2/15/2021 Storystar, where short story writers are the stars!

My Other Life

Up until recently, I was living two lives—one during the day, and one at night
while I slept. But it’s not dreams I’m talking about. The life I’d been living at
night was just as real as the one I experienced during the day.
It started last year when I turned twenty-two. Why? I had no idea. Up until the
moment it started, my dreams were just regular dreams. And then one night, I
found myself visiting Disneyland with people who were supposed to be my
parents, but weren’t. I called them mom and dad, but they were strangers to
me. And when I looked at my reflection, I saw the face of a four-year-old.
I could have passed it off as just a very realistic dream, but you don’t
experience the stomach-churning ups and downs of a rollercoaster ride in a
dream, or the exact taste of your food and drink.
When I woke up, I tried telling Jan, my girlfriend, what I had experienced, but
she didn’t believe me. All I knew was what I had seen and felt in my dream had
been as real as anything I experience when I’m awake.
The next time it happened was a week later. This time, I’m nine-years-old, and
participating in a baseball game with kids from my block. I could feel the ball
hit the sweet spot on the bat, and taste the dust when I slid into second base. It
was both exhilarating and scary. How could a dream be so real?
Afterwards, each time it happened, I found myself a little older. I was eleven
and in math class taking a test. I could feel the pencil in my hand and smell the
chalk dust. I was fifteen and in the school marching band playing a trumpet,
my fingers strugling to keep up with the music. I was sixteen and taking my
driver’s test. The car felt enormous. And then, I was seventeen and having my
first sexual experience. Oh, boy!
“How could you be having one of those dreams?” my girlfriend asked me.
There was more than just anger in her voice. Disappointment? Jealousy?
I shrugged, feeling embarrassed. “I don’t know. In the dream, I was seventeen,
and it was my first time.”
“With who?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never seen her before.”
“Oh, yeah?” she practically sneered.
“Sorry,” was all I could think to say.
The next time it happened, I found myself in a college dorm room having sex
with a very passionate stranger. Good thing Jan wasn’t home at the time, but
she did catch me coming out of the bathroom after having cleaned up.
“You had another one of those dreams, didn’t you?” she said, sounding more
than a little angry.

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2/15/2021 Storystar, where short story writers are the stars!

“How do you know if I did or didn’t?”

“Your face is all red.”
I felt trapped. All I could think to do, once again, was shrug.
“If I find out who she is . . .”
“I don’t see how you’d find out about someone I’ve dreamt about?”
“Well, if I do . . .”
After that, our relationship seemed to go down hill faster and faster. A few
months later, we split up.

A couple of weeks after that, I was crossing a street in town, when I felt
someone brush against me going the other way. When I turned to say sorry, I
saw it was the same girl from my college dorm dream! She must have
recognized me as well, because her eyes as big, and then pointing, she
exclaimed, “It’s you!”
“Who are you?” I asked, my whole body growing warm from thinking about
what we had done in the dream.
“Carol Dawson,” she replied. “And you are?”
“Tim Donaldson.”
Having stopped in the middle of the intersection, a car horn forced us to move
over to the sidewalk. Stopping in front of Starbucks, we sat talking for a while.
That’s when I found out about her interest in politics. She wanted to run for
city council. Since I worked for a marketing outfit as a copywriter, I
volunteered to write all her speeches. In no time, we became a team in more
than just politics.
These days, we’re planning her run for the governorship, as well as what we’re
going to name our first child, when it arrives.

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