ahesaidshesaidloveaffair:

“If I cannot be with you in this life or the next, then I shall be with you within a dream where the bitter fruit of reality has ceased to exist.”

“I couldn’t sleep last night, again,” he laughs mirthlessly and runs his fingers through his mildly damped hair that was washed at 5am in the morning. “Lately I’ve been experience insomnia and nothing I take can make me go back to sleep. My mind keeps racing against the hands of time.”

He pauses and glances at over at his therapist, who’s busily scribbling down notes. The therapist then looks up and gives him a signal to continue.

He nods then clears his dry, parched throat. “I can’t see her face… not very well. I can’t hear her voice that much either. What I can remember—kind of—from her face is… her lips.”

“Were they anything special?”

“I don’t think so,” he says, hesitatingly. “They were, pardon me for my lack of descriptive words, red, kind of like they’ve been stained with blood, though I’m sure anyone could have that colour if they just put on a lipstick but on her, it seemed as if that’s her natural color… do you know what I mean?”

Nodding, the therapist asks, “And did you notice anything else?”

“Her hands were drenched with blood. Ironic isn’t it? And she was holding them up to her chest, staring at them then back at me,” he dwells quietly, attempting to recall each detail as vividly as he could. “She was shaking her head, which I think is due to the fact that she was in disbelief that her hands could be stained with such a somber, yet lively color.”

“And you have no idea how she came to such a state?”

“No—that was why I—in my dream—approached her. I wanted to ask her,” he answers and sits up, more animated, “but she immediately backed away, shaking her head, silently telling me to stay put. Next thing I knew—”

“What?”

“I was convulsing on my knees, holding a hand to my chest. My breath became haggard…and it felt real. I’m not talking about whole I-think-it’s-real type of thing. I’m talking about the fear inducing, and heart palpitating kind of real. Blood spurts out of my chest… I looked toward her direction as the vision gradually gave out on me and I…”

“Did she stab you?”

“I don’t know… The last thing I remember before waking up in sweats was her whispering ‘I’m sorry’ to me…” Just narrating what happen brought sweats on his forehead as he takes another deep breath. “Then once again, my eyes would crack open, refusing to go back to sleep. Insomnia kicks in and I end up staying awake until the break of dawn. I feel suffocating, like I’m yearning for what I don’t quite know, like there’s a part of me that’s missing and where I am… is not where I’m meant to be. I mean—I don’t even recall knowing her or seeing her anywhere so is this even normal, Mr.—?”

“You can just call me Merlin.”

“Right, Merlin.” He then nervously wrestles his hands in front of his lap. “I usually don’t believe in dreams and such but this one, I don’t know why but I feel like it’s one of those forgotten memories or something. Is that normal, doc?”

“I wouldn’t call it abnormal,” Merlin answers as he stops scribbling down the notes. “There are a myriad of answers as to why she’s in your dream. Maybe you’ve seen her somewhere, on the street, on a television or maybe in a magazine, that could cause her image to register in your mind.”

“But why would I dream about her, over and over, especially like that?”

“Maybe you saw a murder mystery or perhaps you read a story like that somewhere.”

He shakes his head. “No, I definitely didn’t see anything of that sort,” he says. “The weirdest part is, even though I know for a fact I don’t know her and haven’t seen her, I know her.” Realizing that didn’t sound completely sane, he reiterates carefully. “I feel like I should know her. My heart literally skips a beat when she appeared and there was this familiar wave of emotion that came rushing down on me that—it’s as if—”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m going crazy.”

“Not crazy,” Merlin corrects. “Though I will say this, dreams are there to tell you something and looking at your file…”

“What?”

“You were in a car accident a couple of weeks ago, were you not?”

Confused, he replies, “Yes, but I don’t think that has anything to do—”

“Not only that, you’re getting married soon, aren’t you?”

“Right, but—”

“With the stress from the car accident and the fact that you’re going to be married, do you think that there might be a possibility that the stress of it all is causing you to have cold feet?”

“What?”

“Maybe you dreamt of being wounded as a sign that you’re fearing commitment—”

“But—”

“It’s plausible that your subconscious is trying to tell you something and while that dream is somewhat out of the ordinary, it shouldn’t be regarded for more than what it is, just a dream that’s brought to life by your subconscious,” Merlin explains. “I mean, last week I dreamt I was a dog chasing a bone. Does that mean anything? No. Will I lose sleep over that? No. Therefore, I advise you to stop wondering about it and believe me when I say that you’ll be fine.”

“No, doc. You don’t understand. I’ve tried doing that. I tried ignoring the dream, ignoring the fact that it bothers me to feel like I know someone when I don’t, and ignoring the fact that heart always pulses at the thoughts of her but it doesn’t work. She’s taking over my mind to the point where I can’t sleep, eat or function.”

- TBC