Remedy for a Dream

by Matt Cogar

  It was as if something was holding the door shut. I did

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  everything I could to open the door, but nothing helped. There was nothing I could do. I just refused to believe it.

  Finally, the door opened, and I will never forget what I witnessed that day. Catherine was on the ground, her eyes blank and foggy-white, trembling, as if having some sort of seizure. Blood had begun to drip from her nose. I stepped closer.

  She sat up, her head focused intensely above as her eyes began to cry tears of blood.

  The hospital maintained a sanitary appearance. Everything was all neat and organized. It looked fake to me. It almost didn't seem real.

  There was a hospital bed, covered with a paper sheet which Catherine had sat upon. She seemed more dead than alive. Her empty gaze seemed focused but unfocused all at once.

  It was then a nurse entered the room. “The doctor will be in, in just a moment,” spoke the nurse, almost nonchalantly. How could she not care? Did she not know this was my wife who was practically dying before me? I was confused, and frustrated, a perfect blend of fear and uncertainty.

  At last, the doctor entered the room. He seemed somewhat young, but not too young. Maybe late 20s early 30s. He inquired about Catherine. “Has she always been like this?”

  I looked up at him. “No. She just started screaming, and wouldn't stop. It was as if something was attacking her.” By now he had been listening attentively, whilst contemplating something, while I focused my gaze at the floor below. “When I got to her, she was on the floor, trembling, as if something terrible had happened.

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  Her eyes were blank. And then, she just started...crying...” I told him.

  “Crying?” He asked, trying to understand. “Blood,” I replied.

  The doctor was alone in his thoughts for a moment, and then spoke. “I'm unsure about the screaming, but as for the 'tears of blood,' that's explainable. It's called haemolacria. It causes the person to produce tears of blood.”

  “What about…” I replied.

  “My job is to help your wife. I will try my best to do so. Let's take a look, shall we?”

  The doctor walked over to Catherine. “Open up and say 'ah,'” he told her.

  Catherine opened her mouth like the doctor asked as he slipped in a thermometer. I watched as the temperature on the digital screen continuously dropped.

  The doctor pulled the thermometer, and looked at the screen. “That's strange,” he told me. “Her temperature has dropped below 70 degrees. It's a miracle she's even alive. The average person would have been long since dead. Her body temperature is practically the equivalent of the average cadaver. We may have to do a CT Scan. Certain diseases can be traced to a problem in the brain. In the meantime, we will try to keep her as warm as possible. I'm going to arrange the scan,” the doctor said, as he wrote something down on a clipboard, and left the room.

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  Catherine was lain onto the bed of the machine. “This will help us get a better look at her brain, to help identify the problem. Don't worry, I've done this dozens of times,” the doctor said reassuringly.

  And then, for the first time since the incident, she looked at me. She looked into my eyes as I looked into hers. The more she looked at me the more I sensed a feeling of tragic sadness emanating from within her. Almost as if she was saying I don't want to die.

  She offered her hand to me. I gently held it as I sat beside her. I knew I was happy as long as I was by her side. The doctor walked over to me.

  “It's time,” he told me.

  “I want to stay with her,” I replied.

  “There's nothing you can do for her right now.”

  I let go of her hand as she was strapped in. “I won't be far, my princess,” I said as she smiled. I couldn't help but smile back. To see her smile again...it was as if for one single moment the heavens had accepted us, as if this was all just a dream, a terrible dream, and we were just waking up.

  I followed the doctor into a booth near the machine. We watched as the bed moved inside the machine. The doctor approached the microphone. “Okay, Catherine. Relax. This will only take a moment. Just hold your breath, this won't take long.” I watched as the revolving scanner traced around her skull.

  We sat together in the examination room, as I held her hand. I gazed at the images of my wife's brain plastered on a back-

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  lit board. “Well, I'd hate to say it, but the images revealed nothing. Not one single thing. Everything appears to be absolutely normal,” the doctor told me.

  “It can't be,” I said, confused. “I mean, look at her.” “I know, but there is one possibility...”

  “What,” I inquired.

  “Sometimes a disease may not manifest itself on the brain's surface, rather, they materialize deep within.”

  “Is there anything you can do? Please...you have to do something,” I pleaded.

  “I'm sorry...” the doctor replied. “I wish there was something I could do. I really, really do. But I can't do anything. I'm sorry, Jack.”

  I looked down at the ground, and then at my wife. I was afraid. I was terrified. I was scared of losing the one thing closest to me. The one thing in my life that held me together through rough times. She wasn't just my partner, she was part of me.

  The doctor beckoned me. “Will you please accompany me to my office?”

  I replied shakily, “Okay. Sure.”

  I stood, and approached Catherine. I kissed her, pressing the warmth of my lips to her cold, pale cheek. “I'll be back soon, sweetheart. I promise.”

  I followed the doctor into his office. It appeared very professional, but also felt like a the office of some high-end psychiatrist. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and the floor covered with an olive-green rug.

  “Have a seat,” the doctor told me, as we both sat down at

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  his desk.

  “There has to be something you can do for her,” I pleaded.

  “Look. I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but I can't. Diseases that are this deep in the brain are impossible to view. I can't do anything. If I just operated on her, the damage that would be done would be fatal,” he explained to me.

  “Please...”

  “There is nothing I can do.” He told me, as I sighed, looking down. “There is one last thing,” he said to me, “You're wife...I'm sorry, but I'm afraid she won't live long. This disease of hers seems to be taking over her mind, destroying her. It's surprising she even remembers you.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Believe me, this isn't an easy thing for me to say, but...she only has fourteen days to live,” the doctor told me. I immediately bolted up from the chair I sat in, shocked. “Two weeks?!”

  “I'm sorry,” the doctor said soothingly. “Two weeks isn't enough! I love her,” I shouted. I sat against a bookshelf, my head in my arms, as I mourned, “I love her.”

  “I'm very sorry,” the doctor said, clearly trying to heal my wounds, but wounds such as these can't be healed. “Just not enough...my dearest Catherine...what will I do?”

  I sat in my private office, alone. I was gazing at an empty computer screen, trying to write something. Something to kill this pain. But I couldn't. Nothing was coming to mind. Only the agonizing thoughts of a future without her.

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  I stood up, and looked outside the window, at the dancing rainfall on the streets below. The harsh winds caused the rain to slam, crash, and collide with the house. I watched as the trees swayed, embracing the song of the wind. I gazed at the streets below, and watched as a man with an umbrella held a woman in his arms. I couldn't help but think of Catherine. A tear streamed down my face as the doctor's voice echoed endlessly in my mind.

  Fourteen days…

  I arrived at the hospital the very next day. Catherine was hooked up to various machines that monitored her heart and pulse.

  “She's been asleep for days,” the doctor told me.
“She kept repeating your name, over and over. She must really love you.”

  I walked over to my wife, Catherine, who was asleep. “I'll leave you two alone,” the doctor said as he left the room.

  I sat beside her. “I don't like seeing you like this,” I told her softly, “In pain. Suffering...I love you.”

  Despite her being asleep, somehow she gave me her hand, and I held it. She was perishing yet seemed so alive at the same time. I wept into her soft, dying hand.

  Suddenly, a soft beeping noise pierced my ears. A nurse hurriedly rushed into the room as I quickly stood up. “What's going on?”

  “Flatline,” the nurse replied succinctly, as doctors and nurses piled into the room. I watched as they attempted to revive her.

  I watched as blood trickled from her nose. She began

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  screaming in her sleep as her body convulsed violently. She quickly sat up, her eyes as blank as when I first found her like this. She began crying tears of blood, as the veins of her body turned a dark red. I tried to help her but was held back. She then collapsed back to sleep, and everything seemingly transitioned back to the way it was only moments before.

  It was almost midnight but the gun store was still open. I gathered up whatever resolve I had left and went inside. I rang the silver-colored bell that sat atop the hard-wood table. The clerk emerged from the back room, with a horseshoe-style gray haircut, and cigarette in his mouth.

  I bought a revolver, and paid him extra to give me the gun immediately. “Are you sure about this?” he asked me.

  No, I wasn't sure. I just looked at him, and signed a form. I left after that.

  CHAPTER 6

  M U R D E R

  It was a cold stormy night. By the time I got to the hospital it was closed due to a power outage. The parking lot was completely vacant. I entered the hospital.

  I found Catherine, still asleep on the hospital bed. She looked so dead. Her frozen, pale face…was this still the Catherine I knew? I couldn't stand seeing her this way.

  As my lips met hers one last time, I whispered, “baby, I'm so sorry. You won't be in pain any longer.” I walked to the end of the bed, and pulled out the revolver I purchased only hours ago.

  I raised the gun. I hesitated. I couldn't do it. I wanted to free her but I didn't want to kill off the one thing in this world I loved. But I knew I had to. I wiped away the tears, and pulled the trigger. And then, it was all over.

  I held the dead body of my wife as I carried her through the dark, pitch-black hallways of the hospital, illuminated only by the flashes of lightning, and crackling of thunder.

  The waters of the lake below twisted and crashed as they seemingly collided against their own as we – I approached them,

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  Catherine's lifeless body in my arms. As I dropped her into the lake, I whispered, “I love you, Catherine,” and then I dropped a rose onto her body as it sank into the depths.

  It's all over, I thought. She won't be in pain any longer. After that I tried everything I could to convince myself that everything was fine, but the truth was, nothing was fine. I longed for her, the real her. Was there nothing I could do? I wondered if her soul heard my calling.

  CHAPTER 7

  T H E R A P Y

  “How long has it been?” asked Dr. Betruger, a therapist, my therapist. I've seen several before him but none of them could help me. I needed help. I knew that. I needed love. I needed her love.

  “Three years,” I replied. Each passing day was painful enough, but three years was unbearable.

  “And you still have no forgotten?” “No.”

  “Look. You need to learn to forget. I even gave you medication, like you asked. If you're not going to accept my treatment then you can find another therapist.”

  “Yeah, and your placebos don't do shit, doc.”

  “If you want my help, you should mind your manners.” I should have cared, but I didn't. I found it hard, incredibly hard to care about anything anymore, much less about myself. Ever since it happened.

  “You need to learn to forget, that's the best I can do for you. I've tried everything else, but you just won't move on. If you don't, then this will control you, and take over your life.”

  “So what? You people...you walk around, letting the world you know take over and control that pesky thing you call 'life'.”

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  “Just take my advice,” urged Betruger. “Let's go over this

  again.”

  “Let's not.”

  “Listen. You're going to have to learn to face this. One way or another. You have to face it. There is no running away.”

  “I killed her. I shot her.”

  “No you didn't. There was no body. You can't blame yourself for her death.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because you didn't kill her. No one knows how she died, but her body hasn't been found. She could have just ran away, and died from the lack of, what essentially was life support,” explained Betruger. I practically jumped out of my seat at that.

  “Bullshit! I know what happened. It's you and this fucking town that don't!” I shouted, and pulled out an empty medicine bottle. “Here,” I said, tossing the bottle onto Betruger's desk, “take your damn drugs. Take a few, and let me know how to fucking forget!” I yelled. I stormed to the door, ready to leave, when Betruger beckoned me.

  “Jack,” he said as I stopped and turned around, “there are things in life that you can control, and some you can't. This is something that was, is, and always will be beyond your control. You absolutely must forget before it controls you, before it becomes you.”

  “How does one forget the unforgettable?” I asked.

  CHAPTER 8

  B A R

  As I walked down the side of the road, I began to notice how empty and vacant the street was. Almost completely silent. I stopped and watched as two other guys talked on the side of the road. One of them frantic about something. Their conversation was inaudible due to the persistent rainfall. Suddenly, one of them pulled out a gun. “Don't do it!” One of them screamed.

  And then the trigger was pulled. The other one collapsed instantly, like a sack of potatoes. His friend pleaded for help. I continued walking past them.

  A homeless man sat on the side of the road. He looked as if he'd only been homeless a few weeks. “Hey man, I have kids to feed,” he told me, and then I saw them. Two boys and a little girl. His own. They looked almost exactly like him. “Can you please give me some change. Anything, please.” I walked away. I the distance he pleaded “a quarter? A dime? A nickel? Maybe even a penny?” I still didn't stop.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Bar later that night. It was almost entirely vacant. I entered the nearly dead building. It was almost entirely desolate. Not a single soul lights up this

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  forsaken place. The only two people being the bartender, and some man, with a leather jacket and combed-back black hair. I sat beside him.

  “What can I get you?” inquired the bartender.

  “A gun so I can shoot myself,” I told myself quietly. “Pardon?”