The Janus Dream

The beer was flat. This really pissed Ed off to no end. He picked up his pint and threw it over his shoulder.

“Hey, how about a fucking beer down here”.

The punk came from behind and as he grabbed Ed’s leather jacket to spin him around he ripped the collar right off. He opened his mouth to speak to Ed but before any breath carrying any sound could escape Ed’s forehead smashed into his nose point blank.

Then he felt the swarm. The arms started grabbing him from all about his body with the intent of submission echoing from each sinewy tentacle.

The next thing he knew the arms were all gone and he was standing to one side, leaning against the bar, the smell of Guinness and blood permeating his nostrils. Then a flash, and in that flash, in that instant so brief the time could not be measured, he felt his jaw cave in, giving way to a blunt instrument. Before the blackness he had the realization that he was choking on his own teeth.

He woke to a topsy turvey world, moving at tremendous speed complete with flashing lights and beeping noises. The two men around him wore blue scrubs and the room jiggled and jumped, then leaned to one side as both paramedics held on, and lurched back to its original position. A mask came over his face and a needle in his arm, an unfamiliar needle, not the type he was used to.

Again, blackness.

His eyelids rose so slowly that a spider which had entered the hospital room through the window at the far end, had the time to crawl up the wall and traverse the entire ceiling to descend to the other side and exit through the door only to be stepped on by an intern by the time Ed’s eyes had fully opened.

His eyes felt like two burning coals and it tasted like a little old man had shit in his mouth. Then, as if to remind him that he was still alive, his stomach leaned to one side and spit one cc of bile into his mouth like a base ball player spitting chewing tobacco on the base line.

Before he could adequately become sickened by this new taste sensation the searing pain kicked in from his jaw and mouth.

“Does it hurt? Huh? GOOD! Dumb ass punk mother fucker. You know, you were so fucked up you beat the shit out of 6 guys before the bartender finally clocked you with a lead pipe. You hit a blind chick in the face with that beer you threw; dumb mother fucker.”

His brother had always possessed a unique command of the English language, even when they were kids. He had a voice so distinct; Ed had never heard another voice like it in his life.

“When boy WHEN…are you gonna clean up your act! Your not 22 anymore Ed! For Christ’s sake, your 53 years old. Look at those fucking track marks on your arms.”

Ed did not have the energy to look down, but not wanting to disappoint his brother he closed his eyes and pictured his forearms in the mirror, his two arms slithering from his leather vest and bare chest. Why do they call them ‘tracks’. Needle marks look more like the stars in the sky. In his minds eye he could see the constellations of previous heroin trips emanating from the inside of both elbows and flowing down both arms. Each needle mark worked with the next to form small images on his arms. One resembled a medulla oblongata. Another looked like a bottle of mountain dew and still another reminded him of the left nipple of Chloe, the friendliest prostitute in the projects.

“Wake up ED!” his brother shouted, taking him from his stupor.

“Wake up! Ed? Wake up!” The voice changed. Lower pitch, more gravely. What was this?

He felt someone shaking his shoulder and slowly roused from his slumber. It was that dream again; that same dream.

“Ed? Father? Wake up! You fell asleep again at the pew. A young priest needs to be alert! Aren’t you getting enough rest at night?”

Ed thought carefully about his response.

“Yes sir Father. For some reason, when I pray in this pew I seem to dose”.

Ed new the problem was worse than that. Each time he slept in this pew he had the same dream, that he was an old man, fighting and taking drugs. It all seemed so real to him, always so real.

“Stop praying in this pew then!” the older father told Ed. “Stay awake lad, please. Not many youngsters like yourself get the call to the priest hood these days, I need you at the top of your game. Ok?”

Ed replied humbly. “Yes sir. Please accept my apologies”.

But in his soul he shuddered. Each time he had the dream it felt more real. He could feel the marks in his arm. He could smell the Guinness and blood, and in waking life he was not too familiar with either.

The old priest looked at Ed with fatherly eyes. “My boy, I know you will try to not let this happen again. You are one of the Lord’s sheep, and the meekest I have seen. You are definitely in line to inherit the Earth my boy”

“Thank you father” Ed meekly replied.

His soul shuddered again and a chill ran up his spine. “Is this the dream?” he thought to himself. “Am I in the dream now and will I wake up as a 53 year old drug addict? What is real…what is a dream”.

Then Ed picked himself up off the pew. His lean 22 year old body shuffled meekly to perform his next task of listening to the confessions of his parishioners.

As he sat and closed his eyes he heard the words float through the air to him “forgive me father for I have sinned”. The chill up his spine returned and his whole body shivered. The voice was the same voice as his brother, he’d recognize it anywhere. In his waking life, however, in this life as Ed the young priest, he was an only child.