photo by Abelardo Morell
(Part One is here).
photo by Abelardo Morell
He’s not even gone long enough for water to boil, and he comes back with two steaming mugs. He sets mine down in front of me and eases into his chair. It’s not just that he’s a slouch, you can see that he dreads this almost as much as I do. I almost feel sorry for the guy.
I look at the pale tea.
“Don’t you want to ask me anything?” I say, trying to help him out.
He drums his fingers some more, this time on the edge of his desk. “Well,” he says, looking pointedly at my tea. He gestures sort of over-casually towards it. “Well,” he repeats, “actually, no.”
I stare.
He returns to drumming.
I sniff at the tea suspiciously. It has no scent. “Are you going to drink yours?” I ask, probably not very politely.
He almost smiles. “Do you want to dream with me, or do you want me to dream with you?” he asks.
I don’t even want to dissect the question, so I decide to just throw in. I take my first sip. It tastes like it smells, which at least kills one source of anxiety. He immediately looks away, towards the window.
I try to focus on the fact that he isn’t simperingly sympathetic, that he doesn’t try to pull little tears out of me or lip-sync all the standard concerned lines regarding the state of my soul or spirit. I try to focus on his obvious leanings towards being a wise-ass, on the fact that the good calming Doctor Saromi loses all pretensions of self-control at the mere mention of his name. I try to focus on anything other than what this is, which is me drinking warmed-up nothing with this obviously unhinged individual who thinks we’re going to spend the night together on some other plane of existence.
It occurs to me that I might not look like me when I’m dreaming, and one thought leads to another until I’m snickering alone in my chair like I’m the one with a weak grasp on my surroundings.
He keeps drumming on the table.
“Should we have a secret handshake or something,” I snigger, trying to regain some kind of control. “You know, what if I don’t recognize you or something?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He slugs his tea like he’s trying to believe it’s really what he wishes it was. Then he turns to me, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, and he says, “I’ll know you. Trust me,” he says, and he grins, kind of maniacally. “I know what I’m doing.”
********
Technically, my end also requires no sleeping aids, but really, all rules are just suggestions. The path I walk creaks loudly when unoiled, making the mere idea of detective work a farce. So this lady can smell my medicine. It only means she’s conscious.
From the moment she leaves my office, I begin preparing for bed: I open the cabinet.
If only she had chosen to dream with me, now there would be something to look forward to.
photo by Abelardo Morell
*Note: All photos in this post are by Abelardo Morell, an expert at showing two worlds in one place, particularly through the "camera obscura" technique. Fiction by Zoe Jordan.
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