I walked along the pool and was overcome with the desire to submerge myself in the comforting, clear water. I jumped in headfirst with open arms but remembered a moment too late that the pool wasn't more than 2 ft. deep. Being in a dream one can will things, I assumed, and willed and believed that the pool was 12 ft. deep. What kind of a moronic dream would it be if I smashed my face on the cement at the bottom of the pool and woke up from the supposed impact? I'd probably never again get this close to creating an amalgam of "The Swimming Pool" and the "The Swimmer," so it can't end this way. I never reached its bottom. It really was a dream. I resurfaced at the edge of the pool, finding Rod Serling dressed in one of his suits, leaning over and looking at me with an elbow rested on his knee.
I hoisted myself up out of the pool and grabbed a towel. The breeze wasn't so summery and pleasant against a wet skin. Can I help you?
He simply said, you're in a dream.
I shrunk further inside my towel. What do you know about it?
You're in a dream within a dream. This time you will not leave. You will stay here forever.
He took a step toward me and I panicked. I never make physical contact with anyone in my dreams. He should know that. What's wrong with you? Stay where you are! Are you trying to shock me into waking up? I was having a great time before you came along. You can't wake me up now!
But that's it -- you can't wake up no matter how much you try, no matter what I do.
You wanna bet? Get away from me! It was then that I realized that the underlying theme between the movie and the short story was Tom Cruise's "Vanilla Sky" movie. I tried to blink myself into waking up, but woke up into the same dream.
He was unfazed. See? You're stuck here forever.
Why? I didn't agree to anything. You can't keep me here.
It's pretty random, really. Some people fall asleep and never wake up. They will find you in your bed and will assume you're in a coma. They call it a coma but, he gestured toward the rest of the women, we know better, don't we?
But I don't want to stay!
Why wouldn't you want to stay? You will never get bored, that's for sure.
Because this is a dream and it's no place for rationality, and frankly you can't blame me if that really freaks me out.
Rationality. He sneered.
Rationality gives you a sense of knowing what to expect, it gives you... I don't know, trust, it's security. Something I did in my philosophy class years ago about a lamp switch, who can remember. I just know I can't have that in here. Nothing is the way it should be.
Oh? Are things the way they should be out there where you want to return? He laughs. How grim your generation is. It's a dream, for Pete's sake! You can make things the way you want.
How?
You just made the pool 12 ft. deep because you wished it that way. And all under a second. Very impressive. Obviously you've had plenty of experience manipulating your dreams.
Can I wish you away?
Sure.
Can I wish myself awake?
He laughs.
You don't have a right to keep me here and yet you do. I just don't understand why.
But if lack of rationality is the only reason you want to leave, what guarantee do you have that something like this won't happen outside your dreams?
What? Why should it happen?
There is no more certainty in the real world than there is here. The worst that can happen here is that you will torment yourself with your knowledge of what terrifies you -- and you only have yourself to blame for that. Out there others will torment you with anything they can, and then there's the prospect of physical pain that you can never have here. Governments change, there are wars, the twin towers fell when everyone was sure they would last for centuries, countries break from one another, people kill and die for no reason, you watch too many disturbing movies as if to prove that you, in fact, are only a spectator to these real-life nightmares. What will happen when, or I should say "if" to calm you down, you find yourself in the midst of it all? What will your rationality do for you? Excuse me if I'm not convinced with your reasoning about what is rational and what isn't.
I'm not amused. Let me out. I can't stay here.
I can't show favoritism toward anyone. Why should you get any special treatment? It's bad enough you think you're entitled to it with all the diseasters taking place in that real world of yours.
Special treatment because I want to leave my own dream? That doesn't make sense.
There you go with your rationality again.
But it doesn't!
Tell me the real reason you want to leave here. You love dreaming. I know you do. You wouldn't come here as often as you do if you didn't love it. You have the chance to be here forever. Take it! How many beautiful dreams have you lost because someone woke you up at the wrong time?
You are fighting a losing battle. He will never let you keep me here. If I don't wake up, He will wake me up.
He will think you're in a coma and will visit your bedside at the hospital.
I won't be easy to keep around here. I want to go to Him.
Jackpot! That's the reason why you want to leave here. Reality, not rationality, is more spellbinding than all your dreams.
No, not reality. He is.
He chuckled. To my absolute horror, his face changed a little as he came closer to me. It just changed, there really is no better way to say it, other than it became slightly gruesome. The danger in staying in your dream for too long is that your opponent (yourself) is very knowledgeable on what terrifies you, and if I stayed there long enough, sooner of later I would have created my own tr@p. Sofia, or maybe I, echoed. "Open your eyes! Open your eyes! Open your eyes! Open your eyes! Open your eyes! Open your eyes! Open your eyes!"
Every time I blinked, I kept waking up into the same dream, but with each blink buildings crumbled one by one.
He threw his hands toward me. Don't do that. Stop. Stop. You have to see! Look at me! Look at me!
I couldn't look at what monster I had turned him into without losing my concetration. He knew that. Or I knew that. With each blink trees fell, leaves floated up into the air with dumbfounded little swishes that would inevitably have pierced my heart hadn't I woken up just as he stretched out his hand to touch my face shrinking away from him.
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