Visited by the Dreams

Chapter 4 - The Man on TV

Rain dripped incessantly throughout the night, and the Woman in Jeans cried out more than once in her sleep, disturbing Greg’s rest at least as much as the rain.

“Daddy, no don’t” she pleaded with some unknown attacker, then “Aaron, run!”

Greg sat up. That was the second time she’d referred to someone named ‘Aaron’ causing him to wonder who that was. Could it be her husband? Or possibly a son? Certainly it was someone she cared about.

“So much blood! Oh Aaron, why didn’t you run?” she sobbed, consumed by some internal nightmare.

Greg sat unmoving, torn in his decision about what to do. Should he wake her and relieve her from the nightmare that so disturbed her sleep? She’d certainly disturbed his … But if he did, surely being awakened by a stranger in the middle of the night during a storm would be easily as disturbing to her, possibly even frightening and the last thing he wanted was for the Woman in Jeans to be afraid of him too. Also, as badly injured as she was, Greg was certain that she needed to sleep. But then again, if she woke up on her own following a nightmare and found a stranger … namely him lying there, that could trigger her to feel afraid too.

He pondered the question briefly before his indecision was interrupted by the need to relieve himself. He rose tending to his own needs, and by the time he returned, the Woman in Jeans was quiet again, sleeping peacefully beneath the adjoining log.

Greg sighed grateful that he’d been spared the need to make that decision. He suffered from nightmares himself and those he found most disturbing were those he remembered. He knew from personal experience he was more likely to do that if someone awakened him when he cried out.

He settled himself down under his log again, noting that although it was still raining steady, the storm lacked the violence of the night before. There was little lightning to light up the night sky, though there was enough to allow him to see that the Woman in Jeans was sleeping much more naturally than she had been before.

Greg adjusting his position so the fewest number of drips fell on his face from the tree and rapidly fell asleep again, gratefully breathing the rain cooled air.

c

Susan awoke in the gray light of early morning to find a man she didn’t know sleeping beside her. She stared at him, trying to remember what had happened. He had dark hair, Jewish features, and looked older than she was. He wore a linen shirt, khaki pants and brown shoes … which seemed an odd thing to wear while sleeping. She thought she recognized his face, and had the sense that if she thought hard enough she could remember his name, but thinking hurt. It was all a blur. Her head was throbbing, her eyes were having trouble focusing, and it seemed to be wet everywhere.

‘Maybe the sprinklers in the building went off’, she thought to herself.

Slowly, her vision started to clear and Susan realized she was outside and it was raining. There were tall palm trees everywhere, and sand, like what she’d been lying on, but no there was a blanket under her too. Susan furrowed her brow in concentration as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. She had the vague feeling she’d tried to do this unsuccessfully before, causing her to redouble her efforts to understand where she was and she did her best to recall bits of memory in order to piece together what had happened.

In the distance she could hear the sounds of the surf, and she concluded that there was an ocean nearby. Susan focused as she concentrated on that. An ocean … there was something about that in one of her dreams. There had been the plane ride to Australia … no that part had been real, she was certain of it. She remembered arriving at the airport, watching a pair of children play in the waiting area beside the gate before going on board. The memory of their antics came back to her, sharp and clear. Then where was she? Asleep on a beach in Australia? And if she was, what was she doing here instead of at her meeting? Her frown grew deeper as she tried to remember, how she’d gotten here, and exactly where ‘here’ was.