Sweet, Final Dreams

I used to have dreams, you know. I wasn’t always this way. As a child, before my mama died, I wanted to be a doctor so that I could help heal her. When I graduated high school, I entered culinary school so that I could cater to the most exotic of tastes. When everything I touched turned to ash and my da disappeared, I decided that I would take on writing. I would weave endless worlds that no one knew existed before, then offer it to the masses as a place of escape. When every publishing house rejected my work, I scoured the newspapers for something more substantial amongst the tear drops.

Then, one day, I realized it didn’t matter what my dreams were, that they would never come into fruition, and I stopped having them. My nights were blissfully quiet amongst the backdrop of night life. My failures stopped haunting my nightmares. I stopped caring about the world around me, thinking only of returning once more to my warm bed. I lost interest in everything – politics, religion, celebrities, gossip, truth, my closest friends, lasting relationships, one-night flings, life, death, everything. Not once did I nor anyone around me consider me depressed. My life just wasn’t made for greatness or excitement. I was just to be among the millions of people walking beneath the iron gravestones.

I didn’t realize how bleak my life was until the day our paths crossed that first time. I was content going day by day, doing the same routine, but the instant I saw you was the beginning. That moment that you crashed into me was the moment I knew it was time to start dreaming again. You didn’t even see me, other than to apologize for the jostle. Amongst the people surrounding you, that separated you from the start; but looking into your eyes, I thought I knew everything there was to know about you: your backstory, your occupation, what meeting you were running late for, your preconception of how you’d do, and how well you really would do. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.

I still ignored all that on our first encounter. I originally thought that it was just something from my past, some writing exercise that I’d forgotten about, reemerging to the surface to play tricks on my mind. I carried on with my life, making my living so that one day I could pay my funeral bills. When I saw your handiwork in the news that night, I thought it a fluke. And on that first night, I dreamt for the first time in years.

But nothing would come of it, I thought. In this city of eight million restless souls, I would never see you again. You didn’t even recognize me the next time we ran into each other, and once again I ignored you. It was mere coincidence, I thought; you looked lost, like you’ve never been this deep into the city before in your life, and for me this was just another day at work. But when fate had us colliding with each other again, I finally listened to it and spoke to you. Do you remember my words?

“Get out of the city, you asshole. Go back to the country where you belong.”

Oh, I was cruel that day. But it got your attention, didn’t it? And for the next three days I showed you around my home streets, helping you get around the fact that milk came from plastic bottles and not those “cows” that you claimed to exist, teaching you when to cross the street without getting run over by the immigrant taxi drivers, catching a snatcher while his hands were still in your pocket. I taught you how to eat food properly without messing up your suit, how to spot drugs that were slipped into your drink, and on what street corners to get your medicine. On each of those nights, my dreams ran rampant, showing me the worlds I long had abandoned.

You went home soon thereafter. I thought I’d be happy at first. I no longer had to babysit a grownup, after all. But I wasn’t; it was nice for those few days to have someone to laugh with,

become close to, and treat me like a person. You spoiled me. That’s when I showed up at your door, complaining about the stench of fresh air. I gave up my old life, hoping that you’d take me in. You did – and then your wife saw me and kicked me out.

I should have called first, but I couldn’t. I had burned all my bridges in the city, and our time together told me that I could rely on you. When she kicked me out, you helped me out again by telling me where I could stay for the night. You even gave me some money to help pay for it, even though I told you I had enough. I didn’t want your pity, I said. You weren’t giving me any, you said. Then you sent me on my way.

I almost went back to my city then. I could easily get lost among millions of people; just because I burned down my old bridges didn’t mean I couldn’t build more. Your wife caught me looking at bus tickets and took me off to the side. She apologized for her outrage, but I didn’t care. I thought I was someone special in your life, someone you cared about. Heaven knows you were to me. In my eyes, you lied to me, and this other woman would never be able to tell me different. She did good at calming me down, though, just long enough to point out the fact that I was about to buy a ticket to a different York than my York. I knew my city was special, but that place didn’t sound too nice. It’d be like going from one hell to another.

My bus wasn’t going to be in until late the next day, so I went to that place you told me about. Your wife told me that she misunderstood your intentions and that she’d be glad to let me stay at your house, but I declined. I was hurt enough by you as it was. I wanted to put myself as far away from you as possible, so I left her at the station with the money you gave me. She did give that back to you, right? I bet she didn’t, that bitch.

I managed to make it back to the city shortly after that episode, and I got a new job in a different part of town. I almost got lost a few times – I never went to this part of the city because this was where all the snobs lived. I couldn’t help it, though; it was close to my new job that I never thought I’d get, and with the little bit of extra money I was making I could afford to live somewhere nice for once. I guess I owe that to you, though; I would’ve been content to live in squalor if I hadn’t seen how nice and homey your house was.

A month went by, and my dreams stopped once again. Another couple years, and I managed to stop thinking about you altogether. That’s right, laugh at me all you want; I hated you because you lied to me about your life in the country, but it took me a good long while to forget about you. Alright, you done laughing? You can admit it, you laughed. But shut up now, let me continue, you jerk. I worked my way up in that firm, from office assistant to paralegal, and they even offered to put me through law school if I wanted. It was a nice offer, and anyone would be a fool not to take it.

I didn’t, though. In those years it took for me to forget about you, I remember looking up to the sky and think how very much like a crypt this place was, with all us humans the insects that helped decompose skin. I wanted out. I wanted a life like… well, like what you had. My boss offered me a position in a chain office, close enough to your country that I could own a house but close enough to my city so it’d feel like home. I was ecstatic and took the job immediately. Another few years went by, and I was finally a lawyer in that office.

I was celebrating my passing of the bar exam when, in the muted television screen, there you were. You’re a real killjoy when you do that, by the way. But you looked good. You looked happy, and I suppose you had every right to be: your brat just won her fourth grade state spelling bee and was going to regionals. But I wanted it to me that you were proud of, me that was by your side, me that you looked after. My night that night was dark indeed.


But my sleep wasn’t. I dreamt again, and for the first time since I landed the office assistant position I was late to work that next day. I laughed it off, said I celebrated too heavily the night before, but the moment I was in my new office, while I was looking over my first case, I thought back to the dream I had that previous night. You weren’t in it, but I knew that you had something to do with the sudden dream. You can’t keep popping into my life whenever you want and screw around with my head, you bastard!

Sorry about that. Anyways, I went out the night after I won that case. It wasn’t anything spectacular – just keeping a man wrongly accused of drunk driving out of prison – but it was still my first victory. My boss from the firm inside the city came out to watch me, and he said that I did beyond his wildest imagination (which was saying something, since a vast majority of his winning closing statements came from that imagination). I left the bar that night feeling good, planning on walking home and spending a little me time the next day. That was the day I died.

I heard laughter off in the distance after I saw that face again not four hours ago through the windshield. I couldn’t get mad at the jovial sound, though; after all, it was so ironic that I laughed too. Then I laid there, watching my broken body be taken away to the hospital so that some over-paid jackass of a doctor could properly pronounce me dead. I figured that, after hearing the proper and informed diagnosis, I’d go on up to Heaven or down to Hell, whichever was my just dessert. I had spent so much time on that plane of existence not really feeling anything that I just wanted to move on with my life.

Did I ever tell you how much of a killjoy you are? I tell you… if there’s anything that you can do better than be whatever environmentalistic specialist you are, it’s being a killjoy. Just as I was about to let lose my mortal coils or whatever, what do I hear but your name on the hospital television. Your green energy alternative plan was being accepted by no other than the firm I was

just working for. I don’t know what got me angrier: the fact that you were doing so well in life while I was dead, or that the only reason that I could think of on how I got the job in the first place was you probably sweet talkin’ my boss into letting me have a position in his firm. I wanted to scream, shout, roll around and punch something, but it’s hard to do so as a ghost. What we can do, though, if we think hard enough about someone, is go right to wherever that person is and plot on how we’d haunt them.

You were in bed at the time, looking over a picture that your son drew in preschool. I could see it in your eyes. You didn’t care that your proposal got accepted. You didn’t care that, a few months earlier, you lost your full-time position at the local university because of budget cuts. You were still in grief over losing your wife, who you truly loved, while she and your daughter were coming back from regionals, but at that particular moment you weren’t thinking about that. When you were looking at that picture your son drew, you were only thinking about how some day, little Nick could become an artist.

You know that thing you do with your nose when you smile, how it twitches slightly to the left? That was what finally dissolved my anger about everything I thought I was angry about. I laid down on your bed next to you. I thought back to those days we spent together when we first met and I realized: you never lied to me. I thought I had pegged you out on my first look at you, and that first misimpression tainted my view. I thought you came to the city to have an affair and I was the first woman you took notice of. Not once, now that I thought about it, did you accept my advances; at the time I thought you were just playing hard-to-get, but laying there next to you I got to see what you really thought of me. You thought that one day, I’d make a great role model for your daughter and hoped that one day I’d come back and be there for her.

I curled up that night, using your lap as my pillow. I was surprised too; I didn’t think ghosts or whatever I was would sleep. But sleep I did, and as my conscience slipped to what was to come I felt burning tears coming from my eyes. I dreamt that night, and what a wonderful dream it was. I dreamt of a life where you were always watching me, and we lived in the country where I would dream, and we would only visit the city when we had to. I dreamt of your wife, how she was always there for me until the day of the accident. I dreamt of a time when you and Mommy had your real first fight, about that strange girl from some strange place called New York City came to our house and hoped to stay for a while. I dreamt of a time and place that could have been, if I hadn’t been so stupid to accept it.

When I woke up from that dream, you were there to greet me.