John’s Dreaming

May 07, 2021

John sat on his couch, slowly clicking through channels. He kept the volume low, hoping it would help Miranda sleep. Losing Michelle had been hard on them both. Her cancer had taken him by surprise, but now all he could do was look back at all the signs he’d missed. The frailty, the shortness of breath. Her pallid skin, the night sweats, just items now in a list he ran over in his head. Michelle kept that one close to her chest, and where had he been? John wanted to blame himself but knew he couldn’t. That didn’t make the pain and anguish any less.

Working through his grief, he’d neglected his job. With all the money he still needed to cover, now John’s worries only deepened. Not only had he lost his wife and Miranda’s mother, the bills compounded his stress and frustration. It was all he could do to keep things together for their daughter. Tomorrow would be his first day back to work in a month. He couldn’t sleep.

“Daddy, my head hurts,” came Miranda’s voice from behind him. She couldn’t sleep either.

“Come here, sweetie. Let me take a look at you,” he said. She padded around the couch, and he could see her brow slicked with sweat beads. John pressed the back of his hand against her forehead and felt the fever building within her. So many other times, he’d confronted this malady. Always before, Michelle had been there to help, but tonight was the first since her passing. Her absence once more loomed in his heart, but he held back for Miranda’s sake.

“Feels like you’re getting a fever again. Let’s get you an ice pack, bug,” he offered, leading her to the small kitchen. She nodded sleepily and took his hand, padding by his side in her Paw Patrol pajamas. He picked one out, wrapped it in a small cloth and put it inside a nylon bag. It would be enough to cool her skin without being uncomfortable.

“Daddy, can I sleep with you tonight? I don’t want to be alone. I keep seeing little lights sparkle in my room.”

“What do you mean, Miranda?” He glanced at her, concerned. This was a new development.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep but I kept seeing little bright dots, even with my eyes closed.”

“Do you see them now that you’re with me?” he asked. “It might just be your fever.” He smiled, trying to distract her.

“No, not right now. But I don’t want to sleep without you.” She didn’t look terrified to him, but certainly looked uneasy.

“Okay, little M. You can sleep in my room.” They went into his room, and he grabbed some sweats from the foot of the bed. “You get in, I’ll go change real quick, okay?

She nodded and he went into the bathroom. John looked in the mirror at the bags under his eyes and the three day stubble on his chin. Worries about getting Miranda off to school and heading to work in the morning changed to concern that she’d be too sick to go, and might derail his first attempt to head back in. This would all be so much easier if Michelle…

He rubbed his face to wipe the tears from his eyes, and held back a sniffle. How long could this anguish go on? So much to adjust to and he didn’t know he could handle being a single father. Be brave, for Miranda’s sake, he told himself. The lights in the room blinked, went out completely, and returned just as fast. For just a moment, he thought he’d seen little pinpricks of light throughout his field of vision.

“Miranda, you okay in there?” he asked through the door.

“Yes, daddy,” came her languid reply. She must be already falling asleep. He changed his pants and went out. He saw nothing amiss but he chose to check the front door lock, just in case.

Satisfied, he crawled under the covers and put his protective arm around Miranda as she softly began to snore. He stroked her hair, keeping the strands from her face. John felt her shivering, and couldn’t remember if it was better or worse to bundle her up or keep the blankets free to let the fever burn out. In the end he decided it best to leave the blanket draped up to her waist, and let his body heat keep her torso warm as needed. He drifted off to sleep and only briefly wondered if he’d set his alarm.

***

Something tickled John’s senses. He snapped his eyes open and thought he saw a small figure running through the darkness, but heard nothing. He’d rolled in his sleep and no longer cradled Miranda. Checking her, she still slept soundly but the fever had worsened. The ice pack had become room temperature as well, and had been pushed aside, condensation leaving a damp patch on the sheets beneath it.

She’s burning up! he thought, kicking himself for not giving her some medicine, as he’d been so wrapped up in melancholy thoughts of Michelle. He looked around the shadows of the room, then shook his head. Something still seemed not quite right, as if moonlight shimmered around a shadow, filling it with starlight at the edges of his vision. Nothing he could focus on, at any rate.

Shaking his head, John poured some children’s Motrin into its dose cup. She’s gonna fight me. She hates this flavor. He chuckled to himself. She hates every flavor. A small nightlight in the corner provided the only source of real illumination in the room, and he found it hard to get the dose just right, not that a drop or two extra would make a difference.

Still bleary eyed, he set the cup down and looked at his daughter’s slumbering form. Not quite looking forward to waking her for some medicine, he decided to answer the call of nature first before trying to get her to down the liquid he knew she’d detest. No sense in fighting her with a full bladder, he thought to himself.

Stumbling towards the bathroom in the usual manner of the not-quite-yet-awake-and-still-yearning-for-sleep, the shadowy illusion returned, seeming to take on a small, almost imp-like shape. John stopped short to avoid a collision, and rubbed his eyes. Nothing. What the hell? I’m still dreaming, he thought to himself.

The fright elevated his pulse and quickened his breathing, adrenaline making him more alert. He closed the door to the bathroom and flicked the light on. He didn’t notice the imperceptible lag as the dim light buzzed itself into existence. John took care of his business in unnatural silence, with the sound of his urine plunging into the basin of the toilet unmuffled by the ceiling fan, wind, or outside traffic.

He washed his hands and dried them on the towel. As he took a last look in the mirror while he flicked off the light, the slight delay between light and dark revealed that same shape of an imp - now above his left shoulder - and speckled starlight slid through his vision. John’s memory fogged, and he couldn’t be quite sure that he’d lost consciousness for just a moment. When the sensation ended, he realized he had his hand on the doorknob in the dark, with the other on the light switch still. This night has gotten excessively strange, he observed.

John walked to the bed, hearing the low muffled sound of the television from the common room. Shit, I forgot to turn that off before coming to bed, he chided himself. It doesn’t matter, we fell asleep with it on anyway. As his vision adjusted to the darkness again, he didn’t notice the misshapen rumples of the blankets on his bed. He sat down on the cooled edge of his side of the bed and grabbed the small dose cup. Turning to wake Miranda, instantaneous panic gripped his bowels and took his heart with it.

She’s gone, he realized as his mind caught up with the eternity it took for his mind to put together the pieces.

He ripped back the blanket and sheets as panic surged adrenaline through him for the second time that night. Where his ill child had lain what he felt were just moments before, he saw a mirrored, shining orb. At once both spherical and uncannily two-dimensional, its edges warped an asynchronous reflection of himself back to John. For the moment he looked, it felt like the only source of light in the room, and it pulled in all else. Like a black hole, he observed.

Glimmering starlight shimmered around its external spheroid shape, and John felt the feeling of an unseen cold hand grasping his spine through his shirt in the middle of his back. A compulsion took him, and he reached for the orb reflecting back that distorted vision of himself. His fingers touched yet passed through the orb, as if it were there and yet not there. His mind clipped through the eerie sensation of feeling and unfeeling, and a tugging pull that he felt in his belly stretched an uncomfortable distance before snapping back to normalcy.

In a blink and with a jerk, John felt a gust of wind slam into his back, throwing him forward. Midnight was now early evening, he heard wildlife near him, and yet these new changes paled compared to his new circumstance. The roar of a waterfall nearby passed behind him as he plunged downward into mist and spray.

***

I’ve got to be dreaming, I’ve got to be dreaming, came his panicked thoughts as water crashed all around him. Just wake up, he urged himself despite seeing the reality of his plight. In seconds the cascading torrent of water around him soaked through his thin shirt and light sweatpants. Belatedly, he realized he wore no shoes as he slammed into the watery pool below.

To his surprise, the pool was warm, a sensation he merely recognized as the thoughts and instincts of his youth thrashed to the fore. Fighting for a moment against the force of the water falling on top of him, pushing him under, John managed to reorient himself enough to swim away from the depths and up to the surface. The current dragged him some distance as he spluttered and kicked, eventually finding some flotsam to grab ahold of. From this lower elevation, early evening became twilight, and he felt as if he were in a valley of some kind. Trees and other vegetation encroached the banks on both sides.

Before long, only stars lit the sky as he kicked his way to shore, spluttering onto the mud and collapsing. He hadn’t thought he was that out of shape until he had to fight for his life against a raging river. It had certainly been many years since he’d last swam in a body of water, but a YMCA pool was a tad different from this. Rolling onto his back to look into the sky, he felt a soft squelch above his head followed immediately by an arrow pointed down at his chest, bow pulled back for release.

“What have we here?” the voice said, possibly female with an accent he couldn’t trace. Perhaps Jamaican? A woman twice his width, clad in furskin about her torso and legs, walked further into his field of view. Her gray-green skin covered steel-cable muscle, and she spoke around tusks that passed her darker green lips.

John clenched his eyes shut, willing a change to this scenario. This is one of those dreams, he thought, One where I dream that I woke up and did stuff, and now my dream has changed to this. I’m still asleep. I have to be. The woman kicked his shoulder with a soft boot. That felt like no dream. He stood up and took in this new sight before him.

She stood a full foot and a half taller than he, and easily was the most intimidating physical specimen he’d ever seen. She carried herself with the grace of a hunter, balancing strength, speed, and agility into a perfect combination for wielding stealth as her ally. John felt the danger she exuded, and knew running from her would never be an option. Scars criss-crossed her skin, the remnants of fighting in her past, perhaps a warrior as well.

Not knowing what else to do but figuring she could speak some English, he extended his hand in welcome. Her returned glare showed her uncertainty as she kept the bow taught, the arrow pointed at his heart. Perhaps a handshake isn’t a thing in her culture, he pondered. Mustering his faltering courage, he said “Hi, I’m John.” He shivered as a breeze flowed past his damp skin. He felt awkward trying to bridge...whatever this was he had with this woman.

For a moment, they stared at each other, neither willing to make a further move. John’s heart rate slowed as he calmed, still not quite sure where he was or how he’d gotten here, and the most urgent thought of his heart crumbled his facade. He lowered his hand, remembering his daughter.

Looking up at the towering huntress, he let out a sigh. “I’m looking for my daughter. Her name is Miranda,” he offered, knowing it was his last hope to make an ally or die. With that, he slumped down to his knees, and wept. The woman sneered down on him for just a moment, pity and condescension at war with her sensibilities.