Awaken

by Denese Shelton

  Dr. Cayden was a petite woman with her hair in a bun and small, dark-rimmed glasses decorating her slanted green eyes. She didn’t say anything when Sierra walked through the door.

  “So, how do I do this?” Sierra asked after a few moments of standing there in silence. “I mean, what am I supposed to do?”

  Dr. Cayden sat in a plush black chair with a high, stiff back and swivel on the bottom that Sierra would have loved as a kid. She would have pushed her feet up against the floor and spun the chair round and round until she was so dizzy she wanted to vomit—not unlike the feeling of nausea that was plaguing her at this very moment.

  “Well there’s no right or wrong way to start, but if you feel comfortable, you can sit.” Dr. Cayden lifted her dainty hand and pointed a thin finger at the couch that sat adjacent to her chair.

  This woman actually has a couch for the “crazy” people to sit on, Sierra thought.

  Dr. Cayden was wearing a white, silk, long-sleeved shirt with a string of white pearls and a knee-length black pencil skirt. Black, narrow-toed heels adorned her neatly crossed feet, the right foot lying gently on top of the left.

  Sierra definitely wasn’t comfortable and didn’t think that sitting would help with that, but she needed to do something with herself—she was feeling really anxious. The speed with which Dr. Cayden’s secretary had gotten her in for this appointment had made her suspicious of this doctor’s abilities. After all, if she was so amazing, shouldn’t she be booked at least three months out? Ultimately, however, she’d realized that she would make any excuse not to come to this appointment that was making her so uncomfortable, so she’d decided to ignore her doubts.

  Sierra sat down on the couch, amused by the fact that Dr. Cayden fit the description of the stereotypical psychologist, right down to the glasses and tightly wound bun of hair. The doctor sat with a half smile, waiting for Sierra to find her “comfort” spot.

  Finally, Sierra stopped fidgeting.

  “We could start by talking about why you’re here,” Dr. Cayden said.

  Sierra took a deep breath and tried to relax. Although she wasn’t particularly eager to “spill her guts” to a stranger, she also didn’t want to waste the money she was paying this woman to listen to her spilling her guts. She looked around the room. The office itself was comforting. The walls were an oatmeal color that really didn’t elicit any emotion at all. A picture of an orchid on the wall reminded Sierra of her own home, and that held comfort in and of itself. Dr. Cayden’s undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate degrees also decorated the wall. Her desk sat behind her, oak and tidy. The air was fresh, and Sierra looked around for the air freshener that she was sure was plugged into the wall somewhere but found none. A window behind the doctor’s desk overlooked the street below. It all looked very official.

  Loosen up, Sierra. This is what you’re here for.

  “Well, I guess I’m here because I can’t sleep,” she finally responded. “No, that’s not it,” she amended. “The problem is I sleep too much.”

  Dr. Cayden’s serene, very peaceful look seemed friendly enough, though she offered no smile. The doctor sat quietly and Sierra realized she was waiting for her to elaborate. So she rolled her shoulders back to try and relieve the tension there, took another deep breath, and continued.

  “Well, it started about two months ago. I began to have these weird, very disturbing dreams. These dreams feel real. At first I couldn’t get any sleep because I would dream some weird dream in the middle of the night and when I was able to wake myself up, I either didn’t want to go back to sleep or I had so little time left to sleep that I would just get up and stay up. But then I would drag the rest of that day.”

  “Had you had trouble sleeping prior to these dreams occurring?”

  “Actually, I’ve had trouble sleeping most of my adult life,” Sierra admitted. “But it was never because of dreams. It was getting to sleep that was the problem.”

  “Why do you think that is?” Dr. Cayden asked, uncrossing her feet and then crossing them again so that now her left foot lay on top of the right.

  Sierra shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve always had a lot of things on my mind. I think about things I need to do and haven’t done yet. I think about things I’ve done throughout the day and how I could have done them better. I think about all of this all day long, even when I’m working and doing the things I need to do. I guess I never really learned how to turn my mind off at bedtime.” Sierra shrugged again after her revelation, as if in acceptance of what would always be.

  Dr. Cayden nodded as though she understood something unspoken. “And now you sleep too much?”

  “Yes, I do. I sleep—or rather, have slept in the recent past—for over fourteen hours. The sleep isn’t restful, though.”

  Never changing her expression yet leaning forward, Dr. Cayden pressed Sierra. “You’ve slept over fourteen hours in a continuous period?”

  “Uh, yes,” Sierra said. “If the time could be broken up, I might have very little to complain about,” she added with some sarcasm.

  “And you felt tired after this long period of sleep.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Dr. Cayden nodded. “Can you tell me about your dreams?”

  Sierra was surprised the doctor seemed so unconcerned that she was sleeping for so many hours a day. The woman had a face of stone. What kind of doctor is she? she wondered— but she’d already decided to give the woman the benefit of the doubt, so she gathered her thoughts and started from the beginning.

  “Well, one of the first dreams that I can recall, I was in a forest. It was dark and I was all by myself. I was surrounded by the sounds of nature and by trees. Above me was a starry sky. The stars were the only light I could see. I started to walk, but I had no idea which direction to go in. I tried to think of which star was the North Star, and maybe figure out a constellation to give me a hint.” She pursed her lips. “For me, that was a surprising thought, because the only information I know about astronomy I learned in elementary school. I’m not sure I could guide myself anywhere based only on my knowledge of the stars. Yet the me in my dreams seemed to think that this was a viable option. I could think of nothing else. I felt scared and alone. I didn’t even call out for help. It was so dark, and I didn’t think any human would hear me— but I was pretty sure some hungry animal might. Instead, I just sat down near a tree and wept. I woke up then and cried for the rest of the night. That scared and lost feeling stayed with me even after I woke up.” Sierra stopped her story there, lost in the memory.

  “And what do you think that means?”

  Sierra smiled to herself and looked past Dr. Cayden out of the window. She stared at the building across the way. It was tall and made of brick the color of amber. She could see the windows in the building, but couldn’t see into them. She couldn’t tell what they did in that building across the street. Could they see her? Did they know that she was seeing this psychologist? Would they judge her now and think that she was crazy?

  Dr. Cayden had just asked the quintessential question all the therapists on TV always asked. It had never made sense to Sierra before, just as it didn’t make any sense now. If she knew what it meant, would she really need to be sitting in this office making herself uncomfortable? But all she said was, “I don’t know what it means.”

  “What about the next couple of dreams you had following that first one?” Dr. Cayden asked, apparently nonplussed by Sierra’s reply.

  “In the next dream I can remember, I’m running. I’m not sure who I’m running from, but I know that I’m scared. I hear dogs barking and feet coming fast behind me.”

  Dr. Cayden nodded once, as if encouraging Sierra to continue.

  Sierra related the rest of the events of the dream, finishing with, “And then a rope was around my neck and I was swinging from a tree. I had been lynched.” She could feel tears coming to her eyes, and she wiped them away roughly with her hand until Dr. Cayden offered her a box of tissues. Sh
e took the box and sniffed. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Dr. Cayden said. “Did you die in your dream?”

  Sierra shook her head left and then right. “No, I don’t think so. I woke up just as I could feel the tightness of the cord around my neck and the warmth of the fire burning. I could hear laughter around me, though I couldn’t see anything.”

  “How did this dream make you feel?”

  Sierra thought for a moment. “It made me feel scared and alone. It made me feel powerless.”

  Dr. Cayden nodded again. “Do you have these dreams every night, where you feel powerless?”

  “No, not every night. Especially in the beginning—they would only happen about two or three times a week, and they would never last very long. I would always wake up just when things were getting really bad. In most of the dreams I was some character from the past.” Sierra blew her nose. “The dream I had after the lynching dream was in a cotton field. I was a slave and I was surrounded by others. Actually, it was the first dream where I wasn’t alone. I mean, I didn’t know the people in the dream, but somehow I knew that we were all connected. I am always myself in the dreams, like I am now. Or, rather, my thoughts are my own, but the people around me are seeing me as someone else. I’m always dressed according to where I am and what I’m doing. All the people around me are from that time period, and they call me by a different name, but I still have my own thoughts, how they are today.”

  “What happened at the end of the dream in the cotton field?”

  “I was beaten with a whip because I was accused of not doing my share of the work.”

  “And were you sad and scared again, like you were before?” “No, actually, I was pissed off. I mean maybe I was a little scared, but mostly I was angry. Maybe I was angry enough to forget that I should be scared. But I wasn’t able to do anything with that anger. It all happened quickly, and then I was awake again.”

  “And who were you angry at?”

  Sierra almost got angry then, as the doctor posed what Sierra felt was another dumb question. She kept her temper in check. “I was angry at the man holding the whip and bringing down lashes on my back.”

  Dr. Cayden nodded again. “I see.”

  Sierra was getting frustrated and angry. “What do you see? If you see a reason and a solution, then by all means, please share.”

  Dr. Cayden didn’t respond immediately. Sierra couldn’t understand why she felt so upset, but she was becoming increasingly irritated by the doctor’s questions.

  “Do you ever feel out of place in your everyday life?” Dr. Cayden asked. She was talking as if she hadn’t sensed Sierra’s change of mood.

  “I don’t know,” Sierra said. “I guess, sometimes. But I don’t understand the relevance. I mean, I think most people feel out of place sometimes in their everyday lives.”

  “And is it only sometimes that you feel out of place in your own life?”

  Sierra took her time and really thought about the question. She could see where the doctor was going, finally, with this line of questioning. She really thought she knew herself, at least up until the last couple of months. Lately, though, it seemed like she’d been questioning everything about her existence, including her happiness in the life that she’d created for herself. Do I really fit into my own life? She wasn’t sure anymore.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know. I mean, I thought I knew, but lately I don’t know.”

  “All right. Well that’s a question that I want you to consider. This was a very good start today. When was the last time that you had one of these dreams?” Dr. Cayden uncrossed her ankles as if preparing to get up.

  Sierra looked down at her cell phone and realized that they had already spent fifty minutes together. “The last dream was actually this weekend. I really haven’t had any problems this week.” Sierra smiled at her reply, reminding herself that the week had just begun.

  “Sierra, I want to know what your expectations are in coming to therapy,” Dr. Cayden said. “What do you hope you’ll get out of this?”

  Sierra was at first thrown off by the question, and took a moment to answer. Finally, she said, “I guess I’m just hoping for some understanding as to why I’m having these dreams, and hoping I can get help to make them stop.”

  “Very good,” Dr. Cayden said. “I just want to make sure your goals are realistic and something we can aspire to.”

  Sierra did the nodding in understanding this time.

  “I want you to come see me at least once a week to start off,” Dr. Cayden went on. “I’m certainly concerned with your excessive sleeping, and these types of things are usually due to some stress or unresolved issue in your life. Your dreams may be telling you something about yourself that you’re addressing in your subconscious but not ready to face in your reality.”

  “Well, okay then,” Sierra said as she got up from the couch, eager to leave.

  “I also think that it would be a good idea for you to start keeping a journal or diary. You don’t have to feel pressured to write in it every day, but it may help you to decipher your feelings.”

  Sierra tensed a little at this, but nodded in agreement.

  “I’m also going to encourage you to get into a space of relaxation before you go to sleep. I want you to light candles, maybe take a bath—whatever relaxes you—and see if that helps with your sleeping. Turn off the television an hour before you go to sleep and try to get into a quiet space.”

  “Sure, okay,” Sierra said.

  This experience hadn’t been as painful as she’d thought it might be. The session had actually made her feel kind of free, talking about what was going on with her. She thought once a week seemed a little excessive, but she was willing to give this therapy thing a shot.

  Dr. Cayden met her as she got to her feet and shook her hand. Only then did the doctor let out a genuine, full smile. Her handshake was firm, which Sierra appreciated.

  “I have an emergency line if you need to contact me after hours,” Dr. Cayden said. “You can leave a message, and I’ll be sure to get back to you.”

  “Thank you,” Sierra said.

  And with that, the session was over. Sierra walked out of the room and into the small reception area outside.

  “Miss Donovan, did you want to go ahead and schedule your next appointment?” asked the receptionist, a very friendly blonde with twinkling blue eyes and smooth, pale, porcelain skin. She exuded the type of happiness and cheer that made Sierra wonder if this young woman had ever had a real problem in her life. According to the name tag on her desk, her name was Gail.

  “Sure,” Sierra replied, and she took out her phone to check her schedule for a free day the following week. “Friday afternoon?”

  “Perfect,” Gail said. She continued to smile as she entered the appointment in the computer. “Have a good day!” she called out as Sierra walked away.

  As Sierra made her way to her car, she decided she would take the doctor’s words to heart. She needed to try and figure out if she really was happy with her life—and if she wasn’t, she needed to see if she could do something to make things different.

  Chapter 11

  Sierra sat in her car mentally reviewing and logging her time with Dr. Cayden. She realized that she’d revealed more to that woman in one hour than she had ever told anyone. Having let loose made her feel very uneasy, even if she also had a sense of freedom after talking about the dreams and her life.

  Suddenly, she wasn’t sure she really wanted to think about her life and whether or not she was happy. Thinking about her present life would ultimately lead to thoughts about her past, and she didn’t want that. She never wanted that. Yet the thoughts were overwhelming her now. She was remembering the smells, the sounds—and then she remembered the attic.

  It was late in the afternoon. The sun was slowly going down, but she didn’t even notice. She was with her friend Diana, and everything was right with the world. Playing in the attic was so mysteri
ous. She ran among the empty boxes, the material from some old lace dress grazing her arm as she ran by. Her friend was far ahead. She was trying to catch her. Diana was a beautiful little girl. She had light brown skin and black hair.

  Diana always shared her toys and books, even her favorite candies, with Sierra, and Sierra adored her. They always played in the attic together; it was the only place in the house where they were allowed to run. Two uninhibited six-year-old girls enjoying the freedom of play. Now, Sierra was trying to catch up with her friend, and she finally did. They had come to an open door, and behind it was Diana’s older cousin, Wayne, who lived with them.

  “Hey,” he said. “What are you guys doing?”

  “We’re just playing,” Diana said.

  “Diana, go play over there for a while,” Wayne said. He pointed to the far corner of the attic.

  “Okay,” Diana said, and she began to make her way to the other side of the attic with Sierra trailing behind.

  But Wayne grabbed Sierra’s hand. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  “No, I want to go with Diana,” Sierra said.

  “I have some candy for you,” Wayne said. He gave her a big smile. “Just come play with me for a second.”

  “No, thank you,” Sierra responded, hoping that her politeness would be enough to deter him. She knew what his kind of play meant, and she wanted no part of it. She began to back away to the corner of the attic, where her friend was engaging in the only kind of “play” she wanted any part of.

  Wayne grabbed her arm when she didn’t budge and began to pull her toward him.

  “Come here, I just need to show you something really quick.”

  Just when Sierra was about to raise the volume of her voice to try and alert her friend, Wayne bent down and whispered harshly in her ear, “Do you remember what I told you? If you tell anybody, I will kill your family. Do you want that? Do you want your family dead?”