A Dreamer`s Guide To Reality
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much value on feelings, other than those he had for his family.
As he was running back home for his cold, invigorating shower, he saw in slow motion something that seemed out of his dream.
Hugh, his good, old friend that lived right across the street from him, was swearing and cursing at his new, grey, leather seats car that wouldn`t start. Gregory thought that this was the same old thing that Hugh was doing each morning since he bought that car a month ago and forgot that it happened as he walked through the door smelling a new, freshly brewed pot of coffee which his wife prepared for him. He ate a carbohydrate filled breakfast that his wife saw on a TV show and that was supposed to be good for him, and went through the daily routine of checking what he was supposed to buy when he came back from work.
He got into his car, with Hugh running towards him to get a lift to work as he used to do one day a week at least, and started driving slowly towards the city.
It was a slow drive, as everyone else there did that each morning, and listening to that `50s best hits radio station, that got stuck when his 10 year old family car broke down a few months ago, was making this morning`s drive even more unbearable.
And then Hugh spoke. It was small chitchat about the weather, the news, that football game that was last night and that nobody even watched. But it was something different. Not what Hugh was saying, or the way he said it. Not the music playing on the car radio, nor the traffic that was gracefully moving towards the city, carrying people to their offices and construction sites and many other jobs that nobody didn`t like, but where they felt comfortable.
Gregory dropped Hugh off and continued his 10 minutes drive to his office. The parking lot was half empty when he arrived, with no one else than the cleaning staff and a few assistants hurrying to straighten the things on their bosses desks before they arrived.
He caught a glimpse of a draggy dressed man, staring at him from a dark corner of the parking lot. He didn`t give it any attention as there were lots of homeless people taking shelter there from the cold, rainy weather that he grew accustomed to and didn`t bother with anymore.
As he sat in his snug, black leather seat in the office, looking over the papers for the day ahead, he saw things moving slower and slower, like a drag racer looking at the crowd.
He moved at the same pace as always, getting up and viewing details that he didn`t noticed before: the tie pin on his boss` tie had a beautiful, but ragged model of a dragon; the desk of a colleague was filled with papers that were overdue; the computer screen of his assistant was cracked in a corner and patched up with scotch tape. He then noticed that same raggedy looking man from the garage gawking at him. The image came from his turned off computer screen and seemed to be a reflection.
That over shaved beard, that straight office haircut that he saw each morning in the bathroom mirror were there, guiding him to the answer he already knew but he was startled of. The feeling that he had in his gut right now was one that he felt a long time ago, just once. It was the sensation he had on the day of the biggest “coincidence” of his life. The déjà vu feeling was now haunting his mind, trying to break free from the rational and make him think clearer than before.
He knew. All the pieces of the puzzle now fit together perfectly. The parts of a movie he saw when he was just a child, the stories that he told other kids in his neighborhood, the dreams of utopias he helped build. It was all part of a bigger picture that he could not yet piece together.
He remembered the perfect family life that he has, with a gorgeous, school teacher wife and two kids, a boy and a girl, that were the best at what they did. It was a picture perfect life that he didn`t recall building. It seemed like he jumped a few steps and his life begun from when he had that comfy job he liked, the wife and kids he adored. He didn`t recall how their first date went or how he met her. Actually, looking back, he didn`t remember anything in his life: how he met Hugh, his college professors or his first steps in the working world.
Looking at his computer screen he realized. He was that miserable, odd looking man, hiding in parking lots, moving from job to job, from city to city, country to country trying to do something with his life, but never succeeding.
He tried to rationalize his mind back to reality, but he couldn`t. His thoughts kept drifting back to his childhood and the remnants of the life he lived in the past. The image of friends standing around him listening to his stories was sharper than ever, the sound of kids yelling back at their parents that they don`t want to sleep became lifelike.
He collapsed, mind overwhelmed of what was rushing through his brain. He got up a few minutes later, looking for something to get him back to reality, a sign, a paper that showed his name and title, an assistant which he knew moving past his corner office or just his computer screen showing a photo of his family.
He didn`t see any of these. All he had now was a mental image of the man in the mirror. He went over every detail: the split chin that he inherited from his mother, the broken arch over his left eye, the mole that he hated because he believed it draws attention. Everything was similar, every detail, every crack, every wrinkle. The only difference was that the stranger`s face was smoother, resembling that of a 10 year old boy with all the signs of a normal childhood: bruises from when he fell down off the swings, scrapes from when that 2 meters tree, sitting on the too small, overcrowded playground, didn`t let him climb it.
Slowly, the truth began to rip right through him. Did his perfect movie-like life ever happen? Did he have a family, a wife, two kids?
He began thinking of how his life turned out. Going through the high school years, he remembered his history and philosophy teachers that supported his knowledge gathering. They aided him in participating in competitions, developing his mind into a twisted labyrinth of facts and figures, sophisms and syllogisms, critical thinking and undefended opinions that were worth defending. He recognized in this an opinion that he took for granted and always discarded it: the decay of the consciousness in front of tragedy. He considered it nonsense, a thing at the same level with horoscopes, tarot cards and tea leaves reading.
He tried to focus his attention and for some seconds he succeeded. Remembering the day his father died was now the center of his attention.
Gregory started seeing in slow motion every small detail of that day, however insignificant it might have seemed to others.
He got up at 11 am. It was spring break after all and he didn`t have any homework to do. He didn`t care about the mandatory reading the teacher gave him because, well, he was more interested in the cartoons he wasn`t allowed to watch more than a couple of hours a day. A cold breakfast was waiting for him on the living room table, prepared by his sweet, but over caring grandmother, as she used to do each morning when he was there.
He ate silently, looking at a Top Cat episode on Cartoon Network, episode that he watched a few times before. A voice came from the outside. The sun was shining, there was no wind to make the heat outside more bearable, but the kids didn`t care. The voice grew stronger and was now accompanied by others, yelling at Gregory to come out and play.
Their ritual was the same each day. First, they climbed every tree possible in the park in front of the building. There were just two linden trees there and a big birch that were shadowing the small, cemented playground imitation they had. The tallest linden tree was his favorite. Climbing it took unusual athletic capacity and extremely good hand-eye coordination. He had to climb a 2-meters high fence, jump on a branch near it that, each time he did it, gave the impression it was just about to brake under his weight. But he always managed to clinch the tree trunk in a monkey-like jump that made his heart pump harder. He was now at the top of the tree, hidden between the branches and the green, moist leaves surrounded him, giving away its fresh, linden flowers smell. It wasn`t a big tree, it had just 7 meters. But being there gave him the opportunity to slow down and just stand and watch how parents were stressing themselves out about their kids, and kids over their bicycles and toys lef
t unattended. Gregory told himself that he will never be like that when he`ll grow older.
When his friends came up to join him, the perfect, stress-free silence was broken. He knew what they wanted from him. The day before, at 10 pm, after playing hide and seek with his friends, trying to hide in the perfect, dark cornered place to win, he started telling a story, but never finished it. It was about a future that he`d never seen, but in which he would love to live. There weren`t flying cars or aliens walking down the street in this story.
There weren`t even too many changes to what they had right now. The only thing that might have given away the story was that small computer on which he saw himself typing. It wasn`t something he didn`t see before. For a few months now, thanks to a few friends with which he played basketball once in a while, he got access in the computer lab of a nearby high school and he could now surf the internet, that thing he heard about that can connect you to everyone in the world.
The story started with an image of him in a sparkling, squeaky clean windows corner office, starring at a computer, but not being able to turn it on. He stood there, looking when down, when up, trying to relax and figure something