>“Well looky-here, isn’t it a little bit past your curfew?”
The young girl doesn’t respond. She drops her head, and quickens the pace a little bit. But she’s not fast enough.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s the rush?” he asks, faking offence at getting ignored.
“I think she’s scared, Lee”, his dull friend suggests.
“You think?” the man called Lee asks. “You think she… heh… fears me?”
“Yup”, comes the simple response.
“Hmm, interesting…” Lee thinks to himself for a moment. “Maybe we should go out of our way to make her feel… comfortable”.
“How?”
“I have a plan!” He clears his throat. “Excuse me!”
His voice bounces off the blank, concrete wall rising up on one side, and the buildings on the other side of the road. The two men trot after the girl, as she pushes the boundaries of her physical abilities. She breaks into a run, but it’s no way near enough to put any kind of significant difference between her and her pursuers. The smaller man, called Lee by his friend, reaches her first and cuts off her path. When the larger, slower man arrives on the seen, he quickly scoops the young girl up in his arms. She tries to call for help, but a large paw quickly covers her mouth.
“That was rude, young lady”, Lee wags his finger at her, telling her off. “We just wanted to talk, and now look what you’ve done! You’ve gone and caused a scene! Didn’t your parents teach you any better?”
“I don’t think they did, Lee”, the dimwitted one says with a deep chuckle.
“You know, you might be right there. I don’t think they did either. But what kind of people would we be if we just let the youth of today grow up to be so rude?” he asks his friend, his mind already thinking two steps ahead.
“Terrorists?”
“We might as well be!” he enthusiastically agrees. “It’d be like trying to bring down the entire Western civilization by turning the youngsters into ticking time bombs!”
“Ticking time suicide bombs!” the friend adds.
“Indeed! And we can’t have that now can we?” he asks.
“Nope”, the friend replies.
“So maybe, we should be the ones to teach her a lesson. What do you think?” he asks his friend once more.
“Sounds like a plan”, he says with a grin.
“I knew you’d agree! Bring her across the road with us”.
The smaller man – Lee – looks both ways before he crosses the two lane street. His friend, carrying the young girl, follows right behind. Lee leads them into the shadows between two buildings, too dark to be seen by any passing traffic that may be on the road at that time of night.
“Now, what do you have to say for yourself, young lady?” He motions for his friend to take his hand off her mouth. As the hand pulls away, the girl reacts quickly, biting upon it as soon as she is able to open her mouth. The large man lets out a yelp in shock, and releases her from his grasp. The young girl then spits at the other man’s face, before attempting to make a break for it. But the smaller man is faster and a lot more agile. He jumps in front of her once again. She tries to duck under his legs but he grabs her, and quickly covers her mouth once again before dragging her back to his friend.
“She fucking bit me!” he cries.
“Shut the hell up and hold her again”, Lee barks back.
“But she might bite me again!”
“Be a god damn man and get over it!” Lee punches the man in the arm.
“I think I might have rabies”, he whines.
“You don’t have rabies, doofus”, Lee pushes the girl back into the clutches of the large man, who reluctantly grabs her once more. Instead of covering her mouth his hand, he instead opts to lock his hand under her jaw, making it impossible for her to open her mouth up. Lee drops to the ground, crouching in front of the young girl and speaking directly to her. “That little stunt you just tried to pull, that’s exactly what I’ve been talking about. You have no respect for your elders. Not to worry though, dear. I can teach you respect. I can teach you to not be a stuck-up little bitch. Oh yes, I can loosen you up, that’s for damn sure”.
He unzips his pants, as she struggles to break free from the larger man’s grip. There is no escape, but she manages to get her mouth free once more.
“No!” She screams. “Dad!”
“Who’s your daddy?” he asks, while his big friend bellows in laughter. “I’m your daddy!”
“No!” she screams again, as the big man tries to cover mouth. “No! Lee!”
“That’s Mr. Lee to you, bitch”. He grins as he reaches down. “Now let’s see that cunt”.
Hamilton New Zealand – just over a week ago
“That’s it?” asks Dr. Geoffrey Connolly, clinical psychologist, as he peers over the brim of his glasses at me.
“What do you mean? You’re expecting more?” I half-shout back, horrified.
“I worded that wrong,” he concedes. “My apologies. I merely meant, is that the end?”
“Yeah, that’s the end of the dream”, I respond in a much calmer manner. “Thank fuck for that”.
“And how long did you say you’ve been having this dream for?” he inquires further.
“It started about four nights ago, and it’s been every night since then”, I reply. “Well… every night that I’ve actually managed to get to sleep”.
“The insomnia is still kicking in, semi-regularly?”
“Yep,” I nod. “It’s been the same damn story for over six months now. I can’t remember if I told you this or not, but a couple of months after you started making me come here, I began checking off days on a calendar where I actually got some sleep. I don’t move on to the next day on it, until I actually get some sleep, even if it’s just an hour – which it usually is”.
“First of all, can I just say that I didn’t make you come here”. He tries to set me straight, but I’ve got a retort already lines up.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. The fucking hospital wanted to make sure I had a psychological evaluation after the hell I went through in the aptly named Helldome. I chose you, since we have history together, yada, yada, yada…” I pause briefly, as he acknowledges that this is the line of thinking he was following. “But that match happened in what, May was it? And here we are, January, 2009, and I’m still required, by law, to come here. And there’s only one person who could possibly have anything to do with that: you!”
“Can we please not get into this?” he begs.
“You brought it up, but fine, I’ll drop it for now”. I take a quiet comfort in the fact that I had the last word in the matter this time.
“Let’s go back to that dream”, he suggests to me.
“Right-o then”, I feign cheerfulness. “What do you think it means?”
“There’s a common misconception regarding dreams having supposed meanings that can be translated to real-life,” he states flatly.
“So you’re dismissing it?” I ask, concerned.
“No, not exactly”. He shuffles forward in his seat, and leans over his desk. I take a brief moment to remind myself how lucky I am that I don’t have to lay down on one of those stupid couches while he asks me stupid questions like ‘how does that make you feel?’ Not that I haven’t been through that before though. “Look, the thing with dreams is that while they resemble memories in the way that they are constructed through the electrical systems in your brain, they are still not memories. Nor are they true projections of any kind of sensory input, and certainly they are not some kind of supernatural force telling us what will happen. They are simply dreams. We have no control over them, and they have no control over us. At the end of the day, there is no research to show that dreams have any bearing on who we really are as humans”.
“Well, it is comforting to know that I haven’t gone 32 years without realizing I’m a completely mind-fucked monkeydick with a hard-on for little girls, I’ll give you that”, I metaphorically tip my hat to him, for giving me at least some sense of relief. “But we both know this is going to keep me up tonight, nonetheless. And it’s been so consistent. Every night”.
“Have you been drinking every night?” he asks. I don’t like the tone in his voice.
“What does that have to do with anything?” My mood swiftly swings downhill. This topic is a constant source of dissent between Dr. Connolly and I.
“Maybe there’s some sort of correlation between the two”. He tries to sound like he’s not playing the alcoholic card again, but I know he is. We’ve been at this week-in and week-out for far too long for him to be able to fool me this easily.
“Why don’t you just say what you want to say instead of skirting around the fucking issue like a little bitch?” I snap at him. “Come on out and say it”.
“You’re an alcoholic”, he says, doing well to hide any emotional response he might have had to my little outburst.
“Tell me something I don’t know”, I scoff.
“Despite what you think, I’m not trying to use this as an attempt to get you to stop drinking”. His attempt to convince me isn’t as strong as he’d like it to be. “I’m just saying that there might be some sort of correlation between the two. Correlation. Not causation”.
“Right. And where were these dreams for the last three years I’ve been ‘officially’ recognized as a straight binge drinker?” I ask, popping an eyebrow up. He doesn’t reply. “Yeah, that’s what I thought”.
“At the very least, Lee, it could be worth a shot to try and put the bottle down for just one night, and see what happens as far as these dreams go”. He tries to be as civil as possible, because he knows if he gets worked up at all, it will just feed me more. Good move. Alright, I’ll settle down a bit. “That’s all I’m saying. It might be worth a shot”.
“I’ll see what I can do”, I grudgingly give in.
“Tell me more about the dreams”, he now asks, leaning back in his chair once more.
“Like what?”
“Describe the girl to me”. He pushes his glasses up his nose.
“Okay… she’s uh… she’s young. That’s all I can really say. It’s dark”, I shrug. “It's hard to see details”.
“Can you give me an approximate age?”
“Could be anywhere from ten to fifteen”. I shake my head. “You know how it is with young girls these days. They’re all dressing like they’re in they’re twenties, and while you know they sure as hell aren’t legal, you couldn’t pin an age on them if you had their birth certificate right in front of you”.
“Right,” he agrees. “So she’s dressed provocatively then?”
“Yes, well… kind of”. I drop back now into my seat too. “She has a short skirt on, and high socks, but she’s wearing a sweatshirt, so she’s not fully skanked out”.
“Hair color?”
“Blonde, maybe light brown”, I shrug once more.
“So you have no idea who this girl might be?”
“No. I don’t know… like I said, it’s dark. I’ve pretty much told you everything that I can”, I say, hinting that I’d like to end this conversation topic. Truthfully, I just find it all a little too creepy. Can you blame me? “I thought you said that dreams can’t be looked into much? So why do we need to go through this?”
“Just trust me, okay?” he says, somewhat reassuringly. “Could you describe the person that you’re with for me?”
“Big, dumb and clumsy,” I quickly reply. “That about sums him up pretty well”.
“And so there are no discernable marks, like scars or tattoos, to help you identify him?” he probes further.
“How many times do I have to say this? It’s dark!”
“And no name is given?” And further and further.
“No. At least, not that I can remember”, I say, covering my bases, just in case, as my experience with trying to remember dreams tells me that you don’t always remember everything.
“Our brains are conditioned from when we’re young to picking up proper nouns, especially names”, he informs me. “If you remembered all that other stuff, you’d remember a name. Describe yourself now, please”.
“I’m…” I wriggle uncomfortably in the chair. “It’s like it’s me, but it’s not me, you know? Like I’m watching myself in a movie or something”.
“Third-person…” he says to himself.
“Exactly!” I reply anyway.
“Are you sure it’s you then?” he asks. I scrunch my face up, a little puzzled. “You did say it was dark. Could you be mistaken in thinking that it’s you?”
“I know what I look like, and given my line of work, I know how I move. It’s me”, I assure him. “And besides, why else would he be getting called by my name, if he wasn’t me?”
“I don’t know”, he admits. “It is just a dream, remember?”
“Right. A dream…” I stop what I was saying to gather my thoughts. One little detail has cropped into my mind. “The voice…”
“What about it?” he prompts me.
“It does sound like me, the way words are enunciated and everything. I mean, people never hear themselves correctly, but after hearing myself recorded so often, I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp of what my voice sounds like to others. But this…” I scratch my head. “There’s something else in the voice. It’s a lot more sinister, a lot creepier. It’s got a hint of that voice from Scream to it, you know? Or that T-Bag guy from Prison Break. It’s charming as all hell, because come on, it sounds like me, but there’s something else about it. Something different. Something that’s not me”.
“Maybe we should start thinking that it isn’t you then?” he suggests again.
“Maybe…” I begin to consider it. “But… I know it’s me. Viscerally, I just know it”.
“Like I said though Lee, dreams aren’t fortune-telling, so if you’re as sure as you seem to be that it’s you in the dream, I’m not going to argue against you, but make sure you remember that it does not reflect upon you in anyway”. He makes his point loud and clear.
“Yeah… yeah I know”, I nod, fairly convinced. “It’s just a dream”.
“Right. Unless there is anything else”, he begins to start gathering the notes that he has made, “then I think that will do us for this week’s session”.
I prepare to leave myself, but as I rise halfway out of the chair, something else pops into mind. Something that’s been lurking in the back of my head for a couple of months now, but has only now made its way to the front.
“Actually… there is something else”. I lower myself back into the chair.
“Oh?” He stops what he’s doing, and leans back in his chair once more.
“Yeah…” I begin. “I’ve uh… I’ve actually been thinking about getting back into wrestling?”
“Again?” he asks, visibly surprised. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea?”
“Well that’s not really up to me, which is kind of why I’m asking you”, I say, handing the power over to him. I’m not quite done making my case though. “I just think that’d it’d give me something to occupy my mind with. The company has grown to the point, thanks in large to that security database I developed, that I’ve become more of just a figurehead, as opposed to a hands-on leader. I’ve got the right individuals in the right places, that me stepping away a bit more wouldn’t really do it any harm. And at the very least, getting back in the ring could leave me so physically exhausted that my brain wouldn’t have any say in whether I got to sleep or not. It wouldn’t be able to keep buzzing”.
“That wouldn’t be healthy, either physically or mentally”, he says, disapprovingly. His tone changes quickly though. “But, on the other hand, I can see how giving your brain something else to work on could be beneficial for you. Do you feel fine enough on your legs to really give it a go, rather than just have a one-off appearance for a good cause like you did a couple of months ago?”
“Legally, I’m completely medically cleared”, I tell him. “I’ve also been running a lot lately, and they’re holding up well so far. It’s just a matter of getting confidence on them again, and really there’s only one way to do that”.
“You know what my one big concern would be regarding this though, don’t you?” He asks, solemn once again.
“The drinking…” Right about now, I begin to accept the fate of having dug my own grave.
“Yes. But…” And there’s that magic word again to cheer me up! “But I’m willing to call up the XWF and give this the green light on the one condition that you continue to meet with me personally. We’ve tried organizing appropriate cover for you in another country, but it only worked in the short-term. I want you to make the effort to physically be here once a week. We can work with whatever schedule you’re given, but as long as you do come once a week, I’ll give you the all-clear”.
“I think I can manage that”. I smile, a rare thing these days. “But there’s one little problem”.