| The Stolen Dream |
Apr. 2nd, 2011|12:13 am |
- Oh, fuck it! – Debra angrily slammed the book. She was fed up by reading about all those imaginative people with hopes and visions. It seemed to her that there wasn’t a book in the world that didn’t describe somebody’s dream so vividly that Debra’s heart might burst with longing. She could still remember the time when she was young and stupid enough to believe that one day she’ll be able to afford dreaming, but now she knew – that even in 20 years she won’t have enough money laid aside to buy at least a short dream.
Dreams were getting more and more expensive every day, it was pretty natural considering that their amount was shrinking – rich people bought a dream or two every couple of months. Nobody knew what the real number of stored dreams was at the moment, the correct numbers haven’t been announced by the government for years, so people were starting to become concerned, as if fearing that this secret nirvana of every heart might be lost to them forever. Even though most of them had accepted the inaccessibility of the colourful dreamland years ago, they went on believing in its higher power. Dreams were sacred. Dreams were a religion.
As was reading. Wherever you went you met people with books, they read not only on the busses or trains, but even at the crossroads waiting for the light and 30 minutes of lunch at work were switched to 30 minutes of reading. People worshiped reading, because it was the closest they could get to switching of the reality and existing in another world. It was public escapism. You could be in a room full of people, but know for sure that nobody was in that room with you... They all went elsewhere as if lodging in a self-induced daydreaming.
Debra knew that she’ll end up reading further into the hateful book anyway, so she decided to go out without it while she still could. She regretted this decision as soon as she got out of the door – she felt lonely and alone and cold and very, very bored. But she went on fighting her withdrawal pains. She was an addict, she knew it, but tried to take no notice. Some of her girlfriends had been taken to those special hospitals to get ‘clean’, but neither of them had come back yet. There were many rumours floating around such institutions, some poor fellers even believed, that they injected real dreams there to cure people and gave up their lives to go and ‘dream’. Debra didn’t believe the rumours, but she believed that finally dreaming a dream would really cure the addiction. Well in most cases.. Though there’d been people who went nuts after having a bad pick and ending up with a nightmare. It was especially hard on the poor – who used their money sparingly, giving up food and comfort, just to have enough to buy a dream. A nightmare would be a crush of all their hopes, it would make them realise how stupid they were to waste their lives like this useless and scary experience – some poor creatures even died of the shock.
- Are you OK, dear? – an elderly lady asked Debra, who was leaning against the wall with feebleness of a shot animal.
- Yes, perfectly so. – the girl croaked.
The lady pocked her nose back in to the book and strolled away. Debra slid down the wall to the hot ground, she was sweating. She was afraid – her withdrawal fits had never been this bad, this was how deathly agony must feel. And in her weak and sick mind an idea was born, that grew larger and larger until it was the only thought in her sick brain. Debra stood up slowly, putting herself back together, gaining strength from her new prospects. She decided to steal a dream.
Later at home she marvelled at how little she really knew about obtaining a dream. She had seen the storage from outside, but had never been inside it. It was a small building with no windows (dreams were supposed to be kept in the total darkness) and only one entrance door, which was highly secure. All of those admitted into the building must beforehand send in loads of forms and documents proving their financial capability of meeting the market. Debra tried to remember something else, any morsel of information would help - did you have to carry on cash when going in or how many people worked in the storage? She thought she might get a job at some rich man’s house. But she wasn’t certain that servants were allowed to pick up dreams for their employers?
In fact, she knew nothing, nothing that happened behind the heavy metal doors. She thought of robbing somebody who had already bought a dream and was on his way home, but she didn’t even know what a dream looked liked! She remembered that great scandal of her childhood days, when dream speculation was in full swing. A group of young people divided the original injection into 10 or more syringes and diluted the liquid contents with water. People bought even vodka filled injections those days, so the young bastards had a pretty good business, until they were exposed. – Were might those geniuses be today? – she wondered, - it would be so useful to have brains like that working on your side.
The next few weeks Debra spent walking in the storage’s neighbourhood and watching people come in and out. Most of them drew out in cars jumped out walked the minimum steps to the door and after half-an-hour almost ran back and drove off. Of course there were pedestrians too, but they mostly looked as if they’d been saving up for this purchase their whole life and Debra just couldn’t rob it from them. After a month she had found her future victim. It was a woman, though she wasn’t sure which one. There were three different women, who came in taking turns twice a week and were always picked up by the same car some two blocks away. And they didn’t have that elated expression all others had as soon as they got the precious thing in their pockets, so Debra figured, they must purchase dreams for a third party, but as the buying was so often and women changed places, Debra came to conclusion, that these women and the man in the car must be some dirty profiteers.
She took careful watch of the women and the car for another 2 weeks and even followed them on her bike one day. But with her desire growing every day she couldn’t wait much longer and decided to act. Her plan was pretty simple, she’ll wait for the woman to come out and will run her down with a bicycle, snatch her bag and over coat and pedal off. She borrowed her friend’s car and parked it so that it would block the man’s vision of the woman. And she walked down all the streets in the district to find an enclosed patio she could slip in unnoticed and hide.
____
Debra stood her heart pounding in her ears, cheeks flushed and burning, her breathing rapid and loud. She sat of the ground by the wall eyes squeezed shut, clutching the stolen bag to her bosom, she didn’t manage to snatch off woman’s coat because it was too bulky, but she sort of made a quick search of her pockets – revealing nothing but a handkerchief and chewing gum package. But she was so worried, she couldn’t think straight, so now she could hardly remember anything, everything was a blur. Suddenly she got scared someone might have seen her, so even if that man wasn’t going to find her, others might. They even might rob her. And what would she do then? God!
She hurriedly rummaged through the bag seeing nothing at first, but after what seemed an eternity of watching over same object, she distinguished it. It was a small black box, inside it on the velvet pad under a black ribbon was a small capsule. Debra searched for a syringe but there wasn’t any. Why oh why didn’t she think of getting one with her? Or did she? She checked her own bag in vain. She decided to wait for another hour and go to an apothecary.
After 35 minutes she peered out of the patio. The bike was left behind as unnecessary, though she still planned to get come after it tomorrow – after the dream...
The pharmacist seemed to be the worst phlegmatic in the world walking at a snail’s pace. But finally Debra almost ran through the door, tearing the plastic wrapper apart, she turned down the corner, took out the capsule, filled the syringe, rolled up her left sleeve and injected the stuff.
_____
It was dark. The sky was splattered with stars of all shapes and sizes, Debra tried to move, but her arms and legs were numb tree trunks, fighting the pain she managed to sit against the wall. She feverishly ransacked her brain for any memories of the dream. She couldn’t remember anything. Though there was a feeling of climbing ladders and swimming in a river, but nothing special. She dug deeper and deeper, but her mind had gone blank. An empty blackness was all she could remember. But she knew the dream must have been about something special, something she couldn’t do in real life – like flying or climbing exotic trees in the jungle talking to orang-utans or at least some crazy love fantasy about someone she knew. Debra felt her throat growing dry with pain of unfairness, she felt injured with it by the whole world and her own stupidity. What use was there in dreaming if the dream had no value in your real life? If you forgot it as soon as you woke up? If you didn’t realize it was a dream when you where in it? Jesus, she had spent so much time on dreaming of dreaming, that there was no real left in her! And realising the absence of reality for her she cried even more bitterly than before.. |
|