Daniel's Dream
DANIEL’S DREAM
by
Peter Michael Rosenberg
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
DANIEL’S DREAM
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Copyright © 2011 Peter Michael Rosenberg. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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Published by: Mojito Press
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Visit the author website:
http://www.petermichaelrosenberg.com
Version: 2012.01.15
Novels:
Kissing Through a Pane of Glass
Touched by a God or Something
Because it Makes my Heart Beat Faster
Daniel’s Dream
Implicated
Short Stories:
The Fig Tree - a fable
Writing as Tyler Montreux
Novels:
The Uncertainty Principle
Acclaim for Peter Michael Rosenberg
"An accomplished storyteller"
– THE TIMES
Kissing Through a Pane of Glass
"A deep and insightful portrayal of tortured love... powerful and disturbing"
-
LITERARY REVIEW
"A disturbing cautionary tale about the danger of demanding your heart's desire... a compelling guide to romantic pain and responsibility"
–
SHE
"Very readable... Rosenberg writes about sex with a beguiling honesty"
–
TIME OUT
"The story is a moving one, skilfully told"
– FINANCIAL TIMES
"A touching story"
– SPECTATOR
"An impressive debut"
– NEW WOMAN
"A wonderfully written and at times quite chilling story of obsessive love... I am convinced we have a major new novelist breaking through here"
– TAMWORTH HERALD
Touched by a God or Something
"Enjoyable and tautly paced... Mr Rosenberg has proved that his third novel will have an eager audience"
- SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
"This is a great novel, full of intrigue, invention and superb characterisation – Peter Michael Rosenberg is a superb modern novelist who writes with skill, style and great imagination. Roll on the third novel!"
– TAMWORTH HERALD
"After finding this book in a library the description grabbed me enough to give it a try. I'm glad I did. It's a solid story neatly written and with exactly the kind of ending I like in a book - anything but happily ever after. It confidently touches on the subject of gender roles and leaves you thinking long after reading it. I went on to read most of Peter Michael Rosenbergs books and found them enjoyable too. None stayed with me as much as this one. It's a shame that Rosenberg's books aren't as popular as they deserve to be."
– Amazon 5 star review
Because It Makes My Heart Beat Faster
"A dark tale which touches on the latent violence lurking beneath the most civilized of exteriors... compelling"
- THE TIMES
Daniel's Dream
"I read 'Daniel's Dream' while on holiday some years ago and it's a terrific read. Rosenberg's writing really shines in the vivid dream sequences where the main character, suffering from the effects of a serious accident, finds another existence in a remote Greek village. You can almost smell the Greek food and feel the warmth of the sun as you're reading it. I've read a couple of other Peter Michael Rosenberg books ('Touched By A God Or Something' & 'Because It Makes My Heart Beat Faster') and he seems to have the ability to create stories and characters that stay with you long after you've read the last page. For a well written and ultimately moving story `Daniel's Dream' comes highly recommended. –
Amazon 5 star review
This book is dedicated to the memory of Vicky Allen (1958-80)
On the morning of the sixth of May, exactly six months after the accident, Daniel awoke from a dream unlike any he had had before. Ever since his premature return from India, trussed up like a chicken with his right arm in a sling and his neck in a brace, sleep - or more particularly, the opportunity to sleep comfortably - had eluded him. For the first two months, the sheer physical discomfort of his injuries had tormented him, and snatching anything more than a quarter of an hour of restful sleep had been impossible. This made him testy and irritable, but he had resigned himself to the fact that, until his collar-bone had mended, his bruises had healed and the osteopathic manipulation that he urnderwent every week had taken effect, he had no choice but to grin and bear it. That he did so with ill grace was not something that could be mentioned without rousing Daniel’s wrath.
Many of those around him during the weeks after the accident believed that, considering he had almost lost his life, a little insomnia was a small price to pay. However, if anyone so much as hinted at this, Daniel swiftly disabused them of the notion.
But then none of them, except his wife, Lisanne, knew about the nightmares. Even when the sling had long been abandoned, his nights were still plagued with misery. And although the osteopath no longer took his head in an arm-lock and jerked it until his neck made a sound like a walnut being cracked, his recurrent, tormented visions ensured that, for half a year, he had not yet woken from a decent night’s rest. This recurring dream - a classic, hallucinatory roller- coaster ride - never differed, in either content or intensity, and was both numbing and exhausting in its regularity.
In the dream, Daniel was alone in his bedroom, caught up in a continuous cycle of somersaults, rolling over and over round his bedroom floor, slamming periodically into the walls and furniture, the forward, circular momentum propelling him indefinitely, the room twisting and turning; a dizzy, sickening motion that never ceased. No sooner had he slammed into one wall with an urgent, rib-cracking thud, than he was off again, unknown forces bending him double and sending him hurtling head over heels, into another wall, a door or a wardrobe.
Over and over.
Only when morning broke was Daniel released from this agony. For six months he had woken, every morning without fail, covered in a cold, clammy sweat, his body trembling, his head spinning. The night-time exertions left him parched, his throat dry and harsh like cracked, sunbeaten leather. Desperate for rehydration, he would reach across to the bedside table for the glass of water - a constant fixture these days - and drain its contents in one.