Sleepwalker (11 page)

Delaney, cocking his head, appeared to notice Richard’s agitation. “Is everything all right?”

Richard, staring at the grease stain, defended his anxiety. “Yes, it is...for some reason the freedom to finally discuss last night’s dream has me all bundled up in nerves. I can’t explain it, it’s as if...as if something inside is trying to stop me from bringing it up with you.”

Truthfully, on the inside, Richard had been quite anxious to discuss the dreams again, yet externally, had kept himself patient until the doctor was altogether ready. On numerous instances Delaney had mentioned that rushing things along would defeat the purpose of therapy, that finding an answer and solution to Richard’s problems would be quite impossible if the proper steps hadn’t been taken. So, respectfully, he’d allowed the doctor to move along at his own, practiced pace. Today’s session had been no exception. First, the generalized discussions. Then the odd questioning. Here and now the time had come at last to talk of last night’s visions. Perhaps Richard’s surmounting fear had been in view of his conscience’s decision to not sit in on the session. Acting alone would be difficult, but he had to be strong.

“Try to relax,” Delaney said. “Take some deep breaths in through your nose, and release them from your mouth very slowly, as if your goal is to make a candle flicker.”

Richard followed Delaney’s lead.

“Are you relaxed?”

“Not really, but I’m okay.”

“Is it all right to begin?”

“Yes. Please. Go ahead.”

“Okay. Now, Richard. Did you have any visions again last night?”

He nodded. “The blue light, it’s been getting brighter. Last night it filled the room. Then my mother appeared, beside the bed. We spoke of the place she stays.”

“Do you know where this place is?”

“No.”

“Is this place heaven?”

Richard shook his head. “No, definitely not. It’s someplace else. Another world perhaps , but not heaven.”

“But your mother is dead.”

“Yes, she is--”

“Don’t dead people go to heaven?”

“I don’t know where they go. But she’s not in heaven, I’ve asked her. She’s in what she calls ‘another place’. A place I can visit. She also told me that Debra is there too.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“No.”

“But you want to go there.”

“Very badly.”

Delaney nodded, as if in understanding of Richard’s desire. “What else did she say last night?”

“Nothing more than that, really. But something awful happened to her. I’d never seen anything like it before. The blue light, it...it moved. Actually, now that I think about it, it didn’t
really
move. It was as if there was a
second
blue light, a smaller one that suddenly appeared behind her. It grew, covered her entire body, tried to swallow her. She reached out to me--her face was in a terrible grimace. She was yelling, in pain, trying to get away from the light. But I was too scared to reach out to her. I pressed back against the bed and then all of a sudden these frightening hands came out of the blue light. They were milky white, with a terrible black glare around the wrists. They grabbed her, twisted her, and wrestled her back into the blue light. And then she, and the light, were gone.”

“What happened next?”

“I think that’s when I woke up. That was when I heard Pam’s voice, soon thereafter.”

“Is that when the whole incident with Pam began?”

He nodded. “I think so, yes.”

“What about Debra? Was she there last night?”

“No.”

“How about the man in black?”

“No, thankfully.”

Delaney paused to write some notes. “Anyone else? Perhaps someone new that hadn’t been there before?”

Richard scanned his memory, found nothing of significance. No images, no conscience. Nothing. “No, there was no one else.”

The room fell in silence, not a tick nor a voice nor a creak interrupting the thirty seconds of motionlessness between them. Eventually Delaney scribbled something down, then placed the pen into the crook of the notebook and set it on the coffee table. He stood up, crossed the room and sat behind his desk. Opening the top left hand drawer, he pulled out another cassette tape. “It’s no mystery, Richard, that I’ve taken a good deal of interest in your case of late. The dreams, a likely side-effect of anxiety brought on by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, have had me quite intrigued.”

Richard straightened himself on the couch, placed one foot on the floor as a million questions rippled through his mind. Would he finally obtain some answers from the doctor? Or at the very least, an admission of curiosity, and perhaps concern? Was he about to receive his ticket to normalcy? A cure-all magic potion to exorcise the demons in his mind?

“I say this,” Delaney continued, replacing the tape in the recorder, pressing ‘record’, then sitting back down, “because of the recurring characters. Two of whom you know, that being Julia
Sparke
, your mother, and Debra
Sparke
, your child. Both of whom are deceased. And then there’s this rather fierce ‘twin-nemesis’ as I like to say, whom you claim is actually yourself in guise.”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Hmm. So, correct me if I’m wrong. Outside of the random appearance of an old boss, or your girlfriend, these three characters, so to speak, are the only ones that remain constants in, shall we say, the landscape of your dreams?”

Richard nodded, understanding. “Yes, they’ve all been there since the beginning. Not always are all three present at the same exact time. For the most part they arrive periodically, either in individual dreams, or all at once in the same dream.”

“When you say periodically, how often do you mean?”

“Well, maybe I should’ve said ‘often’. All three show up at least once a week, and sometimes they’re there every night for a stretch of time, even for as much as a week.”

“Do you ever go entire nights when they don’t come at all?”

“Sure, but not very often. Maybe once or twice a week I’ll have a night of dreamless sleep.”

“So you’re saying that when none of these three characters show up in your dreams, you don’t dream at all?”

“That’s right. And on these nights there is never any sleepwalking.”

“Why do you say that?”

“On the nights that I dream, there is always something disrupted in the condo. Last night I dreamed of my mother. In the morning I found the phone off the hook in the living room. Also, a table and lamp had been toppled over. Three nights ago, when I dreamed of the man in black, I found the kitchen in disarray, the table and chairs knocked over, all the plastic tumblers spilled on the floor.”

“Do you ever wake up in the middle of a ‘sleepwalking’ episode and find yourself performing the odd activities that would cause the minor disarray you speak of?”

“You’ve asked me that before, and the answer is still no. I’ve never woken up anyplace else but in my bed.”

“So what makes you think you are actually sleepwalking, then?”

“Well...because...haven’t we discussed this all before, doc?”

Delaney nodded, pointing to the tape recorder.

“Oh...” Richard ran a hand through his hair, came down with a palm full of sweat. He wiped it on his jeans. “I can’t come up with any other explanation for the circumstances, really. I go to sleep, I have these intense dreams, and when I wake up the next morning I find things moved around the house. What else could it be then, really, other than sleepwalking?”

“I ask this because many people suffering from somnambulistic activities from time to time wake up out of bed, confused and disoriented.”

Richard shrugged his shoulders. “I wish I could say that’s the case. But it’s not. I
never
wake up anywhere but in my bed.”

“Do you ever
dream
of doing these things?”

“You mean dream about messing things up in the house?”

“Yes, and then finding them as you dreamed them. For example, you dream of taking all your clothes out of the closet and throwing them on the floor, and then you wake up and find your clothes on the floor.”

“I’ve done that, too.” Richard smiled. “Actually, no, I’ve never dreamed of the things I’ve done during sleepwalking, nothing that I can recall anyway. I’m always in bed, the dream visitors are always at the side or the front of the bed. Unless you’re the man in black, then you’re on the bed with me, trying to hurt me.”

Delaney paused, thumb and index finger massaging his brow. He seemed to be gathering some thoughts. “Have you ever noticed a physical connection between your dreams, and the nocturnal disarray in your home?”

Curious question, Richard thought. Suddenly, out of the blue, Richard’s conscience appeared.
Yeah, I’m curious too. Now we’re getting somewhere!

Nice of you to show up. Where the hell have you been?

“What exactly do you mean?” he asked the doctor.

“Well, I find it interesting that your mother visits you, and you find the phone off the hook. Perhaps this could be associated with a desire to be in contact with her again? Surely your dreams allude to that. And then the table and lamp being knocked over--could this be symbolic of her death? A ‘lights out’ metaphor?” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “And then, on a night when the man in black comes, and tries to hurt you, your kitchen is in utter disarray. It seems possible to me that this could be symbolic of you trying to defend yourself. What do you think?”

Sounds like a load of horse shit.

In partial agreement with his conscience, he said, “It sounds like a bit of a stretch, doc. Although, now that I think about it, things are usually a bit
more
messed up when the man in black comes.”

Delaney nodded. “Well, it
is
a theory, and theories always seem far-fetched until proven valid.”

“It certainly is an interesting idea, but one I’m not ready to buy into yet. I’m not too sure if it’d really stand up in court, if you get my drift.”

“I understand your skepticism, and by all means it’s natural to feel that way. But if you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like for you to let me take you down an altogether different path, one we haven’t explored yet. It’s another theory, Richard. One that ties into the first. But let me tell you, right off the bat: it’s a long shot, and it might seem far-fetched, but it’s entirely possible, and truly exciting if proven correct--which in turn is in itself quite an even longer shot.”

The doctor paused, seemingly waiting for Richard’s approval to continue. Richard stared at the grease spot.
What do you think?

I’m waiting with bated breath.

Richard nodded. “Please, go ahead.”

“Richard, the circumstances you’ve described are truly consistent with events that have dated back to the turn of the century, events that are still studied today, albeit on a less than consistent basis. Now I do not doubt the possibility or plausibility of the disarray in your home to be caused by somnambulism. Nor do I doubt the nocturnal reappearances of your departed family members to be produced by a hyperactive
subconsciousness
sparked through a potent case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. More than likely we shall be correct to assume these postulations correct.”

“Enough with the Freudian talk, doc. What are you driving at?”

Delaney grinned. “Over the weeks I’ve held myself back from bending the proverbial rules, so to speak, to explore assumptions beyond the code of medical professionalism. But I find the possibility of such an explanation to your woes to be utterly intriguing, and stimulating.”

“Doc, you’re leaping way over my head. What explanation are you talking about?”

“Are you familiar with the term ‘paranormal activity’?”

Richard felt his heart leap. His conscience ran circles around his head, hooting and hollering. Of course he’d considered the after-death appearances of Debra and his mother as ‘
hauntings
’, but never once expected Delaney to regard this as a possibility, and not once considered bringing the idea up, lest the doctor think he
really
flew the coop. So with the help of his conscience, Richard simply faulted their materializations as visions triggered entirely through the workings of his mind. His
sick
mind. An entirely reasonable explanation.

So...perhaps he wasn’t sick at all?

“You mean ghosts and stuff?”

Delaney nodded. “Yes. More precisely, poltergeists.” Delaney leaned forward, pinning Richard with eagle-like eyes. “Let’s look at the details, in short. Dead relatives visit your dreams in the middle of the night. Resulting factors are objects being moved around on, as we can tell, their own volition. Again, I do not doubt your own deductions, or my very own initial ones, but I’d very much like to weigh the possibility of something paranormal taking place.”

Richard was silent. So was his conscience.

“All I need is your approval. And then we can begin immediately.”

“Begin what?”

“We begin to find out
exactly
what it is that’s going on with you, Richard.”