It began with a dream.
Mine, specifically.
I had no idea that I was the one who was doing it. How could I? There was never anything special about me. I didn’t have any particular talents that anyone else had. I was average – below average, if you were to ask some people.
Even now, I doubt I would ever have held any purpose were it not for…it.
It was the one with all the power…not I. All I was good for was sleeping. I would sleep, and it would appear.
Of course, at first I had no way of knowing that’s what was happening.
I won’t even bother mentioning my name or what I do. What would be the point? I’m not important. What I will talk about is what I actually remember. It somehow shared the memories with me, and only now do I find I can fill in the gaps.
It was an average day. Every day was an average day.
Then, it was over. And I went to bed.
That…is when everything changed…
***
Somewhere in the heart of the city, there is a place called “The Row.” For the people here, it is not the most pleasant of places to live. They don’t reside here by choice, of course. It is a refuge for the downtrodden. Bleak apartments with bars on their windows line the roads in labyrinthine asymmetry. Laundry hangs from ropes for those who lack modern appliances or fear stepping outside to find a coin operated facility. In a similar fashion, shoes can often be seen hanging from power lines.
In this rather depressing dream, I could hear shouting coming from somewhere in one of the alleys. For anyone who lived in The Row – such as myself – this is not an uncommon occurrence. We tended to ignore such happenings out of fear for our own safety.
Like in all dreams however, I had no choice but to be drawn to the focus of the story. So often do our dreams take us to places that we do not wish to visit. Indeed, we are obliged to investigate every noteworthy happenstance – no matter how frightful they may be. It was in this manner that my consciousness brought me to observe what was happening in this alley.
I saw her. She was screaming at her assailant as he tried to force himself into her. In his left hand, he held a knife – which he was pressing to her throat. Blood had already begun to trickle down her neck.
I wanted to look away in revulsion. I have little tolerance for violence - the type of person who would have to change the television channel whenever something graphic came on. Now, this event that I was being forced to witness was simultaneously more vibrant and horrid in my mind’s eye than anything I had ever been subjected to in my life – imaginary or otherwise.
And like in all dreams, I couldn’t look away.
Part of me that was still aware that this was merely a dream, wondered how my mind could have possibly conjured such a scene as this. I had certainly never been exposed to anything like it. I kept my ears and eyes closed to the rest of the city just like anyone else had. The few muggings I did experience in the past were relatively quick, clean and uneventful. What I was witnessing now, terrified me. Not out of concern for myself, of course. I wasn’t really there. I was merely watching the event take place as one would observe a horror movie. No, my concern was for the woman.
This was a concern I never would have held, had I not been actually forced watch the action taking place. It was a dream. I had no sand for which to bury my head in.
A few more minutes of this quickly made the scene intolerable to me. I wanted to scream out of anger, if not out of disgust.
But, as in all of my dreams prior, I was completely powerless – for never have I been the master of my own dreams.
And then…it appeared…for the first time.
____
It is difficult to describe what it was. How do you put words to paper explaining the brilliance of a sun to someone who has never seen one before? It was completely foreign to me, and yet so elusively familiar.
And it was beautiful beyond comprehension. Merely to look at it was to evoke an emotion that had no place in this world – at least not within the range of human limitation.
The assailant looked up in fear at it. The woman, of dark complexion and raven-black hair, immediately ceased her fear, and gazed upon it in wonder.
It spoke to her, without actually speaking.
“Do not be afraid,” it said. And she wasn’t.
The assailant, in his terror, threw his knife at it. The blade merely passed through the seemingly non-corporeal entity. He made to throw the girl to the ground as he fled, but she was held fast by an invisible force preventing any possible injury. As the man reached the end of the alley, he stopped in his tracks, subjected to the same force that protected the girl. Then, in his mind, he witnessed his own life - from birth, up to this moment.
It was an unlikely scene, as dreams often are.
I cannot be faulted for apparently contriving something as heroically cliché as this. Imagination was never my strongest attribute, after all.
Nevertheless, the would-be rapist dropped to his knees and began sobbing. Moments passed, and he stood. He faced the woman with tear stained eyes and apologized. He didn’t try to justify his actions. He didn’t relay to her the events in his life that had led him to this point. He simply apologized, while openly – and profusely – weeping.
In another person’s dream, the man may have decided to walk into traffic, receiving his just punishment. In this one though – continuing its pattern of improbability – he walked seven blocks to a police station. He then turned himself in, confessing to every past and present transgression. Again, I cannot be faulted for this…well…cheesy development. It happened as it happened. I was not in control of it. At least, I didn’t think I was.
In my dream, somehow I had known his name: Robert Macintyre.
I also knew the name of the young woman who now stood before the radiant entity in her torn clothing.
Kelly Santos looked on her rescuer with awe and wonder. There wasn’t an actual facial expression to be seen, but she detected a smile from it nonetheless. She approached it.
“Thank you.”
“Are you all right?” It asked the question more out of courtesy, rather than genuine inquiry. It could read what her physical and mental status was.
“Yes. What…what are you?”
“I am a [title not comprehended],” it answered cryptically. In my dream, the word wasn’t registering in my head. I don’t think it registered with Kelly either, as she blinked at it in confusion. It was similar to when someone speaks to you in a dream, but you simply can’t make it out, no matter how many times you ask them to repeat themselves. Whatever part of the brain it goes through, it simply doesn’t get processed.
“Take my hand,” it spoke softly.
Without a trace of fear or reservation, she took the hand of the floating…shiny…humanoid…thing. As she stepped close to it, she nearly had to shield her eyes from its light.
“Are you an angel?” she asked.
“No. I am a [title not comprehended].”
“But you look like one,” she insisted.
She could perceive a smile again. Saying nothing, it softly lifted her into the air with the one hand. She felt no strain on her arm at all, as if she herself were flying.
Time is perceived differently in dreams. I don’t know how long it took exactly, but it felt like they reached her apartment in mere moments. Somehow I knew that it was twelve miles south of the alley.
It landed her on her terrace, and she looked at it as it hovered in front of her balcony.
“What is your name?”
“In his mind, I am called [name not comprehended].”
“Are you sure you’re not an angel?”
It smiled again. “No.”
“Then what-“
It interrupted her. “I am that which someone wishes he was. I am capable of things he could not otherwise do. And I do it gladly – for his sake, and for those he secretly harbors compassion for – though he is afraid to admit his own desire for a human connection. He is imprisoned by fear. It swallows him whole.
“And yet, I am here.
“He is powerful, though he knows it not – refuses to permit himself the notion, thinking such thoughts to be a disease of the mind. Many people are like this. Many people have this power. And like he, they refuse to allow it unto themselves. But I am a strong one. I will remain for as long as he continues to sleep.”
“I…I don’t understand. Why-“
It held up its hand and said softly, “I do it because he cannot. And because they cannot."
Kelly looked at the entity for a long moment. She didn’t fully comprehend, but somehow it didn’t matter.
Her mind turned to The Row – with its brooding alleys, and choking hopelessness. “Can…can I tell people about this? They’ll think I’m crazy but…people…they have to know.”
“If you wish.”
“Will…I ever see you again?”
“If you are again in need, and he is dreaming of me, then yes.”
Something in my brain jolted at that statement, as it finally took in the entity’s entire speech from the moment before. Even as I slept, I shivered at the eerie, coincidental connotations my own dream was having. The detail and complexity of it all was ultra-surreal.
Then, it proceeded to shock me further when the entity actually turned to face me. Though I was apparently invisible in all of this, it smiled at me in the same manor that it did with Kelly Santos. To the questioning glance of Kelly, the entity began to fade into nothing, just as I bolted awake from its unexpected address to me.
Sitting up in bed, I panted. Sweat was cascading from me in my non air-conditioned studio apartment.
Like all dreams, the details quickly began to diminish, leaving behind only a flurry of unexplained apprehensions. I shivered, despite the unbearable heat of the mattress I was previously sleeping on.
Never had I experienced anything as deeply penetrating as this.
After an hour of lying on my back, counting how many bumps were on my ceiling, hardly anything remained of the dream – other than a fleeting memory of emotion.
The feeling I held onto was foreign to me, and I clung to it like a drowning man to a life preserver. I couldn’t place a name to it then, for I had never experienced it before. What I can now recall with perfect clarity, I now know it to be something very few people truly hold:
Purpose.
This sense of purpose was only heightened the following morning, as a newscaster on my analog television was interviewing one Kelly Santos.
Then I knew:
From that point on, I would see to it that every night would have a beautiful dream in The Row.
Michael F. Mercurio
Copyright 2013
