REHTNAP (HEARTFELT)
He scribbled the words down on a napkin. The exact ones he’d been trying to come up with. For her. “Remember this,” he tried to tell himself. “Read them again and remember it when you wake up.”
But suddenly he wasn’t sitting in the cabin anymore. He was walking down a long white hallway, like he was backstage at a giant arena, or in the corridors and secret passages of an indoor mall, circa 1987.
On his right side, he was walking past a section of the wall that was a long rectangular mirror, from his waist up to the ceiling. “LOOK AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR!” he yelled to the dream version of himself. LOOK AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR! But the DV of himself just kept walking, staring straight ahead. At the very last second, with only another foot of mirror left, he stopped and turned his head. But he couldn’t see his face.
He took off his sunglasses, and tried to look closer, and it was still nothing. The mirror showing only his body, outlined by the white wall behind him. His head a blur. Out of the corner of his eye, something flashed. And captured in the silver lenses of the aviator sunglasses that were in his hand, he saw it. A teeny miniaturized version of himself. In the reflection on the sunglasses he could see his face; he knew that he had him.
There were tricks he had learned. From things Hal had taught him.
If you can make the you in the dream look at a watch. Or if you make the DV of yourself ask someone what time it is. Or if you see your face in a reflection. If you can do one of those things, you can take control of your dream self. Like a video game.
He can do it sometimes.
**WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NEVER DONE THAT BEFORE, SCARY THINGS CAN HAPPEN
The other trick Hal taught him, that he uses all the time - If you’re having one of those really fantastic dreams, one of those that feels so real and magical. If you feel yourself waking up, and want to try to grab hold of it before it slips away, try to make the DV of yourself to put their thumb up. Command your dream self to do it. If you can get them/you to do it, then it stores it in a different part of your brain; and you’ll remember it.
The scene changed, and he was back in the cabin.
On the table, just inside the front door, was the same square cocktail napkin. He ran to it and picked it up, but the words on it were different this time. This time it was words from a story about his nephews, the one he’d been trying to write for years. It was the opening paragraph; which thus far, had always evaded him.
And then he woke up.
It was short. And to the point. Whatever it was that he wrote on the first napkin. It was only two lines, and it was heartfelt. It was the thing he’d been trying to tell her for so long so that she’d understand. And he meant it.
In the three weeks since then, he’s had two flying dreams. It had been over ten years since he’d had one, and while he missed them, he’d kind of just accepted the reality that maybe he wouldn’t ever have one again; that something maybe had changed. And now it wasn’t possible to have them anymore.
It was exciting and exhilarating to find out that wasn’t true. Pulling out his phone, he texted his nephews, to tell them about it.
When they were six, the three of them used to talk about dreams all the time. Whenever either of them had one about flying, they would animatedly share it with him the next day. And the three of them would talk about it, and try to put it into words. How nice it felt. To be floating up in the sky, totally free. Each of them would nod their heads thinking about it.
He knew they might not respond when he texted them, being fifteen now, but he still wanted them to know it.
From kindergarten through the sixth grade he picked them up from school every single day. For seven years that was always his favorite part of the day. Standing off to the side, away from the parents, not wanting them to think he was one of them. He could feel the sun getting brighter inside him, waiting for the bell to ring, waiting to see their faces scanning for his, as they came down the steps. Their mouths forming a grin, for one quick instant, when they saw him holding up his arm, and they locked eyes with him.
One of them holding his right, one of them his left. “Hands” he’d always say as they approached the crosswalk. Squeezing them so tight till they made it to the other side. Just in the infinitesimal chance some insane driver came barreling down the road and didn’t stop for the guard. And he needed to save them.
He sometimes goes weeks at a time now without seeing them.
They’d go to the park every day. And go for adventures in the woods. Climbing as high as they could, any good climbing trees that they would find. Spinning as fast as they could, on every single one of the spinny things. On special days he’d surprise them, and when they got in the car he’d ask them if they wanted to go get Slurpees before they went to the park. Yes!! they’d scream. And the whole way to 7-11, all of them would feel so alive, and happy.
A tattoo on his left forearm. Letters, written backwards. And turned around.
STSICSAF EHT KCUF
When he saw his arm in the reflection in the lenses, they were written the right way.
And he knew that he had control.
Get back to the cabin! he yelled. And immediately he was back there. Exactly as it was before. Even the damp smell of the wood was the same. All the words on the napkin though were different.
The first ones, the ones to her that he’d been looking for - Explaining that thing he’d never been able to tell her. Gone now forever.
The overhead light in the kitchen was on, projecting a 1970’s yellow hue onto the room. Pulled to the side, the curtains on the window above the sink reminded him of the ones that used to be at his grandparents’ house when he was a kid, when they lived in the stone cottage in the mountains, where his grandfather was a preacher. A moth was banging up against the glass, frantically trying to get in. The darkness was pitch black outside.
He couldn’t see the tattoo on his chest. But he knew it was there.
The one that said REHTNAP
Call your uncle, their mother would say, whenever they had a question she couldn’t think about or answer. “Your eleven year old nephew wants to know how in a dream you can be somewhere, and it seems so real and familiar, but you’ve never been there. He’s going to call you in a second,” she texted him.
The phone rang, and his nephew said “Mom told me to call you, to ask you about this.”
But what if you have been there before? he told him, and you just don’t remember it. What if you’re only able to access it when you’re asleep? (For now).
They discussed it for a few more minutes, trading different ideas. Time travel and dream theories. Those were two of the things they most liked to talk about. He asked his nephew if he'd had any flying dreams lately, and he said he hadn’t, that he hadn’t had one in a while. “I haven’t had one in a long time either,” he told him.
The two of them would always get Coke Slurpees. The other one would always get bright blue flavors.
The summer of their kindergarten year, when he watched them every day while his sister was at work, they would plan it in advance sometimes, and all three of them would wear their matching RUN DMC t-shirts. The black ones that said the name on the front, in big white and red letters. They’d ride around with the sunroof open and the windows down, looking tough.
“The one with the glasses is my favorite one,” the blue flavor nephew said one day while they were all watching Christmas in Hollis together in the basement. December was five months away, but they watched it year round.
Do you remember his name? Rehtnap asked. “DMC,” the nephew said, and he was proud that he was right.
A sense of pride washing over him as well, “He’s my favorite too,” Rehtnap said, “since I was nine.”
The nephew that liked time travel glanced over at his brother and saw that both he and his uncle were smiling; and he thought to himself that it looked like the two of them had something inside them that was glowing. Not exactly like the way a lightning bug does. But also not exactly unlike it.
Every one that he’d ever had, every time before, it was always Superman style. With his arms out in front of him, looking down at the world below. But in his most recent one it was different, like he was floating, on his back in a pool. Or on a magic carpet. It was strange, but he liked it. And he leaned back and continued to rise.
With his arms out at his sides, and his feet leading the way, he drifted up over the fence, and continued going. Passing directly by the back window of the brick house next door to his parents’; the people sitting just inside it, eating supper. He wondered if he should wave. Or if he should just pretend that he didn’t see them. Up ahead was the house where, when he was a kid, his friend Glen Taylor lived. Glen Taylor, who was older than his dad, who would smile and say hi to him every day. Chewing a toothpick or a piece of grass in his mouth. His arm propped up against the porch railing when they had conversations. He liked the way words sounded when he said them.
“So cool,” Rehtnap hoped they would text back. And he hoped that for a second, that they’d think about and remember; those days when they used to go to the park together every day. Walking slowly over giant logs, that had fallen across creeks. Racing down the hill. After butterflies that they’d named. Laughing. As they ran through splash pads, with their clothes on. Lying down on the grass, trying to get the buzzards to chase them.
Taking their hands in his, and gripping them tightly, one nephew at a time, he’d spin around in place, faster and faster. The speed lifting their small legs off the ground into the air. Their bodies stretched all the way out, horizontal. Whirling like helicopter blades, almost pulling their arms out of their sockets. Again! they’d say. Building up static electricity, going down the slide. At the bottom of it, when they touched their fingertip to his, how the spark would POP and they’d scream. The three of them sitting, side by side by side, on the wall together, with their feet dangling over the edge, watching the cars driving below and drinking Slurpees. Trying hard to figure out words to use, to talk about how it felt in flying dreams.
For RHD and GCD
FUTUREMAN7 OCT 2024
that time my rx for solitude was in the middle of a front page article on msbnc about the sandwich generation | electricity | jack
"Box of Rain” performed by Steve Poltz, 6 NOV 2024. Written by Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter
Choose your own adventure bonus alternate ending: 🐅 or 🇺🇲
