Fantastic Metropolis

This is the last story before the end.

(She is not dying yet.) A woman has stopped dreaming. She has been dead for eight hours a night, every night, for the last year. The first weeks of this oddity, she discounted the obvious, telling herself she just wasn’t remembering her dreams. What with her new job, she barely had time to think, rushing to prepare every evening and morning—she had no time to ponder the images and emotions gathering or lingering. True, the job wasn’t what she expected—not even what her interviewers had described, but she had interviewed five times (three of them conference call phone interviews) to get this job, and she wasn’t about to let her efforts go to waste. Soon, she would (have time to) make friends… and she wouldn’t miss her old job anymore. Soon too, she would (have time to) enjoy the extra money she was making. But that would be after she had adequately refurbished her wardrobe for the business suit attire they required. And it would be after she downsized her grocery list to only the Things She Really Needed.

When she closed her eyes and breathed steady and even, they sat still under her lids and she knew complete numb blackness until the alarm clock. After a year of nights in the abyss she sat up in bed and changed a little bit in less than a second. And she was terrified.

She called up one of her old friends, apologizing for the early hour, for not writing or calling for a year, and asked for his theories and advice. They had been out of touch for nearly three years, since she had made her move to escape her hometown, but he still spoke easily and true with her, as he suggested changes in her routine and maybe some professional counseling—all in a tone that did not demean her behavior or depress her self image. As she listened to him talk, she felt a mounting sorrow that she had left him behind, that maybe he was The One For Her. She smiled suddenly, as the terrible loss left her, as she finally realized something about him, about why he wouldn’t have her, sorry, couldn’t. She promised she would visit him, as a friend, and that was good enough for both of them. In closing, his tone was very different, grave, as he told her exactly what he was going to do, though he wouldn’t remember it in the morning.

She didn’t remember what he said in the morning either. But she remembered the abyss. And the year got longer. And she found herself sitting alone in the break room for lunches, eating for only ten minutes that seemed like a week of anticipation, as her mind churned about what to do about her dreams. Then she would rush off to her cubicle and do The Work. Until well past 6:00 P.M. Every day.

Her life continued in solitary, and she turned down a few evening dinner dates, choosing to stay late at work and Get Ahead. She started to sense that Something Was Coming, although that is not how she would have described it. Nor would have she been able to interpret what was happening to her as something that was Already Too Late. Some people just don’t Get It. In her case, in everyone’s—in this story—all three of these are correct.

One day in the break room she realized how much she wanted a dog and her heart stopped with sadness for a second when she realized too that her pricey apartment complex wouldn’t even allow small fish. For eleven more minutes she grew in her mind the idea of buying a gun, thinking and unthinking the thought, not eating any of her processed and pressed lunch meat sandwich, until she was convinced of what sporting goods store she would stop at on the way home, and finally how she was going to commit the act, very simply and completely, almost making it happen inside her as she sat there, sitting there, into herself and out of all time, as 2 of 6 oz. of apricot yogurt warmed in the motionless spoon in her hand, while she watched the/her probable/absolute future. She went straight home without stopping. And lunch was the same waking dream the next day. And the next week.

She considered quitting her job. One day the letters of the inspirational memo on the break room door suddenly became words in her mind, even though she had read the words hundreds of times before: Work Smarter, Not Harder. She started checking out the laptop and taking it home nights and weekends. She slept in her cubicle one night. She felt like someone else. For three months. She was living the life of someone else. And it might have continued for the rest of her life. But suddenly she remembered what her friend had said over the phone, and she changed instantaneously. She would have called him up, but she was so excited to have her life back that she drove to work and filled out a Request For Temporary Leave of Absence. (Had she called, he would not have answered. For he was, at that hour, stuck in the deep pit of horrible muck below an outhouse in a city park, already hoarse from screaming, and trying to climb out with one good arm).

While she had changed, her dreams did not return. Which did not disturb her. She had faith (enough), and the skills to develop a project.

For the first week of her self-prescribed treatment, she listened to relaxation tapes of rhythmic sea shores, and mediation chants of rolling mantras. She scheduled appointments with specialists, and met with them for a few sessions until she found a dream counselor, yoga master, and personal therapist she felt was helping her. (She tried to call her friend later to thank him, but she was unable to get in touch with him as he didn’t have any other good friends except her, and no one could report to her that he was in the hospital, and…) It wasn’t long before she threw out the meditation tapes. Though she did hold onto the sea shore recordings, which she played for the angel fish, Buddha, she had purchased and sneaked into her apartment in a grocery shopping bag with a overtly innocent French bread baguette sticking out of the top. (...his family never visited him in the hospital, as his brother didn’t really Agree With His Lifestyle, his mother knew he was Living Against Everything Natural God Had Intended, and his dad said nothing at all.)