Chapter 5
What do you do when you can’t do anything?
How do you move on when you can’t even move?
It’s hard to get back to normal when you’re not sure what normal is. Or when you don’t want to get back to normal — you want to get back to what was taken away from you.
Our nameless baby wasn’t the only thing taken away. A few days later, I crawl under the sheets, where Lara is already lying down. Her body facing away from my side of the bed, her shoulders shielding her face.
I can tell she is still at least partially awake. I extend my palm softly to her hip. We haven’t exchanged more than a hug since sitting together in that hospital bed. I slowly nestle closer, bringing my cheeks and three days worth of unshaven facial hair to the nape of her neck. I lean toward her still body, almost bringing my lips to her soft skin, instead caressing her neck with my hot breath. I slide my right hand, underneath the sheets, up the side of her body. My fingers graze the top of her breast — and at that instant she pulls away and mumbles something into her pillow.
I lean further, whispering, “What?”
Quietly, but clearly, she says, “Don’t touch me.”
I continue, extending my hand back towards her body, “What’s wrong?”
She responds in an unmistakable tone. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
And there it is. Those four words hanging out there, like white puffs of skywriting floating over blue clouds for everyone to see. There is no comeback. There is no response. That’s all there is.
The words stinging in my ears, echoing, reverberating. I forget about sex and for a second it feels like I am lying next to a different person. A stranger, almost. I turn away from her, rolling back to my side of the bed. In front of my eyes, those four words are displayed like neon graffiti on the side of a building. My eyelids close to block out those four little words.
On this muggy night in August, I just want to go to sleep. Even if things won’t be any better, I figure that they can’t get any worse.
What could be hours later, what could be moments later, I’m asleep.
In my dreamland, I’m working at a computer, trying to design an environmentally friendly, completely sustainable, food court. Except this doesn’t look like my desk.
I’m working on a Sbarro when I hear a screeching WHOOP WHOOP. Maybe it’s a BARP BARP. Either way, it’s the fire alarm.
I run to the emergency stairwell, because even in my dreams, I know better than to take the elevator. The stairwell door says that I’m on the 9th floor. I swing open the door and I feel an intense heat, rising up from below me. I peer over the edge of the handrail in front of me. Below me, is a hot kaleidoscope of red and orange and fuchsia. The flames are a couple floors below me, and rising fast.
My lungs react to the rising smoke and I run up to the tenth floor. I exit the stairwell to stop coughing and try to figure this out. I run to the window, half-expecting to see multiple fire trucks, firemen holding trampolines and ladders extending up to save me. The only thing out the tenth floor window is cold concrete. Not even a simple patch of grass. Just an endless parking lot with no cars.
It seems my options are jump to my death, stay here and burn to death, or keep going up.
Jump or burn or go up.
So I go up.
In the stairwell I try to look up to see how many floors are above me, but I can’t see. It appears to go on forever.
So now I’m running past eleven, twelve, thirteen. As I get to the 13th floor, I hear a sound over the fire alarm. Maybe there’s someone who can help me. Save me.
I open the door and there’s the sound. A dog barking. A little 8-pound Yorkie. Barking because he knows we’re screwed. I check his nametag, for any sign, any purpose that this dog might actually serve. Rover. How original. Even my dreams are filled with clichés.
Standing on the 13th floor with Rover, I can hear the flames crackling below me.
Jump or burn or go up.
So I go up. I leave Rover on the 13th floor. I figure I can’t save him and I rather not see him get taken by the flames.
It’s at this point when I’m climbing stairs, getting exercise in my dreams, that I don’t see the point anymore. There is no escape. There is no way out. Going up only buys you so much time.
The only options left are jump to my death or burn to death.
Jump or burn.
If I knew this was a dream, it would be different. I could jump on to the cold concrete and land safely, because it’s a dream. I could run straight through the smoky flames and come out unburned if I wanted to. But I don’t. Because I don’t know I’m dreaming.
So now I’m standing in the stairwell, somewhere between 15 and 16 when I give up. I’m too much of a pussy to jump out the window and just end it. I just fucking sit there and wait for the flames to take me.
At this point I’m just a white, puffy marshmallow sitting just above the flames. Shove a stick through my torso and slowly rotate my body for an even roast. Or just shove my white ass into the fire and let me burn before blowing me out. Or just let me burn.
The fire grabs hold of my feet first. And for a moment I forget about the pain — I start to get hungry. My feet smell like bacon crackling in hot lard. Like fatty pork sausages, dripping with grease. My blackened flesh falls off my legs like someone tearing the skin off a burnt fried chicken.
The blood coming out of my stomach isn’t candy apple or stop sign red. It’s a charcoal, ashy dark gray. Instead of gushing out, it’s slowly oozing out, bubbling into a puddle below me.
If I knew this was a dream, I’d be able to tell myself, “It’s okay. It’s not real.”
But I don’t. So I can’t.
Should I be worried?
I’m not.
It was just a dream.
I can’t predict the future.
I mean, that would be ridiculous. Even if I could, I mean, a fire, really? A fire. I’m going to die in a fire? C’mon, at least give me a heart attack or stroke or fatal gunshot wound or something. Burning alive? That’s so macabre.
Is this some sort of karmic revenge for all the barbecue and flame-broiled burgers I’ve eaten over the years? Cause if that’s the case, I totally would have avoided Burger King. Have it your way, my ass. Can I not die, please? Can that be having it my way?
Seriously. I don’t deserve this. I mean, I’m nice. I recycle. That has to count for something. I pay my credit card on time. I don’t have any overdue library books.
Just because I had a silly little dream, that doesn’t mean anything. People have all kinds of nightmares. Doesn’t mean a thing.
Perhaps I should buy some life insurance. Not a lot. Just you know, because I’m at that age. I’m almost 40 and I don’t have any life insurance. That’s crazy. That’s the crazy thing here. I need some. Doesn’t everybody?
What I really need, I need to be in control. I need to take back the night. 1/3 of my life I’m asleep. That’s 1/3 of my life where I’m not in control.
Over a breakfast of Rice Krispies and Frosted Mini-Wheats I ask Lara what she knows about lucid dreaming. Conscious dreaming. How to take back control of the night.
She doesn’t want to look at me. Last night, she didn’t want to touch me. Now she doesn’t want to talk to me. In the background of my mind, a song is playing.
“The breakfast cereal talked more than we did.”
She is lost in her breakfast bowl. She’s still mourning the most recent death in our family. I’m trying to prevent the next.
She twirls her spoon through her soggy rice puffs and says that she will email me some links. She tells me I can figure it out if I want to.
The first step is dream recall.
You have to remember your dreams before you can control them. Before they stop controlling you.
Every night we dream. If you think that you don’t, you just aren’t remembering them.
You’re not supposed to move a muscle. You have to prevent your motor neurons from firing.
The first step is dream recall.
You have to have a dream journal on your nightstand. That way, you can wake up throughout the night and write everything down.
We only remember what we want to remember.
I write down all the details of the dreams that I could remember. The concert and the pregnancy test. The sand castle and the seashell. The red house. The fire.
The first step is dream recall.
If you can’t remember your dreams, how will you know when you have a lucid dream?
You need to be able to identify your dream signs. You need to learn when you are dreaming. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first thing you need to do is focus on remembering what you dream. You have to tell yourself that you will remember what you dream. If it sounds stupid, it is.
Remembering them in the morning isn’t good enough. You have multiple dreams every night. You need to be able to wake up and remember them. Tell yourself, “I will remember my dreams.”
You have to write down the key points — who is there, what is going on. You have to note anything that seems like it can only happen in a dream. These are your dream signs.
Buckle up.
End of Chapter 5. Read Chapter 6 here.
