“Um, excuse me...”
“Wh-what?” John was startled out of his subway nap. His eyes shot open, only to squint back shut at the harsh, bright light of the train. Shifting his weight on the hard, dirty seat, he looked up at the girl trying to get his attention.
“Sorry, for bothering you” she half-whispered, barely audible through the constant din of the subway wheels and passenger voices, “but that man over there is looking at you funny.”
“Thanks.” John stared out the scratched fiberglass window in front of him, blank faced, frozen. He was being followed. Slowly, John gathered his bag and stood up. His hand slowly went up the metal pole next to him, and he wrapped his fingers slowly around it. Knuckles white, he braced himself to push off it once the doors of the subway opened. John stood tense, motionless. Three, two, one, he counted silently. Before the doors were even open half way, John was in motion. He shot through the gap, scraping both his sides on the opening doors. Silently, and with his head down, he ran through the crowd of commuters. Daring himself to look back, John whipped his head around for a brief instant to see if he was being followed. He was. Behind him, he could see the man who had been watching him on the train run through the thickening crowd. John saw a glint of something shiny and metal from the hand of his pursuer. Through the chaos of the people talking, train departing, intercom noise, and the huge crowds, John dashed onto a crowded escalator going up the the street. Briefly, he had a moment to catch his breath. Sitting quietly as the world moved on in front of him, John stopped to take in everything that had happened. In the background he could hear a street performing saxophone player, probably in an adjacent tunnel. Where was that man from? John thought to himself. Somewhere, John had seen that man before, but he couldn’t place where. It was an unnerving experience. He sat there for a little under a minute, waiting for the man to show up again. The man was tall and intimidating. He had short black hair and black eyes, eyes that pierced unblinking through the air. Something about the encounter was off putting. It wasn’t quite right. He knew that man. John was sure he recognized that man from somewhere else, but he couldn’t quite place the feeling. He wasn’t from John’s life, he was sure of that. After a few minutes of rest and debate, John gathered himself up, walked calmly back to the train, and rode back home in silence.
“The weirdest thing happened to me today honey.”
“Oh? And what was that?”
Well, I don’t know if it’s my allergy meds or what, but this man was looking at me on the train. The thing about it though was that I thought I recognized him.”
“So maybe you did?”
“No, but he wasn’t from anything.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m really not sure” mumbled John. His wife was always supportive, and he knew that he could always talk to her. Whenever John was worried about something, he always found comfort in her friendly bright blue eyes. Her soft voice was always calming, not matter what was on his mind. This time he felt as if there wasn’t any way she could help him. That feeling of being helpless sent a shiver down his spine. This man was getting under John’s skin, and there was nothing John could do about it.
He sank down into his reading chair, exhaling on the way down. John closed his eyes while trying to release his built up tension. His left hand blindly groped the desk lamp until it found the switch. John rested there is silence, trying to come to terms with what had just happened. Breathing heavily through his nose, he thought. Minutes passed, and he was nowhere closer to finding an answer. Suddenly, his eyes shot open. The man was from a dream! Once he had made the realization, it all came flooding back. For the past two weeks, he had been having a recurring dream about the man he had met on the subway. In the dream, John would come home to his house. The front door would be locked, which would surprise John, because whenever his wife was home she would leave the front door unlocked. For some reason, in the dream this wouldn’t bother him. He would go home, put on a change of clothes, and begin cooking dinner. After he was done eating, he would go up to his room and get ready for bed. Then, he would get a phone call to come outside onto the road. During ever dream, John would simply say yes and walk straight down and into the road. It was there where he would meet the man, and it was there where John would wake up in a sweating panic. In a way, John felt relieved. It was this very dream that had been haunting him for the better part of a month, and now there was finally progress. John’s doctor, who John’s mother said he absolutely had to visit twice a week (John had no idea why), had told him that he should tell him about any new things he finds out about the dream, because they might be important. John went to bed, feeling relatively at ease.
The next morning he woke in the same panicked sweat. Immediately, he remembered that he had saw that man in the subway. In a way, this made him happy, because it meant this man was real. It meant that John wasn’t really crazy. During his entire morning routine, John had this man stuck in the back of his mind. Over and over again, John debated about what he would tell him and how he would talk to him. He replayed conversation after conversation in his head. This was what he liked to do in his free time. Making up conversations with people was a way for John to have real relationships. It had always been hard for John to form real relationships, and he had no idea why. People always looked at him differently. He also had to go to his doctor every tuesday and thursday, and they would talk about the relationships John was forming with people. He would be asked questions like “So did these people feel real to you?” and “What did these people want?” His doctor would then write things down on his clipboard, nodding his head from time to time. From time to time, John would wonder if there was anything wrong with him, but he would quickly dismiss this. He told himself that he was just special.
On the subway ride home, John was alert. He looked around everywhere for the man. Turning his head, he scanned the faces of every single person within eyesight. Nothing. The man was nowhere to be found. Instead, John just saw a crowded sea full of nobodies. For the entire 24 minute ride, John scanned the faces of as many people as he could. At his stop, he would stand just inside the train, peering into it and at as many people as he could, until the trains doors started to close. John would then quickly step out and proceed to walk home. For a few days this happened. When he visited his doctor, he would simply say that the man from his dream, the one he had saw in real life, was gone, though he still had the dreams.
On the fifth day, this changed. John had almost given up looking for the man, and he was simply looking straight forward. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He slowly turned his head to see, out of half opened eyes, what the movement was from. It was from the man. The man from John’s dreams was standing there, staring at John. After a few seconds, he beckoned to John. He seemed to be asking John to follow him. Then when a person walked by, the man quickly squeezed up against the wall. The person, a young girl, would have walked right into the man. Despite this, the man didn’t seem bothered at all. Instead, he looked back at John and beckoned him some more. This was exciting. John was finally going to be able to learn what this was all about. The mystery of it all excited him. His eyes light up and he felt adrenaline beginning to give him energy. He smiled and began to get up. Then, he remembered what his doctor always told him. “People you don’t know anything about probably aren’t real people.” John had never really believed this, because he found it hard to believe that there were people who weren’t real. For the first time in his life, John decided that there might be some truth to that. He had never heard of anyone else saying anything about meeting poeple from their dreams. He had never heard about anyone else who had to go to a doctor two times a week. For the first time in his life, John considered whether or not he really was different. For the first time, he accepted that he probably was. John sat back down and closed his eyes, pushing the man out of his mind. He then fell into a calm sleep. (1588)