Watch Your Step

𝐃𝐫𝐲 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝟒

The sky was a color of wet paper the next morning, a favorite weather of Limuel. He arrived early this time, at their second session. He entered the jacked-up building with battered walls and missing bricks once more. Inside, it was as staggeringly clean like a brand-new house as before. The deluxe lobby was empty again except for the receptionist at the front desk. After Limuel checked in from the reception, he climbed right up to the hallway that was still a long alley of doors on each side. Limuel proceeded to knock on Mr. Larques's door and he wasn't surprised when it opened already before he could knock.

Mr. Larques was now wearing a black suit and navy-blue tie but his hair was neatly parted as before and he was still wearing sunglasses. The room seemed to have changed because there's no carpet on the floor, revealing the checkered black and white tiles.

"How's your night Mr. Brenner?" Limuel might look like he aged another decade, but he had a good sleep last night for as much as he could remember.

"Better, I guess."

In this second session, the doctor mostly did the talking as he seemed to be in a hurry. He said he had other patients to attend to and it was supposed to be his rest day.

The doctor taught him signs of knowing if he's awake or not. "To understand the dreams," he said "you must recuperate the signs. Pay attention to small details because you may tap into lucid dreaming."

"What dreaming?"

"Just remember how you came there. Count your fingers, read any signs, look at a clock, and check what time is it."

And then the session was over.

Actually, there's one benefit of this series of not being able to return to sleep, and waking up early before. By all means, Limuel could drive early at work. He was always the first to arrive at his office because he didn't have to deal with the heavy traffic by eight o'clock. Of course, another drawback was his boss catching him drooling on his desk. The next night after his second session, he was still at the office — a compensation for sleeping during work hours. Limuel was left alone in the office that evening. The only source of light was emanating from his computer. But Limuel was always comfortable in the dark. It made him sleepy.

Without a snap, he plunged into a dream about that memory when a burglar visited their house. The night they were robbed right in front of his eyes. Cellphones were displayed in front of their doorway because they had a business for loads. It was a peaceful night, the television was on and it was on high volume so they didn't hear the creaking of the gate. Young Limuel who's playing with his toy car just outside the door was the one who first saw the robber. He stood transfixed as the robber looted three-four cellphones in his bag. Limuel didn't scream nor ask the robber who he was, he thought he was just another customer. But he held his toy car so close to him because he was starting to be afraid that it might be taken away from him.

Then a voice like thunder boomed from inside the house, "HOY! KAWATAN! KAWATAN!" He didn't know what that meant but he got an idea as the robber scrambled through the gate. Limuel's vision blurred and he noticed he was on the verge of wetting himself. Hurriedly people ran past young Limuel to chase the robber, but he was gone in the night. His family shuffled around him, checking what was stolen and calling the police.

A hand slipped right through his fingers, it pulled him sideways and he let go of his toy. "Lim, are you okay?" It was his mother. He didn't manage to answer as he was busy holding back his tears. His mother hugged him while still holding his hands. It calmed him down. But something happened that wasn't according to what he remembered. They caught the robber and when he looked at his face, it turned into a man with straight legs but bull hooves for feet that gleamed like polished brass. It has two feathery wings that flapped on its side and another pair that covered its body. "Fear not," it said and it came to Limuel with a light so blinding he woke up on his desk at the office.

Once he got home, eager to drink the nearest water he could find, Limuel walked to the lavatory where he once slipped and fell. He tried to shake that strange creature who kept appearing in his dreams out of his head. After he was freshened up, he sat by a rocking chair in his study and looked at a photograph of him and his grandfather. He was Limuel's namesake and the original owner of his house. He recalled how his grandfather always scolded his mother and he thought it was only right to reprimand their daughters. Almost all of Limuel's traits and attitudes, he got from his grandfather for they were always together when he was still alive.

His grandfather was a retired soldier and Limuel always viewed him as a great role model. In broad daylight, Limuel remembered, the old and the young were sitting on the same rocking chair he's sitting in now, when his grandfather told Limuel, "Lim the afterlife is dry."

"Why grandpa?" he asked. Limuel didn't know if his grandfather was talking about hell, but looking back, he now realized that maybe he was trying to explain the strange phenomena of those death dreams. But then his grandfather said, "The afterlife is dry because you don't have to eat or drink. You will meet all the people you know who passed away and your loved ones, there you'll be together again. When you reunite with them, it will be dry, because surely you will talk to each other again but how can you hear yourselves if it was raining." He laughed. In their language, the dry season means summer. So Limuel was now certain he was talking about heaven. The perfect weather, the perfect place.

"Will it be painful?" Young Limuel asked, "When you die?"

"No Lim, it would be just like a fuzzy dream from when you were younger."

"A nightmare?"

"No, it's a good one." His grandfather shuffled his hair. "If you've been a good boy."

Young Limuel rested his head on his grandfather's chest and when he was close to sleeping, his grandfather asked, "Are you afraid of dreams, Lim?"

"No, Grandpa," he yawned, "I'm afraid of dying."

"You must not fear death," his grandfather advised. "Wars and sickness make us doubt we'd live long. But trust me death is a part of life and the way we experience sleep is like a temporary death, and dreams are what's beyond, only in death it would be eternal. If you're scared to die, you won't enjoy life so it's better if you die now."

These may be harsh words for a child but Limuel always wanted to make his grandfather proud. He tried to overcome his fear of dying but even now Limuel believes that people live just to die and what's waiting just outside his door is a lonesome death.