Random Writing

Dreams

A new invention enables people to remember their dreams with absolute clarity. It turns out we were forgetting them for a very good reason

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The first time she went was also the last.

Madison had been having the strangest dreams for she can't remember how long. Every morning for weeks and weeks on end she would wake up feeling like something was wrong, like someone was watching her. So, naturally, she told her mom.

"I want to go to the Dream Seeker," Madison said one morning when the feeling was particularly bad.

Her mother sighed. "If you think that is best. But you know how expensive that is."

She did. And Madison wouldn't have asked this of her mother if it wasn't important. Somehow, she knew it was.

That's how she ended up, at 8:07 on a Monday morning, sitting in the waiting room for the most visited pharmacy in all of Los Angeles, and probably the whole state. The room was white. White walls, white floors, white chairs, a white desk, chairs, and even curtains. It was unnerving, to say the least. The three other people waiting in line had all gotten here after Madison, so she knew that she was next.

And, sure enough, not three minutes later a lady wearing a white nurse's outfit stepped half out of the door. "Madison?" she called scanning the room with that knowing glances that all nurses seem to have perfected.

"Coming," Madison replied. Turning to her mother, "I'll see you on the other side?"

"Of course, sweetie," her mother said with a smile. The patients weren't allowed to come out the same door they went in, Madison thought, so that the others wouldn't be unnerved. She had heard stories of friends' family coming home in tears or not speaking for days afterward. In fact, thinking about it now, Madison is not sure why she wanted to go in the first place.

"Right this way," the smiling nurse says holding out her hand. Madison steps into the hallway behind the door and is shocked at the sheer size of the place. the ceiling is probably fifteen feet tall, the sheer whiteness of it all making it look infinitesimally larger. The nurse leads Madison through several similarly white corridors before coming to a halt in front of the only splash of color in the whole building. A green door.

The nurse opens the door and Madison follows her inside.

Surely, she thought, I am dreaming.

The room was even larger than the halls outside. Bathed in splashes of color, the large room stretched, easily, fifty by fifty feet. The ceiling was tall enough to hold several stories, and yet it was wide open. Except for two rows of machines lined up on opposite walls.

"Is that..." Madison begins.

"Those are the Dream Seekers," the nurse clarifies. "Now, Madison right?" She nods. "Madison. I am going to need you to do exactly as I tell you. Okay? Good. My name is Stacy and I will be helping you discover your dreams today. First things first," Stacy pauses and glances over Madison once. "Your bag has got to go."

Madison peeks down at her bag. "Okay," she says peeling it off her shoulder and handing it to the nurse. "Anything else?"

"Those earrings and bracelets."

Again she complies and takes out all seven earrings. Madison hands those over before stripping her wrists of their bracelets. Reluctantly she hands those to Stacy as well. "Don't lose them," she says.

"Of course not." Stacy pockets the jewelry before turning back to her patient. Such a young girl should have no need to be here, but it is not Stacy's place to question. She is just doing her job.