Author of Visions

Redness made up the river Seine. On the waves read the name in bright white Impact typeface, PARIS. A woman talked on the phone, walking along the water. She spoke with hushed tones all the while. Her face could be cupped and held with tenderness.

“Yeah, the bombs are going off. Fires everywhere. We’re thousands of miles apart but I can still say we’re closer than ever,” she said, quiet as ever. On the other end of the phone, in Newark Delaware, alarms sounded and people rushed with apparel spilling from their arms like fountains issuing forth water. They tried to grab as much as possible. As the attention shifted from the shoplifters to the two castle-like structures that crumbled down, killing scores of people in a moment of dust and debris, the phantasmagoria came to an abrupt end. I roused myself from my slumber and shouted one thing: Mary Shelley!

Of course, this beloved author experienced a waking dream, call it a daymare, but I was definitely asleep. The idea for Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus (1818) sprang from her imagination with a burst of invention and clarity. The vividness of my own dream remained ever the more startling. It signaled in a moment’s rest, the end of the world. My girlfriend, Sedgwick Cleese, living abroad for the past two weeks in France made me think that night of her visiting some non-touristy spot so she could discuss art and wine. In the dream, nothing like that took place. The creeping sense of the end of the Earth and all its inhabitants seeped into the fabric of my imagination. Then it happened again.

I looked at the rubble and the people all mangled from the collapse of the castle-like structures. Bells pealed as people continued to palm sweaters, sweatshirts, jackets, jeans, anything they could get their hands on, they wrested from department stores. No manner of order or signs of police existed. In the second dream of the same theme, my girlfriend looked across the river with melancholy. She appeared to be oblivious to the cessation of all earthly existence. I cared! I didn’t want the people to die in the rubble. I didn’t want the shoplifters to get away with their loot. I didn't want Sedgwick to perish. I could, however, do nothing. I froze. Not out of will but ability. I dearly wanted to act; I yearned to jump into the action and search for life and to report the looters to the authorities.

I woke up again. I didn’t scream Mary Shelley this time. I concerned myself more with the idea of connecting all of this to actual life. If I had called Sedgwick, I would have alarmed her. I couldn’t just tell her about this horrendous nightmare that had plagued me two nights in a row. I looked at my bed, pillow and covers. I felt like this was the impetus for the Nightmare on Elm Street saga. You can’t even go to find comfort in a good night’s rest without some horrific scenery played out in your head. Reluctantly, and because I was bone tired, I drifted off into dreamland. Except, that’s too light a word to describe my experience.

This nightmare came at me like a meteor, fast and bold. I viewed the blood-red Seine again with its obvious reference to where it ran. Just as dreams are wont to do, the imagery changed. Now, I came back to Delaware.I could feel flames licking at my heels as if I stood in a furnace. At last, I gained the activity of my limbs and sped to see if anyone could be searched for or if this remained a recovery mission. The latter status won, sadly. The grim discovery of body parts and other human remains caused me to shift in my bed. The few people who had attempted to stop the shoplifters all began to congregate around me. They pointed fingers with icy words that encircled me. The dust gritted between my teeth. I continued to feel the heat of the fires which burned with an intensity and rage. I smelled death and backed away from the fingers and cold statements.

“I didn’t know! I wanted to try to––” In the dream, someone knocked me unconscious but ironically, the strike brought me into actual consciousness.

In my mind, I tried to piece together the various elements of the dream. The two structures which fell, had to be the World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001. The fleeing thieves must’ve been my underlying fear of people just “wilding” and going into stores and smashing cases and lifting all sorts of sportswear. And of course, the ruddy waters in Paris signified, I surmised, the blood which would flow in the last days. I hadn't been back to the Daliy Delaware offices since the 2020 COVID Pandemic. A few inches had been reserved for my column Author of Visions. I wrote about science fiction books and writers. I called Sedgwick. “Hey, babe,” I said.

“You’re not going to believe this. This is some Wizard of Oz (1939) ‘and you were there’ level news.”

“I’m game. What’s up?”

“I’m having this recurring dream…nightmare…whatever…and you’re in it.”

“I see.”

“And it’s got the fallen towers and stealers. I’m not quite sure how to marry those ideas but many people died, and a lot more got away with larceny."

“Have you been drinking?”

“No, you know I don’t imbibe. That’s for you in Europe, sopping up all the good potent potables.”

“I’ve had my fair share,” she admitted.

“Back to these dreams. I’m totally taken by––”

“The graphic appeal?”

“Yes!”

"And the fact you're an author of visions...."

"You're speaking truth!"

“So are you ever going back to sleep again?” she said as droll as possible.

“Ha-ha. I’m going to go online and look at videos of pandas chomping on bamboo and listen to brown noise. Or maybe pink noise…I’m still trying to decipher the differences.”

“I’ve only got a few days here. I can’t wait to see you in person and not just video chats. We can talk all about the dreams or nightmares or whatever when I land in Baltimore.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“I’ll see you, then. Kisses.”

After I hung up, I could sense that dizziness that often follows gabbing on the phone late into the hours of the night. I had not realized that she spoke in the mid-morning. My head found my pillow again.

I saw the white letters and the crimson water once more in Paris. Back in Delaware, there was no one to be found. The bodies and searchers had vanished. The thieves had also evaporated into thin air. Only the sound of the blaring alarm bells remained and then, they too ceased their song. I looked around at the wreckage and determined that all of this had to have been some kind of message from my brain for me to remember history, never steal, and safeguard my values. I wanted to wake up…and I did. It was almost time for me to get back to my desk. I made myself an açai bowl and found my way to my work station. Red water stained all of my paperwork and dust and soot covered the rest of my work area. I heard bells ringing upstairs. I then noticed a pile of clothing sitting adjacent to my desk. Then, the quick, clipped sound of a police squad car alerted me. I shot out of my vision again. I shook my head and got ready for work.

Eminem- 3 a.m.