Janet Berliner

A combination of physical difficulties and crazed deadlines have forced me to decide to forego writing a regular blog post, so instead, here’s a fun story I wrote to rid myself of a recurring dream.–Janet Berliner 

     She is fifteen when the dreams invade her nights.

     By the time she is not-quite forty, the dreams are like lovers she hates, but cannot live without–frightening her as much by their absence as by their presence.  She finds a new therapist, buys a new notebook, records again the details of the dreams . . . 

     . . . she is moving slowly down the corridor of her grandmother’s pre-war Riverside apartment.  She knows that she is dreaming.  At first, everything around her is black and white, then the edges soften, running into each other like wet paint.  She waits for the greyness to come, to release her body from gravity’s constraints.  She can almost touch the sensations free flight will bring–sensual, warm, safe–like love without risk. 

     She is floating now.  She cannot see the end of the passageway, yet she knows with certainty that she will soon be outside.

     Outside.  Color and sunshine.  She hovers at the crest of a tier of rolling lawns, trying to delay her journey to the bottom, anticipating the flight with pleasure, its end with dread.

     But she is not the master of her body.  Setting aside all thought of what is to come, she concentrates on the scent of freesias drifting from the field below, on the poppies and forget-me-nots blooming wild as far as the horizon.  Forgetting, she allows herself to be happy–

     She is in a room, a conference room, standing before what appears to be a tribunal.  At the head of the table sits a woman dressed in black and white.  There is nothing muted about this scene, or about the woman, yet the dreamer cannot see her features, hidden in shadow beneath a wide-brimmed black straw hat.

     The dreamer is frightened.  The people in the room are all talking at once, talking at her.  Why is she on trial, being judged? She feels herself growing smaller and smaller–

     Lilliputian, she returns to the sunlight.  The door of the tribunal is shut behind her and she feels safe again, surrounded by color.  Though she does not really recognize anything, she knows she is in a small beach community she visited once as a child.  The knowledge comes from the smell of the salt in the air, the texture of the sea breeze, the crunch of sand beneath her feet.

     She looks down and sees that she is wearing a flowing white dress, embellished with lace and seed pearls.  She is carrying a basket on her arm, a picnic basket filled with flowers.  She is sixteen or seventeen, perhaps a little older.

     A young couple strolls along the other side of the street.  Their movements parallel hers.  They know her and she knows them, but they do not acknowledge her as they walk toward the ocean.

     When she reaches the beach, she stops.  A low, concrete divider, no more than four fingers wide, separates the street from the beach. 

     Without looking at her, the two young people step over the retaining wall and head into the water.  She watches them go, sad but unwilling to make a move to join them.  She is frightened again.  Something tells her a tidal wave is coming, and she feels eyes burning into the back of her neck.

     Dreaming still, she recalls another dream–a nightmare–remembering it in such infinite detail that she thinks she might be having a dream within a dream–

     She is swimming in the oily water of a busy harbor.  She has no idea how she got there.  All she knows is that she feels like the ancient mariner, condemned to the water forever.  She is surrounded by immense ships–tankers and cruise ships.  They are black and white.  She knows she will not drown, yet she has the sense that if she breathes in too deeply she will not be able to exhale again.  Ever–

     Back on the beach in the sunlight, she turns at last to identify the eyes staring at her.

     Behind her, she can see a semi-circle of concrete.  In its center, under a striped umbrella, a woman bends over a telescope.  Her hat identifies her as the woman from the tribunal.

     “You’re invading my privacy,” the dreamer says.

     When the woman does not respond, the dreamer moves closer.

     “How dare you!”  She is shouting.  “You’re intruding on my life.  You have no right!”

     The woman looks up and smiles.  She moves into the sunlight, but even then her features are blurred.  She beckons with a gloved hand.

     The dreamer moves to her side and turns to look at the ocean.

     The tidal wave has begun.  It moves in slow-motion.  Though the dreamer is terrified, she keeps thinking how beautiful it is.  The woman has stepped back but the dreamer stays on, watching the wave rise, curl, flatten, rise, curl, flatten.  It moves across the beach in a perfect sine curve, avoiding the couple, sweeping the dreamer into the water.

     For a moment, she enjoys being at the mercy of the ocean.  She tries to relax and move with the wave.  Then the current tugs at her legs and she knows that if she wants to survive she is going to have to fight her way to shore.  She can hear people shouting for help.  She sees a man and a boy, a father and son.  The boy’s head is bobbing in and out of the water, just beyond the man’s reach.  She struggles to find bottom with her toes, to test the depth of the water, but the sand moves too fast beneath her feet.  Her energy is flagging.  If she tries to help the man, the boy, she will drown.

     She makes it to the beach.  Lying on an incline in the safe part of the sine curve, she tries not to listen to the cries for help.  She covers her ears with her hands.  Hearing them still, she begins to scream . . .

     Her screams wake her from the nightmare.  Her pillow is wet with her own tears.  No one is there to hear her scream–to comfort her.  She lies alone in the dark, replaying the dream.  She can remember each detail, but she cannot identify the woman. 

     She takes out her notebook and records the details of the dreams for her new therapist, the one her mother chose.  Her mother calls to remind her about the appointment.

     “This one is well-trained,” she says.  “And he’s single.” 

     The therapist is well-trained.  And clever.  And proud of his cleverness.  It takes him no time at all to identify the dream-figures.

     The woman pays him.  Thanks him.  Leaves. 

     The dreams do not return.

     At dawn on her fortieth birthday, the ex-dreamer stands on a cliff in Half Moon Bay.  She can see two bodies on the beach below and a striped umbrella.  As she raises her arms and begs the greyness to come, she wonders if, this time, someone will hear her scream.