Dreams on a Pool Table

There is a wolf among the sheep I count. I don't know where it is but the sheep tell me to hurry. Count, quickly. Count us or he'll be here. But, for the life of me, I cannot seem to count them. One, two...no that's four, not five. Start again. One... My mind trails off as I strain to remember what comes next. I know it's two, but I cannot say it.
Hurry. You must count us. I take a deep breath and start again but I can hear a faint clicking sound that grows closer and closer as I look at the sheep. He's here.
I clench and open my fist rapidly, trying to drown out the noise of the click click that is now all around me, it seems. No use. He's here. The sheep immediately stiffen all at once and turn to him. He stands in the middle of the herd, watching his prey come to him. I want to shout out, I want to tell them to run away. But the words merely form a bubble in my throat that bursts as I open my mouth.
He pounces on the sheep nearest to him and tears it apart with one swift swipe of his paw. Blood showers everywhere as he rips out its flesh and, simultaneously, rips apart another. I blink twice and sit up.

The silhouettes of my room slowly came to focus as I look around. On my bedside table, Ricky Martin was singing about how he got drugged and robbed in New York City by a girl. Her skin is devil red and her lips are...Wait that's not how it goes. I shook my head and focused on the ceiling of my room. The click click had ceased.
I turned to look at my phone on the bedside. Ricky Martin had been replaced with Lil Wayne, who was telling me how he couldn't find the woman of his dreams because he couldn't sleep.
Have you tried counting sheep?
I have, my phone replied. It's a scam. You can never really remember what the numbers are and the fucking wolf is a real party-pooper.
I nodded as I picked up my phone and turned off the music. The clock on my phone read 3:37 am. My pocket tape recorder lay beside it. Gotta show the world that you're a police detective. Sighing, I lay back down and recalled what Drew told me. "It will take time," he had said. "You'll get used to it, but the best way is to let me help you myself. The professionals know best, you know?"
I sighed again as the hours passed by in front of my open eyes.

"It's a simple concept. We call it a system. You put on some headphones and blast some song. It could be anything; Nirvana, Ariana Grande, Bowie, Bach...it doesn't matter. Normally it's two back-to-back songs and by the time the chorus of the first song kicks in, you'll be asleep."
Drew took a sip of the water he had ordered.
He noticed me watching his drink and said, "Sodas can't be trusted, you know. Water is safe."
I met Drew in a RadioShack two years ago. It was a chance encounter, with him telling me his name and doing all the talking, but at the end of it he had become my friend.
He was the one who suggested using music to help me sleep. The real cure for my insomnia, however, was with "the professional" (Drew).
"It's similar to what you were doing at your home, but with sleep it's the environment that counts. What I've set up is a place that practically spells 'sleep', so it's more effective."

I never told Drew about my insomnia. When I met him, he commented on the bags under my eyes. And then...he just knew. I probably answered in the affirmative to something he might have asked, but I didn't remember. All I recalled was Drew offering to help. Twice. And both times, I accepted his help.
One of the main pitfalls of living a borrowed life is that it is very easy to become accustomed to it. It's a long road to losing your will but it has very few obstacles.

I heard the building before I saw it. The boom boom boom of electronic music blasting out of its windows greeted my ears as it came into view, a two-storey building that was about as welcoming as a dark, bottomless well on a pitch black night.

"The music is loud so they can drown out the real world." I turned around to see a tall, blond man standing beside me. He nodded at me as a greeting and pointed at the up at the building. The words PURPLE DRANK POOL AND SNOOKER CLUB were emblazoned in flashy orange on a sign board level with the top floor.
"Or maybe they're just trying to be cool," he said, grinning at me. The smile made me uncomfortable; it was a searching grin, a smile made specifically to tell me that he wanted to talk and I would be an asshole for ignoring him.
I glanced up at the sign and nodded solemnly.
Ten minutes later, I was left alone outside. Mr Blond and the three or four people besides him had gone inside, but I was waiting for Drew. And, sure enough, he walked into the dimly lit parking lot, picking up pace when he saw me.
"You didn't go in yet? Come on, I'll show you." Giving me a slight push on the small of my back, he led me into the club.

My ear drums buckled under the pulsating bass and darkness flashed in front of my eyes as perhaps a dozen bright neon lights sliced through the smoky room and flashed into my retinas. The air had a sickly-sweet stench that had a familiar musty outline to it. Throughout a large, continuous hall, pool tables were placed at regular intervals. Shadowy figures were hunched at every one of these tables, becoming less hazy as we walked by them.
I caught snippets of laughter and loud clacking of the pool balls as Drew lead me past them, towards the stairs leading to the second floor.
We made our way up a rusty flight of stairs to a largely unfurnished room with three grey, unpainted walls. Shabby pink wallpaper was peeling off of one of the walls and lay scattered in scraps over the concrete floor. The room was illuminated by four shabby LED lights but was surprisingly much breezier than the main hall below. Cool night breeze flowing through an open window, sans railing,
accounted for this.
At the centre of this room was a long and wide pit, that was about 4 inches deep. Two pool tables lay side by side in this pit, their green felt torn and in patches in several places. The six people who I had met outside were standing around the border of the pit, Mr. Blond among them.

I made my way to the crowd around the pit and saw Mr. Blond wave at me. He stepped to his right and beckoned me to stand beside him. Of course.
As I shook his outstretched hand, he said, "My name's Olmo, by the way. And no, my name didn't get me bullied in school." He punctuated this with the same grin he had flashed before.
Walking down into the pit, Drew started grouping the onlookers into groups of three, one group for each table. "Everyone get your songs ready. Seeing as we have a newcomer, he'll be going first, alone."
"You sure about that?" asked a man in a denim jacket.
"Well-"
"Well, he should probably see the others go through it, you know, so he knows what's gonna happen," a red-haired woman standing beside Olmo offered.
"What's there to see? It's a simple process, really." This was Olmo.
"Drew, do you really want a repeat of the amusement park incident?" Laughter.
Drew smiled and turned to me. "Let's ask him, then."
I think-
"I'm sorry could you repeat that? Didn't quite catch that."
"-
"It doesn't matter, anyways. Drew, you're the expert here and you know what's best."
Drew sighed, nodded and motioned me over to one of the tables.

The felt was fuzzy to the touch but it didn't itch my skin as I lay on it. Standing at the edge of the table and looking down at me, Drew placed an 8 ball on my forehead. The other hand was around the play button of my headphones, that were resting in my ears, ready to start singing as I chose a song from the playlist on my phone.
"When I start counting, I want you to close your eyes," said Drew, as he started rolling the ball in a curve, left to right, on my forehead. "And remember, in the dreams, what you see is important. Not what you hear other people say."
"1..." There was darkness.
"2..." I felt the silence in my ears tense up.
"3."

Water. Water everywhere. I was in a swimming pool, floating but somehow not suffocating in the warm water bearing down on me.
Because it's not water...
I blinked and felt myself sink. Panicking, I tried to swim to the surface. Where am I? What song is this?
I closed my eyes and then, sure enough, I heard Kendrick Lamar in the distance.
Diiiive in it
I got a swimming pool full of liquor and they diiive in it
So I was swimming in alcohol? No, that wasn't it. Suddenly, I didn't care what the pool was full of. Unlike Kendrick, who was talking about being peer pressured into alcoholism, I chose to be here. And I was sleeping. I was dreaming.

I made for the surface and got out of the pool. Gee, I wish for something to dry me up.
Well don't you worry, old boy, I got you covered. Let's get some breeze in here, nothing too cold though. You know what? Let's go outside, why don't we eh old boy?
I felt the sun, felt the wind on my wet arms, heard it rustle up my hair. I laughed and ran across the grassy meadow, towards a hill that looked like an oversized camel hump.
Why, you need only ask old boy. Of course it's a giant camel. A giant green camel.

I ran up the to the crest of the hill, click click click. No, no old boy, that's not the sound. It's rustle rustle rustle. Of course it was.

I rustle rustle rustled my way up to the crest and plopped myself down on the bright green grass. I felt the ground below me slowly shift as the camel stood up. The camel spread its wings and gave a little shudder as it prepared to take flight. You know why's that old boy? Because it's not a camel, it's a fucking dragon you're on right now.
I laughed and ran up the dragon when I heard a sound behind me. I turned around and saw a young woman standing at the base of the dragon's tail. Woman of my dreams. I waved at her and made my way carefully down the grassy hill towards her.
She click cli- rustle rustle rustled a few steps forward and gave me a bright smile. I introduced myself and asked her name. She sighed and smiled again, opening her mouth to speak. No words came out.
I frowned. She shook her head amicably, as if to say don't worry, look! and pointed down her open mouth. There was a short stump instead of a tongue, the blood from which was still flowing out and painting her teeth red. Click click click.
The stump was growing, forming a long pink tongue. A wolf's tongue. Click click click the woman said. Her blood-stained red grew long and sharp but the wolf never growled. Only clicked.

I stood there, transfixed. Not out of fear, but of love. I was in love with this woman, this stranger who came in my dream and became the wolf that had been haunting me for many months. She knew me. Who cares if she was about to tear my face to shreds? All's fair in love.
The click click clicking intensified as the wolf bared its teeth. I felt the grass sink beneath my feet, felt myself being swallowed by the ground. Click click click. But then came a scream. Not a scream of terror, but of regret. A scream punctuating a terrible act.
Faded, drank, Kendrick said and I woke up.

The first thing that hit me upon waking was the silence. It was like a solid weight bearing down on my eardrums and still present even after I removed my earphones and sat up.
It took me a few seconds to fully visualise where everyone was. Gathered around the open window, the crowd of people stood peering down, muttering rapidly.
"Call 911."
"Someone should run downstairs. Or inform the nightclub folk."
"You don't think they'd have heard the fall?"
"Call 911. My phone is out of juice."
"The music is pretty loud, you know..."
"Is he awake?"
"Quit fucking around and call 911, damn it!"
"Guys, he's awake."

Olmo and the redhead ran towards my table. Behind them, I could see the man in the denim jacket, ashen-faced, talking gravely into a cell phone. Olmo got me off the table and the woman stood beside him, biting her nails.
"Drew-," one of them began, but I didn't know which because my vision was blurred.

I had been sleeping peacefully when he jumped. It was completely random; he didn't say anything or change his expressions noticeably. He just turned from the table, and ran out of the window.
"I was the one who screamed," said Olmo.
The police arrived on the scene within 6 minutes, and took away the body. They let everyone else go home after some collective questioning, but kept me and Olmo behind in the club.

"Drew said that there was a risk of the system malfunctioning. It's when an external agent forces its way into a dream where it doesn't belong. This could be anything: from a wire, to a camera, to entire other person."
At this the officer looked up from his notebook at Olmo. "More than one person can enter a single dream? And that can screw everything up?"
Olmo nodded. "As long it's someone who isn't the dreamer."
After 45 more minutes of questioning, the police told us we were free to go. I looked at the time on my phone. It was quarter past one in the morning. "Officer?" asked Olmo. "This operation...it's legal, right?"
The officer sniffed. "There's only one technicality. The guy who runs this...operation. He shouldn't peek. If he does, then that's a violation."
Olmo nodded. He already knew that. (How did he know all this?) He sighed and asked the question he had actually intended to ask. "Was Drew...peeking?"
The officer looked at me. "It's not for me to say."
The officer left me and Olmo with the pool tables.

"I have a recurring dream. In it, I'm sitting in a restaurant, sometimes alone, sometimes with a date. The main course has just been finished and I'm waiting to have my dessert, which is always cake with ice cream.
When I go to eat it, I realise that something is wrong. The ice cream is steaming. And it's not the sort of chilly steam coming out of freezers and refrigerators. The ice cream is hot. The cake is like...cake. It's neither hot nor cold. It's the ice cream that's piping hot, but it doesn't melt."
Olmo paused to scratch his ear. "Two things I don't get. The first, obviously, is the hot ice cream. The second thing has bothered me even more, though. The cake...it's the wrong kind."
I turned to look at him. Olmo met my gaze and continued. "It's a cheesecake. Who has cheesecake with ice cream? It's not a brownie, or even a cobbler. Doesn't add up."

A few moments of silence ensued as we both contemplated this. I glanced at Olmo and asked, "What does it mean?"
Olmo shrugged. "My dad loved cheesecake," he said after a pause. "He...I didn't end things well with him. He wasn't the best of fathers, but then again, I wasn't the best of sons. We..." he trailed off as if he wanted me to finish his sentence. There was nothing more to be said, however.

Walking back home, I recalled a dream that came to me sporadically. Sometimes, in my effort to count the sheep, I located the source of the click click clicks.
In a living room of a dimly lit house, stands a woman by a long table. She is flicking a lighter. Click click click. Desperately trying to light it. A man is pleading with her. Desperately, I ask her to stop, and think carefully. You'll kill yourself don't do it. In these dreams, she always manages to light the lighter. In these dreams, it's the green felt of the pool table she is standing by that always catches fire first, followed by the woman.

I reached my apartment and prepared for bed. Taking my phone out of my jeans, I turned off its voice recorder. I sighed and closed my eyes. It's not for me to say, the officer had said. Because he wasn't supposed to find that out. I was.
Taking a deep breath, I played the latest recording and lay down.
A large room, painted green. Empty but for a piece of paper in the middle of it. I pick it up. A picture of a chair. Damn, am I tired. It's been a long night. Well, then take a seat old boy. Of course. I set the picture down and sit on the chair. I'm sitting on something. I stand up and see a black cardigan neatly folded on the chair. I pick it up. Drew would like this. Of course he would. Let's go and give it to him.
A long, dark corridor. At the end of it, a square slice of light shines into the darkness. A man sits on a chair, smiling at me. I walk up to Drew. Behind him, I see a black wall. But it's not quite a wall. It's a... structure of some sort, but I can't see it. It's too blurry.
Why Olmo, I want to ask him.
Drew chuckles. "Tell me something," he says. "Have you ever stumbled upon a room where an unfortunate event has occurred? Maybe you saw your parents having a heated argument, a couple of friends talking badly about you or maybe a person you like hand in hand with someone else. The human eye, in these situations, automatically tries to look away after the barest of glimpses at the unfortunate situation. To try to avoid it. And yet, it keeps us up at night."
He shrugs. "It is possible that only my eyes are accustomed to this behaviour. Are yours?"
I remain silent.
"That's why Olmo was closer to me. He knew what to say. You rarely do. Plus, you betrayed me."
What you see, not what they say.
Drew makes a gnawing sound, like a rat, imitating Jack Nicholson from The Departed. He chuckled again and pointed to the cardigan in my hand. "Put it in that cupboard back there."
The fuzzy black structure remained but a small cupboard had appeared beside it. I opened it but it was already full of cardigans. I tried to stuff my cardigan among the others, but there was no room. I slowly closed the cupboard door, realising what it meant. Tears filled my eyes as the black structure comes into focus. A huge filing cabinet, with dates and names labelled on each drawer. I search for my name and find it under Olmo's drawer, whose name appears quite a few times.

I nod as the filing cabinet slowly goes out of focus again and is replaced by a large window looking out at an empty road stretching out into the horizon. Drew walks away from the window as I notice the something peculiar in the sky. It is sunset and the sky is a deep, blood red. But, not all of it is this shade of crimson. Below this layer of red, is a part of the sky that is light blue. I can see Drew walking towards, and into, this part of the sky. Amusingly enough, I can make out the silhouette of the filing cabinet as well. Soon, they are both out of sight.
Time to wake up and go to sleep. I nod again and as the recorder finally clicked off, my lips curve into a slight smile from left to right in the darkness.