Unseaming

by Mike Allen

His ordeals didn’t end for years. A night-light did no good. Some nights he became so terrified he’d pee into his Smokey Bear sheets rather than risk the walk to the bathroom. With escalating impatience, his parents told him to keep focusing his mind on Jesus. At first he lied and claimed it worked, but after yet another bed-wetting episode his enraged father shook the truth out of him.

  What finally saved him at the not-so-tender age of fourteen was a book about lucid dreams he found at the community college library. He followed the recommended exercise out of desperation, repeating until he fell asleep: “I will know when I am dreaming. I will remember what I dream.”

  Just as his first encounters with the morbid plunged him into nightmare, his first attempt at lucid dreaming introduced him to unlimited power. He again found himself in the City of Mazes, pursued by a crowd pulled on fleshy strings. You are all inside my head , he thought, and knew they were. He commanded, Stop , and they did, collapsing to the ground as their severed strings thrashed like loose hoses.

  From then on he reigned, wizard-tyrant in the kingdom of his own skull.

  At fourteen, Bryan had other dreams, much more mundane. Win fame and fortune as a freelance writer. Marry a saucy redhead from Ireland, and build her a mansion with his riches. When he met Patel, he had inched toward the first of those goals.

  The university in the next county had called for volunteers to participate in an experiment meant to test a therapeutic cure for recurring nightmares. On learning of this, Bryan begged the higher-education reporter to let him step in and write a feature story. Once he turned in his profile of the professor, he begged his managing editor for permission to chase a freelance article. Permission granted, Bryan signed up for the tests.

  His face a wide brown square above his white lab coat, Patel approached life and subjects like the coolest of poker players. The professor’s perpetually half-lidded eyes rarely hinted at anger or amusement. The rumble of his voice stayed perpetually even-toned. He was by far the most unflappable man Bryan had ever met, though he wasn’t without a sense of humor.

  As soon as Bryan described his lucid dreaming skills, the professor wished to observe for himself. They performed a simple verification: Patel asked Bryan to move his eyes right to left and back again twice every 10 seconds while “awake” within his dreams. Bryan found this easy. The EEG graphs recorded during Bryan’s REM sleep displayed sharp spikes for the paired eye movements, over and over, making his brain waves appear regular as heartbeats.

  When he woke, he heard Patel’s rumble. “For what reason would you hone such a skill?” The professor tapped Bryan’s forehead with a cold finger. “Do you keep a harem organized in your head, perhaps, like the crazy man in that Fellini film?”

  Bryan kept his voice as flat as the professor’s. “Wouldn’t it be obvious if I did?”

  Silence hung between them. Then Patel’s scowl fell away, and Bryan had the pleasure of actually hearing the professor laugh, like a mirthful bellow from a bear.

  As often happens with writer and source, the two pledged to keep in touch after the article’s publication, but didn’t—until the Blessings began, and Bryan discovered he could no longer remember dreams.

  Nor could anyone else.

  It wasn’t as if dreams were simply gone, driving a sleep-deprived populace toward madness, but as if something else had supplanted them, an enigma that let people maintain their sanity even as it washed the world in blood.

  * * *

  When Bryan returned from his jog, predawn light cast the cookie-cutter houses of his neighborhood in dark silhouette. The derelict had left the stairwell.

  Regina was up—he could hear the shower running when he opened his door. She’d already stripped the bloodied sheets from the bed and replaced them with clean ones. He called Sukhraj’s cell and left a voice mail.

  His eyes flicked to the bureau by the side of the bed Regina had claimed. Her new pendant dangled there from one of the drawer knobs, an object escaped from a bad dream, a red diadem inscribed with a gothic “G.” Regina had a knack for involving herself in loopy things—she believed wholeheartedly in ghosts and nature spirits, paid to take classes in energy manipulation and chakra healing—a trait that Bryan at times found exotic, endearing, but now found alarming. Yet he’d kept his mouth shut, held back, when they met for dinner last night and he noticed the red G glittering in her cleavage.

  The casual text she’d sent that started it—how r u doin? , then, I want 2 c u —caused a pang of longing in his chest that was amplified tenfold by his first glimpse of her beneath the dimmed lights at Pazzari’s. She’d cut her silky brown hair short, added red highlights. The blue half-jacket adorning her shoulders was the same she’d worn on many lunch dates before the Blessings. Even with the lights turned down low, her green eyes shone.

  They hugged and forced the hostess to wait before escorting them to their table. As Regina took her chair, Bryan’s eyes eagerly followed her neckline down only to discover the diadem. The discovery stabbed as if he’d stepped on a nail.

  The Gaians held that the blood of the so-called Blessings washed the human race each morning as a warning from the Earth spirit—or, as a sarcastic radio personality once phrased it, “Mother Earth’s PMS”—in response to the many ways Modern Man had damaged the world: pollution, strip-mining, clear-cutting, bomb testing, oil spilling, on and on. They claimed the blood of the Blessings was the blood of the dead mysteriously regurgitated.

  Bryan knew animal welfare was a big deal for Regina, but he couldn’t imagine her associated with the dozen red-clad extremists who’d walked arm and arm toward a military oil refinery chanting, “Our blood will be on your bodies. Our blood will be on your bodies,” until the guards were forced to shoot stun grenades.

  She noticed his grimace. “What’s wrong?”

  It was hard to bite his tongue, but he managed. “Nothing.” He shook with nerves as he propped open his menu. “Just thinking about Mom and Dad.”

  Which had in a way been true. All sorts of explanations existed for the Blessings, beliefs people wrapped around themselves for shelter against the sheer madness. A so-called psychic had once called Bryan at the office to claim the Blessings were the result of a bloodthirsty God gorged beyond its limit on those dead from modern warfare. Bryan hung up on him.

  By contrast, a few Christian sects interpreted the blood-drenched mornings as God’s desperate attempt to save souls before the end-time, a literal attempt to cleanse the people who refused to accept the gift of their Savior’s blood. His parents had been among those, further deepening his estrangement.

  And the irony: the Blessings could in fact bring disease if you didn’t make the most meticulous efforts at hygiene before and after sleep. His mother and father had both fallen ill. The diagnosis: a new strain of bacterial pneumonia, allowed to thrive by a devastated immune system.

  Visiting their bedsides, listening to the wheeze of their breath, how he had wanted to scream, to shake their frail bodies, to call them the fools they were. But he who could believe nothing had no right to tell others what to believe.

  Gina’s hand on his wrist stirred him from his reverie, brought him back to the restaurant. He told her what he’d been thinking about, but not what inspired the train of thought. She squeezed his wrist as he spoke, and just listened.

  Later, in the midst of dinner—fettuccine Alfredo for him, eggplant Parmesan for her—she asked him what he believed the Blessings were. He knew he was on dangerous turf: she was idly fingering her pendant, perhaps thinking of making a point. “I don’t have an opinion,” he said quickly, but much to his own surprise didn’t stop there. “I know what they feel like.”

  She tilted her head, a gesture that meant “go on,” green eyes watchful above her wide cheekbones.

  “When the trade center went down,” he said, “when I stood there with my co-workers in front of the TV and watched the towers collapse, I felt like I’d been stained, like something inside me, spirit, soul, whatever—li
ke it was the rug those deaths would never wash out of. I think that feeling was there before, when I used to have to go out to cover spot news, the things I’d see—like when the firefighters couldn’t get that old woman out of the house in time, or that sorry drunk’s body I saw wedged underneath a minivan. But when the towers fell, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. And each new thing makes it worse. The shootings at the university made it a lot worse.”

  “Worse things happen all over the world,” she said, gripping her pendant, twirling it. “Much worse. Much more often.”

  “I know. I’m not saying anyone should feel sorry for me.” He spread his arms. “For us. But you asked. To me that’s what the Blessings are like. Like this stain I feel, but it’s real, it’s on the outside. It’s on everyone.” He surprised himself again as his voice cracked.

  Now it was Regina’s turn for judicious silence. She let go her symbol to put both her hands on his.

  Later, it surprised him more, how hungry she was for him, he for her. For the longest time he had avoiding staying over at her place or vice versa because of what they would see when they awoke, that terrible memory that hung between them. This time, without saying it, they both resolved to defy that memory. They strove to wear each other out, translating their hunger into action, arms clutching each other’s thighs as they devoured each other to climax. And again, even later, her pinned beneath him, the sweet pressure of her hips flexing up, him grinding down on her as if he meant to obliterate them both.

  Then, his miraculous awakening, with the memory of dream still fresh as the blood on his skin.

  * * *

  Bryan stayed near his phone at the office, annoyed by the trite assignment he’d been saddled with (a water main break downtown), neurotically cleaning his fingernails with his pocketknife as he willed Patel to call him back. When the professor finally did call, about noon, he broke character for only the second time since Bryan had known him.

  “You dreamed? You remember dreaming? That’s incredible! Are you sure it’s not wishful thinking?”

  “I’m certain , Raj. But I don’t remember all of it, just flashes. Like still photography.”

  “Well…well, maybe we can help you get clearer.” If Bryan didn’t know better, he would have thought the professor’s voice almost sounded devilish. Then from out of the blue, Patel asked, “How much do you know about the Mayans?”

  “Hmm. Didn’t they throw little girls into pits? Or are they the ones that cut the hearts out of enemy warriors?”

  “Both. Though more often, enemy warriors had their heads cut off.”

  “Well. Okay then. Why do you ask?”

  “I’m trying to digest a rather exotic set of ideas. I’ll tell you all about it tonight. You can come tonight?”

  Of course he could. He phoned Regina at the bank, left a message to let her know. She texted back, u have fun. luv u .

  * * *

  When he met Patel outside the university medical center, he was immediately struck by how much older the scientist seemed. His square face sagged as if the skin had loosened from within. But the doctor’s gaze had not lost its intensity, nor did he bother with opening pleasantries. “I hope for both our sakes your memory is good. This is going to cost me some overtime.”

  “Your problem, not mine.”

  Patel regarded Bryan’s shit-eating grin for a moment before leading him through the glass double doors. The professor didn’t crack a smile. “I’d be highly skeptical if it were anyone other than you.”

  “Skeptical? Come on, Raj, there must be other people dreaming.”

  “I have heard from others,” Patel said as they walked. “Most proved to be wastes of time and resources. A few, there may have been something to their claims, but in the labs they couldn’t deliver. You give me hope.”

  Queasiness sluiced through Bryan’s gut and bubbled in his throat. “I’m the only one.”

  “I can’t claim that. But at this moment you’re the only one I know of.” He pressed the button to summon the elevator. “Pegah and Sonoko should be here in an hour. I called them in special for this. Let’s go to my office.”

  As they ascended, Patel informed him, “We’re going to try something a little unusual tonight. Before we put you to sleep, I’m going to have you take a small dose of psilocin.”

  “What’s that?”

  A devilish smile spread slowly within the bracket of Patel’s block-like jaw. “Pharmacologically active extract of a certain mushroom.”

  Bryan coughed. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Ordinarily, I would be, but since you’re the first person I know of since the Blessings started who claims to remember a dream—whose claim might be credible, that is—the extra barrier breaker seems well warranted. Don’t worry, the dosage will be small. We want to make sure you can sleep.”

  “You’re allowed to do that?”

  The smirk remained. “We have a DEA exemption. There’s no scandal for you to uncover.”

  Nothing in Patel’s office seemed different except for the background image on his flat-screen monitor. The icon-dotted screen displayed two stylized figures drawn in a fashion Bryan recognized after a beat as Central American. One figure, standing, dangled a head from one hand. The other, kneeling, had no head. From the stump of the headless warrior’s neck sprang snakes, and a strange, winding, branching form that seemed to represent a flowering tree.

  Patel followed Bryan’s gaze. “The ceiba tree grows from the blood of the sacrifice. The Mayan tree of life.”

  Bryan immediately thought of his father’s rants. “Sacrifice? So we all start turning into trees?”

  “No. At least not anytime soon.” Patel tapped the screen. “This is a souvenir from a phenomological line of inquiry I and some of the other faculty have delved into, one that wouldn’t be popular in certain circles. It has to do with how the Mayans conceived of blood. Blood was the fountain of youth and life. Blood was magical. Blood was the gate used by the powers in the underworld, which in their fanciful conception housed a central river and a variety of gods, not to mention a sacrificial basketball court.”

  “They used blood to make gates to the underworld?”

  Patel regarded him levelly. “No. Blood was the gateway, once it was spilled. It was blood that allowed the underworld to come through into ours.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You know as well as I that no one has been able to figure out where this blood comes from. Yet I’m inclined to think it’s not coincidence that so much human ceremony regards the spilling of blood as essential to otherworldly transfiguration. The Mayans were especially eager for the power the underworld brought. The literature tells of ten thousand captives slain in a day.” He put a hand on his throat. “They had yokes they clamped on the necks of sacrifices that cut off blood to the brain. When the sacrifice collapsed, a dagger to the heart. As efficient as any modern slaughterhouse.”

  A nervous laugh escaped Bryan’s throat. “The Mayans understood the Blessings? How is that even possible?”

  “I am not saying they understood it. I am only saying what we’re dealing with perhaps isn’t new to humanity. Perhaps this phenomenon has ancient roots, and some cultures were more in tune with its principles than others. Though if the Mayans were truly on to something, it’s hard to glean.”

  Bryan contemplated the branches sprouting from the severed neck. “Great. Now I’m going to dream about all that.”

  The professor’s smirk returned. “Assuming you do dream at all.”

  * * *

  Bryan found the old routine a comfort, even the acts of stripping, piling the contents of his pockets on the bedside table, tying on the ridiculous hospital gown. Dr. Patel’s assistants did their work quickly: electrodes stuck with adhesive to his bare scalp, the sides of his face, under his chin, on his chest and left leg; a sensor by his nose and mouth, to monitor breathing; a belt strapped around his ribs and abdomen to register the movement of his breath; a clip lightly pinching the
index finger, tracking oxygen in his blood. At Patel’s request, he blinked, took deep breaths, helped calibrate the equipment.

  The eye of the camera floated above him. If the drug had taken hold, he couldn’t tell.

  “Bryan, you remember the signals?” Patel’s voice, piped in from the control room.

  “Eyes right to left, twice when I’m dreaming, five times when I’m awake. I’ll count seconds if I can.”

  “Everything’s working, doctor.” A woman’s voice, picked up by the control-room mic. Higher pitched than the other. Her name is Pegah, Bryan thought hazily.

  His room felt cozy—much like a motel room, but pristine. The black box next to the bed, the one all the electrodes led to, emitted a soothing hum. The amniotic red space behind his closed eyelids faded softly to black.

  “I will know when I’m dreaming. I will remember what I dream. I will remember what I dream.”