dreams – Stephan Writes

Snoring loudly over there…

It’s okay that you snore. I wasn’t really sleeping anyway. I’ve had a lot on my mind, and tonight is no exception. I’m really worried about your brother. He’s been so depressed and down lately. Have you thought of taking him out for a guys’ night? I think it could be good for him. I’ll try to remember to tell you when you wake up.

I won’t wake up. I’d have to sleep first. I haven’t really slept in six months. Did you know? Do you notice how I am exhausted during the day? Oh, I snooze, I rest a bit. But sleep? Actual, physical, Deep sleep, the kind where you feel as if you’ve just sunk three feet deep into the comforter,the kind where you body recharges and supercharges like one of those ridiculous mad scientist lightning-bolt creations things, have you ever noticed that I haven’t had that in soo, so long?

I don’t remember when it started. Certainly before you started snoring, so I know I can’t blame you. Not that I would, of course. How can you be blamed for what your body does while unconscious? I’ve had a lot on my mind. And that’s making it so I can’t sleep.

Sometimes I will lie here and count your snores, every five minutes, or ten, or fifteen, to see how regular you are. I stare at the neon-blue bars indicating 2:20 then 2:25 then 2:30 then 2:35, and I wonder when the time ends. Not where it goes – I know it goes into the past, into the “there“, the “beyond.” But where does time end? When do we get to that last moment on the clock. We try to review, to account for it, and we for some reason also like to reset often. It’s like we don’t know how to count to more than sixty. I wonder why not.

Are you dreaming? Your cadence has decreased. Slightly. Ten minutes ago you were at seven per minute. Now it’s down to five. Does that mean you’re deep down, into the REM, into the dreams of purple walruses and flying cars, and sexual fantasies about e-girlfriends. I know they exist, it’s not a problem. Back when I dreamed, I dreamt of your ex-girlfriends, too. They were very attractive. And, again, I can’t blame you for your body’s unconscious rebellion of the conscious rules you have established.

I wish I could dream again. I would dream us on a vacation or maybe having an adventure. Perhaps we are detectives in old London, traipsing across the Bowery and into Big Ben and the Tower of London searching for clues. Maybe we are not together, but we are searching for one another. Maybe we, rather than being lovers as now, are simply friends, and each is attached to someone even more specially suited to such romanticism. Do you dream of us together? Do you run again? Do you walk? Do you relive the accident, which took your mobility and our relationship? I do.

Last night I dreamed…

Last night I dreamed I was sleeping (yes, sleeping) with my girlfriend on a couch, and she was in her bra and panties. I know because I was trying not to walk her, even though I was slipping my hand inside her bra, to hold her boob. I like to hold that. But she did wake up. I think I didn’t want to wake her up because I had this feeling that she didn’t know she was where she was, or didn’t know I was there, or something.

Anyway, after she realizes I’m there, we have a little bit of time to snuggle, then we hear sounds. Turns out the place we were sleeping in was like the back room of a dentist’s office, or a medical office, or something. People started moving around and opening doors and getting papers ready, so we decided to leave. I was worried about her being exposed but she had a full suit of clothes on. I did too.

We went out and ran into some kind of professional group. I ran into someone who knows me, and he covered for me by saying, loudly, “Sorry to miss you at our golf game this morning!” I guess I had been caught not going. I believe lying there with someone else was more important than anything else, so I guess that’s why I tried to stick around. *

But it wasn’t really a golf game I’d missed, it was planning for an assasination attempt on the Canadian Prime Minister. We were supposed to be pretending it was a simulation, because I’d been hired by the Canadian government to help them brainstorm possible assasination attempts, so they could prepare for them and create contingency plans.

That said, I had also been hired by the Japanese to take out the Canadian Prime Minister, or had turned spy, or something. I’m not even Canadian, or Japanese, so I’m not sure why either of them would have showed up.

So we continue fake / real assasination plans, and as we went along, I had a briefcase of Canadian bills, hundreds, which amounted to something like a million Canadian dollars. I was planning to switch briefcases, not for an empty one, or even one with other money. I was going to put my old underwear in, a la The Big Lebowski.

So my underwear was all dirty, so I needed to wash some. While washing my underwear I got a call from the operations expert in Japan. But now he’s actually in New Zealand. He tells me we can’t go forward, at least not with him paying me, so they’ll have to back out. I say, that’s okay, I’ll sell the story to The Guardian.

I decided to go there on my own. I grab my bicycle and start to bike across the ocean to London, where The Guardian’s headquarters are. I see some whales and seals and dolphins way out in the ocean. They’re friendly.

I get rained on, but the rain is not water, it’s Ocean Spray, the Cranberry Mist juice, or whatever.

I change my clothes once I get to the other side. Don’t want to show up to my wedding smelling like cranberries and whale backwash, do I? Turns out, it’s not my wedding, but my best friend from elementary school, whom I haven’t seen in 30 years. I ‘m there to stop his wedding, because she’s not good enough for him. But on my way to the church I get distracted by a pub that’s showing the Rugby World Cup.

I go in to have a pint, and end up staying three hours. When I come out it’s dark and the fireworks are going off – they’re celebrating July 4th as well. I’m a little confused. They tell me that they celebrate American Independence because they’re actually glad to be rid of us. I start to prepare a defense then get interrupted by Kermit the frog’s live stage adaptation of The Vagina Monologues.

Weird, right?

***

* Note – Everything up to this point was real. I really had that dream. After is just stuff I made up, to see how weird of a world I could make.

Tag: dreams

Writing Practice – 4/19/19

Writing Practice – 3/18/2019