Julia Dream

Verse 3: Am I Really Dying?

Will the misty master break me?

Will the key unlock my mind?

Will the following footsteps catch me?

Am I really dying?

Part 1

1

“You winked out for a moment there, mate. Problems on the home front?” Jason says. The smile the satyr wears on his face is both kind and devious.

Jake realizes that the dream began right where it had left off. But the Sapphire City is more alive than it was just a few minutes ago when he left. Where he had caught sight of normal townsfolk in his peripherals, he can now see that many of them aren’t people at all. Superheroes, aliens, zombies, and people from all walks of life and all periods of history walk the streets of the city. He muses about what he sees but is quickly cut off from his thoughts.

“Jake,” says Kly, her timber suggests that something bad is about to happen. “I think we had better scurry.”

No sooner have the words left her mouth and a gigantic roar fills the crowded city street. Harvey the armadillo is now half as large as the building before them, and his eyes flare red with flame. His tree trunk size legs (They got longer? The thought is instantaneous, there then gone.) easily break free of the hardened mud that entraps them. Harvey is about to do some damage.

Jake stares at Harvey for what he hopes isn’t a moment too long, then grabs a hold of Jason’s arm and leaps. Behind them flies Klytemenester and what must be hundreds of fairies just like her. The Lady of Roses, indeed! Beneath them, Harvey destroys the store front and begins terrorizing the street and its parishioners. Then Jake turns his eyes to where they should land.

A small plaza reveals itself through a break in the clouds and Jake aims for it. Kly and her host dive as Jake and Jason descend. As the ground rapidly approaches, Jake steals a glance at the surrounding city and focuses, for an instant, on the great tower at its heart. All of his will is drawn to the tower and the woman he knows is there. Julia is his sole purpose now. Everything must be bent towards getting to her. The tower stands like a sentinel, its walls are an impervious blue the color of the deep ocean. Even at this altitude, still above the cloud deck, the tower looms above him like an angry parent looming over their troublesome child. Jake feels fear, admiration, and desire as he takes in the tower. From below, the roars of Harvey and the sounds of his rampage continue.

Passing through the clouds, Jake gages his landing zone in the plaza. From this altitude, he can make out a fountain at its center and six streets intersecting. Taking in the streets surrounding the plaza, it strikes him that the entire city is a labyrinth. Jake smiles to himself knowing that all he has to do is leap his way to the tower at the city’s center. No getting lost in dead ends for Jake. Spend a moment to recover after landing, then it’s another leap or two to the tower and his love, his future queen.

The cobblestone of the plaza cracks beneath Jake the Hulk’s feet, and the small tremor that accompanies the landing halts the city goers in their tracks. None of the stares that Jake receives last very long as Kly and the host of fairies enter the plaza in a flourish of circular flight. The expressions of nuisance and irritation are quickly replaced by awe and reverence. Like a swarm of locusts, the fairies fly in unison and pull up, in formation, with Kly flitting before Jake and Jason.

Jake wastes no time. “What the hell happened to Harvey?”

“It is gaining power, Jake,” answered Kly. “It doesn’t want you to find our queen.”

“No,” he says. “This is my dream. The animal is a part of my dream!”

“No, it’s not, Jake,” Jason says. “Not entirely. That beast is tied to you, sure. But you do not control it. And it’s not goin’ to stop comin’ for you.”

“What is it then?” The fear is evident on Jake’s face as he looks from Jason to Kly and back again. “I haven’t understood the meaning of Harvey’s presence since these dreams began. Who is he?”

Kly turns to her host and nods, and they quietly descend to the cobblestone of the plaza without a sound. The fairy flies to Jason’s shoulder and lands after a nod of acquiescence from the satyr. Jake knows Kly is not dangerous, but her opaque emerald eyes still unnerve him.

“The armadillo is a totem animal, Jake,” she begins calmly. “It represents reality. In your case, it’s trying to lead you back to your reality.”

“That’s why it’s getting angry with you,” Jason continues. “The more time you spend here, the more detached you’re becomin’ from where you’re supposed to be.”

Jake has to admit the truth, he no longer likes his reality. The waking world, for him, is nothing but an endless desert filled with mirage after mirage of hope. Hope for money, hope for a better vacation, hope that his wife will never stop loving him, and hope that his children will grow up to be better people than their parents. Real life is difficult, unforgiving, and loathsome. You work your ass off for limited play during limited time with limited money. Except for the upper one percent, the oligarchs, life is nothing more than a series of fleeting smiles and laughs interrupted by days, weeks, and months of windless doldrums and the hope that you’ll survive to the next smile.

Here, in the Sapphire City, Jake has found a new reality. He has found a queen (a queen!) to call his own and a world over which he can rule. Here he can be a part of the one percent. He can spend his days without worry, without fear, and without sadness. In the World of Dreams, he can be immortal! All he needs to do is find her, find Julia. And he knows where she is. Oh, he loves his wife, Gwen, and his two children. But he has the chance, now, to do something incredible, something unprecedented. How can a human being not be persuaded to give up everything for such a chance? In the real world, Jake is nothing… a nobody. He is a run-of-the-mill IT supervisor working in a mediocre hospital, in a mediocre city, in a mediocre state, in a country gone berserk with culture war bullshit and hateful religions. The loss of his life will only affect those closest to him, and they will heal. Jake Chambers will not be missed by the town of Edinburg, the state of Illinois, the United States of America, the planet Earth, or the Real World itself.

“Supposed to be?” Exasperation creeps into Jake’s voice and face. “Where I’m supposed to be?! Why am I supposed to be in that world, Jason? Thanks to Julia, I have a higher calling. A higher purpose. And I’m supposed to just give it all up because it’s not supposed to be? That’s bullshit.”

Kly drops her chin and blinks in what Jake sees as a moment of despair. “We are not denying you this new path, Jake. We don’t understand why the rules of reality have placed such limitations on your kind. But, as you humans love to say, ‘Rules are meant to be bent, and sometimes broken.’ If we didn’t believe that, then he and I wouldn’t be here.”

Jason nods in agreement. “We’re with you, mate.”

2

The smelling salts were pungent, and they drew Jake out of his bat-induced slumber. It was the excruciating pain at the base of his skull that woke him fully, his sight blanked white several times as he lifted his head from the table. He tried to put his hand to the back of head to inspect the damage as the cries of pain echoed in the little room. But he was shackled to the table with handcuffs threaded through a u-bolt. Several more blinks allowed the room to come into focus.

It was sparse. Aside from the table he was seated at, there were two more chairs, a pitcher of water, three plastic cups, and four walls illuminated by dank, lifeless fluorescent lights. The bottom half of the walls were a God-awful mint green, their top halfs were mirrors. Jake felt like he was in a cop show, perhaps Law & Order, or NYPD Blue. On the other side of the table, two people stood looking at him. The uniformed officer, whose nametag said he was Officer Lance Hendricks, held the smelling salts and an expression of concern. Lance wasn’t much to look at, perhaps five feet nine inches tall, but Jake could see the muscles beneath the uniform. Lance was not one to be fucked with. The other was a woman, dressed professionally in a dark gray pantsuit with thick-rimmed blue glasses and a head of blonde hair pulled back in a long ponytail. She had no nametag, but the desire to know her name was absent from Jake.

“Welcome back, Mr. Chambers,” said the woman, her voice subtly arrogant. He was tasered for nearly choking and beating his wife. This woman’s arrogance towards his obvious guilt belayed any pretense of innocent until proven guilty.

Jake didn’t give a shit. He wanted, needed, to get back to the World of Dreams. He stole a few more glances around the thankless room and snickered when he looked at the only door in the room. There, plastered front and center, was a black and gold sticker in the shape of a shield. Yellow markings were shaped and arranged to look like an armadillo, and in thick, matching yellow print was Armadillo Security Systems, LLC and Dallas, Texas, USA.

It represents reality. In your case, it’s trying to lead you back to your reality. That’s what Kly had told him only moments ago, at least it felt like moments ago. Well, Jake’s reality had certainly fallen to hell in a handbag. All the more reason to get back to the World of Dreams, and Julia the Dreamboat Queen.

“I trust you’ve had a nice nap?” the woman asked, the venom dripping from her lips.

“Fuck you, uh…” Jake looked at her through the grand slam headache, eyebrows raised in question.

The woman smiled curtly, “Detective Nadine Flowers, Springfield Police.”

“Fuck you, Detective Nadine Flowers, Springfield Police. Got anything for a headache that will knock me out?”

“Mr. Chambers, you are here because your wife, Gwen Chambers, feared your mental state might put her in danger. She went back to your home to retrieve some personal items, escorted by two of my officers. It seems her fears were realized, hence your being here in this joyful little room. Do you have anything to say? You are of course under arrest and charged with assault, aggravated assault, domestic violence, assaulting a police officer, and resisting arrest.”

The bitch had crossed her arms as she spoke, giving her the air of a high school bully playing large for her friends as she chastised and belittled the outcasts of her school. How Jake had always hated that crap, being on the receiving end one too many times. They were all cowards, these bully types. So afraid of their own shadows, they are. The worst of them grow up to be the backwoods militia men, ready and waiting to take on the federal government’s tyranny. Jake knew, without even doubting it, that the first time these people would stare down the barrel of a gun pointed at them, the shit would fill their pants before you could say “boo!” He decided to test his theory, in the moment.

Without moving his body, Jake shot his cuffed hands towards Detective Nadine Flowers with enough force to push the table a couple of inches as the chain snagged the u-bolt. Nadine’s eyes widened, but her body didn’t move. Officer Lance, however, did jump and put his hand to the grip of his holstered pistol. Jake was impressed and laughed in spite of himself.

“Well,” he said with a smile, “you’re not a bully, Nadine. That’s good. Perhaps, you’re just a feminist drinking in the power of staring down a ‘wife-beater’.”

Detective Flowers became a little more serious following Jake’s outburst and words. “Mr. Chambers, you’ve heard the charges. Do you have anything to say in your defense? Or would you like an attorney appointed to you first?”

“C’mon, Nadine. How could I possibly have a defense for myself? Right here, right now, I’d like to plead guilty. Guilty to all of it. I don’t care. Just let me sleep.” Jake took in the little interrogation room once again, its dank, lifeless decorum raising laughter in him once more. But he didn’t laugh, he searched. And as best he could tell, it was the mirror behind the officer and the detective which was the one-way kind. So, Jake stared into it through the space between Lance and Nadine.

“Gwen, I know you’re back there. Look, I love you. And I’m sorry things had to turn out this way. But I told you from the beginning that I had something important to do. You’ve always known about my dreams, the things I can do in them. Now, I’m in the middle of the most important dream of my life. Yes, the woman in them, Julia, is the one I want to be with. You compare nothing to her. The life I can have in the dream is everything compared to the life I can have with you and kids. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. I do. You just don’t matter anymore.”

Jake had been right about which mirror was hiding Gwen. She stood there crying and hurt beyond measure at Jake’s words. Anger smoldered within her, and she wished that this Julia was a real woman, a woman that she could hurt in the same way that Jake had just hurt her. Gwen had lost everything to a figment of imagination.

In the room, Nadine had to pick up her jaw from the floor. Hearing Jake’s words was the last thing she expected. The idea that love found in a dream would render real life love meaningless was such a betrayal to his wife. It made Nadine’s heart sink, and she wished nothing but the worst for this man. She held her anger in check, though.

“Get him to St. John’s for a psych eval,” she said to Officer Hendricks. She turned her eyes back to Jake, her expression dangerous. “I hope that we never see each other again, Mr. Chambers. You are a sick man, and you don’t deserve the joy of having a family.”

With that, Nadine stormed to the door to walk out, but Jake caught her before she could walk through the exit. “Just let me sleep, Nadine. That’s all it takes. I just want to sleep.” Then his own expression turned dangerous. “If I don’t get to sleep, I will kill those responsible for not letting me. You can quote me on that.”

Detective Flowers searched his eyes and saw no lie there. She walked through the door and disappeared. About a minute later a large, burly officer entered the room. Jake knew it was meant to intimidate him, to keep him under control as they transferred him to his former place of employment. He would not be deterred. The dream was too important. Mr. Burly, whose nametag read “Sgt. Kim Ostermann”, moved to Jake’s right and put his hands on Jake’s forearm, using his full 300 pounds (?) to hold him down. There was pain there, but it only worked to dull the headache and increase his rage. Officer Lance reached across the table, handcuffs key in hand, and waited for Officer Burly’s nod. They would learn what underestimation was today.

The cuff fell away from Jake’s wrist, and, like a bolt of lightning, he pulled the cuffs through the u-bolt on the table and grabbed it with his left hand. Brandishing the serrated end as though it was a knife, Jake stabbed Sergeant Ostermann in the neck. The pressure on his arm was immediately released and he shoved the ailing officer to the floor. Officer Hendricks was frozen with fear, only melting as Jake brought a closed fist in contact with his nose, breaking it in bloody fashion. A faint scream could be heard through the one-way glass across the room. Obviously, Gwen was still there, and as frightened as ever. Free of his bonds, Jake turned and picked up the chair he had just been sitting in. Basking in the groans of pain, he stood in front of the glass and swung the chair as hard as he could. The glass cracked in a spider web pattern, but it held.

“You see what you’ve done to me, Gwen!” he screamed at the mirror. “You could have just left me alone! I could have been happy, and so could you! But you had to get scared! Now look what you’ve done!”

He swings the chair again and further cracks the mirror. Dropping the chair, Jake focuses on an opening in the mirror where a piece had fallen out. In his mind, Jake now sees himself as Jack Torrance, the keeper of the Overlook Hotel. He approached the mirror just as Jack had approached the bathroom door with the axe hole in it. This is how Jack felt. It was a statement in his mind, not a question.

“Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!!” he yells, putting his eyes up to the hole in the mirror.

There was Gwen, his wife and the mother of his children, with a look of such horror on her face that it brought out her true beauty. Jake had never seen her like that before. Not even when he stood over her with his hand gripped around her throat. She was beautiful. But she was just a woman. She was no Julia Dream. Despite the love he felt for her, especially in that moment, he would kill her without a second thought if it meant that he could find his queen.

“Mr. Chambers, stand down!” The voice came from within the little dark room where Gwen now cowered. Jake also heard the cocking of a pistol. “Do not make any further moves, or I will shoot!”

The door to the little room opened, flooding Jake’s sight with light.

“Get her out of here,” the same voice commanded.

“Tell them to let me sleep, Gwen! That’s all I want!” It was almost a plea from Jake, but his fiery rage would not let any emotion other than anger come out. “I will kill as many as it takes to get back there, Gwen! Including you!”

The door to his own room burst open, and before he could turn around the tasers struck him again. Bring on the fifty-thousand-volt nap, thank you!

3

“… with you, mate,” Jason says with a nod of his head. Then his expression scrunches slightly. “You flickered, Jake. Is all well?”

The roar of Harvey Wallbanger, the Godzilla armadillo, is answer enough. By the tenor, Jake now estimates the beast to be about the size of a T-rex. He has to find Julia! Now!

“It appears that reality is out to get me,” Jake answers, his eyes focused on the direction of Harvey’s cacophony. He looks down at the skin of his forearm, still red and glistening. Jake the Hulk takes in the plaza, then Jason the satyr and Kly the fairy. In his head he hears a song pick up mid-chorus. It’s Guns-N-Roses. They’re out ta get me! They won’t catch me! I’m fuckin’ innocent! So, you can suck me!... Take that one to heart. Jake feels his heart begin to race and his muscles tense. With a smile, he says to them, “I’ll end this now. The tower is not far away. I can make it there in a heartbeat. Follow as quickly as you can.”

“Jake…” both of his companions say in unison.

But Jake doesn’t waste any time, and he pays no attention to the warning tone of his mates. He leaves behind two shallow indents in the cobblestone plaza and takes to the air. The temperature drops unexpectedly and quickly, causing his eyes to tear up. Turning his head, he steals a glance behind him to Harvey the Giant Armadillo and the utter destruction he is wreaking on the city. Smoke rises from the street. The anger wells up in him like a tidal wave and he turns his attention back to the ever-nearing Sapphire Tower. I’m coming, my love!

The jolt is jarring as Jake hits something invisible and falls to the ground below. He coughs out the dust that rises in a cloud around his body. Surprisingly, there is little pain from the fall, but he does see looks of jeering and laughter as residents pass by him in all directions. He gets to his feet and looks around at the people walking to and fro. Many of them are going in a direction that leads to the tower. Jakes decides to follow and walks headlong into whatever invisible barrier stopped him midflight. He throws a punch at the barrier, then several more. He walks back and forth along the barrier, hoping to find an opening. Jake finds nothing.

“You can’t get through without a key, Jake,” says Kly from behind him.

He turns to her, his face sunken. Then he looks back to the tower. The front of it is before him, and he sees a great horseshoe plaza and a colonnade surrounding the entrance. To either side of the plaza, the tower rises like a ramp to the main structure. Up and up the tower goes, and Jake thinks it nearly a mile to the top. He knows that, at the top, there is a balcony where she is standing.

“Why do I need a key?” he asks.

“Because you are the chosen one, Jake,” Kly answers. “Julia chose you, but now you must win her.”

Jake furrows his brow, “If she chose me, then why must I win her? It doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re in the Dream World, mate. It doesn’t have to make sense.” Jake hadn’t heard Jason arrive behind him, but a big part of him is happy to have him there. “Kly and I live in this world, and neither of us has it all figured out.”

“Right…” Jake sighs. “So, what’s the key? Where do I find it?”

“You’ve already found it,” Jason replies. “Think about who Julia is to you.”

“She’s my-” Velvet Bride, his thought completes the sentence. “I need the dress!”

“Yes, you do, Jake.” The acknowledgement comes from Kly.

Then realization hits Jake in the face. “I have to go back to the cottage!” Another realization quickly follows. “Harvey…” An answering roar follows the utterance of the beast’s name.

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