The Dream Parade (Part One) - [On Hold]

Chapter 3: Erased

"What happened?" I asked repeatedly.

My throat felt itchy and dry. The traces of unfelt tears were beginning to dry on my cheeks.

"Eat your dinner." Mom instructed firmly whilst staring into her lentil stew.

I couldn't believe how calm she seemed.

"I won't. Not until you tell me what's going on with Dad."

"He's not coming back." she said.

Her voice broke at the end of the sentence. Certain that Dad had lied to me about his work meeting, I was beginning to piece together the available scraps of information.

"Dad didn't go to a work meeting today. He went somewhere else." I said in an accusatory voice.

It was not a question. Mom took a spoonful of lentil stew - refusing to hear me.

"I said..."

"Quiet!"

I had never heard Mom shout. Her raised voice shocked me into submission. I was close to tears but didn't want to show weakness in front of Mom. I wanted her to see me angry. Strong. Determined. Stubborn.

"I know something's wrong." I whispered defiantly taking fast, shallow breaths.

Rage burned within me and made me shake in my seat. The nut roast on my dinner tray was no longer steaming. I couldn't imagine eating any of it. No more food was being supplied for Dad which meant that he was not coming home. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. My hands were curled into fists on my lap - ready to punch something. We sat at the table for several hours. The Broadcast came and went. I didn't hear a single word. School, Midterms, the Centenary...none of it seemed important anymore. In the blink of an eye, life had changed forever and I didn't understand why. Dad wouldn't leave - would he? And even if - where would he go? All of his life was here with us. Mom and I needed him. Still in shock, I was grateful when bedtime came around and I could finally slip into my room. My sanctuary. I lost track of how long I lay awake, staring into space with no particular thoughts at all and with a dull ache in my chest. The sound of Mom's subdued crying crept through the wall and filled the room. How I managed to fall asleep in the end was a mystery to me. Maybe it was the dream that captivated me and swept me away from the harsh, unkind reality that seemed so utterly different from the world I knew. The world I thought I knew. The persistent tick-tock of the dream machine gripped hold of my attention as I drifted deeper. The familiar number circle seemed like an angry face, as unforgiving as ever.

When I woke up the apartment was silent. Mom's crying had stopped. I had no tears left myself. I pressed the transmitter button on my IB. My contact list glowed in the dark. Dad's personal ID number flashed on the tiny screen. I was aching to select it. Maybe I could get through to him and hear his voice. Even if it was only once. I wanted it to happen. I needed the connection. I needed my Dad. I stared at the ID number for a while longer, then flicked through my contacts from A-Z only to land on Dad again.

"Come on..." I whispered to encourage myself.

My fingers were stuck. I feared that I wouldn't find Dad's signal. A deep, irrational part of me was terrified that his IB no longer worked...because he was no longer...(I couldn't even bring myself to think it)...because he was...nowhere. I grabbed hold of my Q-Pad, abandoning the attempt to contact Dad's IB. Another time, I promised myself. Next time. Opening a window into the New World intranet, I typed dreams into the search box. I also searched for meaning of dreams, mysterious dreams, objects in dreams and dream interpretation - all at the same time. Within seconds the searches concluded and spat out thousands of sites which were meant to hold answers to my queries. None of them did. I found definitions of the words I had searched for and detailed information about the science of dreams. But no matter how many sites I queried, the strange machine I saw in my dreams didn't come up in my intranet searches and I failed to interpret the unknown item...gadget...or...tool which kept haunting my sleep. The Q-Pad nearly slipped off the bed when 3 familiar knocks ripped me out of my concentration.