Unseaming (6 page)

Visiting their bedsides, listening to the wheeze of their breath, how he had wanted to scream, to shake their frail bodies, to call them the fools they were. But he who could believe nothing had no right to tell others what to believe.

Gina’s hand on his wrist stirred him from his reverie, brought him back to the restaurant. He told her what he’d been thinking about, but not what inspired the train of thought. She squeezed his wrist as he spoke, and just listened.

Later, in the midst of dinner—fettuccine Alfredo for him, eggplant Parmesan for her—she asked him what he believed the Blessings were. He knew he was on dangerous turf: she was idly fingering her pendant, perhaps thinking of making a point. “I don’t have an opinion,” he said quickly, but much to his own surprise didn’t stop there. “I know what they
feel
like.”

She tilted her head, a gesture that meant “go on,” green eyes watchful above her wide cheekbones.

“When the trade center went down,” he said, “when I stood there with my co-workers in front of the TV and watched the towers collapse, I felt like I’d been stained, like something inside me, spirit, soul, whatever—like it was the rug those deaths would never wash out of. I think that feeling was there before, when I used to have to go out to cover spot news, the things I’d see—like when the firefighters couldn’t get that old woman out of the house in time, or that sorry drunk’s body I saw wedged underneath a minivan. But when the towers fell, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. And each new thing makes it worse. The shootings at the university made it a lot worse.”

“Worse things happen all over the world,” she said, gripping her pendant, twirling it. “Much worse. Much more often.”

“I know. I’m not saying anyone should feel sorry for me.” He spread his arms. “For us. But you asked. To me that’s what the Blessings are like. Like this stain I feel, but it’s real, it’s on the outside. It’s on everyone.” He surprised himself again as his voice cracked.

Now it was Regina’s turn for judicious silence. She let go her symbol to put both her hands on his.

Later, it surprised him more, how hungry she was for him, he for her. For the longest time he had avoiding staying over at her place or vice versa because of what they would see when they awoke, that terrible memory that hung between them. This time, without saying it, they both resolved to defy that memory. They strove to wear each other out, translating their hunger into action, arms clutching each other’s thighs as they devoured each other to climax. And again, even later, her pinned beneath him, the sweet pressure of her hips flexing up, him grinding down on her as if he meant to obliterate them both.

Then, his miraculous awakening, with the memory of dream still fresh as the blood on his skin.

* * *

Bryan stayed near his phone at the office, annoyed by the trite assignment he’d been saddled with (a water main break downtown), neurotically cleaning his fingernails with his pocketknife as he willed Patel to call him back. When the professor finally did call, about noon, he broke character for only the second time since Bryan had known him.

“You
dreamed?
You
remember
dreaming? That’s incredible! Are you sure it’s not wishful thinking?”

“I’m
certain
, Raj. But I don’t remember all of it, just flashes. Like still photography.”

“Well…well, maybe we can help you get clearer.” If Bryan didn’t know better, he would have thought the professor’s voice almost sounded devilish. Then from out of the blue, Patel asked, “How much do you know about the Mayans?”

“Hmm. Didn’t they throw little girls into pits? Or are they the ones that cut the hearts out of enemy warriors?”

“Both. Though more often, enemy warriors had their heads cut off.”

“Well. Okay then. Why do you ask?”

“I’m trying to digest a rather exotic set of ideas. I’ll tell you all about it tonight. You can come tonight?”

Of course he could. He phoned Regina at the bank, left a message to let her know. She texted back,
u have fun. luv u
.

* * *

When he met Patel outside the university medical center, he was immediately struck by how much older the scientist seemed. His square face sagged as if the skin had loosened from within. But the doctor’s gaze had not lost its intensity, nor did he bother with opening pleasantries. “I hope for both our sakes your memory is good. This is going to cost me some overtime.”

“Your problem, not mine.”

Patel regarded Bryan’s shit-eating grin for a moment before leading him through the glass double doors. The professor didn’t crack a smile. “I’d be highly skeptical if it were anyone other than you.”

“Skeptical? Come on, Raj, there
must
be other people dreaming.”

“I have heard from others,” Patel said as they walked. “Most proved to be wastes of time and resources. A few, there may have been something to their claims, but in the labs they couldn’t deliver. You give me hope.”

Queasiness sluiced through Bryan’s gut and bubbled in his throat. “I’m the only one.”

“I can’t claim that. But at this moment you’re the only one I know of.” He pressed the button to summon the elevator. “Pegah and Sonoko should be here in an hour. I called them in special for this. Let’s go to my office.”

As they ascended, Patel informed him, “We’re going to try something a little unusual tonight. Before we put you to sleep, I’m going to have you take a small dose of psilocin.”

“What’s that?”

A devilish smile spread slowly within the bracket of Patel’s block-like jaw. “Pharmacologically active extract of a certain mushroom.”

Bryan coughed. “You’re kidding me.”

“Ordinarily, I would be, but since you’re the first person I know of since the Blessings started who claims to remember a dream—whose claim might be credible, that is—the extra barrier breaker seems well warranted. Don’t worry, the dosage will be small. We want to make sure you can sleep.”

“You’re allowed to do that?”

The smirk remained. “We have a DEA exemption. There’s no scandal for you to uncover.”

Nothing in Patel’s office seemed different except for the background image on his flat-screen monitor. The icon-dotted screen displayed two stylized figures drawn in a fashion Bryan recognized after a beat as Central American. One figure, standing, dangled a head from one hand. The other, kneeling, had no head. From the stump of the headless warrior’s neck sprang snakes, and a strange, winding, branching form that seemed to represent a flowering tree.

Patel followed Bryan’s gaze. “The ceiba tree grows from the blood of the sacrifice. The Mayan tree of life.”

Bryan immediately thought of his father’s rants. “Sacrifice? So we all start turning into trees?”

“No. At least not anytime soon.” Patel tapped the screen. “This is a souvenir from a phenomological line of inquiry I and some of the other faculty have delved into, one that wouldn’t be popular in certain circles. It has to do with how the Mayans conceived of blood. Blood was the fountain of youth and life. Blood was magical. Blood was the gate used by the powers in the underworld, which in their fanciful conception housed a central river and a variety of gods, not to mention a sacrificial basketball court.”

“They used blood to make gates to the underworld?”

Patel regarded him levelly. “No. Blood
was
the gateway, once it was spilled. It was blood that allowed the underworld to come through into ours.”

“What are you saying?”

“You know as well as I that no one has been able to figure out where this blood comes from. Yet I’m inclined to think it’s not coincidence that so much human ceremony regards the spilling of blood as essential to otherworldly transfiguration. The Mayans were especially eager for the power the underworld brought. The literature tells of ten thousand captives slain in a day.” He put a hand on his throat. “They had yokes they clamped on the necks of sacrifices that cut off blood to the brain. When the sacrifice collapsed, a dagger to the heart. As efficient as any modern slaughterhouse.”

A nervous laugh escaped Bryan’s throat. “The Mayans understood the Blessings? How is that even possible?”

“I am not saying they understood it. I am only saying what we’re dealing with perhaps isn’t new to humanity. Perhaps this phenomenon has ancient roots, and some cultures were more in tune with its principles than others. Though if the Mayans were truly on to something, it’s hard to glean.”

Bryan contemplated the branches sprouting from the severed neck. “Great. Now I’m going to dream about all that.”

The professor’s smirk returned. “Assuming you do dream at all.”

* * *

Bryan found the old routine a comfort, even the acts of stripping, piling the contents of his pockets on the bedside table, tying on the ridiculous hospital gown. Dr. Patel’s assistants did their work quickly: electrodes stuck with adhesive to his bare scalp, the sides of his face, under his chin, on his chest and left leg; a sensor by his nose and mouth, to monitor breathing; a belt strapped around his ribs and abdomen to register the movement of his breath; a clip lightly pinching the index finger, tracking oxygen in his blood. At Patel’s request, he blinked, took deep breaths, helped calibrate the equipment.

The eye of the camera floated above him. If the drug had taken hold, he couldn’t tell.

“Bryan, you remember the signals?” Patel’s voice, piped in from the control room.

“Eyes right to left, twice when I’m dreaming, five times when I’m awake. I’ll count seconds if I can.”

“Everything’s working, doctor.” A woman’s voice, picked up by the control-room mic. Higher pitched than the other. Her name is Pegah, Bryan thought hazily.

His room felt cozy—much like a motel room, but pristine. The black box next to the bed, the one all the electrodes led to, emitted a soothing hum. The amniotic red space behind his closed eyelids faded softly to black.

“I will know when I’m dreaming. I will remember what I dream. I will remember what I dream.”

He walked the empty streets of the City of Mazes, with its towers like teeth, the ribs of its arches, doors like sphincters, eaves like cheekbones, gutters like stretched intestines, streets merging and splitting at impossible angles, the corners of buildings deadly as razor blades. His shoes splashed in dark puddles, the sound echoing from vacant storefronts.

Seeing this place, this horror from his childhood, badly rattled him. But he knew he dreamed. He counted, one two three beats, moved his eyes: right, left, right, left.

Above him, the clouded sky roiled, bruised-meat haze. One two three right left right left. He heard a heartbeat, presumably his own, though as he walked the noise grew louder. Another noise, the sound of something sliding. Snake on its belly.
I know that I am dreaming. I will remember what I dream.

A thin cord brushed his face, a spider thread; he backed away, flailing. How could he not have seen it, this glistening red string stretched in front of him? Many of them, twitching like fishing line, reeling something in, dragged through the muck behind him. One two three right left right left. He turned.

Shapes thrashed behind him, slimy cocoons drawn forward by the glistening red wires. Were these the marionette people, pulled from the grave of his childhood by some unseen puppeteer to haunt him again?
Stop
, he thought, and the threads broke.
I know that I am dreaming.

And then the threads reattached, and the forms slid past him, men and women crusted and scabbed, mouths open in silent shrieks. He stepped after them, called
Stop!
as they disappeared into the expanding shadow ahead, where the heartbeat grew louder, louder, louder. Right left one two three.

Something was happening that had never happened when he dreamed this before.

The buildings before him caved into a growing sinkhole. Architecture suppurated, bricks and mortar sloughed off like corpse skin as a thunderous heartbeat shook the world. The City of his childhood nightmares, consumed in a whirlpool, a hurricane pit with a devouring heart for an eye. Bryan teetered as the edge of the great hole raced at him, a reverse tsunami that sucked down all it touched.
I will remember what I dream. Stop. Stop! STOP!

His command changed nothing. The expanding abyss had its own will. He couldn’t control it. Beyond the edge a new nightmare teemed, worms under pressure at the bottom of a well, slithering over each other in suffocated madness. The hole grew and grew, as fast as he could flee, the things at the bottom boiling at him like lava. Bryan screamed in his bed of electrodes as he plummeted into the squirming maelstrom, as the underworld swallowed him.