The oneironaut, part one.
The thing I remember most clearly about that day is the police officer at my door; the sun was directly behind him when I opened the door, making his awkward buzzcut light up like a halo and giving him something angelic. However, I'd soon find out an angel he was not. A young kid, not yet 25, obviously a rookie on the force, a plump face with reddish cheeks, a thin veneer of sympathy masking his face but his nerves, or perhaps his apathy, shining through like the sun through a fogged up window.
Indent"Mr. Frears? Jacob Frears?"
Indent"Yes."
Indent"Husband of ..." he checked a note in his hand "... Catherine Frears?"
IndentI swallowed. A million things occurring to me at once: she took the car; what was that on the news about a storm front coming in; she never wears a seat belt; how will I tell her mum; she'll be fine, we have a dinner date this friday. I swallowed again and spoke.
Indent"Yes. Kate. Kate Frears is my wife."
IndentHe hesitated and looked away before regaining his composure. A glean of sweat on his forehead. I knew there and then that my life was about to change dramatically. All the officer could do was fill me in on the details, but really, in cases like this, aren't they irrelevant?
Indent"Sir, there's been an accident."
She'd taken the car, like she did every day to go to work, a law firm in the city where she worked 80-hour weeks as a personal assistant to a grossly overpaid lawyer who made twice as much in half the hours and where she harboured silent dreams of one day being an ace lawyer herself, only without the delusions of grandeur. She hadn't put on her seat belt -she never did- but it would not have saved her anyway; if anything, it'd have kept her alive for a few more moments of screaming agony.
IndentShe was driving down the I7 towards the city when she first heard and then saw an ambulance tearing down the road from her left.
IndentShe braked, and the guy behind her, who didn't, rear-ended her at a fair pace. A severe whiplash and some serious damage to the car would have quite enough, but the force of the impact pushed her right into the path of the 5 ton ambulance doing well over sixty. It slammed right into her side of the car before she could even so much as inhale. The bones in the right side of her body were broken; the ones in the left side smashed to a pulp. Parts of the car door had impaled her.
IndentShe was dead on impact, which, people keep telling me, is some kind of morbid consolation. Even the patient in the ambulance was fine; a little shook up, but fine otherwise.
IndentAn ambulance. People often call this ironic. I don't.
The dreams started not long after. I'd always been a vivid dreamer; I'd often drive Kate crazy with my mumblings and antics at night. I'd be fresh as a daisy come morning, unaware of the long hours of sleep I'd denied her. Either that or I'd wake up with sore ribs from the pokings she deservedly gave me. Sometimes, when I'd start babbling, she'd talk back to me, drawing me into a surreal conversation about things too Dali to even mention, just to occupy her time while I kept her awake. No end of fun the following day when she'd taunt me with the silly things I'd imparted about my adventures and encounters. But the dreams I started having a few weeks after the accident were so vivid they scared me.
IndentThey were about her, of course, and about the accident. In the dream I'd be there, several moments after the actual collision. Everything was happening at once -debris still flying, the ambulance skidding to a halt down the road, the guy who rammed Kate opening his car door, Kate's car, with Kate still in it, wrapping itself around a telephone pole- but in extreme slow motion, like a DVD watched at its slowest speed, frame by horrific frame. Everything moving gently and sluggishly around me, belying the destruction being wrought; everything except for me, I am moving real time, like I am standing in the eye of a huge man eating hurricane made up of car bits and mayhem and distorted sounds and misery and a future lost.
IndentThen things would settle down. Sounds would fade away, debris would stop flying, and everything around me would slowly disappear into blackness until only the car, a lump of twisted metal completely surrounding the telephone pole like a hungry cat wrapping itself around your ankle, remained. And there she would be, inside this unrecognisable carcass of a car, unscathed but stuck, reaching out to me, begging me to help her, to grab her hand and pull her free, pull her from this nightmare and back into my life, our life. And I'd run and reach with all my might, reaching for her hand, but it would never be enough, I'd never reach it. There would always be an inch, an infernal inch separating us, separating her from me, me from her, life from death, her delicate fingers from my straining hand. One inch. Reach! Half an inch. Reach harder! Closer. Closer. Almost.
IndentAnd I'd wake. Sweating and my hand cramping. So close.
Indent"Mr. Frears? Jacob Frears?"
Indent"Yes."
Indent"Husband of ..." he checked a note in his hand "... Catherine Frears?"
IndentI swallowed. A million things occurring to me at once: she took the car; what was that on the news about a storm front coming in; she never wears a seat belt; how will I tell her mum; she'll be fine, we have a dinner date this friday. I swallowed again and spoke.
Indent"Yes. Kate. Kate Frears is my wife."
IndentHe hesitated and looked away before regaining his composure. A glean of sweat on his forehead. I knew there and then that my life was about to change dramatically. All the officer could do was fill me in on the details, but really, in cases like this, aren't they irrelevant?
Indent"Sir, there's been an accident."
She'd taken the car, like she did every day to go to work, a law firm in the city where she worked 80-hour weeks as a personal assistant to a grossly overpaid lawyer who made twice as much in half the hours and where she harboured silent dreams of one day being an ace lawyer herself, only without the delusions of grandeur. She hadn't put on her seat belt -she never did- but it would not have saved her anyway; if anything, it'd have kept her alive for a few more moments of screaming agony.
IndentShe was driving down the I7 towards the city when she first heard and then saw an ambulance tearing down the road from her left.
IndentShe braked, and the guy behind her, who didn't, rear-ended her at a fair pace. A severe whiplash and some serious damage to the car would have quite enough, but the force of the impact pushed her right into the path of the 5 ton ambulance doing well over sixty. It slammed right into her side of the car before she could even so much as inhale. The bones in the right side of her body were broken; the ones in the left side smashed to a pulp. Parts of the car door had impaled her.
IndentShe was dead on impact, which, people keep telling me, is some kind of morbid consolation. Even the patient in the ambulance was fine; a little shook up, but fine otherwise.
IndentAn ambulance. People often call this ironic. I don't.
The dreams started not long after. I'd always been a vivid dreamer; I'd often drive Kate crazy with my mumblings and antics at night. I'd be fresh as a daisy come morning, unaware of the long hours of sleep I'd denied her. Either that or I'd wake up with sore ribs from the pokings she deservedly gave me. Sometimes, when I'd start babbling, she'd talk back to me, drawing me into a surreal conversation about things too Dali to even mention, just to occupy her time while I kept her awake. No end of fun the following day when she'd taunt me with the silly things I'd imparted about my adventures and encounters. But the dreams I started having a few weeks after the accident were so vivid they scared me.
IndentThey were about her, of course, and about the accident. In the dream I'd be there, several moments after the actual collision. Everything was happening at once -debris still flying, the ambulance skidding to a halt down the road, the guy who rammed Kate opening his car door, Kate's car, with Kate still in it, wrapping itself around a telephone pole- but in extreme slow motion, like a DVD watched at its slowest speed, frame by horrific frame. Everything moving gently and sluggishly around me, belying the destruction being wrought; everything except for me, I am moving real time, like I am standing in the eye of a huge man eating hurricane made up of car bits and mayhem and distorted sounds and misery and a future lost.
IndentThen things would settle down. Sounds would fade away, debris would stop flying, and everything around me would slowly disappear into blackness until only the car, a lump of twisted metal completely surrounding the telephone pole like a hungry cat wrapping itself around your ankle, remained. And there she would be, inside this unrecognisable carcass of a car, unscathed but stuck, reaching out to me, begging me to help her, to grab her hand and pull her free, pull her from this nightmare and back into my life, our life. And I'd run and reach with all my might, reaching for her hand, but it would never be enough, I'd never reach it. There would always be an inch, an infernal inch separating us, separating her from me, me from her, life from death, her delicate fingers from my straining hand. One inch. Reach! Half an inch. Reach harder! Closer. Closer. Almost.
IndentAnd I'd wake. Sweating and my hand cramping. So close.