Chapter 34

Backing up…












































…step by step away…


















































…from men in black suits.


















































Click.


















































Witticker opened his eyes to the night sky through a hole in an ancient tin roof. Stars twinkled radiantly as a small, thin cloud drifted by, weaving in and amongst the distant balls of light. Several hours earlier, after a lengthy trek through the woods, the two travelers had found the remains of the abandoned farmhouse to rest in for the evening. Edward had started a fire in the cozy concrete hole and the two had, after a brief dinner, lain down. Witticker had managed to sleep for a while, but suddenly found himself awake, rolling from side to side, trying to find a comfortable position on the cold stone floor.
He sat up towards the glow of the fire to find Edward already awake, staring into the flames as he poked them with a crooked metal rod.
“Hey,” grumbled Witticker, “how long have I been out?”
“Just three hours,” replied Edward in a monotone drawl.
Witticker joined his companion, gazing into the fire, trying to find a black flame in the center, the existence of which he had read about years before in a short and possibly fictional record.
“Why do you shake in your sleep?” asked Edward, his eyes having shifted to focus on Witticker. Edward’s gaze was at once accusatory and worrisome.
Witticker, never having had an observer before, was not aware he did anything out of the ordinary when he slept. He thought for a moment on his response before finally answering.
“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. I’ve been having pretty shocking dreams lately. Could be that maybe?”
“What are you talking about?” shot back Edward, “You’re having what?”
Witticker was surprised at the inflection in Edward’s tone, much more foreign and removed than he had from him before.
“I said I’ve been having dreams lately that have been very, well, vivid. Almost real.”
“What are dreams?”
Witticker chuckled and shifted himself on the blanket he had been sleeping on.
“You know, dreams.”
Witticker waved his hands in the air around his head as if signifying everything inside. Edward looked around and then back at Witticker.
“What? You mean everything around your head is a dream? Or…what?”
Witticker shook his head as he was not quite sure what surrealistic conversation Edward was trying to have with him.
“No, the dreams in my head. The ones I have when I sleep.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about dreams. My dreams. You know, the things that…well, the events that occur in my mind…while I’m asleep”
Witticker found that it was becoming increasingly difficult to put a definition on exactly what it was he wanted to describe.
“So, you’re saying that while you sleep you see things. What do you see?”
“Haven’t you ever had a dream?”
“No,” said Edward unabashedly.
Witticker laughed nervously until he realized by Edward’s complete lack of expression that he was fiercely serious.
“You’ve never had a dream?”
“No.”
“So you’ve never been asleep and had images or ideas come to mind? Almost like you’re there, but not quite. Things that you can’t explain, but they’re just there. How you know where you are even though it doesn’t make sense to be there. You just know that you’re there and what is happening is happening.”
“What the hell happened to you why you were on that farm?”
“No,” said Witticker defiantly, “this isn’t strange. Nothing ‘happened’ to me on the farm. People dream. Dreaming is normal.”
“Nobody I’ve ever spoken to has ever described anything remotely like what you’re talking about and I’ve met a lot of people. Where did you even come up with this word? Dreaming?”
Witticker paused a moment to breathe. He had never had to argue his own reality before and he found it unbelievably infuriating. He closed his eyes, slowly took in a big breath, and, after a moment of holding, let it out.
“I didn’t come up with the word. I don’t know who did. Dreaming is just part of the human condition. People have been dreaming forever.”
Edward noticed the fire was getting low and he turned to pull a few sticks from a bundle he had gathered when they had first arrived in the ancient house. He pushed several deep in the flame and the fire crackled as several embers tumbled inside.
“So, let’s consider for a moment that ‘dreaming’ is real. What would I see if I were ‘dreaming’?”
“I don’t know. Everybody dreams about different things.”
“That’s very convenient. So far your definition of ‘dreaming’ is something that you see in your sleep that is different for every person.”
Edward laughed.
“No offense, but it sounds made up.”
Witticker glared at his companion through the fire
“Why would I make this up? What is my motivation to lie to you? About something that only affects me?”
“Good point,” replied Edward, “but it’s definitely strange. Are you sure you’re not just thinking about something right before you go to sleep?”
“No, it’s not like that. It’s like…you’re not in control. It’s like you’re imagining something only you’re not in control of where it goes. Like a movie, only you’re there…only it’s not quite you…just, your point of view.”
Edward stopped for a moment to light a cigarette. He bent close to the fire and let the flames ignite the end of the skinny stick of tobacco.
“What do you see in these dreams?”
“Well,” said Witticker hesitantly, “that’s complicated as well. I usually can’t remember, but I know I’ve been dreaming. Just a feeling you have when you’ve had a dream. In the past the dreams I’ve remembered have been about things I’d read or things I’d seen or ideas I’d thought about before. It’s only recently that some of that has changed.”
Witticker sighed and stared into the fire. He didn’t understand why he was sharing any of this or why he had decided for the receiver to be someone he barely knew, but it felt intensely good to get it out. The more he shared seemed to feed a silent compulsion inside to continue until everything was out.
“What has changed?” asked Edward, shaking Witticker from his thoughts.
“Like I said, my dreams used to be random, but lately…lately they’ve been about something specific. I don’t know what it is, but…it…it’s tearing me apart. It’s the reason I left the farmhouse. The reason I knew I had to find out whatever it is that’s being hidden from me. The reason I’m here now.”
Edward took a long drag on his cigarette as he stared at Witticker over the flickers of the fire. Witticker looked back noticing that Edward was not staring so much as studying.
“What?” shot Witticker, “You don’t believe me? Fine. Don’t believe me. You’re the one that wanted to know in the first place.”
Witticker turned away from the fire and lay back down on his blanket. Edward took the last drag on his cigarette and tossed it into the fire.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. Disbelief is easy. It doesn’t take much to reject an idea. I can just decide not to,” said Edward, poking the fire with his stirring stick.
“What’s hard is that some part of me believes you. A state of mind beyond the immediate conscious. Intriguing and upsetting at the same time.”
Witticker remained silent on his blanket as Edward turned back to his own bedroll. The two men, both unaware of the other doing the same, gazed up into the night sky. The stars continued twinkling on the black canvas of limitless space as both men drifted off to sleep.