Dreams in Common - short story

 Dreams in Common

by Tracy Oñoz

     If you want to get rid of me, open a conversation by saying “I have to tell you about a dream I had last night . . .” Who cares? Dreams ramble. They don’t make sense.

      Somehow, though, I’ve allowed myself to get stuck listening to Caroline drone on about a nightmare she recently had. We’re sitting on a bed, where we’d been waiting for a turn in the bathroom. While my ears go numb, I find myself fascinated by the duvet. Black and gold swirl around each other in a paisley pattern, and there’s a hint of jeweled tones sprinkling . . . 

     “You were in it,” she says. 

     Hold on! That changes everything. People are vain aren’t we? We always want to hear about ourselves, even if it’s a tiny flip and swish through someone else’s psyche.

     “Really?” I say. “What did I do?”

     “Well, as I was petting that translucent, white dog, I heard the bedroom door open behind me.”

     I hope my mental eye roll doesn’t show. “Uh huh.”

     “And this woman walked in and came straight around the bed toward me. She had this huge hole in her forehead but it looked like she was shot years ago, because it was all black and gross, and . . .”

     “Was it me?”

     “No. It wasn’t you. Anyway, I had to fight her. Like, knock down, drag out, straight up fight her.” Caroline’s eyes are bugging out at me trying desperately to pull me into the moment.

     My eyes do not bug back out at her. “Did you win?” I’m trying hard not to be rude. Caroline is five foot nothing and I can’t begin to imagine her in combat with anyone. She really needs to get to the good part. The part with me in it.

     “Yeah. I managed to push her back through the door and slam it shut. But then I thought I really needed to get the heck out of there. There might be more of them.”

     “More of who?”

     “I don’t know.” She shrugs. “People with holes in their heads.”

     I’m thinking a hole in my head would be welcome about now.

     “So I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. I heard voices and it sounded like a party was going on somewhere. There was a flight of stairs leading down, but it looked like they’d been chopped up and put back together wrong.”

       “I’ve had weird stair dreams too!” I say with a bit more enthusiasm. Once the topic turns to recurrent dreams and dreams people have in common, it gets a little more interesting. “In mine, sometimes steps are missing, sometime they turn upside down, sometimes they lead. . . ”

      “Yeah!” She interrupts. “So, I thought it was going to be impossible, but I started down like an acrobat. I maneuvered and jumped and flipped and I made it to the bottom pretty easy.”

     “Wow.” I say, trying to recover from being cut off mid-sentence. “Stairs are where I usually panic and wake up.”

     She stares at me, then she nods her head and swallows.

     “Caroline, what’s wrong?”

     She shakes herself out of it. “Nothing. Sorry. So, anyway, I got to the front door and there was furniture piled in a heap in front of it, and two people showed up to try to stop me from leaving.”

     “And I was one of them!” (At last!)

     “No. No, not yet. They were just two random people, more like ghosts really but there’s nothing much they could do to stop me from leaving. This was my dream and I had the power!”

     “Wait! You knew you were dreaming?”

      “I did at that point.”

      “Okay! A lucid dream! I’ve always been fascinated by those but I’ve never had one myself.”

       Again she stares at me for a moment before continuing. “So, I tore open the front door, scrambled down the front steps, and ran down the block and around the corner. I did notice how pretty the sunrise was though. Weird, huh?”

     My patience is at an end. I take a calming breath, nod to be polite and hope she’s about done. I’ll be damned if I’ve let myself sit through her entire nightmare and not find out where the hell I was in all of this.

     “So, Caroline. Where was I exactly?”

     “I’m getting to that. Once I was around the corner, I peeked over a couple of hedges toward the back of the house. There’s a second story balcony and people were out on it partying, but they all stopped to watch me.” 

     “Was I up there?” I ask. “Is that where I was?”

     “Yes, Leslie. That’s where you are. I’m so sorry I left without you.” She looks so sincere.

     “Caroline, it was just a dream. I promise not to hold you responsible for leaving me there.” I laugh. I study her face. I see every pore of her skin and her eyes are such a beautiful blue, a stormy afternoon blue.

     Then she’s gone.

     I hear voices, laughter. I ease open the bedroom door and step out into the hallway. At the end is a small terrace. I slide open the glass door and join a group of about eight other individuals who are enjoying the fresh air of a new morning and the brilliant colors filling the sky. I step to the railing and, looking down, I see Caroline just over the hedge of the neighbor’s back yard. 

     She puts her hands up to both sides of her mouth and calls, “I’m so sorry!” Then she turns and rushes down the block. I watch her until she disappears from my line of sight.

      Caroline’s always been a little strange.

     Someone’s hand covers my own where it rests on the railing. I turn to see a woman with a hole in her forehead. She smiles at me. 

This actually comes from a dream I had. I wrote it a few years ago. It's been changed a bit to (hopefully)make more sense. There actually was a point in the dream where I escaped the house, knew I was dreaming, and took a moment to appreciate the amazing sunrise that was coming right out of my own imagination. 

I was Caroline. I'm the one who escaped.

Seemed like an appropriate time of year to share something creepy.

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