Dreamscape
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Dreamscape II free porn video
Dreamscape 2
By Diana Kimberly Heche
Part 2: Arnie and Janet
One of the things I learned quickly was that Lucy Maya wore
glasses. I sat on the couch surrounded by books and articles of
every ilk - everything from witchcraft to little known aspects
and traditions of major religions.
I had been this way for days, sitting and reading almost
continuously. After a few days of holding papers near the tip of
my nose, it dawned on me that perhaps I should search for a pair
of reading glasses in one of these drawers.
I found them in her briefcase. Spectacle search aside, I had done
little else except read, order food, and phone my job. I told
them I was recovering nicely and would require another few days
before I reported. By this point, I had read through tons of
material.
I picked up an article on reincarnation I had taken from one of
the more off beat websites I had encountered and sighed. It, like
most of what I was digging through, was not helping me at all.
Most of it was plain junk.
A couple of days ago, when I revealed to my brother Alex that I
was actually Craig Morton. I revealed to him that some twist of
fate took my demised soul, placed it in the vessel of Lucy Maya
while she lay still in her coma.
I told him that I would take what the lunacy of the Universe had
handed out to me and start living her life. To be more accurate,
living my life while trying to fill in her shoes.
I felt that one of us, she or I, was given another chance for a
reason. I just needed to find out what that reason was. However,
like every part of my new life, it turned out to be far from
easy. One can't just settle and wear someone else's life like
changing coats. I had a need to understand how and why I existed,
even if no real answers were available. It consumed me.
It was not only a need to know how I got here, I needed to know
who I ... Lucy ... was. Piled in with the books of the mystic,
were every letter, answering machine tape, yearbook, and scrap of
notes about Lucy I could find. I had read through them all,
repeatedly, trying to formulate a picture.
I spent long blocks of time in front of the open door of her
refrigerator asking myself what kind of person ate this type of
food. I held up her clothes, trying to determine what kind of
person wore things like this. I even examined the doodles on the
edges of her hand written phone messages.
Then there were the interviews. Sitting around rooting through
the scattered clues to my new life, Alex and I had a brainstorm.
With my brother claiming to be a psychologist who was helping me
recover memories lost from the accident, we rang every person in
Lucy voluminous address book, and quizzing them - sometimes for
hours on end.
Slowly over a matter of days, we were able to put together a
working biography of Lucy. The biography complete with details
would make navigation of her life a great deal easier. I had
filled two notebooks with information of all kinds.
An unforeseen, but added benefit was we were able to prepare all
of the people in her life that Lucy was not the same person she
was before entering the mysterious world of the coma. Her
faculties and intelligence may be as sharp, but her memory had
definitely taken a severe beating. The path was laid - huge
inconsistencies in my behavior may create concern, but the
concern would be spawned of sympathy.
As it was in the first days of the hospital, it was getting used
to my body that was another difficult part. Over the past few
days, I had spent a great deal of time in front of the mirror. It
took me hours just to familiarize myself with my new female form.
I had learned through my interaction with Alex, that I was not
presenting myself as I assumed I was. Many of my expressions, on
the face of Lucy, conveyed an entirely different meaning. Many of
these misunderstandings, I learned, were largely through
stereotypes imposed on women.
As a serious person, for instance, I as Craig Morton was often
said to look thoughtful or carry a certain gravity. On Lucy's
visage, these looks were interpreted by Alex as bitchy or dour.
My male habit of broad aggressive movements in this thin athletic
body were overly assertive and tom boyish, often plainly crude.
Making matters worse, my efforts to compensate for this were
frequently over the top - like a woman playing what she thought a
drag queen would act like in a very broad farce.
I was learning over time that there was great middle ground
between Lucy and me, and by just "being neutral" - staying away
from the extreme behaviors for either sex - I came off as much
more plausible. I still needed a great deal of practice.
I called for Alex while he was in the kitchen. He had been in
there quite some time; I suspected he was hiding out from having
to wade through more reading, or plainly just hiding out.
After his initial acceptance of my situation, his constant
testing of me to make sure that he could believe both me and his
instincts, Alex went through periods of time where it was all too
much for him.
In the middle of reminiscing over our parents, or one of the many
subjects we had covered so many times in the past, he would stop
in mid sentence.
At these times, he struggled to come to grips with my memories
emerging from a completely foreign body. It was an impossibility,
which sat before him, testing the limits of his understanding at
every waking moment. The indescribable magnitude of the situation
was sometimes too much for him, as it often was for me. His
method would be to simply walk away from it. I suspected, as he
remained in the kitchen, this was one of those times.
I had no sooner called his name than I was jarred as the
apartment buzzer sounded. It wasn't an uncommon sound, as flowers
and packages of goodwill had flooded through the doorway since it
became common knowledge I had emerged from a coma. But, it still
caught me off guard.
Standing up, I pressed the intercom button to identify the
visitor.
"Hello?" I asked. The sounds of the busy lobby filled the
apartment from the speaker. After a moment's pause (indicating
indecision) a voice finally spoke.
"Hi, Lucy. I don't know if you remember me, but my name is Arnie.
I was the one who left you the flowers. You know, the guy from
the hospital when you woke up?" His voice sounded oddly neutral
for someone on a friendly mission.
I was caught by surprise. There had been a few attempted visits
since I arrived home, but those were all announced by telephone
first. In those cases, I was easily able to plead weakness and
recovery to brush them off.
However, no one ever just came by. Someone just arriving at your
door in the stretched out metropolis of Los Angeles is such an
unexpected event that I wasn't even sure how to react.
"Arnie. Yes, I remember thank you for the flowers. I would invite
you up, but ... I'm not feeling so great," I lied, "You
understand don't you."
"I can ... I understand ... But I have to talk to you. I was
driving the bus when the car.... spun into mine. I was there at
the accident. I was also there when you woke up. I ... I need to
talk to you," he repeated.
I took my finger off the button and leaned against the wall next
to the speaker. At this point Alex had walked into the room and
was listening. His face was also puzzled. He shrugged silently.
I put my finger back on the button, "Okay, Arnie, come on up."
***
As he entered the apartment, I puzzled over him. Arnie Williamson
was definitely not like the bus driver I had seen before.
Out of his Metro Transit uniform, he seemed a great deal smaller
as if his work clothes were padded. His face came to a sharp
point and he was bespectacled, he must have been wearing contacts
the first time I saw him. He appeared like someone who would be
more at ease flunking an English student than tossing a homeless
drunk from the bus.
His voice carried a slight Southern tinge, which was rare in this
part of California. His demeanor was slightly nervous, evident as
he took in the apartment with quick cuts of his eyes. He however,
saved his most inquisitive glances for Alex. Alex shifted
nervously under his gaze.
"Hello Arnie." I began putting on what I hoped was a grateful
voice, "Can I get you something to drink? I had heard about how
you read to me everyday too. How your reading to me was probably
responsible for bringing me out of the coma. You don't know how
appreciative I am."
The bus driver said nothing as his eyes continued to dart about
the room. He took notice of the pile of paper and picked up one,
glancing at it casually, before putting it down. I couldn't put
my finger on it, but there was something about him that was
making me nervous.
"Well then, Arnie," I began, breaking the uncomfortable silence,
"what brings you here?"
He chose not to answer my question before asking one of his own.
Pointing to Alex he asked, "You're the brother aren't you?"
Realizing he was not being precise, he elaborated, "You're the
brother of the man that died in the accident I mean. Craig
Morton, God rest his soul."
There was something very strange about his manner.
"I'm his brother, yes," Alex answered cautiously. He too picked
up on the strange vibe coming from the bus driver.
Arnie returned to the matter at hand, "I know this has been hard
on everyone," he was a slow deliberate speaker, "and no one more
than you. You've lost ... a friend, and have been out of our
world for a week. It's been hard for me as well. I was driving
the bus when your car spun out and hit me. The lawyers at the
Metro Transit tell me I shouldn't be talking to you at all, the
way people seem to sue over anything and all, but that didn't
seem like the right thing to do. I was there after all when you
were in the accident, and I was there when you came out of the
coma." He said the last part with a driving emphasis.
He continued his monologue, "Do you realize, you didn't go
straight into that coma ma'am? You had a little gash on your head
and were in a tree. I brought you down, holding your head up to
slow the bleeding while waiting for the ambulance. That's
actually when you slipped into your long dream. What's funny is
when you came out, that day in the hospital, I held you too
because I thought it was God bringing a miracle down upon us."
Arnie spoke of God in the comfortable every day way of certain
Southern denominations.
"Thought?" I asked. I had no real reason to speak; I just wanted
to interrupt his story, which was growing more uncomfortable than
his unwavering stare.
"Yes ma'am. Thought, because after going home, I started having
feelings and ... strange dreams. I don't know if you've ever held
someone in their arms as they fell into a coma - or die - but it,
their spirit, washes through you. You feel it. But when I started
thinking about it on the way home after holding you when you woke
up from your coma, it wasn't the same spirit. At least I don't
think it was."
Wasn't the same spirit? Was he saying what I thought he was
saying?
Alex interjected, "Mr. Williamson, Arnie. I appreciate that
you're in touch with your spirituality. It comforts us to think
in those terms at a time like this. However, we can't believe in
such things as spirits washing through bodies and the like.
People fall into comas and come out of comas all the time. This
kind of talk will only upset Ms. Maya."
Arnie paused to watch Alex speak, his eyes fixed upon him. When
Alex finished, Arnie continued as if Alex hadn't said a word,
"Well ma'am, I know this is going to sound insane. But I think
something happened to you when you were in that coma. Something
more than you just losing your memory. I'm not sure if it was a
different spirit, I felt, or if being in a coma changes a person
so that their spirit just feels different. But looking at all
these papers about religion and reincarnation lying about, and
watching you move about and talk like you were being yanked
around by a brand new puppet master, I think you're on to it
too."
He paused, gazing at me intently, "Do you feel like something ...
I hate to use the word but ... supernatural ... went wrong while
you were in that coma? You can tell me."
Why he assumed I could tell him anything, was beyond me.
"No Arnie, I don't. I do feel ... a little off, not having most
of my memory is tough, but that's about it. I do, however,
appreciate your concern."
He stood up and took off his round spectacles to clean the lens
with the hem of his sweater. He turned to show himself to the
door. He had one final thing to say.
He looked over his shoulder to be sure we saw the resolve in his
face, "Well ma'am up until I came up here, I thought I was just
having crazy dreams, or that maybe, just maybe, something
happened to you that you weren't aware of. Now I think you do
know. Moreover, I think you're lying to me about it. I just hope
that something, isn't some great perversion, which slipped past
the eyes of God and must be fixed, like my dreams keep telling
me. I may only be a bus driver, but there are many things I am
aware of. And if it turns out that I'm one who somehow made this
all wrong, by your smashing into my bus, I guess I'm going to
have to be the one to make it right. Good day ma'am. Good day
sir."
The door clicked behind him.
As soon as I heard the elevator doors close down the hallway, I
let my breath out, "That was fucking weird. How couldn't
possibly...?"
"Why not?" Alex answered my half asked question, "It's no crazier
than anything else that's happened. Your spirit did in fact leave
your body and it did in fact lose its way after all. Why couldn't
he have felt it?"
"What if he is right about my slipping past the eyes of God? I've
often thought I was some great cosmic perversion, my very
existence could set events ... well events I don't want to think
about, into play."
Alex smiled without humor, "Aiding and abetting a cosmic
perversion. I'm sure that will look good on the resume I submit
at the pearly gates," he put his hand on my shoulder reminding me
of the consoling he did after my parents had moved on, "I think
something large is happening here. A mistake, maybe. A cosmic
injustice, I don't know, but I don't think so. But, from the
sounds of our bus driver friend, the difficult task of being Lucy
Maya just got that much more so."
***
I stumbled across Janet sitting in the hallway of my apartment
complex. I was holding an arm full of groceries with my key
tenuously gripped to slide into the door. She was seated in the
hallway throwing a rubber ball against the wall apparently
waiting for someone.
She was no more than sixteen, despite her clothing, which tried
its best to convey womanhood onto her still young body. Her
demeanor, like her clothing, attempted to portray a more mature
essence. Upon seeing me, she eyed me with narrow disinterest,
which slowly brightened into recognition. I wonder how well she
knew me. I braced for an uncomfortable encounter filled with lies
of head injuries and diminished memory.
"Hi," I said simply. She threw the rubber ball with the expertise
of an inmate in solitary; it bounced onto the floor, then wall,
and back into her hands perfectly. I surmised she spent long
stretches in these hallways. I also guessed she was not a
favorite of the neighbors.
"Hi," she returned the greeting. Her voice was more melodic and
innocent than I had anticipated. Her dress and body language
prepared me for someone much "harder" than that. Her pose was
most likely defensive built from hours of being a nice looking
young lady in a not so nice city.
Watching me fumble for some time uncomfortably with my keys,
seeing I was unwilling to do the intelligent thing putting my
bags of groceries down, she offered to help.
"That would be nice. Thanks." I responded. She took my keys
unlocked my door, swinging open the apartment door. I placed the
groceries down on the dining room table with her following me in
with my keys.
"Thank you," I said, "I'm sorry what was your name?"
"Janet." She stood back and examined me closely. "Your
psychologist called my mom just the other night. Mom told me
afterward that you were left with no memory from the accident,
but it is a hell of a thing to see. I've met you on several
occasions. You usually invite me in for coffee when you see me in
the hallway."
"I let a kid your age drink coffee?" I laughed skeptically. I
doubt very much this was something a straight arrow like Lucy
would do, "Nice try, I lost my memory, but I'm not stupid."
At this she laughed openly and heartily. It too was musical. "No,
no I guess you're not. But we have met, really, and you have - at
least a few times - let me in. I'm not very good about
remembering my key,"
She explained, "So I find myself waiting in the hallway for Mom
to get off from work. She throws a fit if I wander around the
city. You know because of the gangs and all." This part of Los
Angeles was up-scale and completely gang free. I suspected it was
more Janet that concerned her mother than outside forces.
I began unloading groceries as Janet had made herself comfortable
on one of the dining room chairs. It became apparent that this
was going to be another time that she waited in Lucy's ... my ...
apartment for her mother to come home. She was far more pleasant
a visitor than the troubling figure of the bus driver which Alex
and I had experienced earlier today.
"So, if it's not rude," she asked seeming not really to care if
it were rude or not, "what's it like losing your memory? Did you
lose it all?"
Her bright eyes watched me as carefully as they would a new video
from a boy band. I had been wandering around the kitchen holding
two cans of soup, opening every cabinet one at a time, then
closing them, as I tried to discover where they went. No wonder
she asked. I would have to rearrange everything to my system
soon, I decided.
"It's like," I began again, speaking truthfully, "it's like
waking up and finding you're someone else. Everything about your
life is a mystery to you. Your friends ... your enemies ... all
of it. Even," I laughed, "where you put your soup."
"Yeah, my mom calls it a mixed blessing. She says coming out of a
coma after a week and having everything working is a second
chance. But having no memory must make it awfully lonely." Janet
looked embarrassed at leaking the confidence of her mom, and on
top of it, making me feel bad.
She pulled out her ball and nervously rolled it between her
palms. She was miles away from the girl who played mildly tough
while bouncing it in the hallway. I wanted to rub her head as I
did my nephew when he stuck his foot in his mouth, but I felt it
was inappropriate.
She changed the subject, "So are you going back to work and
stuff?"
I nodded my head. I had been putting off going to work while I
delved into my research on Lucy and matters of the supernatural.
But for both subjects I had gotten as far as I was going to. I
didn't feel like I was ready to assume Lucy's life fully, but
there was a point in which I had to.
Bills would eventually pile up, and I was only putting off the
inevitable. After the creepy visit from the bus driver, being
surrounded by people seemed like the right thing to do.
I looked at Janet noticing her color coordinated outfit, matching
both her lips and her nail polish. I had an idea, hoping to solve
one of the larger problems I had run up against.
"Which gives me an idea. This is a bit awkward Janet," I said,
"but when do you head to school in the morning?"
"8 o'clock. Why?"
"Well, here's the thing. There are some simple functions that I
have developed a strange block against. You see, the coma..." I
paused my fiction to search for the right words, "And one of
those functions is that I can't seem to be able to deal with my
make up or hair very well,"
I was right, this was awkward.
I plowed forward, "If it is okay with your mother - and I want
her to call me to make sure - I'd like for you to come over
before work and help me with my make up. I'm willing to pay you a
great deal for it. I'm not starting for a couple more days, but
it would be a huge help."
She perked up, "Paid! Really? A great deal? I'll ask mom for sure
when she gets home. It'll probably be okay ... you guys get along
pretty well. You were very nice to mom when she first moved into
the complex after ... dad took off."
And as if just discussing her mother brought her home, Janet
looked at her watch and stood up. "Mom's probably back, I don't
want to freak her out. I'll have her call about the make up
thing."
She half walked, half skipped to the door. Before she left she
put a large smile on her face and turned toward me, "Thanks for
the coffee."
[To be continued]
Sherry
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