Chapter 20 : Hold me

I haven't been able to sleep more than two/three hours a night for the past few weeks.
I either get to bed, immediately fall asleep and wake a few hours later, or i spend eternities counting the cracks in the ceiling.
Four hundred and thirty six, as of yesterday.
One day i'm going to wake up with a piece of ceiling in my mouth.

I don't know if this is due to lack of sleep, or malnourishment, but this guy's voice, in a kind of monotone monologue, and when i say "monotone" read rather dull and with one single tone, really pisses me off.
The guy just won't shut up.
But by the end of the session he prescribes me some meds to take : Diazepam, Fluoxetin, Lorenin. The usual suspects.

I get home well before seven, fix some tea to wash down the pills, some crackers just because, and i sit in front of the tv, watching a commercial that claims that five minutes a day for two weeks doing the exercise they show will give me abs like Schwarzenegger.
I thought of another sort of exercise that would yield me far better and pleasurable results, but that involves something that as of late happens to other guys : women.

I rubbed an eye, and for a few seconds i swear that the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland was looking straight at me.
Only... hold on, wait a minute... what's that you're saying? Did i see Santa Claus? And the clown? You mean they had agreed to go together by train to the circus?
And they are all terribly drunk? Drinking what??
I felt someone pulling me, and there was Alice, a wide smile, small teeth covered with metal, giving me a bottle of something to drink.
It was a bottle of a kind of juice i had not seen since i was six, and under the bottle cap, yes! i found the Spider-Man sticker i never got as a child.

I woke up.
Fuck, what a weird dream.
I sat back in the bed, sleepy, but the smell of something being cooked woke me a bit more. I was surprised at how hungry i was.
I rolled myself in one of the sheets, went to the kitchen and there you were, stark naked, making breakfast.
"Hello, love!", you said, "Let me finish cooking these eggs, then i'll give you a kiss, ok?"
"Huh... hi?", i added sneakily. How would i tell the poor girl that evidently she had gotten the wrong floor? But there's something so familiar about her, i just can't put my finger quite in it...
The promised kiss came, and that was enough to turn me on.
She went back to the kitchen, made breakfast for us (an egg, two sausages, and a glass of skimmed milk), but before you even finished it, mine was long gone, such was my hunger.
You sat i the table, next to me, and drank some more milk. You ask me if i had slept well.
It took me a while to answer, i was sorting out what to say.
Finally i said, "I suppose. But listen, there is something i must tell you."
When i was just about to say that you were in the wrong place, you opened up your mouth, revealing horrible, sharp teeth that would make any jurassic predator proud.
Then you smiled a smile that enormous white creatures that dwell in the oceans would smile, the kind of creatures that when you see their fin coming our way, we know it's already too late, and said:
"But you told me you loved me!"


I woke up.
What the hell? I'm either very sweaty or... No, relax, get a grip. It's just sweat, and a shower will take care of that.
A nice, long and hot shower later, and i will be good as new.
What crazy dreams, these. It's gotta be the pills, i'll never take them again.
I wash my head with a wild fury, as if my very hair was to blame for all this weird shit.
As a rule, i wash my teeth as i am showering, and while i was doing so i notice a loose tooth.
So first thing after i shower, i gotta go to the dentist to get this fixed.

I finish washing my teeth, rinse them with water and a blue liquid that stings like hell, and out of morbid curiosity, i touch the tooth.
It wiggles a bit, but nothing to fuss about.
But i continue touching the tooth, and it wiggles a bit more.
So by now it's more than just a bit loose.
Ok, i thought, maybe one last poke before i leave and hit the dentist.
This is the last one, i can stop anytime i want to.

I remembered the movie "The Fly", where in the mutation phase, the guy's body started to fall apart.
I cancelled that last poke, got dressed, and got out.
It was still early, and as such still a bit cold outside.
This is to say that maybe i should have worn something a bit warmer, but because i am too damn proud to go back, i endured the morning chill.
I went to the newstand, checked what the sports papers had to say. Weekend results, mostly.
I grabbed something to eat in a nearby caffé (because dreaming of food makes you hungry), and i ordered from a waitress i had never seen before, a piece of toast and some coffee.
Now, where had i seen this girl before?

Minutes later, the waitress brought my order, the toast and coffee, and i immediately set to.
Damn, i've seen that face before...
She brought me the bill soon afterwards, and smiled the most beautiful smile i had ever seen, her mouth shiny with metallic braces.
I tried to smile in return, and when i open my mouth, my dangling tooth falls right in the middle of us.

I woke up.
And this time, i slapped myself silly and pinched myself a number of times.
Right, everything seems to be in their right place, no tooth is loose.
It doesn't smell like food, therefore no-one is cooking.
Ok, back to normal.
I got up to eat some real breakfast, some kind of corn flakes or the other.
Crunch crunch, delicious crunch.
I went back to bed, i figured i should catch up on my reading.
So much to read, and i had no idea where to start.
There was much to choose from, but in the end i narrowed it down to three choices : 'Talon of the Silver Hawk', by Raymond E. Feist; 'A game of thrones', by George R.R. Martin, or 'Through the looking glass', by Lewis Carroll.
All books i had read many times before, of course.

So i studied the covers in great detail, and when i thought my decision had been made, Alice started to talk to me from the cover of 'Through the looking glass'.
"Pick me", said Alice.
"For only i will be ever loyal and true. You know that, my sweet prince."
"I love you", she concluded.

I woke up.
Goddamn, this joke isn't funny anymore.
How do i know that this time it's for real?
I smelled myself.
Sheesh, if i'm not awake, then i'm probably dead.
So i took the nth shower of the day, showered under the hottest water; no dream could cause so much physical pain.
I got out, dried myself, and i was feeling good.
My stomach rumbled with hunger. So breakfast it is.
In the kitchen i felt a familiar odour, that i immediately recognized as that of my perfume.
Did i use it yesterday? Maybe.
I sat down, had some orange juice and a cheese and ham toast.
Ah, molten cheese and salty ham dancing in my mouth... I closed my eyes for a few seconds to savour this small slice of heaven.

"Daddy!", a girl's voice cried from behind me.
"Daddy!", she repeated, and came up to me.
I looked at her not knowing who she was, knowing who she could be.
"Hold me", you asked.
"Come here", i said, "Where is your, er..., where is your mother?"
You looked at me, the daughter i never had, with so, so much sorrow in your little eyes and answered,
"Oh daddy, don't be silly."
"You know very well that mommy died shortly after i was born."
You kissed my face, a kiss that i so longed for, a kiss i have always wanted, a kiss i missed so much...
"I know, i know", i said, crying in your arms.
"But now you're here, right next to me, father. And i will never leave you. Whenever you need me, i will always be here."
"I know", i repeated.

We held each other for long hours, until all tears had disappeared.
"I know what i have to do now", i said.
"Yes, you do.", you agreed.
"I should very much like if you didn't forget me, father."
"Never", i promised.
"When you wake, i will be but the ghost of a memory, a splinter of a dream from which we never should have woken up from, but to which we can't belong to, father."

You came to me, held me in your little arms, and i swear, when your hand touched my heart, it beat with the pulse of all life in creation.
You kissed me, and said, "I love you."
"Now : wake."

I woke up.

"And then, fighting to stay asleep, wishing that it would go on forever, sure that once the dream was over, it would never come back... you woke up."

Neil Gaiman, Sandman