Incognizance

“I’ve been having this dream,” Miles said suddenly, breaking half a minute’s silence. They were sitting in a dimly lit booth of a quiet bar, nursing their beers.

A few more moments passed before Graham replied in a non-committal grunt. “Oh yeah?”

“Since winning the money,” nodded Miles. He was tense, hunched over his drink. His right foot anxiously tapped at the leg of the table.

Graham was not tense, or much of anything. He was slumped apathetically in his seat, staring off into space, and making no attempt to show any interest in what Miles was saying. Another moment passed. “Cool.”

“Graham listen,” Miles insisted, with enough gravitas to drag Graham’s eyes over to his. “There’s something weird about it.”

Graham strained his attention to the present, and reluctantly engaged with his friend. “What’s weird about it?”

“Well, for a start, I’ve never really had dreams. I sleep and I wake up and that’s that. And then the night I won that money, I get this dream. And I’ve had it every night since. The same one.”

“What happens in it?” Graham’s interest was growing as he started noticing Miles’ unsettled energy.

“I don’t really know. My mind can never quite hold onto it. But it gets more intense every night. I wake up drenched in sweat, out of breath. It feels… important.”

“If you can’t remember the dream then how do you know it’s the same one every night?” Asked Graham.

Miles paused. “There’s a little notebook. Like a black leather notebook. That’s the only tangible thing I can remember. The only thing I can really see. The rest is just… feelings.”

“How come you haven’t mentioned it until now?”

“I don’t know, it’s a dream. I don’t like it when other people share their dreams, I figured who’d want to hear about mine. But this one is strange: it’s different. It stays with me. I don’t really understand it, but I think…” Miles faltered, struggling to utter the last words, “I think it’s real.”

“What’s real?”

“I don’t know! The book? The feelings? It doesn’t feel like a dream. It feels like a message.”

“A message..?” Graham echoed, with an unhelpful air of incredulity.

Miles nodded solemnly.

“Okay…” Graham wasn’t sure what to make of this. He didn’t understand what Miles was saying, but there was a force behind his words, and even his mannerisms, that made it hard to argue with him. “So what is it? What’s the message?”

“I wish I knew. There’s so little for me to hold onto. There’s no story, no context, just flashes of images I can barely see. The more I try to remember the less I can cling to.”

Graham raised his eyebrows, but couldn’t tell if he was genuinely intrigued or just being facetious.

A moment passed as Miles reached for the next words. “I think there’s a person. I can’t see them, but I can feel them: their pain; their fear. I feel like I’m losing my mind but I think somehow they’re trying to reach out to me.”

“Hmm.” Graham shrugged, and took a drink. “It does sound like you’re losing your mind.”

“Except I know that I’m not. I think I’m supposed to do something.” Miles’ energy focused, found purchase, and his foot stopped tapping. His agitation waned, making way for determination.

Graham, again, didn’t notice. “Look, Miles, buddy, there doesn’t need to be a problem here. You won twenty grand, you didn’t even buy the scratch card; you found it on the floor! What are you complaining about? You’re a lucky guy! Let yourself enjoy it.”

“Yeah I’m not, though! I’m not lucky. I’m boring. I’m nothing. I drift in and out of every day. I punch numbers into a computer for minimum wage. Each week is the same. The same meals, the same subway, same TV shows. And then one day I randomly win all this money and straight away these dreams start haunting me. It can’t be a coincidence; it has to mean something.”

“Yeah it means you’re rich.”

“And what have I done with it? I didn’t even quit my shitty job. Why not? I don’t enjoy it. All I’ve done differently is start coming here more, and buying most of your drinks, and something doesn’t feel right. It feels like a waste. I’m noticing things now. The mundanity of it all. It’s like I wake up in the morning and I know there’s something that I’m supposed to be doing, something bigger, but instead I just follow the same routine. But this feeling is growing. It’s filling me up until it’s suffocating me from the inside and I can’t ignore it anymore.”

“It sounds like this win has given you an inflated ego: some sense of, you know, grandiosity, like you’re too good for this life now.” Graham reclined, impressed by his own shrewd observation, but Miles was undeterred.

“I’m not too good for anything. I’m just on the wrong path. Stuck in a groove I spent the last decade etching and now something is trying to draw me out of it. I just don’t know what it is or what to do about it.” Miles took a breath.

They both drank.

“I bet you’re feeling guilty, subconsciously.” Graham was sure he’d got it this time. “You didn’t buy the scratch card, so you don’t feel like you deserve it, and you’re having these dreams because you need to justify winning it by doing something righteous.” He lent back in his chair, satisfied. “I bet that’s it.”

“Maybe,” sighed Miles quietly. “Except I know that it’s not.”

Graham tried changing tack. “Okay let’s say that you’re right, and you’re being sent some message by some…person-feeling-thing about a little black book because they need you to do something – I hope you realize how completely nuts this all sounds by the way – and that’s why you randomly found the scratch card. Let’s say that is what’s happening… why you? You said yourself that you’re boring, nothing. Not that I agree with that!” He quickly added the last bit.

“I have no idea,” Miles answered, honestly. “And I know it sounds crazy; believe me I know. I’ve spent three weeks trying to ignore it. But this is coming from somewhere deep, somewhere I wasn’t even aware of before. There’s this energy inside me and it’s making me see things I never noticed until now and it’s growing and it’s lurching and the longer I try and carry on in this hamster-wheel life the more it consumes me until I can barely breathe.”

Graham raised his eyebrows again. This time it was unambiguous – I’m out of my depth here. “So what are you going to do?”

“I need to find that book.” The answer was simple; effortless; true.

Graham let out a short laugh. “Okay. Sure. How?”

“I… I don’t know exactly. But I think I need to start by leaving. And then I’ll know what do to do next.”

“Leaving what?”

“This! All of it. Nothing here counts for anything. Maybe that’s why me. I have nothing keeping me here. Nothing to give up.”

“I don’t know, man. This is, this is crazy.”

“Crazier than doing nothing my whole life that I haven’t already done thousands of times before? Spending all my time and energy and money working a meaningless job I don’t enjoy just so I can make enough money to keep doing the same pointless routine as I circle this bleak abyss of futility?” Miles emphasized same pointless routine with three slaps on the table. This wasn’t agitation though, or even frustration. This was passion, fire.

Graham had never seen the person in front of him before and he was nervous, though determined not to show it. His words were upbeat, but his voice was smaller, shakier, losing conviction. “So instead you’re going to go off chasing some fantasy book or person or feeling from a dream that you know less about the more you think of it?”

“Well I think that’s where I’m going wrong. I’m not supposed to think about it. I’m supposed to feel it. I’ve never really… felt before. I’ve only thought, and sometimes barely that. It’s useful to a point but it can only get you so far. That’s why I’m struggling to remember this dream. The more I squeeze all this energy into thought the more I’m missing the point. When I’m asleep, I’m not thinking, and that’s when it’s at its most vivid. And now - now I’m starting to notice things in between the thoughts. Feelings; notions; truth. There’s so much going on in me outside my mind. Behind the scenes. And that in itself implies that the mind is the fabrication – the performance, and backstage is where the real stuff goes on, usually unnoticed. I don’t fully understand it yet but I already feel more alive than I thought possible and I haven’t even started.” Miles’ eyes shone with intensity.

Graham wavered, shifting in his seat. “I think it’s great that you feel alive, Miles, but this, around us: this is reality. It may not be exciting or adventurous, but it’s real. What you’re talking about? That is literally insane. You’re eschewing reality to pursue some weird fantasy that you’ve had for like two minutes. It’s just a book. Damn, it’s not even a book! It’s your imagination!”

“Whatever it is, it’s important. I don’t expect you to understand, it’s just something I know. It matters. This person, this book, this message, I feel like it’s the only thing in my life that actually means something. It’s the only thing that’s real.”

“The only thing in your life that’s real is a book in a dream you can’t remember? You have lost it.” Graham smirked uncomfortably.

Miles paused to look at his friend. He wasn’t being much help.

Or was he? Their conversation had led Miles here, gathering power and purpose along the way. He hadn’t got very far alone, trapped in his thoughts. He’d needed this to let it out; air it; taste it. He’d needed Graham rubbing him the wrong way to let this genie out of the lamp. And now here it was: larger than life, filling the room. He smiled deeply.

“Thank you, Graham.”

“Wh- Thank you? I don’t…” Graham was at a loss.

“This has been really helpful.” Miles was beaming now, his being a medley of blissful contradictions: both at peace and on fire; still and fizzing; humble and rising into his power. He was barely recognizable from the meek, anxious boy who had walked in there with his friend an hour earlier.

Graham shifted in his seat. “Yeah, um, I’m not… you’re welcome?” He was a knotted pile of discomfort, confusion, and defeat.

Miles was aware of Graham’s perception of the situation, but what his friend thought didn’t matter. None of it did. Miles felt an alert stillness ripple through him, and the world ahead came into focus. He felt his excess shedding until only the truth remained. He took a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly.

Graham opened his mouth as if to make one last attempt to defend his reality, but Miles looked over at him and he stopped dead. Those eyes held such clarity now, such conviction, that much to his surprise, Graham found himself calming. He let go of his frustration and his confusion and perhaps for the first time, just for a moment, became present. In that moment he realized that whole worlds lay beyond his comprehension, and that he was no authority on what was or wasn’t real. Instead he started smiling and nodded gently.

“Okay,” He said, his smile widening, “I guess you’ve got a book to find.”

Miles stood up from the booth and started putting on his jacket. “Or a person-feeling-thing. There’s still plenty to figure out.”

“Know which way you’re going?” Graham asked?

Miles nodded, and turned to leave the bar. “Forwards.”