Dreams

The shovel loads of dirt fell on the coffins with an ominous thud which I felt resonating through my head time and time again.

I looked up from the open grave and saw my relatives standing around, stoically coping with the falling rain.

I saw father Ortiz mumbling his prayers, but his words made no sense to my numbed self.

Nothing made sense in this sunless, rainy winter day; and all of a sudden, for the first time, it fell on me, it really dawned on me I would never see Laura and little Nicole again.

My sister felt it, the silent lightning going through me, and she held me tight as she had been doing for the last two days.

Then, feeling her comforting embrace as I had felt it so many times when we were kids, I could cry for the first time since she had called me to come home from work because something had happened to my wife and daughter.

Something.

Nothing much, they were only dead.

Drunk driver, they said. How can somebody be driving drunk at four on a Wednesday afternoon?

He caught Laura’s car as she was coming back home from picking up Nicole at school. The bastard survived, they did not.

My sister and her husband stayed with me that night, after the burial, the first one I’d spend alone in my suddenly empty house.

And that first night alone was also the first night I had the dream.

It didn’t feel like a dream.

I was walking through the woods in a pouring rain and I could hear the traffic farther on, where the woods thinned and the path I was on took to the road.

I woke up as soon as I recognized the place. It was the forest which borders the road that leads to my home. The road where Laura and Nicole had died. On a rainy day, just like the one I had dreamed.

I went back to sleep after a while and didn’t dream again.

I decided to go back to work after a couple of days and try to recover some semblance of normality. I could see my sister was relieved to hear me assuring her I could pull on; she had a life of her own after all.

That night, the dream came back.

I was in the woods again, walking through the rain towards the place where I knew now was the road. An engine was roaring through the rain noise.

I woke up.

And so it went on night after night.

During the day it was business as usual, and everybody was glad to see me functioning in a more or less normal way.

But every night I got a little closer to the road.

Until one night I saw the car I had been hearing coming closer. It was, as I knew it would be, the same car that had hit my wife and kid.

It was coming through the rain, windshield wipers beating furiously, to keep his appointment with death just around the bend.

I felt a surge of deep and exploding anger, but when I tried to reach the road I woke up.

I sat on my bed, sobbing and decided it was time to seek some help; but as the day went through I felt my resolution ebb. What if it wasn’t a dream? What if there actually was a way to have my wife and daughter back?

That night I was back in the woods, back through the rain to the road and the car racing in my direction.

This time I could clearly see in the fading winter afternoon light the driver’s face. He had his window down, in spite of the rain. Perhaps he felt dizzy, perhaps his defroster wasn’t working, I don’t know. He looked at me, surprise showing in his face to see me coming out of the woods in the pouring rain.

The alarm clock woke me up but I wasn’t angry anymore. Instead a fierce resolve had crept inside me and I thought I knew what I had to do.

I looked at my old alarm clock, souvenir from my father. It was one of those old round metal things with a bell on top. Heavy.

I went through the day in a haze, oblivious to the first signs of spring starting to show in the streets. I wanted night. I wanted to dream.

I lay on my bed and it felt emptier than ever. The shadow of a child’s voice seemed to call on me from the next room.

I fell asleep crying, but I held the alarm clock in my hand.

Back to the woods, back to that never-ending winter, walking to the road, but this time I felt something heavy within my hand, its sharp edges biting my palm as I held it tight.

I reached the road, as before, exactly when the car appeared. It was coming on the other side of the road, window open to the rain and the driver looked at me with surprise on his face.

I didn’t hesitate. I drew my arm back and flung the clock. With utmost clarity I saw it fly through the open window and hit the driver in the face.

The car went mad and the tires screeched as they lost contact with the wet pavement.

Time stood still and for the first time my dream really felt like a dream as the car slowly rolled over in a crazy dance and loomed over me.

When it hit me I didn’t feel any pain, just a sudden and overwhelming release from a life that meant nothing for me, a life without Laura and Nicole.

The light went out slowly as did the sound and coldness of the rain. No more pain, only peace.

Then reality came around again: somebody was shaking me and yelling in my ear, “Wake up daddy! It’s Father’s Day, wake up!”

Laura and Nicole had brought a tray with breakfast, as they always do on father’s day and the sweet smell of muffins and coffee filled the room.

I sat up on the bed and Laura must have seen something on my face, for she asked, “What is it, honey? Bad dream?”

I shook my head and the last whips of last night disappeared, I heard the rain outside. “Awful, but it’s gone with the night. Come here and kiss me!”

Nicole laughed delightedly, she always giggles when I kiss mom.

I held my wife and child tight, wishing dreams and nightmares were never more than just that, dreams.

Then I happened to look to my night table and a chill went through me.

My alarm clock wasn’t there.

A savage joy fill me up as I saw blood pouring up, but the car didn’t stop. It zigged and zagged crazily on the wet pavement but it kept on going.

On to the bend, on to its deadly rendezvous.

“No!” I cried and started running up the road after the car.

I didn’t see the crash but I heard it, heard it clearly through the rain, its thunder thumping inside my head like a crazy drum.

I fell on my knees on the wet road and cried, tears and rain mixing in the winter afternoon because suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps the driver hadn’t been drunk, or perhaps not that drunk.

Perhaps something had hit him on the head when he was driving.

I woke up with the morning first lights and I decided I didn’t want any more dreams. I would see Dr. Caceres today and maybe she’d me give some sleeping pills.

Then I happened to look to my night table and a chill went through me.

My alarm clock wasn’t there.

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