“Alice: How long is forever? White Rabbit: Some times, just one second.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
“Why
do you think you keep dreaming the same thing every night?”
Ani
bit her lip, thinking why she was being asked what she didn’t know the answer
to, what she needed an answer to? What kind of psychobabble is this? Was
therapy a big mistake? She sighed and she shook her head slowly, “If I knew the
answer to that I wouldn’t be here would I”, her voice quivered with emotion.
The doctor smiled genially, “I am trying to help you, just close your eyes and
try to think…” Ani sighed, relenting and laying down on the couch. She breathed
in rapid succession and closed her eyes…
“Keep
your mind blank and just relax for the time being”, Dr. Ray spoke in a soft
reassuring tone. Ani frowned unable to keep her thoughts at bay and she was far
from relaxed. She was thinking about the dream again…
Every
night it was the same agony, the same terror. She found herself running in
endless circles, but she didn’t know if she was running away from something or
someone, or running towards them, the details were blurred but her feelings
were in sharp focus and the terror very real. Another strange thing was that
she never needed an alarm to wake herself every morning, like clockwork she
would wake up terrified every day at 6 am, no matter how early or late the
previous night would have been for her. The nightmare started about one year
ago and ever since, she had been haunted by its presence in sleep and in waking
hours. There must be some deep psychological trauma associated with her night
terrors, Dr. Ray insisted and the only way to deal with it seemed to be talking
it out. She wished things were that easy; the deep psychological wound was too
deeply embedded in her subconscious and she had no idea what she was supposed
to talk about, and to make matters worse she had two times a week of this
ordeal, where Dr. Ray would wait patiently for her to open up and she would be
quite clueless as to what she was supposed to say! The same endless cycle every
week and she was so very tired of it all, some days her thoughts would be bordering
on self destruction but something held her back, maybe a faint glimmer of hope
that things might just get better and even a bit of curiosity, what triggered
this terror, what was she so scared of?
She
cleared her throat again and opened her eyes, “I am sorry I really can’t think
if anything right now”, she sat up and glanced at the clock on the wall,
“Anyway I should be going, I would be late for work.” Dr. Ray’s expression
didn’t change; he still looked calm and genial. Ani got up and walked towards
the door.
“Don’t
forget our appointment on Friday, Ms. Sen.” His voice floated across the
hallway and she walked out of the office. It was 8:30 in the morning and there
were already a long queue of patients lined up on the couch waiting for their
turn to spew their guts to the doctor. Ani wondered if it was as difficult for
them to open up and divulge their darkest deepest thoughts to the doctor, as it
was for her, but for her the added discomfort of not quite knowing the foggy
details of her thoughts made things more difficult to express herself to
anyone.
Her
car was parked in the second basement of the parking lot; she was still lost in
thoughts, feeling feeble and somehow faded. The toll of her emotional storm was
wreaking havoc in her mind and she was so tired, so very tired, reaching almost
to the end of the last level of her patience and endurance. She had been paying
weekly visits to Dr. Ray for six months now. She had ignored the initial few months of her nightmare, in fact she could afford to ignore them, they began in
quite a benign fashion, growing each day in intensity and effecting more
and more of her waking life. At last she couldn’t avoid it any more and decided
to seek professional help, little help that did! She slid in the car and
started on her way to work. The traffic
was not too bad considering it was a Monday morning; she reached her
destination on time. Her office was on the sixth floor, she greeted people she
met on her way to the lift, it wasn’t easy to smile and engage in small talk
given her fraying mind but Ani managed to stick to her fake smile. She was the general manager of her department
of finance at Taylor and Morgan, had worked very hard to reach to her position
and now she wouldn’t want to jeopardize her post expressing her distressed
state of mind to her colleagues. People were quick to notice changes and even
quicker to gossip, and she knew a good deal of rumours were doing the rounds
about her mental health. She had to hold on to this last shred of her sanity
and to keep things afloat. Recently keeping up the façade of normalcy has been
more and more trying on her psyche yet she kept on going tapping reserves of
strength deep inside her, unknown to even herself. She knew though that time
was running out and she was heading towards a major breakdown, which would
destroy her life, and everything associated with it, everything she had
painstakingly built over the years. It was like falling, she couldn’t help
gravity could she? She was tumbling down, falling, falling every day down the
rabbit hole.
The
day passed in a haze, but she managed to get some work done, even attended a
meeting at mid-afternoon, had lunch alone in the cafeteria and endless cups of
coffee in her cubicle. Finally when the day was done, she heaved a sign of
relief, she could quit smiling and talking to people. Even before the
nightmares had started, she had always been a brooding, self-indulgent sort of
person who averted social gathering and meet-ups at all costs. She liked being
a face in the crowd. Now more than ever she needed to spend time with herself,
maybe something would trigger her memory and she would be able to piece
together the puzzle of her chaotic mind and put an end once and for all to this
un-ending terror. The roads were congested, the situation worsened by a brief
spell of rain, she tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, keeping her
thoughts at bay for now. It began to rain in full force as she ran from the
parking lot to her apartment complex. Her clothes were soaked and she shivered
in the air-conditioned lobby of the building, waiting for the lift, after
almost a lifetime, the doors of the lift slid open and she walked in. Toneless
music filled the chamber; she pushed in the button for the 12th floor
and hugged herself to keep warm while waiting to reach her floor. The
door slid open again to let her out; she hurried to the door, fumbling with the
keys, hurrying to enter into her private sanctuary. She dropped her stuff on
the floor, a heavy feeling of languor overcoming her as she flopped down on the
sofa and propped her legs on the coffee table. Her phone started ringing
breaking her sense of leisure, she sighed and answered the call, and it was her
best friend, Tia.
“Where
are you Ani?” her voice was shrill and urgent. Ani frowned, was something
wrong? “Yep, why? What’s up?” She asked.
“Haven’t
you seen the news? There has been a huge accident on the bridge this evening,
the one you cross everyday to work, the structure collapsed, killing a lot of
people! It’s horrible!” A shudder went down her spine, she had taken a
different route today, trying to avoid the heavy flow of traffic on the bridge,
and it could have been her, a name in the death toll!
“No,
I am fine, I took a different route today”, She said as she switched on the TV,
and sure enough the evening news were full of the footage of the collapsed
bridge, few numbers flashing by the side of the screen, mentioning how many
were injured and how many killed, the anchor person droned in monotonously on
how the government were shifting blame on the opposition and the game of
mud-slinging were going on. Ani was disgusted with the distasteful way the
channel told the story so she switched the TV off.
“It’s
such a shame! So many injured and killed, but thank goodness you are fine…I was
so worried!” Tia went on, but Ani cut her off. “Don’t worry about me, I am
home, safe and sound. It’s just another day for me. I got to go change and take
a shower, we’ll talk later?”
“Hmmm,
I guess, will see you on Saturday” Tia trilled on, Ani frowned wondering what
was on Saturday.
“Sure
thing!” She hung up. For a moment she felt maybe it would be better to have
been on the bridge today, and then she shook her head, casting off such morbid thoughts.
She got up from warmth of her couch and dragged herself to the bathroom. After
a long shower, she felt a lot better, and decided to have her dinner on the
couch watching TV, washing it down with a glass of port wine. She somehow felt
refreshed and calm, even sleepy, drifting on the couch, her arms by her side…
She was standing on the bridge, it was
raining crazily, a blinding sheet of water fell around her, sudden flashes of
lightening tore the night sky followed by ominous thunder…She was soaked to the
bone, shivering slightly in her nightgown…I thought the bridge had collapsed? She
thought confused, she wiggled her toes, trying to feel the ground beneath her,
her feet were bare… This time it was different, she wasn’t being pursued or
pursuing someone, yet a sense of danger loomed around the corner…The streets
were surprisingly empty, not a soul in sight, not a sound, just the gentle roar
of the blinding rain…Why was she standing in the middle of the bridge on such a
stormy rainy night, the wind blew some incoherent answer, her hair flying over
her face…Then she saw him, standing near the ledge, a shadowy figure, clad in a
strange grey hoodie…He would fall to his death, she thought in terror and
started to run towards him to stop him…The distance kept on increasing no
matter how much ground she covered, she ran as fast she could, panting and
grunting with the exertion but she couldn’t reach him…She tried screaming a warning, her hand outstretched to him as he jumped off the bridge…
Ani
landed on the floor with a thud, she had apparently fallen onto the floor in
her sleep, the sheets entangled around her legs. Her breathing was fast, and
her body covered in sweat, she glanced at the clock, it was 3 am. The pattern
of her nightmare had changed all of a sudden, she wasn’t sure what it meant but
had a strange urge to go over the bridge. She walked up to the window, it was
not raining and the streets lights glowed over a sleeping city, she could hear
the distant barks of street dogs and few homeless people shuffling around, even
a car or two. Convinced that her dream world was nothing like the world before
her, she tried to dissuade herself from going over to the bridge, but somehow
she felt she must. She dressed herself hurriedly, snatching her keys and rushed
out.
The
night guard had given her a suspicious look as she drove out of the complex,
maybe he thought that proper ladies don’t go out at such odd hours but she
couldn’t care less. She speeded much more than her usual pace and reached the
bridge in sometime. She killed the engine and got down, the bridge had
collapsed right around the middle, a heavy mess of concrete and iron, smashing
down on the road below. She heaved a sign of relief if even the man decides to
throw himself off he wouldn’t be able to now…She was about to turn away when
she saw him, walking towards the rubble and debris of the collapsed bridge, he
had the same hoodie on, but unlike her dreams it was brown, maybe dreams are in
grey scale? She thought biting on her lips, wondering if she should go up to
him, he wouldn’t think of climbing over the ruins, would he? What good would
that do? She breathed in deeply and started to run towards him, “Hey, what are
you doing?”
The
man turned, looking bewildered and somehow stupefied, and he didn’t seem to be
in his senses. She ran to him, and shook his shoulders, “what are you doing?”
she repeated her question, this time calmly, looking into his eyes. He seemed
to wake up from a deep dream, shook himself from her grip, looking around in utter
confusion…
“I
thought I was dreaming…” He muttered, his voice trailing off, a sudden clap of
thunder broke the intense moment and it began to rain…
