeds from Bill’s worn out face, as he closes the metallic door. He doesn’t understand why. He doesn’t understand how John was able to find the R³. How could he have known?
Something shifts inside him. Not willing to accept the reality of his current situation, he reopens the locker. Yet nothing changes; once again, he finds himself face-to-face with the empty locker—pure, clean emptiness. The void eats him up inside. He closes it, then opens it, then closes it again, and reopens it—repeatedly, as if expecting the bottle to somehow reappear, but it’s not there. His repetitive opening and closing grows louder and louder and louder and louder.
Until reality forces itself upon him.
He slams it shut.
Chapter 11: Unus Mundus.
Unus Mundus.
Dr. Hammond’s eyes are wide open, motionless—a still life capturing the equally numbing and despairing quality of sleep: serene, disturbing, mocking the stillness of death.
An alarm goes off and his chest slowly rises, as oxygen flutters in and out of his nostrils. His eyes roll up towards the back of his head, following with a gentle couple of blinks. Suddenly animated, he rises. Unlike most of the rest of the population, Dr. Hammond has never ingested a snowflake. Its properties were engineered to cover more than achieving pleasantness and “eye-shut-sleep”. In a way, that is the façade highlighted in the pool of chemicals that comprise the snowflake. Listed as secondary effects, you will find: “numbness, possible short-term memory loss, disorientation, decrease in brain wave production”—many of these are simply overlooked by those who, above all, want to feel ‘good’, no matter how sedated it will make them in the long run. The complete opposite of what R³ had intended.
The first hues of breaking morning filter through his bathroom window as he showers, letting the water douse him completely, eyes wide shut, resembling a purifying ceremony.
The sharp blade glides steadily across his rugged face, a tight grip skimming across his neck, kissing his jugular—precision and order, the core foundation of his morning routine.
The perfectly iron pressed shirt slides with ease up his toned arms. He buttons up with surgical care. The dark blue slacks slip on, tightening firmly around the waist. His closet holds rows of identical combinations. His polished shoes slip on without aid. The alarm clock on his nightstand reads: 6:20 AM.
The doorbell rings.
Dr. Hammond signs for a package and rolls in a wooden crate the size of a chair on a dolly. A label on the side reads FRAGILE.
A workstation has been set up in the middle of his garage. No car in sight. The empty crate, overflowing with Styrofoam stuffing, sits on the floor. Wearing protective gloves and an air mask, Dr. Hammond hits a nail onto a wooden board with a hammer. There’s an unidentifiable object attached to the wooden base.
In the bathroom, he scrubs his hands repeatedly, using a special antibacterial soap. Suddenly, he’s caught in the firing range of his empty reflection. He feels “off”, as if there was something different with his face. As if it had changed shape overnight and he had failed to notice. He splashes some water and rubs his temples—it feels as if he is rubbing someone else’s face.
I feel Dr. Hammond’s gaze looming over me as I lie on the Chaise Lounge. I’m sure he’s thinking how frazzled I look. Can’t blame him. This is slowly eating me up inside, hitting a brick wall over and over again, finding no way out or through. Also I think his office got bigger. That’s probably impossible, but I’m certain it’s bigger.
“That wasn’t her dream,” I say. “I was in there too, it was our dream. I feel she’s living inside me now. Like she’s part of me.”
“You can feel her pain,” Dr. Hammond says before removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Do you think it’s possible to have a collective dream?” he asks after a brief pause.
“Isn’t that why they made Nina’s Dream? So everyone could have the same dream?”
“When I say ‘collective dreams’, think of them as a pool, a large preexisting pool of water where all possible dreams are drawn from. Similar to Carl Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’. Are you familiar with Jung?”
I have no idea who the fuck he’s talking about.
“In a nutshell, he believed there existed a collective and universal second consciousness, which was identical in all individuals. In this hypothetical dream pool, the combinations are infinite. Your dream is only an extension of that pool. A stream born out of that pool. Or a branch, extending from a very large tree. A Unus Mundus.”
“A what?”
“An underlying unified reality where everything emerges from and returns to. But since no one dreams anymore, why say no to the possibility that you had a dream someone else already had? Or a dream someone else is having at the exact same time allowing you to somehow connect with them?”
“Or perhaps I’m swimming against the current... Heading back towards the large pool... towards the magical lake…” I add, not sure why.
“What if we all were part of the same entity, with different points of view, with personalized realities? Branches off a tree. In a way, living the same thing. One consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.”
“I don’t think we are all living the same thing.”
He stares at me intensely. “Does this bother you?”
“It sounds like you’re trying to make your life meaningful.”
“You think life has no meaning?”
“I think you were born to die.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Don’t you feel cheated? Being born...” I pause, for dramatic effect, and then add, “…without the ability to dream?”
He takes a moment, making an effort to digest this. “Do you think we are all entitled to dream?”
“You’re like a race horse with limited vision. Do you think it’s a coincidence our names are exactly the same, yet we’re not related? An astronomic joke somehow stating we are the same person?”
“I do think it’s a coincidence. Do you think it could be more than a random occurrence? Meeting by chance?”
The universe happened by chance.
“This world is a metaphor,” I say.
“A metaphor for what?”
“Ever since that dream, I wake up every morning with the same feeling that everything is suddenly speeding up—rushing towards one destination.”
The metallic object cuts through the space-like environment, faster and faster.
I can feel it. It’s approaching.
“Are your parents alive?” I’m not sure why, but I felt like asking.
“We are here for you John, but if it helps, yes, they are,” Dr. Hammond replies.
“I meant your real parents. BI-O-LO-GI-CAL. Did you ever meet your mother? Could she dream?” How do I know this? I’m not sure exactly what, or who, has taken over me.
This strikes a chord in Dr. Hammond, yet he hides it very well. He doesn’t answer. Instead, his energy is driven towards grabbing a small, porcelain teakettle from a side table. It’s simple and elegant, adorned with a Fleur-de-lis pattern.
“Would you like some tea?” he asks.
Is this a test? “No”.
Dr. Hammond pours tea into a large cup. He takes a small sip. It’s hot. He blows the steam off gently. His body flow has suddenly changed. The way he moves has become elastic and unsettling. He takes another sip and releases a pleased “mm”, happier with the temperature. Seemingly content, he proceeds.
“Please, tell me more about your dream.”
The atmosphere in the room drops, as if we had suddenly descended miles and miles deep, to somewhere underground.
I let his question sink in. Not sure why, but I find myself incredibly uncomfortable and annoyed. Every little sip Dr. Hammond takes becomes loud and irritating. I can feel myself grimace at every instance.
“I need to find this woman,” I finally say.
“Right, from your dream.” Sip. Sip.
Annoyed, I glare. “Yes—from my dream. She can fix this. Bring everything back to normal.”
“But John, what is normal?”
Dr. Hammond nonchalantly dips his small tea plate into the teacup, as if dunking a cracker. Immediately after, he takes a large bite off the plate and chews loudly.
Very loudly.
The grinding bites my ear ducts.
A few splinters—crumbs?—land on his nicely pressed shirt. He licks his fingers and retrieves a napkin. For whatever reason, I find this incredibly annoying and rude. How dare he eat during my session? Not only is he eating, but he is eating loudly; it’s incredibly distracting.
“I apologize. I thought I could hold off until lunch, but I couldn’t.”
I squirm along willingly as he escorts me out of his office. Torture is finally over. The grinding seemed to have gone on forever. In my case, things only keep heading south.
My mother, applying a bold red lipstick, sits at the edge of a designer chair in the waiting room. She playfully clicks her compact mirror shut at the sight of us, releasing in excitement, what one can only describe as an exotic bird’s mating shrill.
“Ooooooooeeeeh!!”
She’s unusually dolled up, having graduated from the mumu into more fitting—yet incredibly tacky—clothing. Her make-up is intense, as if she had stepped out of a surreal 1980’s soap. Did she lose weight? Since yesterday?
“Sweet bug! What a lovely surprise!” she wails—please, kill me now. “How’s he doing, doctor? Isn’t he a good boy?”
It’s one of those moments of real-life slow-motion, where even though things take longer to occur, you are helpless to the events, unable to stop the impending result. A wet, lipstick-infused kiss lands on my cheek, and there is nothing I can do about it. I instantly wipe it off after the fact.
“I had no idea he was your son,” he lies. All lies. “Why, you could be his slightly older sister.”
Kill me now.
Now. Now. Now. Now.
“Oh, doctor Hammond!”
A heinous act of mutual verbal masturbation. Bile rises to my mouth. I swallow. My mother’s attention instantly shifts, as she squints her eyes trying to scan the inner sanctity of Dr. Hammond’s perfect pores.
“Oh my! You have lovely skin. Doesn’t he have lovely skin?” she asks an invisible figure standing somewhere between us. “I had never noticed it before.”
“I moisturize,” he says, showcasing his perfectly white TV advertisement teeth. “Are you ready for your session?”
Do they even know I’m here? I’m afraid they’ll start dry humping. Scratch that: terrified. That could scar me for life. God, he could be her son…
“Been looking forward to it! I have so much to tell you.”
And with that, they both disappear inside the office, completely forgetting about my troubled, pathetic self. I wipe my cheek again.
Sick.
Chapter 12: Our reality is slowly collapsing.
Our reality is slowly collapsing.
I get lost inside my InstaMeal reflection. Again.
The soup is untouched, probably cold. I wonder what’s going on down there? Inside my reflection… on the other side…
My thoughts have been trailing off into similar tangents lately. I find myself fixating on random objects—more like fixating on the space around those objects—for hours. My mind rockets off to some uncharted territory, returning several moments later. It would be fantastic if I could remember most of these mindless travels, but like a self-destructive mechanism with a Swiss clock design, it obliterates itself completely the second it returns to its departure point, usually triggered by my itch.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, my head has been itching at uncontrollable levels. I thought about getting some lice shampoo but it’s only on one particular spot, so it might be a mosquito bite, which makes little sense, since it’s not mosquito weather, but what do I know? It’s a bug; bug does what it wants.
Isaac walks past me, leaving a trail of air ripples behind. I don’t have to look; I can sense them behind me. It’s a little game we play. A little game. That’s all this is.
I slowly lift my hand and poke the air. It ripples as if it were made out of jell-o. A light-hearted scoff slips out of my lips. I stare at the emptiness, amused.
Trying to mimic Isaac, I pinch the air with both hands and pull, dragging the streak of color strings towards the center. I form a teapot. A white, porcelain teapot with a blue Fleur-de-lis design. Similar to Dr. Hammond’s, except mine is rather shapeless—like a deformed child imitating reality. It immediately shatters, mid-air.
Drip, drip; a thin stream of blood trickles down my nose. I dab it with my fingers, wondering how this came about. I don’t remember snorting any coke.
Like shifting engines, my entire apartment goes dark as a deep-seated hum decays with a quick decrescendo. The same thing happens with the AC. Even silence grows quiet.
I flick the lighter on my right hand, allowing it to burn faintly. Isaac sits across from me, obviously annoyed by our current situation. He’s the roommate I never wanted; takes up space, eats my food, and doesn’t pay rent. You could say the fact he works for the building changes things a bit, but it still doesn’t give him the right. It’s a matter of principle. He is gloom personified.
You’re in a mood. I can’t stay here.
It must’ve been two in the morning when I got to Bill’s.
“You look like shit,” he says. “Have you slept?”
“Thanks.”
As I walk across the RV, I can’t help but notice the floor is moving—breathing—as an unusual sea of people lie sprawled across cushions and blankets on the floor; a human minefield. Trying not to step on them is painstakingly hard. They are sleeping, smoking, eating, all with hazy eyes. Bill drags me towards the only loitering-free corner.
“What’s with the crashers?” I ask.
“They’re friends. They all want to dream. Like you, John.”
“Right. Bill, something weird is happening.”
“Yes, yes. You’re absolutely right. Something is happening. After our last talk I couldn’t wrap my head around it but then I realized—when you drank the R³, you unlocked something... you became her vessel.”
“Her?”
“Nina’s. You’re the vessel, John. The umbilical cord connecting us to her.” Bill’s eyes seem like they’re about to pop out of their orbits. He rarely blinks. His passion is somewhat terrifying. “John, you’re the burnt bridge that once connected all of us to the subconscious, to the dream world. We are waiting for that bridge to be rebuilt. We are waiting to cross that bridge. But we have to leave soon, John. Time is of utter importance.”
“Why?”
“John, this world will shatter. Our reality is slowly collapsing, like a dead tree cut off from its nutrients.” Bill looks around and adds in an unusual, secretive mode: “I have something to show you.”
We walk into the only sectioned-off part of the RV: his bedroom; a six-by-nine rectangle with an old cot stuck in a corner and no walking room to spare. Light doesn’t seem to be a problem, as Christmas lights crawl up the walls, like firefly vines—if such a thing truly existed. They all bloom from out of a corner, in which a makeshift shrine has been set up, incorporating candles and incense. The ultimate fire hazard.
On top rests a spherical metallic object the size of a basketball. An unusual contraption resembling a satellite or Star Wars’ Death Star, with additional worn out friezes wrapped around its surface, and a serial number etched on a strip marking its circumference.
“This will show us the answer,” Bill says, admiring the object with burning desire.
I get chills.
“And then we must cross to another reality,” he adds. “Only then will we become one again. And once the absolute is found, once the all-seeing-eye is born, we will all be able to dream again.”
We will be able to dream again…
If only my dreaming would stop…
I curl up as much as the cot allows, eyes wide open, unable to sleep. It’s incredibly uncomfortable, but I don’t mind. I’ve slept on harder surfaces. Bill sits on a large pile of pillows at the end of the cot, smoking out of a large pipe, attached to one of those electronic Hookahs. Smoke slithers in and out of his nostrils, spreading everywhere as he sways back and forth with his eyes closed, humming, while rubbing the metallic sphere. The tune becomes increasingly familiar. The instrument is different—not a jingle, but a hum. It’s the same melody that keeps visiting my brain, forcefully drilling itself in, branding all my senses with who knows what.
Nausea suddenly fills my insides, wreaking havoc. I blame the Hookah. But I know it’s the jingle. Unable to take it, I get up and leave.
Chapter 13: Gregor Samsa.
Gregor Samsa.
My eyelids weigh a hundred tons. Did someone glue them shut? Liquid oozes out of my chapped lips, and hangs like a static pendulum fed off inertia. It’s sticky.
Pushing myself back on my knees proves to be incredibly difficult. My arms are either extremely weak, or my body has grown three times heavier. I feel like a disproportionate bug. Gregor Samsa on his worst of days. Mutating. The bathtub has become my bed, back to the womb. If only I could remember how I got here, or how this blanket made its way on me.
I itch my head. Hard. It’s been happening in spurts—the itching, that is. I completely forget about it, until it happens. I can feel my imperfect nails burying into my scalp, moving back and forth, minimizing the itch, replacing it only with a numbing sensation.
As expected, the locker is empty. Color bleeds from Bill’s worn out face, as he closes the metallic door. He doesn’t understand why. He doesn’t understand how John was able to find the R³. How could he have known?
Something shifts inside him. Not willing to accept the reality of his current situation, he reopens the locker. Yet nothing changes; once again, he finds himself face-to-face with the empty locker—pure, clean emptiness. The void eats him up inside. He closes it, then opens it, then closes it again, and reopens it—repeatedly, as if expecting the bottle to somehow reappear, but it’s not there. His repetitive opening and closing grows louder and louder and louder and louder.
Until reality forces itself upon him.
He slams it shut.
Chapter 11: Unus Mundus.
Unus Mundus.
Dr. Hammond’s eyes are wide open, motionless—a still life capturing the equally numbing and despairing quality of sleep: serene, disturbing, mocking the stillness of death.
An alarm goes off and his chest slowly rises, as oxygen flutters in and out of his nostrils. His eyes roll up towards the back of his head, following with a gentle couple of blinks. Suddenly animated, he rises. Unlike most of the rest of the population, Dr. Hammond has never ingested a snowflake. Its properties were engineered to cover more than achieving pleasantness and “eye-shut-sleep”. In a way, that is the façade highlighted in the pool of chemicals that comprise the snowflake. Listed as secondary effects, you will find: “numbness, possible short-term memory loss, disorientation, decrease in brain wave production”—many of these are simply overlooked by those who, above all, want to feel ‘good’, no matter how sedated it will make them in the long run. The complete opposite of what R³ had intended.
The first hues of breaking morning filter through his bathroom window as he showers, letting the water douse him completely, eyes wide shut, resembling a purifying ceremony.
The sharp blade glides steadily across his rugged face, a tight grip skimming across his neck, kissing his jugular—precision and order, the core foundation of his morning routine.
The perfectly iron pressed shirt slides with ease up his toned arms. He buttons up with surgical care. The dark blue slacks slip on, tightening firmly around the waist. His closet holds rows of identical combinations. His polished shoes slip on without aid. The alarm clock on his nightstand reads: 6:20 AM.
The doorbell rings.
Dr. Hammond signs for a package and rolls in a wooden crate the size of a chair on a dolly. A label on the side reads FRAGILE.
A workstation has been set up in the middle of his garage. No car in sight. The empty crate, overflowing with Styrofoam stuffing, sits on the floor. Wearing protective gloves and an air mask, Dr. Hammond hits a nail onto a wooden board with a hammer. There’s an unidentifiable object attached to the wooden base.
In the bathroom, he scrubs his hands repeatedly, using a special antibacterial soap. Suddenly, he’s caught in the firing range of his empty reflection. He feels “off”, as if there was something different with his face. As if it had changed shape overnight and he had failed to notice. He splashes some water and rubs his temples—it feels as if he is rubbing someone else’s face.
I feel Dr. Hammond’s gaze looming over me as I lie on the Chaise Lounge. I’m sure he’s thinking how frazzled I look. Can’t blame him. This is slowly eating me up inside, hitting a brick wall over and over again, finding no way out or through. Also I think his office got bigger. That’s probably impossible, but I’m certain it’s bigger.
“That wasn’t her dream,” I say. “I was in there too, it was our dream. I feel she’s living inside me now. Like she’s part of me.”
“You can feel her pain,” Dr. Hammond says before removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Do you think it’s possible to have a collective dream?” he asks after a brief pause.
“Isn’t that why they made Nina’s Dream? So everyone could have the same dream?”
“When I say ‘collective dreams’, think of them as a pool, a large preexisting pool of water where all possible dreams are drawn from. Similar to Carl Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’. Are you familiar with Jung?”
I have no idea who the fuck he’s talking about.
“In a nutshell, he believed there existed a collective and universal second consciousness, which was identical in all individuals. In this hypothetical dream pool, the combinations are infinite. Your dream is only an extension of that pool. A stream born out of that pool. Or a branch, extending from a very large tree. A Unus Mundus.”
“A what?”
“An underlying unified reality where everything emerges from and returns to. But since no one dreams anymore, why say no to the possibility that you had a dream someone else already had? Or a dream someone else is having at the exact same time allowing you to somehow connect with them?”
“Or perhaps I’m swimming against the current... Heading back towards the large pool... towards the magical lake…” I add, not sure why.
“What if we all were part of the same entity, with different points of view, with personalized realities? Branches off a tree. In a way, living the same thing. One consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.”
“I don’t think we are all living the same thing.”
He stares at me intensely. “Does this bother you?”
“It sounds like you’re trying to make your life meaningful.”
“You think life has no meaning?”
“I think you were born to die.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Don’t you feel cheated? Being born...” I pause, for dramatic effect, and then add, “…without the ability to dream?”
He takes a moment, making an effort to digest this. “Do you think we are all entitled to dream?”
“You’re like a race horse with limited vision. Do you think it’s a coincidence our names are exactly the same, yet we’re not related? An astronomic joke somehow stating we are the same person?”
“I do think it’s a coincidence. Do you think it could be more than a random occurrence? Meeting by chance?”
The universe happened by chance.
“This world is a metaphor,” I say.
“A metaphor for what?”
“Ever since that dream, I wake up every morning with the same feeling that everything is suddenly speeding up—rushing towards one destination.”
The metallic object cuts through the space-like environment, faster and faster.
I can feel it. It’s approaching.
“Are your parents alive?” I’m not sure why, but I felt like asking.
“We are here for you John, but if it helps, yes, they are,” Dr. Hammond replies.
“I meant your real parents. BI-O-LO-GI-CAL. Did you ever meet your mother? Could she dream?” How do I know this? I’m not sure exactly what, or who, has taken over me.
This strikes a chord in Dr. Hammond, yet he hides it very well. He doesn’t answer. Instead, his energy is driven towards grabbing a small, porcelain teakettle from a side table. It’s simple and elegant, adorned with a Fleur-de-lis pattern.
“Would you like some tea?” he asks.
Is this a test? “No”.
Dr. Hammond pours tea into a large cup. He takes a small sip. It’s hot. He blows the steam off gently. His body flow has suddenly changed. The way he moves has become elastic and unsettling. He takes another sip and releases a pleased “mm”, happier with the temperature. Seemingly content, he proceeds.
“Please, tell me more about your dream.”
The atmosphere in the room drops, as if we had suddenly descended miles and miles deep, to somewhere underground.
I let his question sink in. Not sure why, but I find myself incredibly uncomfortable and annoyed. Every little sip Dr. Hammond takes becomes loud and irritating. I can feel myself grimace at every instance.
“I need to find this woman,” I finally say.
“Right, from your dream.” Sip. Sip.
Annoyed, I glare. “Yes—from my dream. She can fix this. Bring everything back to normal.”
“But John, what is normal?”
Dr. Hammond nonchalantly dips his small tea plate into the teacup, as if dunking a cracker. Immediately after, he takes a large bite off the plate and chews loudly.
Very loudly.
The grinding bites my ear ducts.
A few splinters—crumbs?—land on his nicely pressed shirt. He licks his fingers and retrieves a napkin. For whatever reason, I find this incredibly annoying and rude. How dare he eat during my session? Not only is he eating, but he is eating loudly; it’s incredibly distracting.
“I apologize. I thought I could hold off until lunch, but I couldn’t.”
I squirm along willingly as he escorts me out of his office. Torture is finally over. The grinding seemed to have gone on forever. In my case, things only keep heading south.
My mother, applying a bold red lipstick, sits at the edge of a designer chair in the waiting room. She playfully clicks her compact mirror shut at the sight of us, releasing in excitement, what one can only describe as an exotic bird’s mating shrill.
“Ooooooooeeeeh!!”
She’s unusually dolled up, having graduated from the mumu into more fitting—yet incredibly tacky—clothing. Her make-up is intense, as if she had stepped out of a surreal 1980’s soap. Did she lose weight? Since yesterday?
“Sweet bug! What a lovely surprise!” she wails—please, kill me now. “How’s he doing, doctor? Isn’t he a good boy?”
It’s one of those moments of real-life slow-motion, where even though things take longer to occur, you are helpless to the events, unable to stop the impending result. A wet, lipstick-infused kiss lands on my cheek, and there is nothing I can do about it. I instantly wipe it off after the fact.
“I had no idea he was your son,” he lies. All lies. “Why, you could be his slightly older sister.”
Kill me now.
Now. Now. Now. Now.
“Oh, doctor Hammond!”
A heinous act of mutual verbal masturbation. Bile rises to my mouth. I swallow. My mother’s attention instantly shifts, as she squints her eyes trying to scan the inner sanctity of Dr. Hammond’s perfect pores.
“Oh my! You have lovely skin. Doesn’t he have lovely skin?” she asks an invisible figure standing somewhere between us. “I had never noticed it before.”
“I moisturize,” he says, showcasing his perfectly white TV advertisement teeth. “Are you ready for your session?”
Do they even know I’m here? I’m afraid they’ll start dry humping. Scratch that: terrified. That could scar me for life. God, he could be her son…
“Been looking forward to it! I have so much to tell you.”
And with that, they both disappear inside the office, completely forgetting about my troubled, pathetic self. I wipe my cheek again.
Sick.
Chapter 12: Our reality is slowly collapsing.
Our reality is slowly collapsing.
I get lost inside my InstaMeal reflection. Again.
The soup is untouched, probably cold. I wonder what’s going on down there? Inside my reflection… on the other side…
My thoughts have been trailing off into similar tangents lately. I find myself fixating on random objects—more like fixating on the space around those objects—for hours. My mind rockets off to some uncharted territory, returning several moments later. It would be fantastic if I could remember most of these mindless travels, but like a self-destructive mechanism with a Swiss clock design, it obliterates itself completely the second it returns to its departure point, usually triggered by my itch.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, my head has been itching at uncontrollable levels. I thought about getting some lice shampoo but it’s only on one particular spot, so it might be a mosquito bite, which makes little sense, since it’s not mosquito weather, but what do I know? It’s a bug; bug does what it wants.
Isaac walks past me, leaving a trail of air ripples behind. I don’t have to look; I can sense them behind me. It’s a little game we play. A little game. That’s all this is.
I slowly lift my hand and poke the air. It ripples as if it were made out of jell-o. A light-hearted scoff slips out of my lips. I stare at the emptiness, amused.
Trying to mimic Isaac, I pinch the air with both hands and pull, dragging the streak of color strings towards the center. I form a teapot. A white, porcelain teapot with a blue Fleur-de-lis design. Similar to Dr. Hammond’s, except mine is rather shapeless—like a deformed child imitating reality. It immediately shatters, mid-air.
Drip, drip; a thin stream of blood trickles down my nose. I dab it with my fingers, wondering how this came about. I don’t remember snorting any coke.
Like shifting engines, my entire apartment goes dark as a deep-seated hum decays with a quick decrescendo. The same thing happens with the AC. Even silence grows quiet.
I flick the lighter on my right hand, allowing it to burn faintly. Isaac sits across from me, obviously annoyed by our current situation. He’s the roommate I never wanted; takes up space, eats my food, and doesn’t pay rent. You could say the fact he works for the building changes things a bit, but it still doesn’t give him the right. It’s a matter of principle. He is gloom personified.
You’re in a mood. I can’t stay here.
It must’ve been two in the morning when I got to Bill’s.
“You look like shit,” he says. “Have you slept?”
“Thanks.”
As I walk across the RV, I can’t help but notice the floor is moving—breathing—as an unusual sea of people lie sprawled across cushions and blankets on the floor; a human minefield. Trying not to step on them is painstakingly hard. They are sleeping, smoking, eating, all with hazy eyes. Bill drags me towards the only loitering-free corner.
“What’s with the crashers?” I ask.
“They’re friends. They all want to dream. Like you, John.”
“Right. Bill, something weird is happening.”
“Yes, yes. You’re absolutely right. Something is happening. After our last talk I couldn’t wrap my head around it but then I realized—when you drank the R³, you unlocked something... you became her vessel.”
“Her?”
“Nina’s. You’re the vessel, John. The umbilical cord connecting us to her.” Bill’s eyes seem like they’re about to pop out of their orbits. He rarely blinks. His passion is somewhat terrifying. “John, you’re the burnt bridge that once connected all of us to the subconscious, to the dream world. We are waiting for that bridge to be rebuilt. We are waiting to cross that bridge. But we have to leave soon, John. Time is of utter importance.”
“Why?”
“John, this world will shatter. Our reality is slowly collapsing, like a dead tree cut off from its nutrients.” Bill looks around and adds in an unusual, secretive mode: “I have something to show you.”
We walk into the only sectioned-off part of the RV: his bedroom; a six-by-nine rectangle with an old cot stuck in a corner and no walking room to spare. Light doesn’t seem to be a problem, as Christmas lights crawl up the walls, like firefly vines—if such a thing truly existed. They all bloom from out of a corner, in which a makeshift shrine has been set up, incorporating candles and incense. The ultimate fire hazard.
On top rests a spherical metallic object the size of a basketball. An unusual contraption resembling a satellite or Star Wars’ Death Star, with additional worn out friezes wrapped around its surface, and a serial number etched on a strip marking its circumference.
“This will show us the answer,” Bill says, admiring the object with burning desire.
I get chills.
“And then we must cross to another reality,” he adds. “Only then will we become one again. And once the absolute is found, once the all-seeing-eye is born, we will all be able to dream again.”
We will be able to dream again…
If only my dreaming would stop…
I curl up as much as the cot allows, eyes wide open, unable to sleep. It’s incredibly uncomfortable, but I don’t mind. I’ve slept on harder surfaces. Bill sits on a large pile of pillows at the end of the cot, smoking out of a large pipe, attached to one of those electronic Hookahs. Smoke slithers in and out of his nostrils, spreading everywhere as he sways back and forth with his eyes closed, humming, while rubbing the metallic sphere. The tune becomes increasingly familiar. The instrument is different—not a jingle, but a hum. It’s the same melody that keeps visiting my brain, forcefully drilling itself in, branding all my senses with who knows what.
Nausea suddenly fills my insides, wreaking havoc. I blame the Hookah. But I know it’s the jingle. Unable to take it, I get up and leave.
Chapter 13: Gregor Samsa.
Gregor Samsa.
My eyelids weigh a hundred tons. Did someone glue them shut? Liquid oozes out of my chapped lips, and hangs like a static pendulum fed off inertia. It’s sticky.
Pushing myself back on my knees proves to be incredibly difficult. My arms are either extremely weak, or my body has grown three times heavier. I feel like a disproportionate bug. Gregor Samsa on his worst of days. Mutating. The bathtub has become my bed, back to the womb. If only I could remember how I got here, or how this blanket made its way on me.
I itch my head. Hard. It’s been happening in spurts—the itching, that is. I completely forget about it, until it happens. I can feel my imperfect nails burying into my scalp, moving back and forth, minimizing the itch, replacing it only with a numbing sensation.
