REM // Van McCann

15. Good News

Our study isn't centered around analyzing the meaning of dreams but it's an aspect that interests us. We've been doing this for all of our dreams, trying to find trends or meaning behind what we're seeing and feeling. I'm not going to share this report with her. This is simply information for us to digest as we try to find the reason why we're trying to visualize dreams. What is it that we want out of this?

For me, I want to know why I'm still dreaming about Clara after all these years. It's got nothing to do with unrequited love, though we love each other dearly. She's dead and has been for several years. I was never officially informed but I knew when the messages between us suddenly ceased one day. She never told me she was struggling but I could see her slowly change and get sucked into a hole she couldn't get out of. And then months later, after her silence, a letter arrived in my mailbox addressed to me from her. The letter sits in my dream journal unopened, and to this day, I still can't bring myself to open it. I'm surprised the curiosity hasn't got to me yet.

After completing the report, I took a long break. Having spent my morning inside, I was sick of being in my flat so I went out for a ciggy and walk to clear my mind. While walking, I received a text message and quickly opened it, thinking it was Bondy or Larry asking how I was doing. I was surprised to find that the man I first talked to said he was interested. He could only participate once a week and I thought to myself, fine by me.

Not interested in having a long, drawn out conversation via text message, I decided to text him asking if it was okay to call him. He said yes so I called his number. Having gone through it once with Florence, I knew I could explain things to him better a second time. We ended up chatting for half an hour and I promised to email him the disclaimer to sign if he was still interested. Later that night, I checked my inbox and saw his signed copy.

.

.

Monday

I came to work determined to get stuff done. Having missed Friday, there were loose ends I had to take care of. Roman Kelly is the second person to enroll in this study so I have to get him onboarded. I went over the disclaimer with him on Friday and he got back to me that same day saying he agreed. Now I have to schedule time with him to go over the procedure and to gather personal information from him.

The work week just started so responses from him have been slow. I purposely kept my text messages succinct because I knew he was a busy man with a family so I had to get my shit together unlike with Florence who was my guinea pig. He can only participate once a week. We still need to talk about what day that is and the duration.

Florence and Roman are very different from each other. Florence is a bit younger than me still figuring her shit out while Roman is a father working at a steady job. This will be a nice change in dreams. What would a man like him dream about? I reckon his dreams must be normal and I hope to God I don't find out he's cheating on his wife or something. That'd be awful. I pushed the thought aside and printed two copies of Roman's signed disclaimer. One will be for him and the other will stay in his binder. I printed Florence's dream analysis from Friday and put it in her binder and once I was caught up, I was able to relax for a bit. Bondy and Larry both walked in moments later, surprised to see me.

"You're here early," Bondy noted. He was curious and waiting for me to explain.

"Yeah, thought I'd do a bit of catching up since I missed Friday," I answered.

"How are you feeling?"

"Much better, thank you. How was your weekend?"

"It was good. My girlfriend and I went down to the Seattle Aquarium and made a day out of it so we stopped by all the tourist attractions."

"That sounds lovely."

It sounds awful but I sometimes forget that Bondy has a girlfriend. He's a private person so he doesn't talk much about his personal life. Occasionally, he'll let it slip when he says they went out for her birthday or if her family is in town.

"I've got good news," I stated, smiling. "We've got a second person participating in the study." Bondy and Larry's eyes widened, happy about the news.

"That's great! Who is it and when do they start?" Larry asked.

"His name is Roman and he's a man in his 40s, I believe. He's a father and based on how he dresses, I think he's pretty high up in the company. It's gonna be interesting seeing what kind of dreams he has. He's a busy man so I haven't been able to schedule a tour with him yet."

"Schedule a tour? Have you gone over the disclaimer yet?" Bondy questioned, puzzled.

"Yeah," I replied, sitting up. "Went over it with him on the phone on Friday." I could see Bondy frowning and I wondered what I did wrong.

"You weren't supposed to be working," he chided. I blushed slightly having been caught.

"He messaged me on Friday. What was I supposed to do? Ignore him?" My words came out harsher than intended. "Sorry—I didn't mean it like that." Bondy sighed.

"That's fine. I just don't want people to feel like they have to work when they're sick. You should be using that time to rest, but I really appreciate you doing your due diligence and am glad you're feeling better. So thank you. Can't wait to meet the bloke."

"You're welcome."

He's right. I can get carried away and work through lunch without knowing it. Bondy and Larry have to remind me to eat or else I wouldn't eat at all. Sometimes I get lost in my work and forget the time. That's how we lost an employee in the past. I wasn't there at the time but Bondy said he was one of the best workers and suddenly quit one day saying the stress was too much. Had he known, he would've reduced his workload and maybe he'd still be working here.

Now Bondy is more attentive, making sure we aren't burnt out. Employees can come and go but finding their replacement and training them takes a lot of time so he wants to make sure people are happy. Having someone like Bondy manage us is the best situation you can ask for. He's attentive to everyone's needs but he's not overbearing at the same time. That's why we all get along and have worked here for as long as we have.