The Dream Machine

Thirty-One

SANDLER'S DAD

I wake up and my wife is laying next to me. She has always been so good to me. Never straying, never leaving. In my life full of crazy, she is always there. Not like always there, stressful, but, you know what I mean.

I try not to wake her, so I casually get out of bed and walk into the living room, it's already 4:17, so Sandler should be home by now. He's probably out, messing with friends. Making good choices and good memories to keep for the rest of his youth.

No matter how hard I try, I can never push this one thought out of my mind: I can't let him end up like me. Here I am, forty-two, wasting my life on night shift jobs and PB&Js. What is my life? What is Sandler's? Gosh, I remember when I was his age. I wasn't the cool kid or even a jock. I wasn't even a geek. I sat with people I never talk to today, listening to them speak about sitcoms or the newest must-have cassette tape.

I never went to college, so there's another thing. Neither did my wife, surprisingly. Pamela always seems to be so much smarter than me, even though we have the same amount of education. Well, maybe she does know more stuff from all those YouTube tutorials.

Anyways, I can't let him have a job like I do. All I do at my job is sift through papers and make sure all the math adds up on the paper. It's an odd job, especially at the hours, but it actually pays really well. Who knew eighth grade math would help me so much in the future? But Sandler can't have this job, I'm settling. He can't settle. He needs to reach his dreams.

My boss is a little off-the-ball as well. He is always at the beginnings and ends of me and Pamela's shifts, giving and taking back our work. I'm working my nine-to-five but at the opposite day period.

Pamela walks out of the bedroom and sits on the couch next to me, "Is Sandler home?"

"No," I reply, "he's not in our nest at the time."

She scoots over and sits in my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck, "Are you ready to hit those calculators tonight?"

"Have you ever thought about how much you don't want our children's lives to end up like ours?" I asked her.

"Of course, numerous times. Bridget and Sandler shouldn't have our crappy jobs."

"Agreed,"

Once we reached the abandoned, gigantic, hotel building which held our jobs, our boss, Mr. Dresden, as he likes to be called, is already waiting for us. He's older than both me and Pamela, and always wears a suit-and-tie. Just like every day, he walks us inside, sits us down at our desks (two school desks facing each other), and gives us our stack. Our goal: make sure all the math in the stack is correct. If the math is not, we take out a red pen and correct it. It's basically grading math tests non-stop.

"Thank you, once again, for showing up. I'm glad that you've made this job into your lifestyle." Dresden said to us.

Pamela beamed, "Wouldn't wanna be anywhere else, Mr. Dresden." I smiled at her. She was the perky one. I was the let's-just-get-this-done.

"Once again, you may leave as soon as you finish. I will be in Room 429 today when you are done. Come get me and I will receive the papers." Dresden stated as he walked away and into the creaky elevator.

I checked to make sure he was gone and I leaned over the table, "Do you wanna go exploring?"

Pamela seemed startled, "Horace, are you serious? We could get fired!"

"Are you kidding? Dresden never leaves his room all night. We just gotta be quiet around the fourth floor. Come on, I wanna know what's going on in this place. Don't you?" I asked.

"Yes, indeed," she murmured as she stood up. I took her hand and we ran toward the stairwell.

Inside it, the lighting was dim and twitchy. We went up one flight and onto the second floor. Pamela and I quietly walked down the hallway. All the doors were held open with the door lock. I opened a random one, 234, and stepped inside.

It looked like the interior of a regular hotel room, except that there was no bed. Instead of two beds, there were two chairs. They were gray metal with head gear at the top. It looked like a brain-washing lab.

"Oh my gosh," said Pamela, "What have we stumbled ourselves into?"

"Your promotion," said Dresden, who was now standing right behind us.