Mountain, Lake

Magenta leaned forward as she moved to the edge of the chaise lounge, resting her elbows on her knees and covering her face with her hands. "My dream last night, Carey. It was not good."

"What happened? Would you like to describe it for me?"

"Well, first of all, I was hanging out at my friend's apartment last night. I've told you about Lurie, right? Yeah, so I went over to her house to watch the finals of the Australian Open. Actually, we went out to this swanky place to watch the match because Lurie read in the shitty daily free paper that they were having a viewing party."

"What place?"

"The Browbeater. Ever heard of it? No, okay, so I've never been there either. But when we got there it was completely crowded, and the host asked if we had a reservation, and we totally didn't. So we left, no room at the inn. We just wandered back down the street and couldn't find the match playing anywhere else, so we ended up back at her place."

"Did you have a nice time?"

"Oh sure, we ordered take out and cheered for Andy Roddick and talked during the commercials. Actually, that's one of the things that must have triggered this dream."

"What was?"

"Well, she asked about Walleye. She said that she was curious, wanted to see what he looked like."

"Do you talk about him often with her?"

"No, almost never. I mean, why would I, right?"

"Understandable. But he is a big part of your recent past."

"Granted. And I guess that must be why she is interested. I mean, we go out together on the weekends. We meet guys. She tries to get me to describe my 'type.' 'What kind of guys do you go for...' You know, stuff like that. I don't really have a type; I just like what I like."

"So you say. Anyway, she asked to see Walleye."

"Yeah, so I was like, log on to my Facebook page. There's some random pictures of him on there. Not much, since - this is kind of funny, actually - I didn't even join Facebook until after we broke up. Before I was kind of lazy about it. Keeping up with people, I mean. I let him give me updates on our mutual friends and made him keep me posted on the lives of the people we met and got to know in common. So, anyway, she logs on to my page and starts flipping through my photos."

"And?"

"And that's it. There he was. Walleye in Indonesia with me and a group of our friends. Tiny Walleye at the base of Chichen Itza. That's it. Big deal."

"What did Lurie say?"

"It doesn't matter. Nothing. What matters is, he was in my head. And then he was in my dream."

"So tell me about your dream, then."

"We were driving. It was the two of us. The absurd rules of dreaming were in full effect, though, because while I am one-hundred percent sure that he was driving the Volkswagon minibus in which we were riding, I am also quite sure that we were both sitting on a flat floor covered in green astroturf."

"Hmmm."

"And we were driving through these mountains. Beautiful mountains. Sharp peaks, amazing views. The scenery was spectacular, flying around these bends in the road. And Carey, Walleye and I, we were, you know, together."

"Okay. Can you remember how you felt about that?"

"I felt safe. I felt wanted. I felt like things were back where they were supposed to be. I remember seeing this lake up in the mountains; I guess we were driving around it. I remember how peaceful, calm, and perfectly serene it looked. I think that I felt like that lake."

"Magenta, were you in control of this dream? I mean, did you ever feel like you were directing the events that were occurring?"

"I know what you are talking about, Dr. Carey. Lucid dreaming, right? No, it wasn't like that at all. Because here's how the dream ended: he killed us."

"What do you mean, he killed you? How?"

"He was accelerating too quickly, we were coming up on this overlook, this enormous curve in the road high over the lake. And he just floored it. I remember the feeling, the thrilling few seconds after we left the road and the vehicle flew out into the open air. It was exhilarating, nothing short. And then the reality, the panic, the terror: we were going to die. I was dead. He killed me."

"Wow."

"Wow for sure. And then I woke up. I made myself wake up. I didn't want to die. You know they say that if you ever die in your dream, you die in real life, too. Like your brain thinks that you are really dead. So you are."

"The awareness of this obviously didn't escape you."

"That dreaming about Walleye killing me could have killed me? No, it didn't escape me at all."

Currently Listening to:

Kings of Leon, Only By the Night