Only A Dream

Only A Dream
Ambrose Chapel

It was Christmas Day 1987. Phil Harrison lay on a plaid worn couch in the middle of a beat up apartment. The sun had been shining for some time and Phil, just ten years old, waited expectantly. The bare room contained no evidence of the season or upcoming holiday except a miniature plastic tree. The apartment was silent, one of the few times it was, and the sun was shining brightly through a dirty window. Skyscrapers were distant shadows of lives and hope.

Phil gripped tightly on a blanket his mother had stolen from a cheap motel. He turned his head upwards to look at an end table next to the couch. A single picture was there in a gold frame. It was a picture of Phil, his mother, and his aunt. His mother had always been temperamental and his aunt Shirley would sometimes take Phil to her house when his parent’s fights got out of control. He really liked Aunt Shirley.

There was a shuffling from the bedroom, a thump. Phil now closed his eyes pretending to sleep. Before his eyelids shut tightly the clock read 11:00. The bedroom door swung open on rusty hinges. A poorly clad figure stared at the child under the covers on the couch half heartedly. She shuttered and let warm air escape out of pale lips. She moved towards the broken fridge and slid her hand on top of the hot metal. The fridge stood in the single windows light absorbing the suns heat and was therefore warmer then most of the apartment. She pulled down a brown worn out canvas bag from on top of the fridge. Inside was a syringe and other materials about. After injecting herself, she stared for a long time at child on the couch. She began to cry silently as she moved towards the counter.

On the counter was a long dull knife. The knife came from her old house, from her old life, before her husband died. He worked construction as a brick layer. He had introduced her to the “habit” that she now practiced so frequently. He lost his job after he was caught stealing the equipment from construction sites and selling it to support his addiction. It was the day after he lost his job that she found out she was pregnant. He urged her to get an abortion with the little they had saved, but she had refused. Before they knew it the child was born. She soon got a job working at Wal-Mart and he got a job in a landscaping company. She vowed off the drugs; he hid them.

He overdosed one fall night while the son was crying in his crib. They had no money for the hospital bills, no way to repay the fines of a man’s death. Never wanting to give up the child she fled. She packed a bag and rented a cheap apartment in the city under an assumed name.

This is how the child came to lay here. After the husband and fathers death she turned to the heroin as a crutch, but it soon became a weight. She took the knife in her palm and walked to the couch.

The child pretended to begin to wake up and stared at the ceiling. He knew mommy had taken her medicine and shouldn’t have bothered her for a while, but was hopeful for a Christmas present.

“Mommy? Can I open my present now?” The blue gift wrapped item sat under the tree for two weeks. Phil had found the tree in a dumpster after last year’s Christmas. He hoarded it and hid it under the couch till next year. It had been his present and he was overjoyed to  find one in return.

She held the knife tighter now and lifted it over her head. She finally, after ten years, gave up on her child.

*****

“As you can see the rooms are quite spacious. Before this area was redeveloped by Mayor Ransall six years ago this was all underprivileged families living here. These were soon turned into the elegant condominiums they are now.” She was quite the ugly woman I thought to myself. She was skinny and an okay figure but her face spoiled it . She had a small but crooked nose, and small separated eyes. Her large forehead sloped back into brown hair that was cut much too short. She moved around the cramped rooms pointing at the furniture that had been left here by its previous owners.

We were shown the apartment not speaking a word. Even though the rooms were small the furniture was in good shape and the apartment looked in order. There was one odd feature, in the living room there was only one single small window.

“So why did the previous owners not take the furniture with them?” I asked as she took a breath from rambling on about how great and affordable a place this was.

“Well they left in a hurry. The wife died in this home and the husband couldn’t bear to be here anymore.” She said without making eye contact or even facing him. This was obviously a subject she wanted to avoid.

My wife Judith bumped in here speaking for the first time, “If you don’t mind me asking, how did she…pass?” She was not the reserved type, anything but. As a matter of fact this quiet side of her I had never seen.

“Well there was an accident. She killed herself. They found her…hanging from the ceiling fan in the bedroom. Of course that has been replaced. The odd thing was she never showed any signs of depression. The marriage was happy, had its bumps like all of them, but her life was good. She had money.” She said this in another attempt at dismissal. For some reason I could feel she was hiding something.

“Why did she do it then?” She said almost immediately. I noticed now that Judith was sweating.

“Nobody quite knows.”

“Can we have a minute?” My wife asked simply when we were back in the living room. The realtor nodded her head and walked into the bedroom. I could hear her making a call almost immediately.

“So what do you think of it?” She asked as she sat down on the overstuffed leather couch.

“It’s in a good location. It’s cheap, especially with all this furniture. Something feels wrong though.” I said the last part simply but without thinking it. I never even noticed this trepidation until after I said it. Suddenly I felt the rooms were weighing down on me. I stood up off the couch. I don’t know why except that it was disgust.

“Me too. But we have been looking for months now, and I can’t live where we are now. It reminds me of him.”

Him. Him was the child they had lost when he was only three. I worked as a publisher for Random House and my wife stayed at home with him. We had a nice house in suburbia with the white picket fence and the Friday barbecues. We also had a beautiful in ground pool with always crystal clear water.

She first started smoking weed in college and never stopped. It never became big but never went away. She was smoking that day when he fell in the pool and drowned. She soon realized what happened but it was far too late. I will never forget the day when I got that call. I was on my cell phone in my office looking at a bad romance story when she said the words, “He’s in the hospital.”

By then he had been pronounced dead, and the only real part of the hospital he was in was the morgue. She first told me that I was to blame. I went back to work in a fortnight and received another call, “Honey, this is Carol your neighbor. I went over to your house to borrow some shortening when I seen her on the floor like that. She is at the hospital.”

I would later find out that “like that” meant with her wrists cut. She spent weeks more in the psychiatric ward of the hospital. Ironically one floor above where my dead soon once lay.

We sat there talking, but we both agreed we had to move here. We would sell the old house and furniture everything that reminded us of him. This would be were we are reborn.

We moved in efficiently and quickly not wanting to waste time. I was sleeping in the strange bed next to my wife when I woke in a cold sweat. The moon stretched its faded beams over the blue carpet of our bedroom. It lay across the bed draped, so to speak, covering us in its eerie glow like a blanket. It crossed my face one side shadow the other light. The nightmare that awoke me faded me as quickly as it came. Somehow the bed seemed contaminated with that fear that had rested on me this night the moonlight, my nightmare. I got out of bed and moved to the kitchen. The tap water was luke warm, soothing my burning throat muscles as I took a small sip from a new glass. I put the empty glass in the sink.

For a moment I stood there in the kitchen. The kitchen also had one solitary window and in the distance the life lights of the city stood. I moved towards the window with a hesitation not wanting to face the moon. Outside the city still breathed and its heart still pumped its blood, the people, through out its veins. A very few still walked the streets, cars driving past them some organ or tissue to go to. As I turned around to return to bed a shadow moved past the kitchen doorway. It was but a shadow but I had seen it. I moved into the living room slowly.

I told myself that I was playing tricks on myself, my nightmare must be blending with reality. But standing there in the middle of the living room was my dead son. He was covered in dirt, his skin decaying. His eyes were glass reflecting unbridled horror in my face. He shut his eyes tight and for a moment I fancied I seen him smile.

I walked towards him, slowly. He was my son I told myself. Impossibility did not exist in that moment. I reached out for him, for whatever was standing there. I only felt cold, and then he was gone. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I lifted my hand to my face the one I had touched my son with. My nightmare had never ended, it had just begun.

I woke up in the morning to traffic and whether reports. It was two weeks before Christmas and stores were advertising sales in commercials. They were like cries in a deaf world for business and attention.  I tapped my wife on the shoulder, gently then harder, she as quite the deep sleeper. When her eyes fluttered then fully opened, I almost blurted out what I had seen the night before. It was like a being inside of me was pressing on my flesh. I felt like shaking or bursting. It was elation mixed with sorrow. She would not believe me though. Greif, she would say. Ah! But I am not insane, and how can I grieve for as son not yet dead.

On the way home from work I decided logically that what I seen last night was not possible and did not happen. However, my logic was playing defense because in my heart I knew it had to be true. Many times we see or hear things, I told myself, that we tell our selves are not true, but maybe they are. Just maybe.

When I arrived at home, my wife was hanging up Christmas decorations. In the corner was a stunning Christmas tree. I knew it wasn’t for us. We could not erase him from our lives entirely. That three, was a memorial to him. It brought me no joy, and I think it did none for her. It was something else, not a habit, but rather a sense of duty.

Night after night a vague nightmare returned. There were visions of a child on a couch, blood on the floor, a panicking cry. Next to our beds were two lamps on each side. I flew up one night in one of the “fits” and knocked one over. My wife rolled over, “What’s wrong honey?”

I told her everything.

After our sons death we as a couple went to a therapist. After a while I stopped seeing her, but my wife still did. The next day I made an appointment with her, Shirley Vegas. I arrived ten minutes early. I had nothing against her, but didn’t like psychiatrists. For some reason being the center of attention and study always made me uncomfortable.

“When you made your appointment, I understand,  you made it because of some nightmares? Nightmares about P…” she spoke opening a notebook and uncapping a cheap Bic pen.

“Yes my son. I can’t quite remember my nightmares except for a bloody couch and a bright light. Hovering above me. A flash is perhaps a better word.” Iknew the routine. Volunteer as much information as possible so I could make this as quick as possible. “Then when I get up, which I always do at that point, I go to the kitchen to get some water and cool off. The thing is…I see him… my son… he stands there.”

“Does he say anything?”

“Nothing. But his eyes are always shut, if that makes a difference.”

“It might. How do you feel when you see him? Happy or depressed or what?”

“ Disgusted. He’s covered in dirt or something. But its not the dirt and decaying skin…”

“So you see him as a corpse?”

He cringed at that, “Yes.”

She looked up at him from her notepad and gestured me to continue.

“I don’t think it’s his appearance. Its something else. I don’t know. I know what you want to say: I am still not over him. But I am. I really am. Or at least as over as you can get. My wife kind of pressured me into this. We just moved in to a new apartment and…”

“You shouldn’t assume. I haven’t made any diagnosis yet, and I don’t think you would have come if you really have either. Lets explore another theory. You.”

“You mean my childhood. It’s not that.”

“We discussed this. If we are going to get anywhere you need to be able to be open. The fact is you were abused as a child. And nine times out of ten the kid feels in someway responsible. Now let me ask you does the kid…”

“It’s not that.”

I woke up in a stupor. The nightmare was even vaguer this night. For some reason the window was open. A cold chill whipped around the room, bouncing off the walls, and then it began borrowing it in my skin. Along with the cold so did some deep despair. I turned to my wife. Laying there in the middle between us, was my son. He lay there and opened his eyes. A small grin stretched its way onto his face. The stench of long buried death made me shutter and jump back. I fell off the bed, and pain shot up my back. I lay there only for a second, when his faced popped out above me. He was still here. He reached out to me with long yellow finger nails, and I rolled out of the way to dodge him. My wife sat up in bed and said, “What are you doing honey. He just had a nightmare. He…”

“GO AWAY!” I yelled with my eyes tearing. “Please I’m happy here.”

I woke up. The sun crawled its way into our room. The alarm started going off. My wife was standing at the window looking out, “You had a good night’s sleep for once. Seeing Shirley really did help didn’t it?”

I nodded in agreement and got up. Off to work. I wiped a tear from my eye.

Weeks went by with nightmares becoming less frequent. The therapist insisted on hidden memories, more out of a desire for something exotic more then reason. We ate silently at the dinner table. Then for a while longer we watched TV without talking. I went to my office to sit down with a good book and pass away surplus hours. When the door was closed and locked I turned over to a locked filing cabinet. I took out a key from my pocket and unlocked it. I took out a picture in a gold frame. Sitting down I sat looking at it. Two women and a young child sat smiling into the lens. Slowly I drifted off to sleep. My grip loosened. The picture fell to the ground and broke into thousands of pieces.

I opened my eyes and the study was dark. My wife must be worried about me now. I got up to replace the picture in my hands, but noticed the picture was now blank. Suddenly I grew frantic searching the floor for it, for some reason thinking I could find the image. I looked under the desk, and when I gazed up, I seen him.

“I’m right here daddy. Why did you break my picture, don’t you love me anymore?”

“Son?” I said getting up gripping the desk. My hands grew wet and sweaty.

“You killed me. You and mommy. Because you made mommy mad. It’s all your fault. You killed me.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to make me mad. Won’t she forgive me. Tell her I’m sorry. Please I’m sorry.”

“It’s too late now. You hurt her so now she hurt you. Now I have to hurt you.” Then as if he  was not bounded by natural laws he jumped up. He jumped up onto my shoulder and but down. I tried to shake him off gently and he fell. I ran to the door and slammed it shut behind me. I ran out into the hall passing my wife’s corpse. I slid into the halls and down stairs. I could hear him. I could feel him behind me. I ran until every inch and organ in my body hurt. I was on the street now, standing dead center on the dashed lane lines. Streetlights exposed dust in the air and the abandoned streets. I turned around to meet his stare.

“You have to pay!” He yelled like he was throwing a tantrum.

I ran again knowing I was unfit and unable to stay much longer. I hopped up a nearby fire escape. He was to small and couldn’t jump as high as me. He couldn’t get up here. About eight floors up was an apartment with the lights on. I ran upwards as hard as I could until I got to the dirty window. I opened it and stepped in.

It was morning now the sun high over head. In a tattered couch a child lay with his eyes closed holding onto a blanket. He opened them slowly. It was my son. He got up and went over to me. He stood infront of me with a blank calm face.

“You hurt her; you made Mommy cry! “ He went over to me and pushed. I didn’t resist only fell limp. I tumbled out the open window, and down. Down. Down.
*****
Phil awoke. His mother held a sharp kitchen knife over his head. Tears ran down her emotionally twisted face. In an absence of a life to flash before his eyes, an imaginary one appeared before him. He wished that the life he experienced in that dream, that vision, that hope; would come real. As she brought the knife down he knew it would never happen. It had never been a nightmare. Only a dream.