Asleep

13 Menagerie

Charlie~~

The next two deliveries are a breeze compared to the first. By the time we're done, the sun has set, and hunger replaces the worry gnawing at my stomach.

The smell of seasoned beef wafts from the doorway of what would be called a Mexican restaurant outside of the dream. Countries don't exist here. It's only Somnia, nothing more.

I debate asking Nora if she wants to grab a bite but decide against it. Surely, I'm spending more time with Nora than Dad expected of me. She has a never-ending arsenal of questions, and I don't trust myself to lie as well as I would need to.

Instead, I offer to take Nora home and to hail a cab.

"You really don't like the subways, do you?" she asks, knowing that cabs cost money after watching me pay for them throughout the day.

"Maybe I don't want to watch my pride get anymore bruised. Besides government employees get a discount." There. That's a good lie.

"Then I'd really appreciate a ride home."

I hail a cab and open the door for her when it stops in front of us. As she slides in, she asks, "Does this mean I get a discount?"

I lose all faith in my ability to lie. She wasn't trying to trap me, and she still got me.

I slip in next to her and pull the door shut while Nora types her address on the holo-screen that pops out of the computer embedded in the back of the driver's seat.

"You have to be a bit high up for it." And I've now told her I hold some kind of rank. I really should not be trusted around her. Dad hasn't said it, but I know this must be why he wants me around her, why watching her wasn't good enough. He has to want me to let things drop, feed her doubts. All so she'll become lucid—realize she's asleep.

The cab drops us off in front of her cottage. She steps out, but I make no move to follow.

"I have more food than I know what to do with." The doorway of the cab frames her. "Do you want anything?"

I should say no for the same reasons I didn't ask her to get dinner earlier. But this is an invitation inside her home, a chance to check if it's bugged, so I tell her that'd be great and pay for the cab.

She unlocks her front door, and we're met with the sounds of crackling. Nora doesn't hesitate. She pushes the door open all the way.

A fire burns in the hearth, the logs still intact.

"Charlie?" Her face pales. "I—I didn't light it. Who . . . Excuse me." She disappears through a door across the room.

The fire snaps, the flames twisting and melding.

Dad, why are you doing this? Who is she?

Using this opportunity of being alone, I close my eyes and reach out with my mind, probing for listening devices and cameras. I find them scattered throughout her house, a yellow-orange aura around the mics and blue ones around the cameras.

I imagine my fist crushing them, and sparks and zaps ping throughout the living room and kitchen.

Dad will notice soon enough that he can't see her in her house and then he'll replace them. At least I've bought her a night of privacy.

            If Nora noticed any blue or orange sparks, she doesn't mention it when she comes back into the room. Some color has returned to her face but not much. "The bathtub was filled again. The water's still hot. Who's coming into my house, Charlie?"

            For a brief, reckless moment, I want to tell her everything. I don't let myself contemplate acting on that wish. Telling her she's asleep will only make things worse, but at least I wouldn't have to struggle to make up lies any longer . . . especially not once she's dead.

            "It's a service. A lottery really. Like with your kitchen and closet."

            "A service . . ." Her gaze shifts to the fire as her words trail off. "Help yourself to anything in the kitchen." I don't feel right about taking food from her, not when she's like this, her shoulders slouched, her lips turned down.

I was seven and didn't know I was asleep when I first awoke in Somnia. I had no idea how to take care of myself.

"Do you need anything?"

"No." Her smile comes across as forced. "Thank you for taking me home. I'll see you tomorrow if I still have a job."

I assure her she does and take my leave.

*****

I find myself outside the gates of Somnia in one of the few places I can think.

I sit on the second floor of my ski lodge, my legs slipped between the balusters and dangling over the edge. A couple snuggles underneath a blanket before a roaring fire, cups of hot chocolate in their hands.

The door leading outside blows open, carrying in snow and a skier that walks inside, goggles resting on her forehead.

Lodgers look as if they're milling about, talking, but they're all on a loop.

Above the door a window shows the snow-covered mountain. Outside is like a movie set, the mountain flat on one side where it presses up against a wall. The crystal blue sky looks real, but were it to be felt, it would become clear it's a ceiling.

This is my menagerie.

Since I'll never see the outside world, I created it in the dream based on a few of the models I've built.

A ski lodge.

A circus.

A rainforest.

Somnia held none of these things. Building them wasn't easy. They took an immense amount of brain power. When I started, I didn't know if I even had the ability to create such things. Dad certainly doesn't know I can, and because of that, I have to hide my menageries, and to do so, I took a page from his book, designing the buildings to blend into the forest like the facilities do in the real world. Since I can't create technology by conjuring it out of the dream, the buildings only blend in because I will the designs to.

A young woman climbs the wooden staircase that leads to me. She's in each of my menageries. In this one her long red hair is pulled back in a ponytail, baby hairs haloing her face frizz up and out. Freckles dot her cheeks that are under light blue eyes.

She doesn't acknowledge me even as her ski pants brush against my back.

Creating the figures was the hardest. They aren't living. Don't have a mind of their own. They're more like animatronics on a set route that they'll repeat over and over again.

In about seven minutes the blue-eyed woman will go back downstairs before starting the loop over.

I head downstairs to the bar and grab a ceramic red mug, making myself a hot chocolate while easily staying out of the baristas way after doing this so many times.

He asks the skier who came through the door how the slopes were.

Perfect, she'll say.

The barista has a lumberjack look about him, a bushy beard and a plaid shirt tucked underneath his green apron. I don't know where I've seen him, but I have somewhere if the theory that the brain can't make up faces is true. In that case, everyone here bears a face I subconsciously chose, that my mind pulled from some distant memory.

I take an empty barstool beside the woman and sip my hot chocolate. The monotony of their conversation lulls me. I'll go into work tomorrow, go back to watching Nora for Dad.

I'll go back to being her stalker, Dad's spy.

Again and again and again. Stuck on a loop of my own.

I've been so excited to unveil Charlie's menageries. They're a new concept for the story that has only been introduced in this draft of Asleep.