R³, page 8
I don’t recognize my hands. They look like the crypt keeper’s hands, yet somehow they are attached to my alien body. There’s dry blood buried under my nails. How hard was I scratching?
I gag, thinking I’m about to throw up, but Isaac is using the toilet seat as a thinking chair. He raises his hand and presses his bony index finger against his thin, dry lips.
“Shhhh…”
A few pots and pans bounce off the kitchen floor, rattling loudly.
Who else is here?
We are not alone. I know that for a fact, as I get closer to the kitchen. Perhaps I forgot to lock my door on my way in. Maybe I’m getting ransacked, not that there’s much to ransack.
But alas, no ransacking. Worse. My mother.
She goes through the cabinets and fumbles with the stove. She smacks it, frustrated. She pops a snowflake pill in an attempt to relax, I assume. Breathes. In. And out.
“What are you doing?” I mumble.
Her bones jump out of her skin as she drops pots and pans again—claaaaank! Clank! Claaank!! Fucking clank….
“Sweet bug!” she shrieks, and then takes (yet another) deep breath. “You’re finally awake. You weren’t answering my calls. I got worried.”
“They cut the phone line.”
“And your power,” she adds. “I wanted to make you breakfast but you have no power, John. You have no power,” she firmly says, her eyes widening like an irate Shih Tzu.
What did she mean by that? No power?
I step on an old syringe. Suddenly I snap out of my stupor, mauled by the elephant in the room. My pills, pipes, powders, all scattered over the counters, like bread crumbs left behind in an attempt to find my way back into Wonderland. I shove them all into a drawer. She pretends not to notice, but this time she’s not very good at it. I can feel myself getting aggravated, feeling intruded, invaded, my face boiling red, my eyes tearing up, and my eyelids growing even heavier.
“What are you doing??!” I snap, frustrated.
A small, but firm slap propels my face from right to left.
“You have no power, John!” she barks back. “You need to fix it! You look like hell.” The poisonous tone in her voice throws me back. Did a gorgon take over? What’s with this sudden explosion of sternness? She’s morphing…
Like me.
Like Samsa.
Her demeanor instantly changes, her pleasant smile returning, the dark pits in her eyes fading away.
“Your drawings!” she wails, suddenly remembering as she digs through her purse. “I found them when I was cleaning the closet. Aren’t they adorable? They’re some of the first you ever did.”
She slaps the whole set of about ten drawings, made by a five-year-old with heavy Crayola, onto my hands. I flip through them, quickly noticing they all portray a tall woman with red hair and shimmering eyes—kaleidoscopic even.
“Look how tall you drew me! My little artist,” her words trail off into white noise as I recede into the depths of my broken brain.
That’s not her.
That’s Nina.
Chapter 14: Has somebody else been living my life all this time?
Has somebody else been living my life all this time?
I don’t know how long it’s been, but I’m out of breath from my constant pacing back and forth. Dr. Hammond observes the drawings closely as I try to make sense of all this nonsense, like trying to wrap a mountain with a candy-wrapper.
“It’s her! Nina! The woman I met that night. I’ve met her before,” I say before I catch sight of myself on a reflective surface; my eyes are incredibly bloodshot. Dr. Hammond rubs his chin. I finally drop into the couch like a ton of bricks.
“Don’t you see it?” I ask.
His lively eyes leave the drawings and focus on me, studying me like an oil painting, choosing his words carefully, picking them with tweezers from the word bank in his brain.
“John, how old would you say the woman in your drawings is?”
I know where this is going. “Twenty. Maybe twenty-five.”
“How old was the woman you met that night?”
Same age. I bury my head between my hands, feeling suddenly defeated, rubbing my eyes, my temples, my entirety.
“Isn’t it possible that your meeting with this woman was only a product of your brain, your memories, triggered by the R³ you drank?”
No. No. No. I can feel my self-assurance crushing my defeat.
“She was real. As real as you, as real as me. As real as this couch, as real as this office.”
“These hallucinogens have clouded your brain, warped your reality.”
I grasp at straws. “If our realities are based on—on the inner workings of our brains, right? Wouldn’t that make what’s real, relative?”
“John, there’s no tangible proof you actually met this woman that night,” he shuts me down.
“I slept with her! I know I slept with her! Jesus! Fuck!”
“You said you met her after being greatly intoxicated. You’re the best example of an ‘unreliable narrator’. You imagined everything.”
“No I didn’t! I remember saving her.”
“Saving her from what?”
I look up, confused. What’s going on in my brain? I’m pulling on all these threads, pulling and pulling, thinking they’re leading me somewhere, when all of a sudden, a tall brick wall. Dead end. “I don’t know. In another life?”
Dr. Hammond removes his glasses and rubs his temples, letting out a small sigh in despair. I notice for the first time how alike we look. Something in the way we deal with dejection. A slight resemblance… yet it’s gone as swiftly as it appears. I believe this man genuinely wants to help, but he doesn’t know how.
“There’s one way…” he begins, “to find out… to be somewhat certain… if this is true or not…” He looks up, setting off dramatic drum rolls, “by digging up your first encounter with this woman.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s quite an ancient tool, actually. Since the day people stopped dreaming, it didn’t seem to work anymore, but you’re—well, different. Would you be willing to try hypnosis?”
It sounds familiar. “Will that show you my memories?”
“You will provide me access to your subconscious. Maybe even access to secrets you’ve been keeping from yourself. The mind is strewn with hidden rooms and boxes, all with their own protective combinations. If we are lucky, we might find the source of your nightmare. If we don’t, we try something else. You have nothing to lose.”
“How do we do it?”
“First, we put you to sleep.”
I lie on the faint couch, controlling my breathing as indicated. He tells me to close my eyes. I do.
“As I count down to zero,” he says, “you will reach a state of deep sleep. No wall will remain up.” That would be a first. He continues in a soothing, monotonous voice. “They’ll unfold like windows allowing a pleasant summer breeze through. Ten,” he begins. “Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”
Eyes snap open. Seconds later they roll to the back of the head. I float up and above, becoming a fly in the vast room, looking down suspended mid-air. Below, Dr. Hammond lays on the chaise lounge I had previously occupied, asleep.
But he isn’t himself. He’s me. Or at least looks like me. His face is gaunt, hair short, and wears my exact same clothes.
My floating self is led towards the other end of the room, towards the leather chair where Dr. Hammond had previously been sitting. In his place, conveniently dressed in nice slacks and shiny shoes, is… me. Clean-cut. Sharp. Even handsome. Somewhat resembling Dr. Hammond, but me…
Our bodies have inexplicably switched, instantly accepting our new reality as true.
“Any remaining walls will crumble at the snap of my fingers,” I continue the process Dr. Hammond started, taking his place on the chair.
“Five. Four. Three. Two…”
Snap. My thumb and middle finger sing once the proper friction is applied. It echoes loudly.
“From this point on,” I say calmly, “identity becomes an illusion.”
And that’s when the night terrors start and everything truly heads south.
Dressed in Dr. Hammond’s perfectly pressed shirt, I tweak the last details of his machine—small and spherical. Thin tubes come out of it. It looks like a brewing device. Except it’s attached to a larger object resembling an incubator; like an iron lung. I’m in his garage.
I have no idea what this device is, but somehow I know how to put it together. I am blind software acting on some else’s hardware. Sleepwalking.
Who am I? Am I him? Am I me? Who is me?
Has somebody else been living my life all this time?
I feel like myself, yet the basic mechanics I follow are not mine, as if my lips were moving, but the voice slipping out and the words forming were alien.
I place the hammer on the work table, next to the rolled up plans and diagrams. I feel satisfied with the result. A sign meaning my work is done. I roll up my right sleeve and insert an IV gently. Next, a long thin needle goes straight into the base of my head, where skull meets the neck. The droning sound begins once I switch the device on. It means it’s working.
From inside the incubator, a glowing, yellowish serum pours out and in through a tube into the newly constructed brewing machine. Like a dialysis, it seems to break the serum down, filtering it through an even thinner tube that feeds both into my arm and brain.
I find myself floating above it all again; a fly on the wall. I have a hard time drawing a line as to when these occurrences begin and end. There’s no longer black or white, only gray.
I fly towards the other end of the room—towards the large incubator that feeds off the serum.
Inside the incubator I find myself. Not Dr. Hammond, as myself, but my actual self, in deep, deep sleep, a result of his deep hypnosis. Is he draining me? How did I get here?
Paralyzed. Frozen. Lifeless.
Until I see my eyes flutter.
Fluttering rapidly.
Dreaming.
It means it’s working.
PART TWO
Chapter 14.5: Where did her drea
ms go?
WHERE DID HER DREAMS GO?
November 24, 1591
After a thirty-one day journey, I came across a village, small in size; a community made-up of four to five single story homes, a barn and a well. They’re all family folk, farmers constantly catering to their land. When I asked for directions to the nearest town, they gaped at me with curious confusion, as if they hadn’t understood what I’d said. I repeated the question only to be told they didn’t know. They seldom interacted with strangers outside their community. They had settled into this particular area years back and hadn’t left since. They rarely had visitors; more like wondering travelers who had lost their way. Some decided to stay, as new additions to their community, others went back on their journeys. I thanked them for their generosity as they fed me and offered lodging, but I had to be on my way. Once again they grew confused, as if unsure of where exactly was I planning on returning to. Nonetheless, they kindly provided me with food supplies, and offered me a horse to facilitate my travels. A little boy brought me a young steed from their barn. The beast rose on its hind legs the moment I approached it, probably reacting in terror. The boy grabbed the beast’s head gently. It immediately calmed down and lowered its head. The boy pressed his forehead against the beast’s, while caressing it’s mane. Only then, did the horse allow me to approach it and climb on its back. It had become a different creature before my own eyes. This boy possessed some kind of magic. “Magic”… I found myself lost at words, unable to find a logical explanation. That is when I stopped, I stopped trying; I stopped looking. If logic wanted to be found, then it would reveal itself, once the time was right; not a moment sooner, not a moment later.
I set off, resuming my journey, hoping my intuition would guide me to the closest town in a manner similar to the way it had lead me to this welcoming village.
November 30, 1591
I have managed to cover more terrain with the help of this loyal steed, than I was able to explore by foot during those thirty-one days. Even so, we have yet to come across any other settlement. Whichever way I go, I find myself running into denser forests with waist-high greenery, growing into walls of impenetrable, interwoven vines and trees. I’m low on supplies. If I’m unable to find a settlement before the next sundown I will be forced to return to the community and restock.
Young Bill stands firmly behind Dr. Walker, who reviews a thick patient file. He swims, back and forth, through a handful of pages and charts, unhappy with the results on an MRI.
“She doesn’t dream anymore,” he says as he rubs his temples.
“But she’s in deep REM sleep. Where did her dreams go? Where are they now?” Young Bill asks, suddenly grave at the implications.
“Wherever they are, they’re not here anymore. Pity. Time to pull the plug.”
“Does that mean it’s over? What about the R³? What about dreaming?” Bill mutters, chocking up.
“She’s no longer of use to us, that’s for sure. But don’t worry. There’ll be more. They’ll find their way. They always do.”
“You’re going to let them dispose of her? Just like that?” he blurts out, knowing he’s overstepping his grounds.
Dr. Walker freezes on the spot. An unexpected sadness seeps through his aged face, instantly disarming Bill. He can’t explain what it is, but there’s a certain understanding, a certain sharing of mutual disappointment at the face of this forlorn world. Shaking his head, he clears his throat and adjusts his blue bowtie before dropping a heavy red stamp on his file, DEMATERIALIZE, and leaves without saying a word.
The room is suddenly quiet, except for the incubator’s artificial breathing. Bill looks into the capsule—Nina’s soothing beauty. Pity takes over his face. This is far beyond losing R³, far beyond dreaming; he has made an actual connection with her subconscious, and he has felt her pain—a long enduring pain deeply buried beneath a hull of unnatural sleep. Feeling responsible for her, he presses his hand against the glass, longing for physical contact.
It all happens in a flash. Wide awake, Nina jolts up, her hand instantly glued against his on the glass, her face distorted with pain as her lips curl up into a muted cry for help.
His vision suddenly clouds as an infinite sequence of bursts illuminate his inner world—images juxtaposed over images at full blazing speed; images of events he’s already seen; images of events he has yet to experience.
You know what you have to do, her haunting voice echoes inside his head.
As quick as they started, the visions are gone. Bill is suddenly launched against the spherical wall, repelled by an electric shock. He releases a groan upon impact. Stunned beyond belief, he gets up and checks on the capsule: Nina sleeps, motionless. Her vitals are down, as they were a minute ago. Shaking, he grabs the walkie-talkie, ready to call out for help. Yet he stops. Help for what? he thinks, cold sweat dampening his armpits. Bill breathes hard, unable to make the call. He frowns, looks hard into her still body—was that real? Could he be losing his mind?
He looks around and spots a silver card on the floor—a misplaced silver card key. He immediately lowers the talkie. He must’ve dropped it on his way out, he thinks.
This was his chance. There was no other way.
He knew what he had to do.
He had to save her.
Chapter 15: Bill.
Bill.
I met Bill at my old job at the InstaMeal Drive-Thru. I had been there for about three weeks and I was already entertaining thoughts of suicide. Literally entertaining them. I got a few laughs by coming up with the most out there suicide attempts, or the bloodiest, hoping to leave a brutal mess behind for these assholes to clean. Yet, I’m currently not President of the World for that same reason. I wasn’t motivated enough and every attempt fell through.
Until Bill showed up.
He stood out like a sore thumb. Nothing to do with his hippie-ish, New Age look, or rainbow flared shirt; it was the fact that he didn’t have a car. At a drive-thru. I thought, hey, maybe this is his way of defying society and whatever the norm is by not having a vehicle. I even thought, good for you, I respect you, old man. But it wasn’t as romantic as I had imagined. He wasn’t an anarchist or a rebellious fighting force; I found this out weeks later. He simply didn’t have a car. He was doing a walk-thru.
I didn’t bother asking the first time. Last thing you want to do is engage with any potentially crazy or homeless individual. Aside from lagging in the line of cars, they usually don’t order anything; just ask a series of random questions. I wish I could remember some. But I don’t. I remember Bill.
He ordered food and asked to use the bathroom. This wasn’t surprising, as I had the graveyard shift—I liked it better, less of a rowdy crowd, more of the silent night owls eager for a late snack. I figured he’d been out partying and needed a place to piss—and eat, of course.
It wasn’t until the third night that I realized he was doing more than that. After eating his usual number 7, he’d go into the facility, into the private restroom, and relief himself. But it didn’t quite end there. Post-piss, he’d shape the food container and napkins into a makeshift pillow, and then he’d lie on it and pass out… my guess waking up around six or seven in the morning when the rush hour folks started piling in.
On that third night he had forgotten to lock the door, involuntary causing another customer to shriek in panic at the sight of him. That’s when we found him; curled up on the floor, holding his sad little napkin pillow.
