Dream Journal, 5
Why, goddamnit, why does it always come back to Daddy Issues? Papá Problems? God, when will it change...
“Estoy cansado, hijo. Ya, me voy a dormir.
¡Ya!
Punto y se acabó.”
— Unnamed Abuelo from Last Night’s Dream
Although recurring dreams are rare in my sleep, some patterns like to stick in the folds of my subconscious. Something about circles, I guess—broken clocks, infinite hallways, the soft echo of a siren. Lately these images have begun to spin around my head like carousels in the night.
Example: have you ever watched those old Scooby Doo shows? I mean, those parts where they chase the masked villain through an empty house and end up circling each other through countless doors. Last night, I dreamt that I was trapped in one of these cartoon-ass scenarios; I had walked through one doorway to visit some artist friends of mine, to comment on a new painting. I think it was a blue painting full of stars, but I can’t remember. Anyways, I give my friend a compliment and walk out the door only to end up back in front of the easel, with my friend eagerly awaiting my already-sung praises.
This went on for a while. I walk through one doorway, looking for the exit, only to end up with myself and the entrance. But there were other things that scared me; while I wandered through this hall of mirrors, I saw things that I didn't think I was meant to see.
Near the end, I remember opening one door to find an old abuelo arguing with someone, maybe his son, maybe not.
“Y tú, hijo, ¿qué vas a hacer?” the abuelo cried out. “¡Ya, déjame, ya! No puedes hacer nada. Nada.”
The abuelo was holding something in his hands, something the son was reaching for. Or, were they fighting for it, like in some twisted game of tug-of-war? Although I looked away immediately, I saw enough to realize what it was the abuelo cradled; it was a small, gray urn they were fighting for. Their silhouettes made for a graven image of desire, one that still burns in my eyes as I write these words.
The dream wasn’t the same after that. Everything turned into some campy horror movie, like the world had been stuck with a trident and dipped in some invisible ink I couldn’t get off me. I went back to the room with the painting, only all my friends were gone and the canvas had erased itself. I blinked and then a hundred people climbed out my head, crowding out my thoughts and clawing over each other to get out the door.
I tried outrunning the dream, but there was no point. Each door led to another monster. One room, it was a baby was climbing the ceiling like a spider. The next one, a horse that was all bones, crying as it chewed on a mountain of stinging ants. At every turn, I reached for an escape that would never come. At every turn, I could see Death standing aloof behind the gaping doorway, laughing as the light of the world spun away from my hands.
When I shook myself awake, all I could remember was how small the urn looked against the abuelo’s chest. But the nightmare had ended; instead of screaming, I heard my father rattling around the kitchen, getting ready for work.
As I stepped through the pale yellow light of my hallway, I ran my hand along the wall for support. We used to have this tradition—whenever one of us would have a nightmare, we would tell the other before sunrise. That way, he told me, the dream could never come true. We would listen to each other, and by doing so, take away all power from the evil dream.
Before I turned to meet him in the kitchen, I felt like a kid again, like when I used to wake up crying from my dreams and run to hug him in his bed. He always held me and listened to me until I went back to sleep. But today, I had reached him right as he was getting ready to go outside. When I stopped him, he turned away from the blue dawn of the kitchen window, looking slightly mad.
“Papá,” I said, “I had a nightmare.”
Like a cloud, my father’s face softened. He took his hand away from the doorknob and put his lunch bag back on the kitchen island, the one he built after buying this house. “Tell me,” he said, busying himself with a few leftover pills and dirty plates on the table.
“I was at school and it was like, I saw someone’s abuelo, not one of ours. He was fighting with his son…he said something. Something about going to sleep soon, that he was tired.”
My father scoffed. “He’s not the only one,” he said. He sighed impatiently, but after seeing the look on my face, he sat down at the table. “Keep going,” he said, pulling up his phone to stare at it.
I thought about what to say. “The dream was scary, but…” I felt the words press up against my tongue. I waited, and waited, until my father looked up at me, so I could see the new wrinkles surrounding his brown eyes.
“I don’t know, Papá. Ever since the last semester, I feel like I’ve been dreaming more and more about…I don’t know. It’s like this: it’s like, our whole lives go by as a long, summer day. We wake up in the morning, and when it’s our time, we close our eyes and sleep. I’ve thought more and more about this ever since we talked about what I’m gonna do, how I’m going to make money. I know, I know. I know that I’m naive. I know. I want the world to be one way when it’s really the other. I just can’t stop thinking about the end, Papá. How…how we don’t choose what kind of ending the story has. We all go to sleep in the end. We can’t escape it.”
“The only thing we get to choose is what kind of story we tell ourselves. On the inside of our souls. Papá. When it’s my turn to sleep, I don’t want to go having lived my life trying to be something I never was. We don’t get to choose some things, Papá. I won’t let the day go by without telling the story right…”
When I finished rambling, there were only two words left at the edge of my tongue. “Your story,” I wanted to say, but already, my father pushed himself up from the table. I couldn’t even tell if he heard what I said—he simply looked away.
“Ya,” he said. “I have to go, Dominic. We can talk more about this later. I have to go.”
Before he could turn towards the kitchen door, I ran up and hugged him. I could feel him stumble back an inch, but it didn’t matter. He kept his promise.
“I have to go now,” he said again. In the end, I pulled away from his embrace, first. “Make sure your sister cleans her room,” he said. “And it’s going to storm, so take the cushions in from the chairs outside.”
I nodded. As we walked out the door together, the first drops of the morning rain began to kiss my face. The sky felt hot and humid already, pregnant with the thunder that was yet to come.
“I love you, Dominic.”
I smiled. There I stood, barefoot in the backyard grass, watching as my father walked down the garden steps.
“I love you, too, Papá.”
I will always love you.