I tell her.
“Do you wake up multiple times a night? Anything like that?”
“No, not that.” I can’t explain it properly. “My dreams are more vivid than usual, I guess. It’s just very … disorienting. And I wake up exhausted. Nothing’s helped so far.” She nods, then resumes her writing, although I’ve no clue as to whether it has anything to do with me. Her features are hard to discern from the other side of the glass panel, but I imagine a sort of bored resolve on her face. She hands me a questionnaire, which I sit down and start to fill out.
“Do you smoke,” it asks, and I say no. I do, but they don’t need to know that. Depressive bouts, no, drugs, no, booze, no, allergies, no. I don’t know who these forms are even for. I look around as I write: the decor is perfectly inoffensive, the walls a translucent white, and everything smells faintly of lavender and rubbing alcohol. “Family history of disease,” it says, but I can’t think of anything relevant, so I leave the section blank. I hand the questionnaire back to her.
“Any other outstanding health issues?” “Oh, uh. Amnesia.” I give her the whole spiel—no childhood memories, decent enough memories of everything that’s happened since I turned fourteen, no doctors have figured out why, this one won’t either, and so on. An infant at fourteen, a toddler at sixteen, one with much less acceptable fuck-ups at that.
“Hm,” she mutters. “Okay. Dr. Hummel should be with you in a second.”
More than a second has passed by the time he shows up. He doesn’t look very doctor-like in that he’s young, but he does have an unmistakable air of Ivy League arrogance. We exchange pleasantries and I repeat what I told the receptionist and the questionnaire. I feel worn out. “Usually,” he says, “we use these initial visits to eliminate potential causes for your troubles. So, for instance—do you snore?” I don’t know if I do, actually: I live alone, so I don’t have a way to check. I just say no, which is probably true. “If it’s not something to do with your breathing, it could just be poor sleep hygiene. Too much food before bed, irregular sleep and wake times, late-night screen use …” I nod along as he speaks even though I can feel a tinge of condescension, like I’m too dumb to know that having coffee at 10 p.m. is a bad idea. He then recites some sort of rehearsed speech about the virtues of cognitive behavioral therapy, but I’m quick to remind him that my insurance does not in fact cover a therapist, let alone a cognitive-behavioral one. He clicks his tongue.
“I don’t think I have enough data to feel comfortable suggesting anything serious,” he says. “If you can come back here in two weeks or so—take the time to log your sleep quality, time in bed, how you feel in the morning, those sorts of metrics, it would help a lot. You could keep a dream diary, too. At the very least, it may be interesting.” “Okay.” It’s not like I have any better ideas.
“Let’s get you an actigraph, too.” He hands me what appears to be a wristwatch and explains that it’ll record my sleep data from now until my next appointment. “Go back to the front desk and we’ll see where we can fit you in.”
I thank him for everything and shake his hand before leaving. He gives a firm handshake, that Dr. Hummel.
I lie down and exhale a sigh of relief. I feel completely drained, as if I had just ran a marathon, but really, I’m tired of nothing at all. I try to think about the fact that I’m drained by the simple weight of existence, but all the thinking just makes me tire more. I consider smoking a little, but can’t find a good reason to—instead, after a short, sleepy while, I get out of bed, soak and boil some rice noodles, dress them up with the last drops of sesame oil in the bottle, soy sauce, sugar, and paprika, and put on Tarkus.
I like to listen to music while I eat: not for the company but for the fact that it helps me keep track of how long I take to eat. The song ends, and time has passed. It’s usually not as simple as that. I’ll often keep the two things together in my head; so, for instance, the first three tracks off Dark Side of the Moon are a double portion of instant ramen and The Velvet Underground & Nico is that time I treated myself to a solo date with a 50 dollar ribeye. These are the closest thing I have to memories. I’m halfway through the fourth movement, “Mass,” by the time I finish eating. The noodles were slightly bland, and I wish I had bought scallions. Cleaning up takes only a few minutes, so I make myself comfortable on the couch and close my eyes as “Manticore,” “Battlefield,” and “Aquatarkus” come and go. I nearly forget to turn on that wristwatch thing … what was it called … acti-something? …
“Oi! Were ye even listenin’ ta me?”
Sitting across from you is a large, armored creature with the body of an armadillo and gun barrels for nostrils. The wooden chair is much too small for it. It appears angry.
“Tch. Damn rookie. I wasn’t planning to repeat meself, so I won’t.” It slides a sealed envelope across the table. “Go on. Get outta here.”
You open your mouth, but nothing comes out—you take the letter silently. It’s dyed a pristine, reflective white and closed with an ornate red seal. Outside the canteen, the sky throbs in a deep purple fog made barely visible by sweet moonlight. You stand up, bow to the officer, and exit the premises. You surmise that the envelope must be delivered to somebody, and that you must be the one to deliver it. You make your way to the alleyway behind the building and lean against a brick wall as you try to open it—there may be a clue as to its origin or its recipient inside. At the very least, it will satisfy your curiosity.
The seal dissolves with a simple tap. The letter, however, is completely illegible. Inky glyphs populate the page, resembling no alphabet you know of, and, as you look closer, they only become blurrier. A figure appears beside you: a golden, shadowless silhouette. You gaze at it for a second, and it stares right back.
You’re home again. You pat your breast pocket to ensure that the envelope is still there, and indeed, it is. Along the dirt road that splits off the paved street is the front door, large and oaken: the brick walls smile like always. You enter the foyer and walk up two stories to reach your room. You get undressed, place the letter upon the nightstand, and get in bed.
One, two, three, four, wakey-wakey—
I grunt involuntarily as I stop the alarm and stretch. I feel more rested than I expected, at least, and a cool glass of water gets me the rest of the way to being awake. I hum the rest of “Faust Arp” as I run through my morning routine—vitamins, pills, a shower (scalding hot), a long wait for my hair to dry, a barely-toasted grocery store bagel, chewy and offputtingly sweet.
It’s colder than I expected, so I wear a jacket over my uniform. It’s just before 7 a.m. by the time I get to work and start to get things ready for opening. Kay and I do some last-minute cleaning, preheat the coffee machines, grind the first batch of coffee beans, and get the pastries out of the oven just as the hour rolls over and the café officially opens.
As always, Jean comes in right after we open. She, too, is wearing a jacket today, a big, puffy, army-green one with a collar lined with faux-fur a few shades darker and wilder than her hair. “The usual?” I ask, and she nods. I dose out a double shot, tapping the edge of the basket before I tamp it down and fit it into the machine. As I prepare the puck, two more customers come in—Kay’s taking care of them. The metal pitcher of almond milk starts to burn my bare hands, so I remove it from the steam wand, cleaning as I go. I pour a pump of Monin hazelnut syrup onto the bottom of the mug, place it underneath the portafilter, then wait. As the espresso slowly seeps into the cup, I put Kay’s orders on the counter and call out the names—then I return to the mug and pour the barely-steaming milk on top of the coffee, making sure to keep my hand steady and close to the mug, the pitcher’s end nearly resting on the coffee layer. After some difficulty, I draw a foam heart on the coffee. I place the mug, alongside a warm chocolate croissant on a little plate, on the counter and call out Jean’s name. She receives her order with another nod and a wide, warming smile. Her eyeshadow highlights the brightness of her blue eyes, peacefully half-asleep and reddened around the edges. Aside from those three, nobody has come in, so the place is still clean, quiet, and peaceful, an oasis of black coffee in the early-morning bustle.
Finding nothing better to do, I observe Jean as she eats. She’s (somewhat shyly) bobbing her head along to the music, which I barely recognize as Frank Ocean’s voice and John Mayer’s guitar work. “It’s Pyramids,” says Kay, like she’s reading my mind. Seems like too long a song to play at a café, but hey, one out of three customers seems to be enjoying it, so what do I know. It’s not my job to pick the music. Jean finishes her drink and waves towards us as she exits. “Have a nice day!”
“You too,” I respond, cleaning her table. The café’s relatively empty today, with only a few customers coming in each hour, leaving long stretches in between where it’s just me, Kay, and her music. Our lunch break arrives after only a few more espressos and large cold brews.
“How was your weekend?” I ask.
“It was great, actually! I finally got accepted into that—into that MFA program I wash tellin’ you about,” she says, taking a bite of her sandwich.
“The one in Boston?”
She finishes the sandwich. “Yeah, that one!”
“Hey, good job. I’ve still got to work at this shithole for a few more months before I can afford to leave.” I forget whether I’ve told her about my music school fund, but it doesn’t really matter.
“Yeah, yeah. At least today’s been chill.”
We get back to work, and the second half of our shift is expectedly quiet; few people want overpriced coffee in the afternoon. We get a few customers at 3:30 and 5:30, right after college classes wrap up, but no regulars come in, or at least not any I recognize. We both clock out at 6 p.m.; she walks home, and I take the bus back. I decide to put on Electric Ladyland on the commute, and I’m about halfway through the album when I get home. The upbeat tones of Jimi Hendrix’s electric guitar accompany me for the rest of the day, as does his voice, effortlessly gliding on top of the melody, hopping on and off the beat without a care. I’m especially impressed by his singing on “All Along the Watchtower.” There’s something hypnotic about it, something I can’t put my finger on.
It’s only 9 p.m., but I close my eyes and try to fall asleep. After all, I have to wake up early, and I want to give Dr. Hummel good data. This time, I remember to wear the actigraph on my wrist and put everything else away. I get in bed and my breaths slow to a trickle, each one with a heft, a thought behind it as I exhale my worries like a smoker. My closed eyes stare at the irregularities of the ceiling and my neck bends slightly but painlessly. Still, I can’t sleep. I’m just not tired enough: I decide to pace around my apartment until I exhaust myself, which, after what feels like an hour, finally gets me back in bed and ready to sleep. I squeeze my eyes shut and count backwards from 100.
There is a large building in front of you. The wall you face is constructed of unblemished gray cement, flanked by two tall smokestacks, pulsing and writhing with the buildup of steam. Inside is a small, unmanned bar, with a seating area composed of a few wooden tables and chairs. Attached to the wall is a menu with letters and numbers you can’t recognize, let alone parse. You sit on the barstool furthest to the right, waiting for someone. A loud sound, like a clearing throat, comes from your left—you look, but there is nothing but a cup there. The cup then slides across the bar. Inside, there is a foul-smelling black liquid, still slightly swirling from the sudden movement. You take a sip. It tastes like tobacco and liquor and dark chocolate and dried berries and splinters.
The door opens, and you see your father, who comes in and sits next to you. “How have you been?” he asks, and the thousand answers you conjure in your mind (good, bad, what do you care, getting better, going through it) come out all at once. He grunts knowingly, then places his own cup of coffee up to his lips and slurps loudly. “Dad!” you say in judgment, but there’s nobody else there. Nobody but a woman in her early twenties, with milk-chocolate or olive skin that glows just slightly in the darkness of the bar and cloudy blond hair.
She is quite beautiful. Your father agrees, and you continue to make conversation. You finish your cup of rooty, anisey coffee and the bar makes another. Your father seems like he’s in a good mood, guffawing loudly and drinking merrily. “Dad,” you say, turning his attention towards you. “Dad … do you love me?”
He stares for a second, looking quite confused. “Of course I do. You’re my ｸｻ�@��!Ê»ú½Xj�£33mMAAAι�,” he responds, disappearing in a smoky cloud of TV static.
The garden is replete with weeds, dandelions and the like, dark greens on the edge of brown and black. The grass is as tall as a person, and curls under its own weight. Underneath, the white flowers still bloom. You gaze upon the sky where spirals of red stars ooze into one another.
One, two, three, four,
wakey-wakey, rise and shine,
it’s on again, off again, on again,
watch—
The first thing I notice as I turn off the alarm is that my neck hurts. A lot. My shoulders ache too, but I’m relieved of that with a simple stretch. I remove the actigraph from my wrist as I get up to shower, distracted by the neck pain and a pulsing headache that I hope doesn’t get any worse. The warm water helps a bit, but I can’t quite close my eyes all the way without feeling like I’ll fall back asleep. I check my phone, which tells me that it’s much warmer than it was yesterday, so much so that I don’t bother wearing a jacket or anything of the sort. It’s a dry, windless morning, and the sun hasn’t come out by the time I get on the first bus. I watch the sunrise out of its dirty window, rest my head on the cold glass.
Thankfully, I get to work just in time to help Kay ready the café for opening and staff the register. Jean comes in at 7:00, like yesterday. “The usual?” I ask. She shakes her head. “I thought I’d try something else today,” she says peppily. “Let’s do … the nitro cold brew, yeah?” I relay her order to Kay and save both copies of the receipt. The bell rings, and a tall, skinny guy walks through the front door.
“I’ll have a large iced mocha with whole milk, an almond croissant, and one biscotti. To go.”
“Okay. That’ll be … $18.45.”
“Eighteen dollars?!?” His eyes widen. “Are you guys selling fucking golden coffee or something?”
I sigh. “Sir, we have cheaper options, and we offer a cash d—“
“Jesus Christ, man, eighteen dollars? Is this a goddamn front?” He’s getting louder by the second. “Cause if it is, please get me whatever you guys were on when you came up with these prices. Eighteen dollars!”
An irritated voice comes in from the other side of the café. “Come off it, dickwad.” It’s Jean, and I realize that I’ve never heard her swear before, let alone swear like that.
“Shut up, it’s a fucking—a fucking scam, man, it’s—” he says, but doesn’t finish his sentence. His cheeks have turned cherry red, and he quietly hands me a credit card. I look over at Jean, who’s sipping her cold, carbonated coffee, calmly swaying to “Karma Police” as if nothing happened. I finish the tall guy’s drink, which he grabs without a word. At least it was a to-go order. Soon after, Jean finishes her drink and leaves, waving to Kay and I, wishing us a good day. Though there is no wind, her fluffy amber hair still seems to flutter in it.
It’s much busier today than it was yesterday—Kay and I have each prepared around a dozen drinks by the time our lunch break starts.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine, thanks. I had a dream about my dad, and I couldn’t get it out of my head.”
“… I was talking about that, ahem, dickwad from earlier. I’m sorry to hear, though. I hope you feel better. The rest of the day should be calmer, at least.”
She’s right, I think. “Totally unrelated, but when do I get to pick the music?”
She laughs. “When I’m in Boston, you can play all your seven-hour-long prog rock songs and drive the company into bankruptcy.”
I laugh, too. We finish our lunch in silence and get back to work. Soon after, a couple comes in and asks for an iced latte, a large black coffee, and a donut. I grab the filter paper and get started on the drip coffee—then, I dose out some of our espresso grounds, tap the basket a few times, then tamp the puck and adjust the portafilter onto the machine. In the few silent moments before the espresso starts pouring out, I think about Dad, who’s probably older now than he was in the dream. I think about the letter, and almost without thinking, check my breast pocket, which is of course empty. I think about the thick, black, impenetrable words. The whistle of espresso leaving the filter startles me just slightly.
As the coffee drips onto the mug, I steam the milk, stopping just as it starts to singe my fingers. The two drinks finish simultaneously, and as Kay puts the brewed coffee on the counter, I draw a foamy heart on the latte. The couple comes up to grab their drinks, but they seem disappointed. “Um,” says the shorter of the two. “I ordered an iced latte, not a hot one …” I apologize frantically, offering to comp the drink (something I realize I should ask Kay about, but whatever), which they refuse. “No, no, it’s okay, really,” they tell me as I continue to apologize. Since I don’t drink coffee, Kay takes the hot latte for herself as I get to making a new one, iced this time. “Again,” I say, “I’m so sorry,” but they already returned to their table. Thankfully, I make it right the second time, and give the couple a tired smile as I hand them the drink. I remember not to apologize once again.
The next hour passes without incident: we only get a handful of customers, and I don’t mess up any of their orders. Mac Miller plays, then Charli XCX, then somebody I don’t recognize. I’m warming up a chicken caprese sandwich when the unknown song finishes and “Faust Arp” starts to play. One, two, three, four. I feel a pang of pain right above my left eye, following by a pulsing nausea. Wakey-wakey, rise and shine, it’s on again, off again, on again, watch me fall like dominoes in pretty pa—
The woman seems to be staring not at you, but through you and at the wall behind you. Her eyes are a deep, prismatic blue. There is a faint, radiant halo surrounding her. Her eyes are a deep, prismatic blue.
“Hey! Are you okay?”
I open my eyes and see Kay, whose face is covering most of my field of vision. Apparently, I passed out and fell on the floor. She’s shaking my arms violently. “I’m fine! I’m fine! Jeez …”
With Kay’s help, I get up and shake myself awake. I go to the staff bathroom and wash my face a few times over, staring at myself in the mirror as I do so. Unsurprisingly, I look wet and anxious. I want to return to work, but Kay doesn’t let me—I sit down at the bar for the rest of my shift, periodically receiving glasses of water and concerned gazes. I feel fine, though. Just … tired. The end of our shift arrives, and Kay clocks out for the both of us. She walks me to the bus stop, still worried about me, although I tell her over and over that I’m alright. She looks at me earnestly. “You look like you need a drink.”
Everybody else is already there when I enter the bar. It’s a somewhat out-of-the-way place, but it’s worth it to not be around college kids. I recognize my friends from Ginger’s brown, curly hair popping out of the booth where they’re all sitting. I get an IPA and open a tab before going to sit down with them. All in all, there’s four of us: Kay’s our designated driver, Ginger and Eric are my high school friends, and I’m the reason we’re drinking. Kay and Eric chat about Boston as Ginger sips her bubbly cocktail and I my beer. Kraftwerk’s Autobahn fills the air—it’s a weird bar.
Soon enough, the three of us are taking shots and loudly reminiscing about high school. The postponed, then canceled prom, the always-stringent math teacher we all suffered at separate times, the field trips, the parties, our failed band … “I mean, come on, why’d we think doing King Crimson covers was a good idea?!? At this point—at this point, King Crimson’s a King Crimson cover band!” All of us laugh, even Kay.
“We rocked, though,” says Ginger. It’s been over half a decade, but we’re still not ready to admit how much we sucked back then. Somehow, though, we managed to get a few gigs. The sudden memory of Ginger’s voice and Eric’s drums and my guitar and the shitty overblown audio and the slashed speakers overwhelms me.
I order another round of shots. Soon, Ginger drops out of the competition, and it’s just Eric and I drinking, perfectly matching each other’s pace. The bar blurs around me as I effortlessly swallow my fifth shot of bottom-shelf vodka. The German lyrics make me laugh. I raise my arm meekly, and call for another round of shots (on me) but, judging from Kay’s expression, my words didn’t quite come out right. I’m not sure they came out at all. I don’t want to let Eric win, so I finally order a sixth round, at which point he taps out. “Hey,” says a voice I half-recognize. I think some of our music was good. I really do. I start to wonder—about a career, about a less shitty band, about my dad—but the alcohol stops me from thinking too hard, as does the now much louder music pounding my ears like a jackhammer. Ginger says something, but I can’t quite hear her over my own voice. “I know. ————— hate him too. ————- not fair ——-” or something like that. I feel a wetness on my cheeks. “———— a future. —— or ————, but you do,” says somebody who sounds like Eric. “Camarades et amitié,” say the speakers in their artificial voice. Dad says I used to be able to understand French. Or maybe it was Dutch?
Somebody grabs my arm, and I blink, and I’m in Kay’s car. It’s a nice car, so I try not to throw up, even as the vehicle swerves and drifts around: it’s the least I can do for her. Her … where is that girl, anyway? The car suddenly stops, and a person I assume is Kay ushers me out into what I can only assume is my apartment building. With great difficulty, I unlock the front door, and Kay follows me into the elevator. She follows me all the way into my apartment, in fact, which makes me feel a bit uneasy—the place is a mess. But she lets me go once I’m laid out on the couch, and as I close my eyes, I slur out a quick “bye, thank you fer drivin’ me home, Kay, ‘kay, okay, yeah.”
You walk out onto the colossal amphitheater with your bandmates, who you recognize as the members of Pink Floyd, minus Syd. The stadium is a picture-perfect Roman ruin, its walls a cracked, stony marble, its pillars etched with indecipherable carvings. Veins. A roaring audience greets you all—on a closer look, the audience members are like wax statues, colorless and covered in volcanic ash. There are tall figures, short figures, fat ones, thin ones, children: all covered head-to-toe in dirty ash. None of you comment on this oddity.
As you reach the center of the amphitheater, your equipment is already there: the drum set, the guitars, the amps, the microphones, and the synthesizer. You clear your throat and start to play.
The sky is a light, cloudless azure, the arena a contrasting monochrome. The first eight minutes of the song are played perfectly—each instrument swells like a breathing being, filling the air with music.
“Remember,” you sing with the rising tone of a question. “When you were …”
“When you we-e-ere …”
“You shone … you sho-o-one …”
The band plays on, adapting the song’s melody to your mis-sang lyrics. The band plays on, the chorus starts, all together now:
“Shine on, you crazy dia-a-amond!”
The Mme. Tussauds audience claps and whistles. As you sing, you peer through the stands, searching for a familiar face. You aren’t singing anymore, but the lyrics still come out in your voice.
“Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky …”
You spot her in the audience. Her hair is akin to the golden fleece, her eyes a piercing blue, her skin almost translucent. The wax figures don’t get their encore. As your performance ends and the audience spews from the stands, you run towards the exit, following her sunlight hair. You reach a gate and see her, almost at the horizon now, walking calmly—you follow her, but quickly run out of breath. In the second it takes you to recover, she vanishes. You run toward the horizon, catch a glimpse of reddening hair. You catch your breath, and she’s gone again. You run toward the horizon. You ignore the air trying to escape your throat, and run toward the horizon. You run toward the horizon. You run toward the horizon.
One, two, three, four—
I let out a thick groan, try to move my body, can’t. My eyes feel swampy, or maybe like two rusty iron doors. What time is it? What day is it? The only motion I can manage is a disheartened palm at my phone’s screen, which mercifully cuts off the alarm. The second motion I make, after several minutes of effort, is grabbing the phone. The screen says 3:42 p.m.—below the clock, there are missed texts from Kay. “where are u?” “hey, u alright?” “are u coming in today?” “mark n jean asked abt you. hope ur okay.” There are also missed texts from our boss and some miscellaneous notifications. Three missed calls, too. I finally manage to stand up and call him back, putting on my best person-who’s-not-about-to-vomit-their-guts-out impression.
“Hey Mark, sorry I didn’t make it to work today. I was feeling sick.” A long silence follows.
“Okay. Come in tomorrow if you feel better. I’ll have to have a talk with you about all this.” He hangs up.
I feel a tad more nauseous than before, and the passage of time seems to have sped up—by the time I’m out of bed and eating breakfast (a fried egg and toast, “Psycho Killer”), it’s 8:00 p.m., and by the time I finish, the yolk on the plate is cold and it’s 9:30. There is an acute pain above my brow, one I only notice after the lethargy washes off. I take some Advil and spend the next hour trying not to vomit with a shitty movie as background noise. It’s 11:00 P.M., almost, and I need to go to sleep, but I don’t feel tired at all. Still, I turn on the actigraph and shut my eyes.
You stare at the mailbox, letter in hand, ready to drop it off.
An ambulance whirs by, a police siren loops. I figure I won’t fall asleep like this, and try to wear myself out with some exercise, which helps a little. I lie back down.
It must belong to her. Her eyes are everywhere.
I have to blink a few times and turn myself over to realize I’m still awake. I put on some music, trying to calm down. Polygondwanaland comes and goes without a second thought. I pick up my guitar and play for a little while—my fingers tire quickly nowadays. I lie down again and try to imagine myself as a child.
You feel cold water up to your ankles. Something wriggles near your toes—a worm, maybe. It’s raining ice-cold, snow-white water. It stops wriggling. The waves speak:
One, two, three, four,
Wakey-wa—
The actigraph says I slept about three hours, with only scant bouts of REM sleep. Most of it was light sleep, it tells me. If it wasn’t for that, I’m not sure I would have realized that I slept in the first place. I take a quick shower and splash my face with cold water until I feel somewhat awake (enough to work, anyway). The bus is a few minutes late today, but I manage to get to the café early. Mark is there waiting for me, and he shows me to his office, which is really too small to call an office—it’s not much more than a spare room, almost a janitor’s closet.
“Look,” he says, sounding almost as exhausted as me. “You’ve missed work four times in the last three weeks. You were late twice, and you didn’t clock out properly last Thursday. I gave you enough warnings. You’re fired.”
I simply nod. He’s right, after all. I promptly leave the cramped room and then the building, giving a silent wave goodbye to Kay and to Jean, who’s just coming in. I mumble “the usual,” but it’s too quiet to cause any embarrassment. Or the music is too loud for anybody to hear me. I walk to the bus stop in the morning chill, accompanied by a gently rising sun, and have to wait there for about half an hour before the green line bus arrives and takes me home. The ride’s long enough to give the first half of 90125 a disinterested listen, and otherwise quite uneventful. I feel a lingering headache—the hangover of a hangover—which stops me from thinking much of anything. I fall asleep as soon as I’m home and wake up just as quickly after a short, dreamless nap, checking the actigraph to find nothing interesting. Time still seems to fly by me. I barely have the energy to think about the fact that I might not see Kay ever again. Or Jean. At least I have Kay’s number, but I’d be too embarrassed to call her anytime soon. Let alone show my face at the café (although, if I managed to do that, I’d surely get to see Jean). I suppose I could still see Ginger and Eric, but then again, drinking’s what got me here in the first place. My mind is a jumble of disparate worries by the time I fall asleep.
You sit on a wooden bench, waiting for a ride. There is a tall, illegible sign next to it. The loud crackle of torrential rain fills the air, accompanied by the sensation of flowing water beneath your feet. You turn to the sky for signs of a storm, but all you see is rows of transparent, glassy raindrops and the ghost of a rainbow somewhere in between them. You continue to wait for your ride, hoping that the rain won’t delay it—or worse, cancel it altogether.
A shrill, high-pitched meow cuts through the sound of the rain. A black cat approaches, gripping an umbrella with its curled tail. It climbs to the back of the bench and sits beside you, holding the umbrella above you both. “Thanks,” you say.
The cat speaks with a deep rasp. He asks to not be thought of as ‘the cat,’ but as Hugo, as that is his name. “Nice weather, eh?” He looks at you with an expectant grin. The rain growls behind him. You ask if he’s waiting for the bus, too, and he says he isn’t; he was just passing by. He motions towards the envelope sticking out of your pocket. “Who’s that for?”
“I dunno.”
“Perhaps it’s for me,” he says, and you chuckle as you picture a cat trying to read. Hugo seems offended by the notion. You apologize, and he is understanding. “We’re not thought of as a book-smart bunch, but most of us know how to read. We just don’t need to.” The rain lets up for a second, and he puts his umbrella away. “I have to go,” says Hugo, dejected. “But I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home. Always home.”
As soon as he leaves the bench, the rain begins anew—but he’s already gone, as is his umbrella.
After a while, a short woman approaches the bench. Her eyes are like sapphires, and her hair looks damp rather than wet, like the leaves of a weeping willow tree. She sits beside you and leans towards you as she speaks.
“My name’s Layla,” she says in an airy pitch. You tell her your name and exchange pleasantries.
“Have we met before,” you venture to ask.
“In a sense, yes. Although things are different now that I’ve told you my name.”
“Do you always talk … like that?
She chuckles.
“No, not really. I just wanted to be formal, I guess. Or mysterious.”
You hear the sound of tires on asphalt in the distance. It sounds nothing like her. She’s swaying her legs and humming a song, seemingly waiting for you to say something. You think for a while, and decide to hand her the letter. “I believe this is yours.” She smiles at you, the corners of her lips meeting the rose of her cheeks. “Not yet,” she says, “not yet.” The rain has all but cleared up, and the sound of tires has grown much louder. Your ride is here. You get in the car as she waves an excited goodbye.
I open my eyes effortlessly, for once. It only takes me a few minutes to get up and make my bed, and I don’t bother to check my phone. I do check the actigraph, though, somewhat surprised that I remembered to wear it last night. I’m proud of myself, if only for a second. I write down what it says — some basic things I can glean (time spent sleeping, different sleep phases, etc.), but there are arcane graphs and words I struggle to write down. The scalding water of the shower reminds me that I have no obligations anymore, and I can’t help but feel relieved, even though my brain tells me I shouldn’t. I start the day with a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on toasted sourdough. It’s heavy and a tad nauseating, but good with some mustard.
It’s an uneventful day, a weekend like any other save for the fact it’s Friday: I eat, smoke a joint, and listen to King Crimson’s live sets. A recent American set has every song off Court other than “Moonchild” and “I Talk to the Wind,” absences I notice but can’t really complain about. Neither of those songs is very good without Greg Lake’s voice, anyway.
I stroke the strings of my guitar as if I were petting a cat. I half-expect a song to come out, but hear only a jumble. The live set has ended, and all I hear are my own misshapen cords. Still, I can imagine a beautiful song and know I can write it. Not today, but someday. I stop playing once I get hungry, and resume after eating a bagful of microwaved popcorn. It tides me over until well into the night, at which point I make myself a salad with the last of this week’s produce. It doesn’t taste very good. Time passes unquestioningly and I blink. The phone rings.
“Hey.”
“Dad?”
“I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Things are better.” The words don’t come out, but it seems like he understands, somehow.
“Yeah? That’s good to hear. Your mother and I are on vacation right now. I’ll send you some pictures later, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Be careful, now.”
The actigraph says I slept, but not very well. It’s Saturday, so I get up sometime north of 12 p.m., make the same breakfast as yesterday, feel the same over-eating nausea afterward. I don’t put on King Crimson or smoke, though; I consider calling Dad again, but the idea of explaining my situation to him puts a bullet hole in my stomach. I call Kay instead, but she doesn’t pick up. I watch old sitcoms on Netflix as I wait for the water to boil, then finish the night with plain rice and ketchup. I’m out of rice now, but still have some ketchup left.
My eyes close involuntarily, and it’s Sunday—the actigraph now reads a 10-hour coma. All deep sleep, nothing else. I consider calling Dad again. He’ll tell me a weird anecdote about my childhood, and I’ll act like I remember it, and he’ll ask me how I’m doing, and I’ll say I’m fine, and he’ll say he’s fine, too, and he’ll hang up. I spot a missed text from Kay. I’m in bed. I’m not hungry, so I assume I must have eaten earlier. I don’t remember, though. Weary from nothing at all, my eyes close readily, inviting a dream, any dream.
In front of you is a checkered picnic-style tablecloth. Further forward is your father, eating a bowl of pasta and wearing a big, broad smile. Your mother is sitting beside him, watching him eat, and facing her is a little girl. Her bowl has meatballs in it. Merry laughter rings in your ears. Your own bowl is untouched—“are you okay?” asks your mother in a sweet, comforting cadence. You nod and twirl a forkful of spaghetti before bringing it to your mouth and chewing. The red sauce clings to the noodles and some sticks to your lip: the girl points this out, barely containing a chuckle. The dish has the flavor of a summer night and a campfire. The golden tint of the overhead light drenches the scene.
You blink, and the food disappears. The table is clear aside from two mugs: one’s in front of your father and has some text and a red heart on it, while the one in front of you is a plain teal. As made apparent by the smell, both contain shots of espresso, swirling and black. At the edge of your vision, you spot the girl watching TV. Your mother talks to your father, her husband, about school while he aggressively slurps his coffee. You finish your drink and head to the sink to wash the mug.
A knock on the door startles you. Hugo meows loudly. You open the door to find Layla on the other side of the portal. She is wearing a lustrous gown and her hair in an elegant, ribbony updo. Her lips are a saturated red and her lashes are a smooth black, highlighting the profundity of her eyes. A layer of blush sits lazily on her tan skin.
“Are you ready?” she asks.
“…Yeah.”
As you walk into the firefly-lit streets, you wonder where it is that you are going. You hold her hand and show her the way: three blocks straight, turn left, yes, your left, straight until the roundabout, take the rightmost path, four more blocks, and we’re there. The walk takes forever and no time at all.
“So where did you say you were taking me?”
You face a large, neon-lit sign, realizing that it’s gibberish to you. “This might not be the right place,” you say shyly, “but I wanted to take you to the opera house.” She gestures towards the sign; you turn to it again and see a slithering curve that in some blurry way resembles an O, but everything else is meaningless. You apologize, explaining that you can’t read. She seems amused, but confirms that it is indeed the opera house, so you go in alongside her.
There is a long and crowded line, but Layla shows a clerk the tickets and you are quickly ushered to the auditorium. You are given box seating, the perfect spot to see the seats laid out in a half-moon shape around the stage and the opera pit. Like in a cinema, the lights are shut off, but they’ll be turned on before the performance. As the the seats fill up, you are handed a pamphlet, which Layla reads for you. Soon enough, the performers are on stage and the lights are on.
The diva opens her mouth and starts to sing: One, two, three—
I wake in a panic. Thankfully, my breaths slow down again once I turn off the alarm. The actigraph says I slept well, so I must have, but I feel somewhat foggy. Every thought I can conjure returns to the opera house and the letter and the street signs, to the beady strings of characters I wish I could understand. How hard could it be, I wonder as I shower, eat, and brush my teeth, “Faust Arp” once again stuck in my head. With nothing better to do, I grab my laptop and start researching the topic. “Our inability to read in dreams comes down to the inactivity of the left hemisphere in the brain,” says one website. “Language processing occurs in Broca’s area and Wernica’s area,” it clarifies meaninglessly. Some websites claim that lucid dreaming is the key to achieving this, but I don’t think that makes much sense: lucidity and literacy are nothing alike. Have I ever heard myself speak in a dream? I don’t know. What matters is that none of these places offer solutions.
Further down, I find that many places (academic papers, even) think that artists, and writers in particular, are oftentimes the types of people that can read in their dreams. I don’t think their definition of ‘artists’ includes musicians, although we do think about words. Apparently, it’s something to do with the association of visuals and language in poetry. Lacking any better leads, I decide to grab the dustiest books off my shelf, hoping that they’ll have some wise old poetry or something of the sort. One passage opens: “I dreamt I was a butterfly.”
I find some poetry collections; Keats, Wilde, Dickinson, Chaucer, things I borrowed from the library for English classes and never bothered to return. Out Of The Blue loops in the background as I read and re-read the poems, trying my best to imagine a picture with each word. By the early afternoon, I’m exhausted. I eat and resume my studies.
Days might have passed—I don’t know. I have slept, but haven’t dreamed. I realize I can’t find the actigraph, and don’t know whether I already returned it or just lost it somewhere in my apartment. I realize, too, that I can’t get myself to care.
When I close my eyes I see a scroll. Sometimes, I see nothing at all—other times, a younger version of me staring back—but most often it’s a scroll, somewhere between brown and dark yellow, filled with rows upon rows of text. I resolve to not allow myself to dream until the scroll becomes legible. Keats, Wilde, Dickinson, Chaucer. Little by little, I start to see words. There is an alphabet, and a logic to the alphabet, and a natural correspondence of sound and shape. Still, I read; both because I want to deliver that letter and because I find the poetry genuinely captivating. It’s not Syd Barrett, but it’s not bad, either.
Night has come and gone by the time I finally realize I’m starving. The feeling strikes me as I lay in bed, closing and opening my eyes repeatedly in an attempt to picture a scroll. Suddenly, my stomach feels like a tarry black canyon, and my mouth is a dry riverbed. I search around the apartment, but my pantry’s empty—besides, I don’t know if I have the energy to cook. I sigh and open a delivery app: a few minutes pass, and each second of indecision just makes me hungrier. I eventually decide on a large pepperoni and sausage pizza, which sounds particularly good to my hunger-addled brain. My debit card declines.
I try again, and it declines. I check the in-app information, type my card details in manually. It declines. I look at it again to make sure I got it right (the numbers are odd and blurry), and type it in again for good measure. It declines. I think to call the bank, but decide to check my account balance instead. A pitiful $1.48 stares back at me from the computer screen. The account’s just about empty, other than the money I’ve been saving up for music school. I look at my guitar, then down at my grumbling stomach, then to the digits on the computer. I don’t have a choice.
The pizza’s not that expensive, but withdrawing money from my savings feels like a gut-punch. The computer asks me if I’m sure I want to make this transfer, and, to be honest, I’m not. The food’s estimated to take forty-five minutes to arrive, so I put on Selling England By The Pound, as I often do when I’m feeling aimless. An apparent delay results in an extra ten-minute wait, but I don’t mind: it lets the album finish.
The pizza’s so big it’s hard to carry upstairs. Even though I’m starving, it takes me a while to start eating, as I put Animals on and let the first ten minutes of the album pass me by. The pizza’s chewy, doughy, and a little bland. The pepperoni helps, but the paper-thin disks fall off the damn thing, and half the cheese pulls away in a single bite, leaving me to eat almost-bare bread and a too-soft crust. I start to feel nauseous, so I stop eating before I’ve finished a single slice. I pick some sausage bits from the rest of the pie before I close the box and place it in my otherwise empty fridge. Once I’ve put it away, I realize that I’m still hungry, and anxious tears start to well up. I take slow, calculated breaths to try and calm myself down.
I touch my guitar, and a little bit of grease gets on it. I can’t be bothered to clean right now. I just want to rest. I close my eyes.
You are falling. A celestial void stretches around you, each glowing star falling alongside you. You aren’t breathing, but your lungs feel normal. Hugo rubs up against your leg. You couldn’t notice him in the darkness of the void. “Where are we?” you ask, and he looks at you like you’re an idiot. “This is an elevator. My question is where we’re going to.” You shrug. He raises his head to look you in the eye. “Well? Aren’t you gonna read it?”
“It’s not for me to read.”
“Sure, but … aren’t you curious?”
You put your hands in your pockets, confirming that the envelope’s still there. “Wasn’t that what this whole thing was for?” Your intentions feel empty, malicious even: reading the letter seems the worst possible idea. “You’re hopeless,” Hugo remarks. A short forever passes by as you both fall and fall. He turns away from you and rasps something about having to go. Hugo’s a busy cat, and he promises he’ll talk to you again soon. You fall, alone, for another eternity. The stars fade away, and the darkness of the void gives way to an aquamarine skyscape and a rising sun beneath you.
Suddenly, you are encased in a glass structure. A person stands before you: after adjusting your vision, you realize that it is indeed you, or a younger version of yourself. Same eyes, same brow, same nose, same untamed hair, same freckles … like looking into a mirror. You stare at each other for a while.
“I’m sorry for running away.”
Hearing your own voice startles you. You open your mouth, and the other you speaks in your stead.
“I’m sorry I made you forget.”
The apology feels somewhat dishonest. Perhaps it’s better to have forgotten. Like Layla did before, the other you speaks too cryptically and too verbosely.
“…It’s too late to turn back now.”
You are handed the same envelope you already had in your pocket. You realize it has your name, and your old address, on it. The other you nods enthusiastically. Once again, you tap the seal and unfold the letter. In big, childlike letters, it says the following: “THIS WORLD IS YOURS.”
The other you is gone, and your fall abruptly stops. The landing doesn’t hurt, even though the pavement is hard. You blink, and the world blinks alongside you. You stand on the little dirt road that leads home. The sky breathes with you, replete with paper-mache clouds and the blond sun. Inside, there is a distinct sense of calm, an intoxicating perfume that permeates every room. Layla greets you with a kiss as you enter; Hugo runs towards you, rubbing up against your legs. You’re back, they seem to be saying. At long last, you’re home.
You lie on the living room couch, resting for a while. For a moment, your bones feel like they’ll shatter into a million pieces, as if they’ve suddenly remembered the brunt of a long journey—thankfully, the pain dissipates in an instant. They seem to have forgotten. You stare at the unfolded letter in your hands, reading it again and again until the words vanish into inky glyphs whose meaning you can hardly recall. The record player beside you is open and empty, the needle beckoning.
There is a pile of vinyls lazily stacked next to the TV: classic Beatles records, old jazz standards, records with no sleeve and no name, records that fall between your fingers like flowing water, records made of solid silver, and everything in between. The dusty, graying sleeves at the bottom of the pile call to you; you grab one, hold it as if it were a newborn, and carefully blow away the dust. It’s In Rainbows. You put the record on the turntable, and “15 Step” begins to play.
Almost automatically—as if it was the most natural thing in the world—you lift the tonearm and move it to the final chords of “All I Need,” the final throes of its melancholy passing by your ears and vanishing into the wind. “Faust Arp” starts.
One, two, three, four,
You exit through the back door, leaving it open, and sit on the wooden chair outside. You place the throw pillow that was on it on your lap and observe the garden. Layla waters the plants, then crouches down to pick the weeds, letting out a soft grunt as she does so. In the blink of an eye, the seeds she plants become strawberry bushes, grapevines, and spring flowers. Her golden hair is the only part of her you can see now, hidden by the tall vegetation. You think about the letter once again and tap your pocket, confirming that it is indeed there. You wonder how you’ll tell her you have to leave. You wonder if you’ll tell her, if you have to go after all. Like you said—it’s too late to turn back. You watch Layla’s glowing hair flutter in the breeze. You get up. “Let me help you with that,” you say, crouching down to pick the remaining weeds.
As you do so, you brush up against her, and she giggles. Faint music emanates from the record player inside, and you realize you haven’t heard the end of the song in what feels like forever. Layla sways her head and sings along.
You’ve got a head full of feathers,
You got melted to butter