LUCID

Victor woke up as he always did. Gasping, until his disoriented mind registered that there was in fact oxygen around him. His bloodshot eyes coloring his pale face, Victor ran a hand through his messy blonde hair before sighing in familiar defeat. The same kind of dream, again. He pulled the aging journal from the nightstand to his left, and jotted a scribble that followed the prior entry in parallel. Despite another apparent failure, Victor was making progress. It was only a matter of time, until he could truly breathe.

His usual morning routine ceased as quickly as it started, with indifference permeating the brushing of his teeth and tightening of his tie. Victor moved through each task with calculated expediency. After trimming his nails, Victor checked his wristwatch and put on his loafers. He left his studio apartment nine minutes before the train arrived, knowing that it would take him seven minutes to walk to the station. Gray shrouds littered the muted atmosphere, hardly acknowledged by Victor—who was occupied with the deliverables that were due by the close of business. By the time he strolled into his dimly lit cubicle, Victor shifted into autopilot. Slumped in his squeaky chair, he typed hundreds of words for every spreadsheet sent by his manager, only pausing on occasion to check his watch. Victor had long embraced his role as a cog. What else could he do, in this lifestyle that he had worked so hard to achieve?

Once the sun set, Victor’s learned ambivalence began to falter. Obligated to retreat from the ivory walls and translucent doors of the office, he found himself on a train once more. Remembering the pit in his stomach, Victor’s heart raced faster than the engine of the train taking him back to the place he never wanted to be. His mind. Despite the piercing apprehension that overtook him as he entered his apartment, Victor resolved to try his best. Like always, horror resurfaced in his thoughts, as he struggled to reconcile with what was to come. Still, Victor remained brave. He poured himself some gin, and turned on the television. Anything to drown out his anxiety. Victor accepted that a return to his other plane of existence was inevitable. In the end, his unconscious mind always won. But Victor could at least ease the transition. He continued drinking gin and watching reruns. Tonight, Victor started counting sheep around 3 AM. As he fell into the abyss, darkness and silence covered him. Victor continued falling, until he could stand.

Victor rose from the lush green field beneath him, unable to shake the smile from his face. Surrounded by radiant hues and a gentle wind, his eyes welcomed the serene rays of the cerulean sky. The light was lustrous, but not blinding. It was an inviting glow, accentuated by the vibrant horizon—which was as blue as a tropical ocean. Whoosh! The few eggshell clouds above danced around the bright sun. Beneath Victor, crisp grass lightly tickled his feet. The emerald expanse stretched without bound, but there was nothing monotonous about it. In the distance, pastel flora grew with ardor. Lavender and lilac, mixed with mint and melon. Coated with the alluring shades of a gelateria, the peaceful stillness soon became animated with life. A warm figure approached. Delicate, but not fragile.

Even before his gaze met hers, Victor felt her ethereal presence with the immediacy that he always did. Such soft steps brushing the grass. Victor could not avert his eyes. She was wearing the same linen dress. Her long black hair flowed leisurely in the breeze. Like usual, Victor was so lost in the woman’s hazel eyes that he didn’t notice the smile mirroring his own. His cheeks flushed with bliss. She was as beautiful as ever. Not a moment later, a voice of tender affection called out to him. 

“Victor, it’s so lovely to see you again.” Dolores crooned with gentle enthusiasm.

“How long has it been?” Victor asked curiously but gleefully.

“It’s hard to say! Since we met, you’ve seen me every day. And I can only hope that you’ll continue seeing me every day.”

“Of course. I don’t know who I’d be without you.”

Neither Victor nor Dolores could look away. Grinning in tandem, completing each other like the two sides of Rubin’s vase. In this moment, nothing else mattered. The warmth that enveloped Victor was comforting beyond measure. In the familiar sanctuary of Dolores’ presence, Victor’s gratitude was closely followed by nostalgia.

“Victor, do you remember when we took a walk through the pier?”

“Certainly, do you remember our picnic at the beach?”

As the two traded wistful inquiries, the quiet field gradually erupted in laughter and longing. The sky remained as luminous as ever, even as Dolores was recounting their favorite Thanksgiving escapades. They sat side by side, immersed in the memory of the turkey catching fire. Only the shimmering light in the distance could divert Victor’s attention—how serendipitous that a shooting star was passing right by them! Victor pointed his right hand toward the crackling sky. Not wanting Dolores to miss it, he prayed that it would stay in view…Dolores needed to see it!

The shooting star continued beaming. For what seemed like an eternity, the spectacle refused to depart. Victor’s prayer met its answer. Mouth agape, Dolores turned to Victor.

“Oh, Victor! I—”

Victor gasped when he woke up. The shooting star! His prayer realized! Despite his typical crimson eyes and hollow face, Victor jumped to his feet. He hastily grabbed the journal from his nightstand, and logged the development. After months of recording his dreams, Victor finally experienced some degree of control. While he did not discount the possibility of coincidence, he was focused on framing this as a success. It was the first time in years that he felt genuine hope. Perhaps he did not have to dread the coming night. Perhaps he could even look forward to sleeping.

With his nails still trimmed, Victor was able to leave his apartment one minute earlier. He shifted into autopilot sooner than usual, with his hippocampus only keeping track of time. Huddled in his cubicle, Victor’s fingers assaulted his keyboard at the pace of a jackhammer. Leaving heaps of emails and memos behind him, Victor headed for the door at exactly a quarter to eight. While sitting on the train home, Victor anxiously thought about the approaching night. He picked at his nails. What would he eat for dinner? Should he drink more gin tonight? Questions that he never asked.

Swallowed by a foreign eagerness, Victor grabbed the journal from his nightstand and reclined into his couch. With a glass of gin by his side, he began reviewing his journal with fervid intent. So many pages, detailing a singular encounter. The same green field, the same blue sky. The same woman. Even as the distilled remedy settled in his stomach over the next thirty minutes, Victor still felt tense. But it was not his usual anxiety that shook him. Tonight, Victor was uneasy about failing to progress further. Now that he appeared to have some grip on lucidity, Victor did not want the unlocked door to close. Pouring another glass, Victor kept reviewing his journal at a measured pace. He turned the pages over and over, back and forth, as he sat and sipped. Routinely looking at his watch every hour, Victor fell into a gradual stupor before darkness met his gaze once more.

“Victor, it’s so lovely to see you again.”

Those tender words echoed through the idyllic landscape surrounding Victor. Swish! A familiar breeze coursed through illuminated azure. The verdant green beneath Victor prodded his feet, as the luminous beams above whisked him into a trance. As his eyes wandered, a medley of pink and peach flowers emerged in the distance. It was a prismatic sight, rich with a gradient of temperate tones. Victor smiled wistfully. Dolores stepped toward him.

“How long has it been?” Victor asked with delightful intrigue.

“It’s hard to say! Since we met, you’ve seen me every day. And I can only hope that you’ll continue seeing me every day.”

“Of course. I…I don’t know who I’d be without you.”

Adorned with a gleaming grin, Victor noticed a slight stir within his stomach. For a brief moment, the breeze halted and silence overtook the vicinity. Dolores continued to stare at him, neither blinking nor breathing. The stillness covered Victor, but he was soon alerted to the sound of Dolores’ voice.

“Victor, do you remember when we visited the carnival?”

Taking turns reminiscing, the two halves playfully sparred with memory after memory. Waltzing through the colorful recesses of their shared past, Victor and Dolores ranted and raved. Their stories could so easily fill a book. They laughed in unison over their fishing trip, and they sighed in collective relief about the outcome of their dinner party. The field roared with vivid nostalgia. Swoosh! Waves ran through the sea of green and pastel. Champagne clouds above them shuffled in captivation. Amidst the mutual repose, Victor began to reach for Dolores’ hand. As she turned to him, Victor noticed a shimmering light in the distance. When his eyes fixated on the shooting star, Victor became hushed. Inertia permeated his presence. He started to shake, and then he blinked.

Victor’s gasping ceased as frustration overtook him. He thought the end was in sight. Disheartened by the setback, Victor bitterly penned another entry in his journal. Would he ever abandon this routine? His hands trembling, Victor contemplated what he needed to do in order to conquer his unconscious mind. Clearly, whatever he had been doing all this time was insufficient. Noticing the unfinished glass beside him, Victor took a long sip. While morning indulgences were typically outside of his norm, he felt that he needed it. Pouring himself a bit more, Victor felt more alert. Once his mind stopped racing, he checked his watch and tried to visualize his next steps. Moving forward, Victor needed to be fully committed to taking control. He would do whatever he had to, no matter the cost.

The rest of the day passed as quickly as the following day and the following weeks. Victor’s mission contorted with the passage of time, a spiral of his own design. He was traversing a singular path, and his mind had no room for distraction or doubt. Although Victor still woke up without breath, he refused to let himself ruminate. He was concerned only with the content of his journal, paying no mind to the sharp liquid that would course through him. Victor still ventured into his cubicle, typing mindlessly and pausing only to pick at his nails. He checked his watch with increased frequency, obsessed with the movement of its hands. But this newfound fixation with time belied the loss of any meaning in each hour. Victor was entirely preoccupied with escaping the woman in the linen dress. He started keeping his journal with him at all times, even when he was not actively reading its entries. It was important for him to maintain focus. Even as his face grayed and his nails gnarled, he could not slow down. All of the pages that filled with ink, all of the gin that filled his throat—Victor’s efforts could not be in vain.

While the light blue skies of one reality remained perpetual, stretches of muddled routine continued to pass in the other reality. Victor’s fingers began to tremble with regularity, as often as he emptied a glass. To ground himself, he would stare vigorously at his wrist until the shaking subsided. He would still see the hands, but he could not tell the time. His brain ticked enough already. In a constant state of obstinate meditation, Victor pursued absolute focus. He was unwilling to entertain possibilities beyond the freedom he sought. Victor once evaded invasive shades of the unconscious, but he now integrated them into his day-to-day. He practiced what he wanted to say to the woman in the linen dress, muttering the words he never could in that green field. If he rehearsed enough while awake, then he could conceivably relay those words while asleep. Victor needed to command both of his realities. That blissful man reminiscing in his dreams needed to vanish from existence. He was so ignorant of Victor’s pains, so unwilling to move forward. How dare he share Victor’s likeness?

Victor jumped from his bed, with tremors in his hands. He reflexively checked his watch, briefly hypnotized by its circularity until he felt the slight sting of lingering hangnails. Dusk had settled, but there was no need to board a train yet. Victor was not used to waking in the middle of the night. He took a deep breath, and set his two journals aside. The solitude of his apartment was calming, and Victor was relieved to see some gin left in his glass. Victor glanced at his surroundings, counting the empty bottles and dry pens tossed to the side. His apartment reeked of spilled liquor and stained carpet, decorated with small piles of loose nail clippings. How long had it been? He could not remember anymore.

“Victor, it’s so lovely to see you again.”

Victor saw himself in the same field, staring at Dolores. He instinctively asked her how long it had been.

“It’s hard to say! Since we met, you’ve seen me every day. And I can only hope that you’ll continue seeing me every day.”

Victor agreed, and Dolores began recalling their camping trip. The blaze of the sun shined on them, as a snug gust flowed past them. Victor took a deep breath, as his hand reached for Dolores’. He felt it shaking, and noticed that his fingernails were perfectly filed.

Then, Victor looked at his watch. He froze, as did Dolores. The hands on Victor’s watch stayed in place, while his own hands kept trembling. Thoughts of empty bottles and a cramped cubicle circulated in Victor’s head. Suddenly, a pungent scent of dry gin entered his nostrils. Victor heard a crackle. When he looked up, he saw a shooting star glued to the sky—unmoving, much like Dolores. His watch began ticking. With abruptly uneven fingernails, Victor pointed toward the spectacle. This was it. This was him.

The sky turned gray, and the field became a train station. Victor looked toward Dolores, now animate upon his command. Mindful of the exchange he had practiced countless times, Victor’s mouth curled in anticipation. He had spent so many nights lost in memories that should have been disposed of long ago. All of that joy and jubilance disgusted him. But he would not need to reminisce anymore. It was finally time.

Victor opened his mouth, but no words left his lips. He turned from the woman in the linen dress, gazing at the train that was now beside him. A voice called out from behind him.

“Goodbye, Victor.”

Victor woke up gasping. He checked his wristwatch, before taking it off. Filling his glass once more, Victor stepped outside and swallowed. Greeted by the ashen gloom above him, he smiled. It was a beautiful day. Victor breathed out, and then returned to his apartment to get ready. He had a train to catch.