I verified, disgusted, that I had slept for an hour and a half and it had been worthless. I remembered absolutely nothing about my dream, not a single detail. Either the twins hadn’t visited me or I just didn’t remember. Either way, it was frustrating.
While I was getting dressed, I was hit by a bit of a panic attack. What if I never saw the girls with the stick again? What if my dreams went back to normal like everyone else’s? The thought of that frightened me; I realized how vulnerable I felt without my new friends and all the benefits I was getting from them.
I calmed down a bit when the thought crossed my mind that perhaps I just hadn’t slept long enough. A nap doesn’t last all that long; surely the twins would come back when I slept several hours in a row during the night. It was more a hope than a certainty, but I clung to it since I felt much calmer when I considered that. My pulse slowed down and my breathing returned to normal.
But I still couldn’t stop thinking about it. The stuff that had happened over the last two days clanged around in my head, absorbing all my thoughts. I was obsessed with it. I wanted to keep seeing the twins, and I wanted desperately to keep operating under the assumption I’d always be able to count on them.
I also spent some time pondering my own sanity. If these were hallucinations, I’d see the twins when I was awake, and it wouldn’t have been possible to read Spanish perfectly with those glasses, or ace a surprise history test. Crazy people could see people who weren’t there, including feeling their touch and hearing their voices—but they couldn’t predict the future. So, I wasn’t crazy.
It hadn’t been all that hard to come to that conclusion. Now that I was convinced my mind was functioning reasonably well, I went to the living room to take care of the plants and the birds like I’d promised my mother. It took me an eternity to water them all and I considered suggesting to my mother that she should install a sprinkler system in that miniature jungle of hers.
My parents got home shortly after I finished feeding the birds. On their faces was an expression I couldn’t quite decipher.
“I took care of everything for you, Mom.”
She gave me a kiss. I was surprised she didn’t even glance at her plants to make sure everything was in order. Something important must have happened during her visit to the doctor, for sure; something that could divert my mother’s attention from her favorite pastime, her passion.
Since I saw neither of them smiling, I didn’t dare come right out and ask them.
My father was the one to put an end to the suspense.
“Come here, Son. We have something important to tell you.”
I sat down in front of them on the sofa. My parents were holding hands. The last time the three of us were in this position was when they announced they were taking me to a psychologist to deal with my problems of rebellion—a problem that I’d confirmed for them right then and there by coming completely unglued and swearing that I’d never go to a shrink.
“What’s wrong?”
“We went to the doctor,” my mother began, but her voice fell off and a tear rolled down her cheek.
“For God’s sake, what did he tell you?”
“Everything is fine,” my father explained. “Your mother is just a bit emotional.”
“Shit, Dad. Oh, crap, excuse my French . . . Don’t scare me like that. So what’s upsetting her so much?”
My father took out a folded piece of paper and set it on the table. “Take a look.”
I picked it up. “I can’t make out anything. I know it’s an ultrasound, but I honestly only see white stripes and dots. Is that the baby? Jeez, even I could draw something that looked more like a fetus.”
My mother smiled and giggled meekly.
“Look carefully,” he said, pointing at two spots on the ultrasound image. “Can you see it?”
I needed my glasses. I squinted my eyes, trying to focus them, and concentrated.
“I give up. What is that? The hands?”
“Two hearts.”
“Twins?” I think my voice was shaking.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” said my mother.
I forced myself to return her smile.
“We will soon be a family of five,” said my father. “You’ve gone pale, Son. We didn’t realize how much this would affect you.”
“I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting this. Just one question . . . do you know the sex of the twins yet or is it too soon?”
“We think it’s two little girls, but the doctor said we have to wait a while to confirm that. He’s still not sure.”
I was plenty sure. Even to the point of knowing what color hair they would have. If my instincts were right, one would be blond and the other, brunette.
So, maybe I was going completely crazy after all.
THIRD DREAM
A bus nearly ran me over. Well, not really. It was more than three feet away from me, but I wasn’t expecting it to be there and it scared the crap out of me. I clumsily fell to the ground.
In spite of the crowd of people around, no one noticed me and no one stopped to help me. When I stood up, still stunned, I noticed that I was on a wide bridge under which tranquil—but not terribly clean—waters flowed. The bridge was in a city and the traffic was driving on the left, which explained why the bus had surprised me. An unpleasant clanging was coming from above me; it sounded like bells that were seriously out of tune. The sound of each clang reverberated for several seconds. When I turned my head, I was face to face with the spectacular image of Big Ben.
I was in London.
This was yet another place that held no special connection to me, so I knew I was in another one of my dreams. Apparently my worries about not having seen the twins during my nap were unwarranted. I breathed in deeply and let myself relax a little, admiring the city in all its splendor while wondering what it meant and what gifts I would be taking from it when I woke up. I searched the crowd for the girls with the stick but didn’t spot them; almost everyone there was an adult.
The strange thing about this dream was that everything seemed so normal—as if I were really in London, surrounded by tourists. I had to find some surreal detail that would guide me to the twins or I wouldn’t know which way to go. The only thing that stood out was a short, blond man wearing an all-white suit who was walking in my direction. I supposed the suit wasn’t the strangest thing I’d ever seen, but the guy definitely stuck out; white just wasn’t a color you saw much in men’s suits. I watched him as he passed in front of me, but nothing happened. The man in the white suit passed me up without a second a look. He seemed to be intently focused on something straight ahead of him. I followed his gaze and saw another man coming from the opposite direction. I now knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the surreal detail I was looking for, because that man was identical to the one in white except that he had black hair, dark eyes, and wore a black suit. In every other aspect, it was impossible to tell them apart.
And if that weren’t enough, when they were face to face, just a few steps apart, each one pulled out a sword. I couldn’t figure out where they’d been hiding their weapons, but I guessed it was just one of those things that was only possible in dreams.
A duel took place right then and there, in the middle of the bridge, with people circulating all around them. The two men attacked and defended in perfect choreography. Swords clashed and sparks flew, and so it continued until the blond ended the duel with an agile feint, then elegantly decapitated the man in the black suit in one slash of his sword.
“Are you deaf?”
Ah, there she was. The dark-haired girl. I already knew her voice and her surly tone—both unmistakable—so I wasn’t at all surprised when I turned and saw her there with the stick in her hand. Her cold, impenetrable eyes fixed on me, her displeasure was clearly displayed in the way she was pursing her lips. Her sister, the blond, still had her back to me and was looking up.
“So I didn’t hear you,” I answered. “It’s nothing to get angry abou
t.”
“I’m not asking if you heard me, you dimwit,” she snarled. “Big Ben. Don’t you hear that horrible racket?”
I heard it. The bells were clanging strangely, making an ungodly loud noise. It was awful. I wondered if the noise had been going on during the sword duel between the men in the white and black suits. I was so swept up in the fight that I might have missed it. “Does the noise bother you that much?” It didn’t really bother me at all. The entire city could be burning down and I wouldn’t care; when I woke up it’d all be intact. I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe the clock is broken.”
“Brilliant deduction,” mocked the dark-haired girl. “You’re getting smarter and smarter. Now stop screwing around and let’s go. You have to fix it.”
“Me? You must be kidding. I don’t know anything about clocks.”
“Nor about much else, but you have to fix it so we can keep playing.”
“Wait a minute. What about the dead guy that just got decapitated back there? That’s a bit weird, don’t you think? I’m sure it means something.”
She leaned so she could look behind me, frowned, then moved back to where she’d been and scratched her chin. “I’m trying to decide if you’re even dumber than I thought.”
“What do you mean by that, you little brat?” This dark-haired twin drove me up a wall; there was no way around it. “Whatever. I’m gonna go see why they killed that—”
The headless body was no longer on the ground, and the man who’d decapitated him was also gone. There were no swords, no blood. Everything had disappeared into thin air.
I took a deep breath. As time went on, I understood less and less about my dreams. I’d have to resign myself to continuing this game with the twins until I could find out what they wanted to give me this time and not spend time trying to figure out the meaning of whatever was happening.
“Can we get out of here now, please?”
When I turned around, I was glad to see the blond girl was now the one speaking. She was twirling the stick around in her small fingers.
It was interesting that the same small face could evoke such different feelings. The blond girl’s eye were warmer, her gestures were more delicate, and her voice—though identical to her sister’s—flowed harmoniously.
“Of course, little girl. We can go now.”
“Great. That screeching is giving me a headache. You have to fix it for me, please!”
She took me by the hand and pulled. I let her drag me along the street toward Big Ben which was getting more and more impressive the closer we got. The dark-haired girl was leading the way a few steps ahead of us, just far enough ahead for me to be able to talk to the blond girl without her interference.
“Did you know my mother is pregnant?”
I couldn’t think of any better way of bringing up the idea I’d had stuck in my mind ever since my parents had revealed to me that my future little brother was actually twin girls.
“How nice! How very lovely,” said the little girl without turning around. “Babies are such a joy.”
“Yes, that’s what I think, too. Did you know?”
“About your mom?”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t see her face but I had the feeling the little girl was thinking about the question.
“Umm . . . Not really. You almost never dream about your mom.”
“Really? I don’t?”
I’d never stopped to think about it but I supposed it must have been true.
“No,” said the blond girl, who was now hopping along and using the stick to hop higher. Surprisingly, she wasn’t bumping into anyone. “Mommies are so important. Why don’t you ever dream about yours? Don’t you love her?”
“Of course I love her.” I immediately felt guilty.
“You dream about your dad.”
Now that bothered me. All I needed was to see my father in my dreams. “Well, that doesn’t have anything to do with—”
Before I could finish my sentence, the dark-haired girl pushed her sister, pointed to the ground and then to the other side of the street. Then she twisted her face into a nasty frown and snatched the stick.
“We have to cross,” she snapped.
“How brilliant of you, given that Big Ben is on the other side of the street,” I said, making a face back at her. “There’s a crosswalk up there.”
“We have to cross here, Mr. Know-It-All,” said the brunette. The smile she flashed at me reflected neither friendliness nor good intentions.
Cars, vans, trucks, and buses were speeding past us in both directions. “You cross here if you want.” I held my hand out, inviting her to try it. “Your sister and I will go up to the pedestrian crossing and we’ll meet up on the other side of the street.”
“I think not . . . since apparently my sister doesn’t agree with you, which of course I’m quite happy about. She’s already crossing.”
And she was. I watched in horror as the little blond girl moved to the middle of the street. She waved at me, jumping up and down as naturally as she would if she were in the middle of the park instead of the middle of a four-lane avenue. Traffic was flying past on both sides of her, intermittently hiding her from view.
“Stay there! Don’t move!”
“I don’t think she hears you,” the brunette stated nonchalantly. Without hesitating, she took two steps out into the first lane. An enormous double-decker red bus was heading straight for her. My heart stopped. In less than two seconds the brown-haired girl would be run over.
The bus was practically on top of her when suddenly the little girl turned and stepped back.
“Are you coming or not?” she asked, annoyed, as the massive two-story vehicle passed barely an inch behind her back, whipping her black hair as it sped past.
I watched as she joined her sister in the middle—after she’d crossed two lanes while walking backwards so as to not let me out of her sight. She’d paid absolutely no attention to the cars and, miraculously, none of them had touched her even though it looked like they were all about to mow her down.
Now it was my turn.
I wondered if it were possible to die in a dream. I tried to imagine myself lying in my bed in my room and told myself nothing could happen to me; I wasn’t really in London except in my own mind . . . none of this was real. But the fear wouldn’t let up; it was there, swelling inside me, making my pulse race and sending a blast of adrenaline through my veins.
I waited for a break in the cars, at least in the first lane, but the steady flow of vehicles never let up. On my first try I gingerly stepped out with just one foot only to hurriedly pull it back when a van about plowed me over. I was glad I couldn’t make out what the brunette was shouting at me. I tried again and this time I made it across the first lane but had to stop before risking crossing the second lane. A motorcycle zipped by so close to my back that I leaned forward and came dangerously close to falling in front of a car before—thankfully—regaining my balance. A huge truck was coming in my direction so I knew I couldn’t stand there any longer. Fear propelled me forward as I ran with my eyes closed, feeling the cars so close to me I would have sworn they were grazing me. When I opened my eyes, I discovered I was already on the other side of the street—safe, sound, and intact.
The girls were beside me. The brunette poked me in the chest with the stick.
“Relax or you’ll wake up, you chicken.”
“What did you say?”
“You closed your eyes like a scared little girl.”
“That’s because it was such a piece of cake. A real walk in the park.”
“Glad to hear it, tough guy, because now comes the dangerous part.”
I refrained from comment. I was supposed to fix a clock—what was so dangerous about that? Unfortunately, I knew I would soon find out. I walked in silence behind the twins, catching my breath, until we got to the base of Big Ben. From that vantage point the tower looked colossal.
“Before you get started, you need a l
ightbulb,” the brunette told me. “It’s dark inside and you’ll have to change the one that went out.”
“And where do you suggest I get a lightbulb from?”
“From there.” She pointed with the stick at a spot above my shoulder.
I jumped back in surprise. Indeed, there was a lightbulb next to my shoulder, floating in the air. My first thought was to look for the almost-invisible string that must be holding it up, but there was nothing above the lightbulb and, anyway, I really didn’t think it was a trick. To keep from going crazy I’d promised myself not to search for the meaning of my dreams, so I grabbed the lightbulb and pulled. It didn’t budge.
“It’s impossible. No one could get this thing to move.”
The dark-haired twin let out a exasperated sigh. “It’s painful to have to explain this to you, but I apparently have no choice. Haven’t you ever changed a lightbulb? You have to unscrew it, you imbecile. Turn it. Not that direction! You are such a moron. The other way!”
It shouldn’t have come as a shock, but I unscrewed the lightbulb with my mouth hanging open. I kept my hand below it so I wouldn’t drop it on the ground since I couldn’t see the socket it was screwed into.
“There.”
“Bravo.” She applauded sarcastically.
The blond went up to her sister and took the stick, ignoring the hostile look on her twin’s face.
“C’mon, run. Those bells are really giving me a headache.”
The little girl used the stick to strike the wall surrounding the Houses of Parliament and a section of it disappeared—right in front of two policemen who were walking by just then. They didn’t bat an eye. I followed the blond to the base of the tower that housed Big Ben.
“Can you see all my dreams?” I asked.
The little blond girl looked very surprised. “Of course. We’re here with you, aren’t we?”
I still didn’t dare ask the question I was dying to ask. I wanted to know, more than anything else in the world, if the twins and their stick had something to do with the twins that my mother was carrying right now. The idea was absurd . . . ridiculous . . . but not any more so than the inexplicable connection between my dreams and real life. I remembered how bad I’d felt when I didn’t see the twins during my nap, when I thought I wouldn’t be able to count on their help anymore, so I was treading lightly for fear of making them angry.
Get Out of My Dreams Page 7