The Dreamer

Alone, lying on a hospital bed, a dreamer looked up at the white-painted ceiling. In his nostrils he could smell the unpleasant odor of disinfectant and disease, typical of those places. The rhythmic humming emitted by life-support machines overlapped with the subdued dripping of medicine into the IV.

Plic...plic... plic...

Counting the drops of substance that fell from the bottle to end up inside his veins had become an obsession for the dreamer. On the other hand, he did not have much else to do. He was old, at the end of his days.

He had always thought in his youth that he would die long before he grew old, but in the end, the bitter truth is that life never gives you what you expect. He had survived illnesses, accidents and various tribulations without ever struggling too much. He had not had to struggle or spit blood, as many others did.

He came from a well-to-do but not wealthy family, with some support but no particular influence. He had not undertaken in his life any initiative nor had he taken a risk or dared a gamble. He had not traveled much, either alone or with friends. In fact he struggled to push himself to leave home.

He had married without ever wanting children. Eventually they had separated by mutual agreement, since their relationship hadnothing to say to either of them...

"You are empty inside!" he had been told in their last argument.

"That's not true..." whispered the dreamer to no one in particular from his hospital bed.

He had never really felt sad or lonely, because he actually had a secret. He was dreaming.

For years, he dreamed continuously, with his eyes wide open, when he was awake.

Many would call it fantasizing, but the dreamer would immerse himself in fantasies so realistic and three-dimensional that they would border on was not a compulsion. He could safely ignore his dreams if necessary. He simply slipped into them naturally when he had nothing else to do.

When friends went out for sports, or go for coffee downtown or to take a walk, he preferred to stay home, daydreaming, if he could. All other occupations unrelated to surviving seemed irrelevant to him by comparison.

Instead, he had difficulty dreaming normally. For years when he fell asleep it was as if he were dead. Whether he dreamed during sleep he did not know; those dreams he never remembered.

Yet he had not always been like this. As a child he was a normal person. He dreamed at night and lived normally during the day. He did not know what had happened at one point, but he had changed. He was certain that something had happened, but because of old age he could no longer remember.

Unfortunately, even the daydreams were coming to an end. His time had come to an end. He had never been religious, he did not place hope in a life after the end of the body, and since he had been hospitalized he could no longer think of anything but his impending death.

Suddenly he was distracted by a queue of young doctors who followed like faithful lapdogs the head physician of the ward where he was admitted. He did not follow their speeches, they were talking as if he was not there and were only addressing him in empty sentences.

"How are you today? Are you okay?" and so on. He ignored them completely. On the other hand, what could they do? It was age that was killing him, and no one could cure it yet.

He distinctly heard the chief physician say something about how little time he had left to live. He spoke softly, but the dreamer could hear just fine.

'And who cares...what's left now...? hopefully it will end soon!' he thought.

While thinking he slipped into sleep, continuing to hear the subdued dripping of medicine into the IV in spite of the numbness.

The Corridor

plic... plic...plic...

The noise became more intense. The drops produced an echo. It was cold.

'W-where am I?' thought the dreamer as he looked around.

He was in a stone corridor, rough and ungainly. Some water was drizzling down from above. It was very dark, barely visible. A faint greenish light illuminated him from overhead, as if the rock vault had been covered with fluorescent mucilage. He looked around, noting that the floor contained no traces of moisture, despite the water dripping from the ceiling.

"Am I dreaming? A real dream, after all this time?" he said in an excited voice. He had read a lot about Onironautics in order to be able to remember his dreams, if any. It had not helped, but now he knew all about what to do to distinguish one from reality.

"Jump! If I rise I am dreaming!" he did that but returned to the ground normally. He tried again and almost twisted his ankle.

"Read! Words change when read over and over!" he looked around for himself but he was wearing the pajamas he had fallen asleep in, with no pockets or writing, rather ugly.

"Watching the clock? No, I hate watches, and I don't wear one...geez!"

"Breathe...I breathe just fine! While just now I was struggling... Yes!"

He was overjoyed, the first dream in many, many years... Then he realized. It would have been enough to notice that just a moment ago he was in a bed. Also, there were no corridors like this in the hospital. One could tell right away that he was dreaming.

The realization cooled his enthusiasm with a good dose of embarrassment. "E-ehm, let's have a look around then-where are we?"

He looked at himself. Physically nothing had changed. He no longer felt weak, though, and he could walk normally. It was better that way. He tried to concentrate by making a whole series of funny expressions, but the view remained the same.

"The last dream before I die, and where am I? In a dark stone corridor..."

He took to walking along the only possible direction, but soon came to a steep stone staircase whose steps descended deeply. No bottom could be seen.

"If I fall here, I will arrive in meatball form," he thought intimidated. Having no other choice he descended with extreme caution.

Just out of curiosity he took to counting the steps. '1..2..3.. ... 200...201..202.. ... 735...736...and what the heck, but when does this staircase end?' he thought a little testily.

The dream had turned out to be a disappointment until then. "997.. 998.. 999! It's about time!" He said as he arrived on a landing facing a new hallway. Exactly 999 steps, where had he heard that one before? He shrugged his shoulders and continued down the new corridor. The latter was not very long. It ended in front of an inlaid stone doorway.

The inlays varied every time he looked at them, but they were not the most interesting thing.

A figure wrapped in a black robe complete with hood was blocking his way was!

The Hooded Man

"Um, hello there!" the dreamer found himself saying. He felt silly, but he couldn't think of anything better to say.

The figure did not move, but an atonal sepulchral voice sprang from under the hood."...yes..."

The dreamer was about to burst out laughing, 'And now the Gatekeeper' he thought

"Hey, I'm the Keymaster, I can come by, can't I?" he said stepping forward, only to stop suddenly, jolted by a feeling of déjà vu he felt as he looked at the mysterious figure.

"...no..." said the hooded man.

Tense but intrigued by the situation, the dreamer changed his approach, speaking in an attempt to confuse the fellow. "Look, sir. I'm sorry to have bothered you, but I'd really like to get out of this hallway. Maybe you are comfortable here, it is probably your home, however, I would like to try to see what is beyond the doorway. Could you kindly let me through?"

The hooded man remained motionless, speaking again."...you... have... lived... never... realizing... your... possibilities... give... them... to... me..."

The dreamer was confused, what was that guy talking about? But it was a dream after all, he decided to play along. "Why should I give them to you? What would you do with them?"

The hooded man remained silent for a moment, as if it was tiring for him to utter more than one word at a time. "...I... will.. .fulfill... one... of... them... you...will...live...your... dreams..."

'Good story' he thought, 'And what I'm doing at the moment?' Yet that business of never having realized his possibilities. While a chill went down his spine, the Dreamer realized that the guy in black wasn't really talking out of his ass.

What had he accomplished in his life? A whole lot of nothing in fact. At that precise moment a dull ache gripped him in the chest.

...

"Doctor we are losing him!"

"Quick, Defibrillation... Clear!"

"Damn! Nothing... Let's try again."

...

the drops in the IV kept going down

Plic... plic... plic...

...

The dreamer realized that pain was a bad sign. Was he going to die? His heart was old and tired, but to die now!

'A little more, I want to know more,' he thought.

"But how could I live in my dreams! I'm going to die!" he asked, now frantic.

"...burn... your... your... body... reborn... again... again... I... will... realize... the... dreams... give... me... your... possibilities... all... but... one..." The hooded figure stretched the flap of his cloak. If there was a hand under that, it was completely covered by the dark robe.

"Where's the catch? There is always a catch!" asked the dreamer.

He did not trust that strange dream, something was not quite right with it. He was beginning to remember this place, he had been here long before, as a child. He could barely remember but...

He remembered that he had pulled something away, looked into the darkness and woke up terrified. Since then he had never dreamed of anything while he slept, only with his eyes wide open, while awake.

The figure replied."...never... will... you... know... what... exists... beyond... life... never... will... you... stop... alone... always... on... journey... running... in... dreams...forever..."

The dreamer did not quite understand what the hooded man meant, but by now he had no time to think about it. The pain was growing stronger and stronger. He made, for the first time in his life, a leap of faith. He grasped his hand.

The door swung open and an intense light sprang from it. The hooded man laughed hoarsely, a bitter, dry laugh no one would ever like to hear...

...

When we sleep, in dreaming, time is subjective. Often, as soon as we fall asleep, a dream seems to last us days and days. Upon awakening we discover only a few minutes have passed. It is therefore possible for a dream to develop entirely in an infinitesimal instant, the time of a heartbeat, but it could last... forever.

Plic... plic... plic

The drops stopped falling.