Anthology Complex (6 page)

Regardless, I got my mind in order after she left and my strange
obsession, my strange addiction, I was able to kick it. It was gone for a
while, but like that dot on that circle, the further I got away from it the
closer I was to reliving that obsession. A person can meet their destiny on the
road they traveled to avoid it.

So eventually the addiction came back, stronger. I started to maintain
better organization techniques this time so that what happened last time didn't
happen again. So I wouldn't lose my mind again. I started to write down every
dream in composition notebooks, and I had a shelf for all of these notebooks.

After a while I started to categorize and date the dreams. Soon after I
started to title them as if they were short stories.

Chapter 12:

STRANGE DREAM, STRANGER LIFE

About twenty years ago, I had this dream. I'm sitting in a subway car
across from this man. Now I don't look directly at this man, but I'm looking in
his general direction and I just know that he is looking straight at me. After
a long time I finally muster up enough courage to look at his face, but he
isn't looking at me. I was wrong. Soon after this man starts to talk to me, and
he tells me that I don't have any shoes on. I look down. He was right.

He takes off his shoes and he gives them to me, and I put them on. The
subway train makes a stop, and I get off. As I step out of the subway car, I
notice the entire platform is covered in green liquid, and the liquid is
smoking. I see benches and other things being destroyed by this liquid, and I
automatically assume it's some type of acid. In the distance I see another
person step out of a subway car and they are barefoot.

As soon as their foot touches the platform, it burns away. Eventually
their entire body burns away, but they don't scream. They don't make a sound.
Then I look down at the green liquid I'm standing in, with these shoes I'm
wearing that the man gave me, and I'm safe. The subway train starts up again
and drives away, and I'm standing there wondering who that man was. Both
literally and philosophically.

Last night I had a dream where I saw that same man again for the first
time in about twenty years. His unforgettable face. In the dream I was walking
through the city, this city that's full of walking pedestrians who are on their
way to work, to school, to wherever. I'm walking and then suddenly I bump into
this tall large man who is carrying food. I fall down, and the large man just
walks away as if nothing happened.

Now I'm being trampled by all these people, and then out of nowhere I
see a hand extend towards me. The body that the hand belongs to reveals itself,
and I immediately recognize it's the same man who was on that subway car twenty
years ago. His unforgettable face. He helps me up, and when I am on my feet all
of the pedestrians disappear. They are all gone, it's just me and this man
standing on a sidewalk.

I ask him who he is, and he tells me that he is the son of God. I pause,
and I ask him if he means he is Jesus Christ, and he tells me that he will be
Jesus Christ if that's what I decide to call him. He begins to walk, and I
follow him, and I ask him questions. I ask him if he died thousands of years
ago, and he says that death is a misunderstood phenomenon. He says that even if
he did die, he has always been here. For the past twenty years and for the past
thousands of years.

I ask him if he means he has been here literally, like walking on Earth
among us people, or philosophically, existing only in our hearts, minds and
dreams. He says both, but also says that the importance of one over the other
is subjective. And then he looks back at me and tells me to stand there, not to
move a muscle.

People always say that, don't move a muscle. Even if I stand perfectly
still, my heart which is made up of cardiac muscle is still beating. Still moving.
Beat. Pump. Beat. And now it has stopped. Every cell in my body has stopped, as
if time is frozen.

In the distance, on the road, I see my younger brother. There are people
around him, skinny men and women, even children, with dirty rags on for clothing.
He is giving them all fruits. He looks in my direction for a second, but he
doesn't see me; it is almost as if I weren't there.

When my brother and I were younger, I would always tell him to share his
food with those who asked. I used to tell him that when he got older, he would
have to know when to share his fruit, even when they didn't ask, because
sometimes those people would live overseas and they wouldn't be able to ask.
These were the things my mother taught me as a child.

Now my brother and all those people are gone, and the pedestrians are
back. Jesus Christ has disappeared within the crowd. I can move again, and my
heart is beating now. Beat. Pump. Beat. After a short while I see my younger
brother again, walking among the crowd across the street. He looks in my
direction again, and this time he sees me and walks towards me.

We start to talk, and after a while I mention how when we were younger,
how I would always tell him to share his food, and that I was proud he listened
because getting people to listen is one task we can't complete alone in our
lives.

Now he has a look of confusion on his face, and he tells me he has no
idea what I'm talking about. He says I never told him to share his food. Now
the look of confusion has jumped off of his face and onto mine, and before I
could realize it I am staring at his backside as he's walking away. I start to
shout, telling him to remember to share his food with others, trying to remind
him that kindness can go a long way. I go on until he's completely gone, and
then I realize Jesus Christ is sitting in the corner.

He looks at me and he says that it doesn't matter if we are alive or
dead, it doesn't matter if we can physically walk on Earth or not. He says that
the things we say to people, the things we do to people, they are sometimes
remembered, regardless of how important or unimportant it may be. Regardless of
if it was something good or something bad.

He says that while we are alive, we shouldn't care about who we want to
become, we should care about who we will have been when we die. What we did or
said in our lifetime, that's what will stay in the hearts, minds and dreams of
others even after we are gone.

Now Jesus and I are walking again, and it feels like we have been
walking for miles. I ask him how much further we have to go, and he asks me if
I'm asking him how much further do we have to go, or if I'm asking him how far
we have gone, and then I woke up. After I woke up I thought about the dream. I
thought about when my brother was feeding the poor, how he looked in my
direction and didn't see me. How I couldn't move at that moment.

I wonder if I was only there philosophically, in his mind. I wonder if
he was remembering the things I told him. And then I start to think about how
he could see me through the crowd. I wonder if at that point he could see me,
as if this time I were actually alive. Physically able to walk on Earth, and as
he's walking away from me, I'm trying to tell him to share his food.

It's as if I'm trying to tell him this so that when the time comes, he
will feed those people, and he won't just leave them to die. It's as if I want
him to remember these words I'm telling him even after I've died. It doesn't
matter if someone is alive, existing physically, because we still may not
listen to them or even bother to hear them out, and it doesn't matter if
someone is dead, existing philosophically, because we will remember them.
Remember the things they taught us, the things they said and the things they
did for us.

So I guess even if you're alive, you may not be able to change the world
or even someone's life; you just might have to die first. I start to think
about what Jesus said, "who we will have been when we die." If I died
tomorrow, who will I have been?

Chapter 13:

LESS THAN MORE THAN EQUAL TO

It seems as if no matter how far you travel, people are alike all over.
The culture may change, the language may change, the things they do for
recreation may change, but the basic human behaviors and instincts, they remain
the same.

In every corner of the world, there are those who take less than what
they need, and then there are those who take more than what they need. People
who believe in non-violence and those who believe in violence. Those who give
and those who steal, and some who do both. I visited a few different countries
two years ago and that was what I noticed. I realized that no matter how far
you travel, people never change. No matter how far away you try to get from it,
the damn thing is always there.

Eleven months ago, I had a dream where I was living in this run-down
apartment building in a city located in a desert. I was laying on my bed, and I
looked to the right to see a glaring stream of light coming from the window. I
got up from my bed and looked out of the window. I looked out and saw a world
where people weren't alike all over. After such a long time of searching, I
finally found the peaceful place I was looking for.

This place where there were no negative genes. No anger gene, no murder
gene. No competitive gene, no jealousy gene. People lived in harmony, and they
all shared with each other. No one took more than they needed and no one had to
take less than they needed. There were apples on both ends of the table, finally
there was balance in this equation that I once thought could never make any
sense. I was at peace with myself and the world, but the time came when I had
to leave. I had to return to the world in which I came from because it was now
someone else's time to find this peaceful place. Simple mathematics.

In order for every one to be able to experience this utopia, this good
place, when someone wants to come in someone else has to leave to keep the
balance, otherwise this good place becomes the bad place. I turn around and
look back at my bed for one last time, this place where I slept so peacefully.
There is a woman lying in it.

For a moment I'm at sixes and sevens, and I forget what I am suppose to
do. After a few seconds I remember and I start to walk away from this place,
and it gets darker and darker with each step until it's completely black, and
then I wake up. I look to the right and I see my composition notebook, and I do
what I always do. I write down the dream.

Three nights ago I was checking my mail, and I decided to see how
Lynne's flowers were coming along. Her zinnias, her shade garden. I go outside
and I see that they are beginning to grow. As I'm standing there admiring her
work, I see her walk through the front apartment building door with David and
Sarah. She takes a look at me, and I smile at her. Something I got used to
doing.

The thing was that she didn't smile back at me, she just continued
walking. She was in some sort of a rush and I guess she didn't have time to say
anything, or smile back. She puts her kids in the car and then she gets in and
she drives away.

Later that night I'm sitting in my living room watching television and I
hear a loud banging. Bang, bang, bang. I get up and look through the peephole.
This fisheye view. Now the man is banging and shouting. I can hear him, I'm
sure every one in the building can, but I can't see him. After about a minute
he stops, and then he walks away. I see him pass by, but it's too quickly for
me to see what he looks like. I'm positive he is coming from Lynne's apartment
because I know I heard the name "Lynne" somewhere in his barrage of
expletives.

I start to assume that this is what Lynne was hiding from. After he
walks by, I'm still looking out of the peephole, staring at Joe's apartment
door.

Right now I'm standing over Lynne's body in her bedroom. She's deep
asleep. I can tell she's physically and psychologically tired. Tired of every
thing. A few hours ago she knocked on my door to apologize about not greeting
me the other day.

She tells me that the whole time she was at the hotel with her kids,
trying to hide from her antisocial ex-husband, she was thinking about how she
just walked away without acknowledging me. I tell her it's okay, and I invite
her into my apartment in an attempt to find out why she has these bruises on
her face.