Lasting Dreams.

There is darkness everywhere. Stars that I thought would be up in the sky are nowhere to be seen, and I wonder where I am. There is a low beeping that creeps in through my left ear and out my right. I feel so worn out; I feel so empty and dark and lonely. And I really miss the stars. They are usually always there for me in times of trouble, through the night they shine on and on. But, now, they are missing; this hollowness is inescapable.

That beeping is continuous. It isn’t fading, even though I really wish that it would. I’m so tired and sick of the night. I know that right now, I am not at home, and all that I want is to return home so that I can go to bed and feed my cat. Come to think of it, I really miss that cat; it’s always meowing and shit, wanting for me to pet it, feed it, play with it. It likes getting scratched behind the ears, and whenever I’m in bed trying to go to bed, it sits its furry cat ass down right next to me and tries to get me to play with it like I’m supposed to be nocturnal, or something.

I really want to go home now.

There are voices now, too, not just the beeps that I really wish would stop. I take a second to listen to whatever those voices are talking about.

“Do you think he’s ever going to wake up?” somebody says. They sound scared. I want to slap them all of the sudden, and I’m not really sure why.

“Well,” another voice says, sounding rather uptight and professional, “at the rate things are going…”

A sigh. Then, the first voice says something I can’t really understand. Probably something along the lines of, “That’s all I needed to know.”

Then there’s this really loud sound of a door shutting. When I hear these footsteps come and stop right next to my right ear, I suddenly realize that I’m sweating like a pig. I can feel this hot mass of something or other covering me up. Feels like blankets to me. There’s this film of heat covering my face and neck and back. My palms feel nervous. I clench my fists and try and denote whether or not they’re as tired as the rest of me feels. Sure enough, they are, but I keep squeezing them anyway just for the heck of it.

“Damn it,” I say, “I want to go home.”

My voice is all scratchy and the back of my throat feels dry, like somebody just poured sand down it and told me to swallow. I try and work up some spit to help my aching throat, but it doesn’t come easy.

The eyelids my world had been hiding behind retract and I’m completely blind. Except, the whole blind part isn’t how I thought it would be; instead, it’s more of a really bright whiteness that is so stark and pale and light that you can’t see anything at all. It hurts your irises and it leaves your mind frazzled in its own world.

When things start to make sense, I realize I’m not blind after all. That makes me feel really stupid, you know. I feel like a goddamn imbecile for even thinking I was blind. I mean, I’ve always had imperfect vision, but being blind is something I’m pretty sure that I’ll never be.

It’s so bright out that I know that it isn’t even nighttime at all; I just had my eyes closed. The stars don’t show up behind closed lids, only during the reality of night. In fact, coming to terms with my senses, I can see now that it looks to be about morning time. The farthest thing from night, really. I feel so stupid I can hardly stand it. Where the hell am I? I want to go home and feed the cat.

There is a hand on my shoulder. The presence of someone I thought had left the room is beside me, their touch grazing my skin. I can feel that I don’t have my shoulders covered by this heat. I wonder who it is? Everything is still so bright, it’s hard to see straight.

“Dallas?”

It’s that voice again. It’s female. I swear to God I know it like the back of my hand; I’ve probably heard it a million times. I’m so damn confused and annoyed with myself that I can’t think of who it is.

My sight is back now. I look over at her.

It’s Adrienne.

Fuck. Who’s fucking with me.

She’s smiling. Her eyes look wet and her cheeks are all rosy. Circles stain the skin beneath her eyes; they’re dark and I can see that she hasn’t gotten much sleep. There’s this slump in her shoulders that wasn’t there before; it’s like she’s as worn out as I feel. And her hair is all a mess, sticking up in all different directions and fraying on the ends. Her clothes are wrinkled and hanging off her. She lost a lot of weight.

“Oh my God,” she says.

I don’t know what to do, all I know is that I feel so… weak. And I’m staggered and dumbfounded that I’m actually looking at Adrienne. She’s actually there sitting beside me this time, it isn’t just one of my dreams. There’s blood pounding in my head. My neck all the sudden has a heartbeat. I can hear everything.

I open my mouth to try and say something, but no words come out. I’m like a fish out of water, just opening and closing its mouth while gasping and trying to breathe even though it’s impossible without being equipped with its essential needs.

“Shh,” she says, shaking her head at me, “it’s okay; you don’t have to talk.”

There are tears. I feel like holding her, and I would if I could get my arms to move. They feel like they’re made out of bricks, and they’re all weighed down at my sides. I clench my fists again. At least I can do that. She’s crying, sitting in the chair beside the bed, her knees all brought up close to her chest while she’s got one hand on my shoulder and the other wiping her eyes.

I’m in a hospital.

Goddamn.

“Why am I here?” my mind is screaming. “What did I do to get myself landed in here?”

She’s sobbing and my chest feels as if it’s suddenly on fire. I want to reach out to her, hold her, and pretend like nothing had changed between us over the course of the four years we’d been apart. God, I had missed her so bad; what had happened for her to come back here to me? For that time I’d spent without her, I had been under the impression that she left the country completely. Apparently, this was no so, as she was sitting right beside me with her hand on my shoulder, crying and shaking like a leaf. I want to hold her so bad and save her from this grief and unhappiness.

But all I can get to move is my hands. I squeeze my eyes shut and lift up my million-pound arm with all of my might, just enough so that it carries my hand down. I try to make my hand on hers seem gentle, but by the time I get my arm all the way over to the other side of the bed, I feel like I’ve run a mile; it just falls down and probably crushes her fingers.

I figure she’s going to start balling even harder now. I feel like such a prick for it.

Except when she looks over at me, and I finally open my eyes again, she just looks stunned. I’m not sure what the hell happened but there’s this look of gratitude painted all across her face. Her cheeks are red. Her shoulders stop shaking. She sucks in all of her breath and just looks over at me.

There are still tears staining her face. And, God, she’s so beautiful I can’t even explain it. She looks so different than I remember her, but even though she’s all worn out-looking, I want to kiss her. Silence doesn’t even sugarcoat the room.

It’s the scent of death that does.