CHAPTER 15: REMEMBERING A HALLUCINATION OR HALLUCINATING A MEMORY?


I’m once again back in a head doctor’s office. These places all seem the same. They try to make you feel comfortable, but sterile leather, expensive lamps, and Oriental rugs do not feel like home. There are pictures of kids of all ages in frames made of gold and granite and marble. The first time I sat in this oak chair that is so deep and cushioned that I swear I’m going to get lost in it, I read the doctor’s name which was written upside down on a yellow carbon copy form that meant nothing to me. It read, “Mary Kennedy”... how utterly Americana. I’m sure somewhere there’s a poem about her middle name that’s Apple Pie and she was born on the Fourth of July.

My first session with Dr. Kennedy was confrontational to say the least. I saw her as another doctor who was going to tell me what is wrong with me and what to feel and how to think. And… that’s exactly what she turned out to be. The difference between her and other doctors of mine is that she seems to be aware of the bureaucracy of her profession. Instead of just making me jump through hoops to get released from the hospital, we’re actually talking about constructive topics. And yes, I have some jumping through hoops to do before I get released- but at least I don’t have to give up any pride, Mary thinks it’s as silly as I do.

“Just say what you have to say, smile, and bat your eyes; you’ll be out in no time,” she said. “Right or wrong, that’s a fact. In the meantime, maybe we’ll work some things out.”

Mary has a gray and black striped tabby cat named Jeffrey that she keeps in her office, and he’s sitting on her desk and can’t stop staring at me. Whatever medication they are injecting me with is bending my peripheral vision, so when I stare back at him his face stretches, and it feels like he is pointing a mocking smile at me. I snarl at him to try to chase him away, but he only purrs and licks my nose.

Then Mary walks in.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says, almost before she enters the room.

“Did your Girl Scouts meeting run late?” I ask. The first time I saw Mary, I thought she was younger than I was, but she’s over ten years older than I am. I take many shots at young she looks, partly because I feel uncomfortable being probed by someone who looks so young, and partly because Mary is not the type of woman who minds being accused of being young… as if there are any like that.

“The patient is exhibiting classic signs of bitterness and resentment toward authority,” she says into an imaginary mini cassette recorder. She sits down and pulls a real one out of her desk drawer, but doesn’t turn it on. Jeffrey jumps into my lap and starts clawing. “How are you doing?” she asks.

“Oh, you know…” I cock my head. “Late night partying, trendy night clubs, shopping sprees, paparazzi, Lithium binges- the high life.”

She pity laughs, shakes her head, and asks, “Are you ready to jump through a few hoops?”

“Okay.”

She turns the recorder on. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better,” I say. “I think the medication is working… I’m feeling much better about myself… My thoughts are much clearer... I feel much better...”

She turns the recorder off. I don’t say anything. I just pet Jeffrey. “Is there something you want to talk about?” she asks.

“I’m still having those lucid dreams.”

“Did you have another dream about Luke?” she asks.

“No.”

“So what are you dreaming about?”

“I seem to be dreaming about everyone, but there’s one person I’m not dreaming about, and I’m really surprised about it.”

“Who is it?”

I sigh, “It’s Brian.”

“Your ex?” she asks. “Why do you think you aren’t having dreams about Brian?”

“I think maybe I exorcised that demon before my breakdown,” I answer. I run my hand through my hair, uncomfortable with our conversation.

“Is that what you’re doing in your dreams- exorcising demons?”

“Well,” I say, “I wake up from them feeling better about whatever I was dreaming about.”

“You don’t think it’s the medication that’s making you feel better?”

“The drugs could be working. It wouldn’t be the first time that a drug was a catalyst for an epiphany. It wouldn’t be the first time that a dream did that for me either.” She cocks an eye at me, so I continue, “Look, who cares if it’s the drugs? Who cares if it’s the dreams? Who cares if the drugs are causing the dreams? The point is- I’m getting better.”

“Yes, you are getting better,” she agrees. We sit in silence for a second. I stare blankly. “What about the little girl in your dreams?”

“I don’t know.”

“She has some sort of connection with four. She’s always traveling with you. What do you think it means?” she asks.

“I really don’t think it was the number ‘4’, there was some further connection with Roman numerals. There were also three variations of her that were statues. I don’t know… for all I know, it’s a different one of those girls in every dream.”

Mary taps her pen, “You don’t sound like you mean that.”

“Well it’s possible, but I really don’t feel it. I feel an attachment to this girl like she’s a real person.”

“Who do you think she is?”

“Honestly?” I pause, and hesitate in my honesty, but I continue, “I think she’s my daughter.”

Mary perks her head, “Your daughter? You don’t have a daughter.”

“No,” and I hesitate again, but continue, “but maybe I will someday.”

“So she’s a messenger from the future?”

“Maybe, or some sort of future memory,” I say.

“What do you mean, ‘future memory’?”

I fidget in my chair. “It’s just a term that feels right. Sometimes I feel like my dreams are a memory from the future, like I’ve flash forwarded to my death bed and I’m having a hallucination based on the memories of my life.”

“Wow, that’s pretty interesting.”

“I’m not crazy for believing that?” I ask.

“No, but don’t tell anyone else in the hospital about it, okay? I don’t expect every person here to know the difference between someone who is eccentric and intelligent and someone who is not competent to enter the outside world.”

“Wait a minute,” I crease my eyes, “isn’t that everyone’s job here… to know that difference?”

“Let’s put it this way,” she says, “most people around here are more interested in covering their butts than worrying about that difference.”

“Wonderful.”

“Just keep doing what we’ve been doing and keep visiting me after you get released and everything will be okay,” she says.

“Alright,” I say, but in the back of my mind I’m repressing a fury.

“So, what is the little girl’s name? You’ve never told me.”

“She says her name is Ivy,” I answer, “but it doesn’t feel right.”

“What name should she have?”

“I don’t know,” I shrug.

“Well if you ever had a daughter, what would you name her?”

I think about it for a second and then answer:

“Alice.”

…

This dream begins in a previous one. It is very quiet, and I am all alone. I’m sitting on a dark plane underneath a floating river. The river is narrow and clean, and seems to be the source for the pink and blue light that is bouncing off my face.

I feel very alone. I feel grief choking me and forcing a swell into my eyes. I sniffle. And the little girl is with me. She says, “You have to go back.”

I know where she is referring to, and I walk over to the floating river and look up through it. “Why?” I ask as the reflecting light twinkles in my eyes.

“Because it’s not your time to be here yet,” she answers. “You’ve come. You’ve visited. You’ve faced a few demons. But you can’t stay.”

I turn back to her and I look at her for a long time. She feels so beautiful to me. There’s something so perfect about the way she makes me feel. A question jumps from my mouth, “Your name isn’t Ivy, is it?”

“There’s another one of those questions you already know the answer to,” she says.

“What’s your name?” I ask, ignoring her response.

“Don’t change the subject, you have to go through that river,” she says.

“Don’t you change the subject either,” I say, almost as if I’m scolding her. She stares into my eyes, and I feel my emotions slip. “You’re right. I do know the answer already.”

She steps forward and squeezes me hard. I hug her back. After a few seconds that feel like hours she whispers, “You have to go.”

“How do I do it?” I ask.

Still in our embrace, she points over my shoulder to the river. “Look up there. Do you see the lady?”

I take the few steps back to the river. I look up through the water and see the wavy image of a cloaked figure. The figure looks like a faceless druid. Her cloak is sleeveless and her arms and hands are the dead giveaway that she is a woman.

“Take her hand,” Alice says.

I hesitate. I forget that I am dreaming again. I feel the fear seize my body.

“If you’re ever going to trust,” she says, “you need to do it now.”

The fear burns, and I direct it into my chest. I let the tension build and then I burst forward…

… And reach.