Hiding In His Dreams (17 page)

A look of understanding came across
Mike’s face. “So that’s why you’ve been taking these
pills.”

Luke nodded. “At first I thought they
were just dreams, but then Alyssa told me where to find something.
Our cherry blossom.” He pointed to the cherry blossom on the
nightstand. “She said it was under the bed. And it was.”

Mike looked alarmed now. He looked at
the bottle, and then back at Luke. “I‘m worried about you. I know
the name of a good psychiatrist. Will you promise me you‘ll at
least go for a consultation?”

Mike reached into his wallet and took
out a business card.

Luke made a face. “I’m not seeing a
shrink.”

“
Dr. Jones is a
psychiatrist
that
specializes in grief and dreams. He’s not a shrink. My brother
began having bizarre dreams about my mother when she died. Dr.
Jones helped him cope.”

“
I’m not having bizarre
dreams. This is real. Alyssa is still with me.”

Mike put the business card beside Luke.
“Please, just promise me you’ll consult with him. Just once. I’m
really worried about you.”

Luke saw the concern in Mike’s eyes,
and was touched. No one, apart from Alyssa, would go to all this
trouble for him.

He finally relented. “Alright. Just
once though.”

Mike looked relieved. “Good. Make an
appointment today.” Then, realizing that he was visiting Luke
shirtless in his underwear in his bed, his cheeks grew red. “So you
want me to stay with you or….”

“
No, it’s fine.”

“
I’m here if you want to
talk,” Mike said, then left the room.

Luke exhaled and took some time to
re-adjust to the waking world. The day was cloudy, as usual. He
heard the usual traffic below on the streets. A car honked, then
the shrill siren of the ambulance blared.

He thought about his dream. The
Raindrop. It said it was a reaper. It warned him not to try to
dream of Alyssa again. She was not supposed to be coming to him in
his dreams. But Luke would give anything to continue to see
her.

He turned on his side, intending to go
back to sleep again, but after sleeping for thirteen hours
straight, he knew that he could not.

He turned again and something brushed
against his side. It was the card that Mike had left for
him.

He reached over and picked it up,
examining it.

Dr. Edward Jones, B.Sc
(Hons), M.D.

Psychiatrist and Specialist
in Grief

7035 West Broadway,
Vancouver, BC.

He would go because he promised Mike he
would. It’s the least he could do for him. He put the card on the
nightstand. As he pulled his hand away, it brushed the cherry
blossom. He took it, and put it on his nose, inhaling the flowery
fragrance. Inhaling Alyssa.

* * * * *

The receptionist behind a desk greeted
him as soon as he entered the waiting room. She was a petite woman
with curly brown hair.

She looked up and smiled. “First
visit?”

“
Yes.”

“
Please fill this out. Dr.
Jones can see you in a minute.” She handed a clipboard over to him.
Luke took a seat in the waiting room.

Dr. Jones’ waiting room was
empty. A couple
Time and Macleans
magazines were laid on the coffee table. Paintings
decorated the walls. One in particular stood out to him. It
was
The Scream
, by
Edvard Much. It was that painting of the guy with the
distorted-looking face and hands on his cheek. It looked like that
crazy villain killer from the
Scream
movie franchise.

Luke nearly shuddered. He was not
crazy. He saw what he saw. Alyssa was still with him. He had proof.
Alyssa had told him where their white cherry blossom
was.

He filled out the form and the
receptionist called his name. “Luke? Dr. Jones can see you
now.”

He handed her the clipboard and was
ushered into a room. A young man in a suit and tie was sitting
behind an official-looking desk.

The receptionist handed the clipboard
to the physician and closed the door behind her.

“
Luke? I’m Dr. Jones. But
you can call me Edward, or Ed.” The doctor indicated the chair
opposite him and Luke sat down.

Luke stared at the psychiatrist. Dr.
Jones was a young man with a conservative crew cut. He looked no
older than Luke, and just barely out of his residency in
psychiatry.

Dr. Jones smiled and said, “Normally,
you need to obtain a referral from a general practitioner or a
family doctor to see a specialist, but I get the feeling that this
is an emergency.”

The doctor examined his clipboard. “I
also see that you know Mike Davies?”

“
My colleague,” Luke said.
“Or ex colleague anyway.”

The specialist nodded. “So what brings
you in today, Luke? Can I call you Luke?”

“
Sure.”

Luke hesitated. Why was he expected to
tell all his problems to a total stranger? Sure, they’ve had
training, but it felt weird telling his most intimate secrets and
experiences to someone who he had never met until that day. Not to
mention the stranger’s young age. All in all, he was sure the
psychiatrist would help very little.

Luke took a deep breath. He did promise
Mike, after all. And maybe unloading his problems onto a person
whose job was to listen, advise and treat would make Luke feel
better. But he had no problems and no illness. He just wanted to
see Alyssa. What was wrong with that? But then he remembered the
nearly-empty bottle of sleeping pills and he knew he could not go
on like this.

“
My girlfriend….” Then he
corrected himself. “Fiancée….” Then he corrected himself again.
“Wife.” He did not know which word to use. He settled on
‘wife.’

“
My wife died a few days
ago.”

“
I’m very sorry to hear
that.”

The psychiatrist did look genuinely
sorry to hear that. Maybe I misjudged him, Luke thought.

“
How?” Dr. Jones asked
gently.

“
Something called a subdural
hematoma. She slipped and fell on the pavement when it rained the
other night. She had a headache, but didn’t go to the doctor until
it was too late.”

Dr. Jones nodded sympathetically. “I’m
really sorry to hear that.”

“
We had a fight before she
hit her head. I was going to propose to her the next
day.”

The doctor nodded, then clicked his
tongue sympathetically.

Should I tell him about the dreams?
Luke wondered. The guy is a dream and grief specialist, after
all.

“
A couple nights ago,” he
continued. “I saw her in my dreams. She forgave me for the fight.
Then I married her.” Luke’s voice changed completely. It was now
dreamy and wistful.

“
We spent our honeymoon
flying above the clouds, over an ocean. But then, some kind of Wind
and Rain Drop came and took her away. I keep dreaming of this giant
cornfield. What could that mean?”

His voice was now back to normal, even
depressed.

Dr. Jones nodded, and jotted down some
notes, then looked up. “I don’t really interpret dreams. That’s not
very unscientific. Now these dreams of yours, how long have you
been having them?”

“
Ever since she died. I just
will myself to dream of her, and there she is. But not every
time.”

Luke was silent for a while, then
added, “They’re not just dreams though. They feel real to
me.”

Dr. Jones murmured something that was
inaudible to Luke, and continued to jot down some notes.

When he was done, he looked at his
newest patient. “We dream of what we most desire. When loved ones
die, they tend to stay with us. It’s not unusual to dream of
them.”

“
But I’m not just dreaming
of her,” Luke said. “She’s really coming to see me in my dreams. I
can prove it.”

Luke knew he must have sounded crazy to
the psychiatrist. After all, psychiatrists are used to dealing with
neurotic or even psychotic patients and can detect mental
instability pretty quickly.

Luke took a deep breath. “I was missing
an item. A cherry blossom she gave me on our first date. In my
dreams, she told me where it was. And when I woke up, I found it
under the bed. Exactly where she said it would be.”

Dr. Jones continued to scribble. The
writing was starting to irritate Luke.

The physician finally looked up from
his notepad.

“
Are you sure she didn’t
tell you where the cherry blossom was before she passed away and
you merely forgot about it?”

Luke considered the question. Sure, it
was a possibility. But, it felt so real.

Luke nodded. “It could be, but it was
real. In my dreams, I tasted her lips, smelled her natural scent,
wrapped my arms around her waist.”

The doctor pursed his lips. “There’s a
school of dream interpretation that says that our most secret
yearnings are revealed in our dreams. Whatever we want in real life
and could not obtain, we dream of them in order to fulfill our
deepest desires. Let’s say you always wanted to be a popular singer
in real life, but failed, due to the harsh reality of the music
industry. In your dreams, you would be a successful pop
star.”

He paused, then continued.

“
This is actually a form of
therapy. Freud goes even further. He once said that ‘dreams are the
royal road to the subconscious.’ That means that dreams allow us to
act out what our conscious minds don‘t even know they want to do.
Often taboo stuff.”

“
But I knew I wanted to
marry Alyssa before she died.”

“
And did you marry her
before she died?”

Luke shook his head.

Dr. Jones cleared his throat. “And this
is the way you make up for it. You marry her in your dreams, acting
out what you could not do in real life.”

Put that way, it made sense to
Luke.

“
There are a myriad of
theories on the nature and purpose of dreams,” Dr. Jones continued.
“One popular theory is that it’s a defense mechanism, a way to deal
with the harshness of life. The bottom line is that dream makes us
feel better, which allows us to move on and deal with life after
trauma. It heals us.”

When Luke did not react, the
psychiatrist elaborated.

“
You wanted to marry Alyssa
in real life, but she died before you got the chance. Of course,
you would be absolutely devastated and crippled by the tragedy. You
would not be able to go on with life. Being able to marry her in
your dreams is the next best thing. It allows you closure. Closure
allows you to pick yourself up and deal with life in a constructive
manner.”

Luke considered the doctor’s analysis.
It did make sense to him, but it was lacking something. Maybe it
was because the ugly truth was staring him in the face and he did
not want to accept it.

Maybe he wanted Alyssa to be visiting
him for real, making sure he’s alright before she went
Home.

He did not want it to be something his
mind made up.

He wanted it to be real.

Thinking about the subject making his
mind go insane. He decided to switch the topic.

“
The thing is, I’ve been
taking sleeping pills.”

“
There’s nothing wrong with
that, especially after the trauma you endured,” Dr. Jones
interrupted. “Do you need a prescription for an even larger
dose?”

“
But I almost overdosed on
them. It was a full bottle when I took some last night. When I woke
up, Mike found it almost empty.”

The specialist furrowed his eyebrows.
“That’s not good. I know sleep must be hard for you, especially
when you’re excited to have dreams of your wife. Sleeping pills can
be addictive though. I would recommend vigorous exercise as a
natural and harmless way to induce sleep.”

Luke nodded.

The doctor looked at the prescription
pad on his right. “I don’t think there’s any other medication I can
prescribe for you. Do you want to talk about anything else
related?”

“
I’m good.” Luke got
up.

Dr. Jones offered his hand and Luke
shook it. “Please make an appointment to see me when you feel the
need. Oh, and by the way.” The doctor’s look grew ominous. “If you
ever get suicidal thoughts, please call me on my cell number or
home number at any time.” Dr. Jones handed him a piece of paper
with two phone numbers on it.

It’s too late for that, Luke
thought.

He took the piece of paper and stuffed
it into his pocket.

He got up and turned around.

“
Oh,” Dr. Jones said. “I’m
sorry for your loss.”

“
Me too,” Luke said, without
turning around. “I’m even sorrier.”

* * * * *

When he got home, the day dragged on
slowly. He turned on the TV, but could not concentrate on the
sounds of CTV NewsNet. He thought he heard something about the
swine flu, and mudslides in South America, or even it was in
Asia.