“I don’t have ‘scary’ nightmares. At least, I haven’t since I was just a kid. My nightmares are depressing. Not traumatic, either—not even tragic. Just depressing. They usually deal with some uncomfortable and very believable thing happening to me that affects the course of my everyday life within the dream.
“Maybe a close family member dies. I’m just about the only ‘young’ one left, so it’s bound to happen very soon. Maybe I drop out of college, for no other reason than that I can’t take the pressure—something I’ve given serious thought to, on bad days. Maybe I even find myself working in a cubicle in some faceless company, which is exactly where I’ll end up if I’m not careful. On their own, of course, I wouldn’t say these things would make for a nightmare. It’s what happens next, though, that really sticks with me.
“I learn to live with it.
“No matter how far my quality of life has fallen—a slight decline or an exhilarating drop off the edge of a cliff—the dream-me keeps on keeping on, living life one day at a time with his burden however much heavier. When I eventually wake up, even if I don’t entirely remember the dream, I never forget that feeling. Despite the fact that whatever event that sets one of these dreams in motion never actually happened, it’s like my subconscious has had an entire fictional month to get used to being just a bit sadder, even though my conscious mind doesn’t understand why.”
A warm sound rings out, that of a pencil being rapped on a pad of paper. “I imagine,” comes a motherly voice, “that this must be very frustrating for you.”
“I don’t think that’s the word I’d use.” The young man sits up a bit straighter in his cushy chair, the leather squeaking as it stretches. “I’m all but used to it at this point. I’d sooner call it just another thing on the pile.”
“You’ve used that phrase before,” says the bespectacled woman sitting across from him. “This ‘pile’—you sound very resigned to it. Is it really so insurmountable?”
The young man glances off to the side. “I don’t know. It feels that way, most of the time.”
The woman looks to the clock on the table next to her and frowns. “Paul, I’m sorry to say that our session is almost up. I have something I’d like you to try, though: pick three things from this pile of yours—three things you might normally lay back and accept—and conquer them before our session on Thursday. Will you do this?”
Paul’s mouth tightens. “I can try, I guess.”
Paul and his therapist stand, shake hands, and exchange goodbyes. He leaves her office and walks out to his car, the sun shining down overhead.
- - - - -
Paul shuts off his headlights, unclicks his seatbelt, and squirms to get at his pants pocket. Phone in hand, he dials up one Frank Matthews and leans his seat back a bit. A blank expression on his face, he stares out at the few lit windows suspended up in the darkness, listening to the ringing at his ear.
The phone chirps. “Hey, kiddo,” comes a tired voice.
“Hey, Dad,” says Paul. “Done for the day. Ready to go?”
“Will be in just a few.” Frank’s tone is somewhat rushed. “Why don'tcha come on up? I could use your help bringin’ a few things down anyway.”
“ ’Kay. See you in a sec.” Paul pockets his phone and keys, popping open the door of his aging sedan and setting foot on the parking lot before locking up. The soft clap of rubber on tar and the song of a single distant bird are all that stir the night air as he makes his way to the office building’s entrance.
Inside, walls of white with flecks of shadowed texture meet floors carpeted in brownish gray. Paul shivers, tucking his hands more firmly into his hoodie’s pockets. He nods to a receptionist seated past a nearby white, enameled kiosk—she gives a friendly wave back—before heading down the hall to the elevators.
Four dings later, Paul steps out into an identical hallway. Beyond is a large room that takes up the majority of the floor, packed nearly wall to wall with interconnected cubicles of a mottled gray. Five rows of cubicles down and three deep, Paul comes to the first occupied one that he’s yet passed.
“Hey,” he says.
Frank Matthews, a large man with somewhat grayed and receding hair, looks up from a desk cluttered with papers and boxes. “Hey, Paul.” He pockets a pen he was holding and starts packing the papers up.
Paul sighs. “Dad, it’s late enough already. You really want to stay up with all that tonight?”
Frank shoots Paul a frown. “Not like I’ve got much of a choice, kiddo. Now c’mon.” Papers secured, he hands a box to Paul and stacks up the two remaining for himself, hefting them after shutting off his desk light.
The pair make their way to the elevator and step inside the opening doors. Frank lifts a leg up to balance his boxes as he reaches for the ground floor button. “Y’know, the job’s not really as bad as all this,” he says, a serious look on his face as he turns back to Paul. “Summer’s coming up, and you know I could talk to my supervisor about an internsh—”
Paul groans. “How many times have I said no, man?”
“Kiddo, you have to do something.” Frank’s mouth dips down into a frown once more. “I haven’t exactly seen you makin’ much of an effort to find an alternative.”
Paul stays silent, not meeting his father’s eyes.
The elevator door opens up to the ground floor. Frank looks out, then back to Paul. “Look, I’ll just talk to Walter about it, alright? It’s not a guarantee or anything, kiddo. And it’s not permanent either way.”
Frank steps out without waiting for any sort of answer, and Paul follows soon after.
- - - - -
A blaring noise rings out.
Paul immediately works himself over to his bedside table and grabs his phone in the dark. His thumb is just about to hit the ‘Off’ button, but stops abruptly. He lays there for a few moments, staring at the screen and listening to the noise, mouth set in a line.
Paul sits up and gets out from under his covers, turning off his phone’s alarm only after he’s no longer in contact with his bed. “One,” he starts to mouth, but it quickly turns into a yawn. With eyes closed for most of the trip, Paul retrieves an outfit set out on a nearby chair and heads through the open door to the adjacent bathroom.
Combing his wet hair. Brushing his teeth. Paul’s eyes skirt the edges of the mirror. He spits, rinses, spits. Mouthwash now. Rinsing again. Meets his own eyes for a second, and then he’s heading back into his room.
A moment gone and Paul has the curtains open, light shining in on a mess of clothes, bottles, dust, dirt. He goes and checks his phone again: almost an hour till the next alarm. He turns this way and that before he spots a trashcan and a hamper, half-buried. He walks over and begins to dig them out. “Two.”
- - - - -
Day and night and day and it’s Wednesday evening now. Paul lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling. On a desk in the corner sits a notebook, open. A problem set has been copied down, and next to it on the page is a meticulously drawn, stylized ‘3’, but an ‘X’ in fresher ink obscures it.
Paul reaches for his mp3 player on the night stand, but his hand pauses and changes course, reaching instead for a game controller, but pauses again. His hand comes slowly back to his side, and his eyes return to the ceiling.
There’s a fleck of mold directly overhead. White ceiling, even coating, not blindingly pure but not hideously yellowed. And a blemish of blackness right above Paul’s head, murky but interwoven with the white.
Paul watches the spot, and as he watches, the spot watches back. Wavering—waving?—floating and flowing. Growing.
“…and it swallowed me, or at least that’s what it felt like. Reached down and sucked me in. It wasn’t scary, though. It didn’t feel different. Well, I mean… what do I mean? It just… felt the same. But then I’m feeling myself wake up, and nothing has felt the same since.”