This is not about refusing to die.
This is not about wanting to die.
This is not about you.

I have a recurring dream. I keep waking up, waking up, waking upwakingupwakingup, waking up, just waking up until I actually wake up. It’s surprisingly peaceful. I watch myself sit and rub my eyes; sometimes I just open my eyes and lay there. I am always wearing the same thing, nothing. And then I stretch, I yawn and I fall asleep to wake up again, starting the cycle all over.

I know I can manipulate situations in my dreams. Swerve my ice cream truck away from babies rolling out of a school bus, screaming the alphabet, their arms in the air. Turning left into an abandoned, crusty garage behind a Pizza Hut, I get serious. With militaristic abandon, I stealthily remove myself from the vehicle and under a dusty sheet I reveal cans of spray-paints, a sledgehammer, a jackhammer, and other hammers, but not Hammerstein, and a crowbar. Beside my collection of WMDs is a trap door. Behind that door lies a hidden meat locker. This meat locker is not filled with meat, but with ice creams and popsicles and ice cream sammiches, frozen yogurt, ice cream bars and a couple bottles of good vodka, I don’t know how they got there. My hands become numb from the cold as I maniacally shovel ice creams into said underground meat locker.

Once the truck is emptied, my dream makes sirens wail and helicopters chop, but I look up and turn them off. I shut the trap door and pick up the sledgehammer and swing big, taking out my driver’s side mirror. It flies across the garage, against a wall, and neatly into a garbage can with a satisfying crunch. I smile and fuckin’ proceed to smash the shit out of that goddamn truck. The jackhammer makes me bite my tongue and I decide against its usage. I write POOP PUDDING across one side of the truck and Alecia’s number on the other. Who’s Alecia? I don’t even know, but I plan to apologize to her if I get the chance. I’m not really an ice cream truck driver, anyways.

I know I can manipulate situations in my dreams, but the recurring waking dream is different. Like barreling down a steep hill, you can’t stop mid-somersault and stand straight up. This has been most perplexing recently, especially now that I am in love.

Wanda brings the newspaper to bed every night, except Sundays. At first, it made me smile, but the tangy smell of newsprint lingers and sometimes I taste the Business section when we kiss. Tonight is a Friday night and she is reading the Living section as I lift the corner of our heavy down duvet and get into bed. I feel like a Panini.

“Wow, they’re having another baby--” I see Wanda shake her head slowly in disbelief. Both of my arms are flat beside my body, I am on my back with only my head exposed from under the covers. I move my eyes to look at her when I respond seriously, “I wanna have your babies.”

She laughs, but not at me, “Oh man, and they’re going to name it Leonardo Raphael.”

“Who?”

“Britney ‘Baby Factory’ Spears and Kevin Federline are having another baby to add to their annual collection. Wasn’t their last one named London or something? Now they’re naming one after two Ninja Turtles, fantastic. Maybe they’re secretly Mormon… Or maybe they have babies to celebrate the recent birth of the other baby.” Her eyes widen as she gives me a silly face.

I yawn, “I don’t really keep up with that stuff,” and I scrunch my nose and sniffle. Wanda hears this, closes the paper and turns to me, “Are you sick, baby?”

“Maybe,” I tuck my chin under the covers, hiding my smile. She slides into bed and gets her arm around my waist, under my shirt, kissing my neck.

“I love you, you know that?” She asks breathily in my ear, laughing because she knows what she’s doing to me. Wanda cuts me in half.

“I love you, too.”

We make the rest of the night ours.

“Johnny Applebitch!” Henry is a tool. Everyday in the break room, he greets me this way.

“Hi, Henry, how’s it going?”

“I didn’t get any sleep,” he winks at me and pours himself coffee that was made six hours ago. It is almost 3:30pm and I’m sure that cup is cold and disgusting. He takes it black and I inwardly roll my eyes.

“This shit is good!” He turns his wince into a puckered, stupid face. I don’t know how to respond, he takes himself too seriously. I just want to laugh and call him an ass hat.

“You didn’t get any sleep?” I figure prolonging the conversation would keep me from returning to my grey cubicle a little while longer.

“Ohhhh yeah,” he winks again. God, I hate him. I watch him strut out the room, then nodding at someone who I’m sure hates him as much as I do. Henry is such a tool. There is no doubt in my mind that he still lives with his mom. The man has pictures of his three cats---Gypsy, Connor, and Teenie---on his desk, c’mon! God, I hate cats.

My name isn’t Johnny Applebitch. It’s actually Orion Johnson Applewich. Orion wasn’t so bad until fifth grade English when we were assigned to do a report about the origins of our names. Orion was created when a bunch of the gods dug a hole, tossed some animal skin into it, and urinated into said hole. He fell in love with the virgin goddess Artemis. She ended up shooting him in the head by accident and then turned him into a constellation to immortalize their love. Or something like that. But the urine-soaked-animal-skin thing made me want to be called John. After that, I had to put up with “Johnny Appleseed.”

I returned to my cubicle and closed the Goodman case. Raymore Goodman collected $1424.83 of insurance after his GPS navigation system told him to TURN RIGHT, NOW and he crashed into a large pile of sand. The street was a construction zone, but the GPS system had labeled it as open. I laughed quietly, imagining the scene and the cloud of dust. Then, my cell phone started vibrating on my desk, it was Wanda.

“Hello?”

“Hi, sweetie, dinner tonight or--?”

“Ummm,” I eyed the files on my desk. I had a few more cases to go through and a couple hours in the day, “yeah sure. I’ve got a few more files, but yeah.”

“You don’t love me anymore, whatever.”

“Haha, don’t say that.”

“Then, tell me that you love me.”

Sigh, “I love you.” I love her.

“I’m going to pretend that you didn’t sigh and I’ll see you tonight! I’m leaving work right now---BASTARD! WHAT THE FUCK, SIGNAL NEXT TIME!---sorry!”

“Are you driving?”

“Yeah, I know I promised I wouldn’t call when---”

“It’s okay, I just get confused about whether you’re calling me a bastard or---but yeah, I’ll see you tonight!”

“Alright, sorry! Bye, I love you!”

“I love you, too. Bye.” I always hang up first. Getting back to work, I see Henry standing at the entrance of my cubicle, “Hi, Henry.”

“Was that your wife?”

“Yes.”

“She’s hot.” I blink and send I-hope-you-die-now thought-waves at him.

“Yes.”

“I’m having dinner with one of my ladies,” he is still holding his stupid cup of coffee and takes a bitter sip, “she’s in love with me, but I think I’m ending it tonight.” After a quick debate with myself over whether I want to know, I turn my back to him quietly and open the next file. He leaves, unscathed; I hate him silently.

After :xr, Wanda and I watch an old taping of The Rites of Spring. Wanda loves the Ballet-Russe movement. To me, it is moving, but I think I love it only because I love her. Ballet isn’t my thing. Her head resting on my left, arms around me, I get self-conscious about my breathing.

“Are you still having that dream?” She asks quietly.

She catches me off guard, “What, sweetie?”

“Do you still dream about waking up over and over again?”

“Umm… Yeah, I had it last night and… I think, two nights ago?”

“No, I think it was Tuesday night. I remember you telling me.” The dancers move on-screen, jarring steps in-sync with the timpani. They are about to sacrifice a girl for spring, this part always gets me sleepy.

“Yeah,” I say, hoping my tone projects my want to drop the topic.

Instead, she continues with concern in her voice, “What do you think it means?”

“What do you think it means?” I ask her back. She’s usually very insightful about dreams and stuff like that.

“Do you want to wake up?” Do I want to wake up? When she says up, I imagine myself falling slowly into a black echoing hole, looking up at her. Her “up” resounding. Up, up, up, up, up. Smoke rings forming U’s and P’s floating upwards, towards her, she scrunches up her nose and coughs. I cough and shrug gently and she sits up to look at me.

“I don’t know, I don’t really think about it too much,” I watch her watching me.

She rubs the bridge of her nose, “Well, let’s think about it,” she mutes the television and sits facing me, “let’s think about it.” Wanda swings her legs over mine and sits back.

“O.K.” We both sigh and laugh at each other peacefully. She looks so beautiful.

“Do you want to wake up?” She plays with the hair at the back of my head and it tickles.

“I guess I don’t. I mean, if I wanted to stay awake and move around, I guess I would, y’know? It just happens. I see myself sleeping, I see myself wake up. Sleep, then awake. Just over and over again.”

“Uh huh,” she squints like she’s concentrating hard and purses her lips.

“It really doesn’t bother me, I’ve been having this dream since,” I think hard, “I don’t even remember.”

“Was it way before you met me?”

“How long have we known each other, again?” I smile.

“Stop!” She hits me playfully with a throw pillow. We’ve known each other for eight years and have been with each other for five, and we got married two years ago. I know her.

“I think around the time we met I started having this dream.” I lie.

“And you keep waking up? That’s all, right? You’re not leaving anything out?”

“Yeah, I wake up and I’m asleep again and then I wake up and it just keeps going.” I leave something out.

“And you never feel like changing it?”

“I never really thought about changing it. I don’t think I want to.” I don’t understand.

She makes a thinking sound, breathes in as if to say something, but changes her mind and unmutes the television. I don’t know what the hell is going on.

She settles back into me. My breathing is shallow, but slow. I lied and left something out because I don’t understand. I started having this dream three months ago, I only started to realize a detail recently: I am in bed alone.

I fell in love with Wanda, completely, three months ago. Before that, I thought I was in love. Now, I know. If someone were to skin me I would have her name repeating, like wallpaper patterns, on the other side of my skin. My passing thoughts feel like her laughs filling my heart. But this whole damn thing isn’t about me, or her, or you. Three months ago was about living. Three months ago was about not wanting to.

Three months ago, Dylan Blue received a call from me. His social security number was either listed incorrectly or didn’t exist. He didn’t answer so I left a message. I left many messages and sent many envelopes. He never responded.

As I was reviewing his case with my brow furrowed, Henry popped his head over my shoulder and into my peripheral vision.

“Geez, Henry!”

“Hello, Applebitch,” Henry whispered breathily in my ear, then cackled. What a freak.

“Do you need something?” I can never bring myself to be outwardly rude to this fool.

“Nah, Applebitch, just stopping by,” Henry stretched. He wore a yellow-and-black checkered button-up, or, what I like to call, the taxi shirt.

“How nice of you.”

“I know, right? Wow, that’s a big transaction!” Henry underlined the amount with his finger on my screen. It left a smudge and I grimaced involuntarily, but again, unfazed, he continued, “What seems to be the problem?”

“Uh,” still frowning, I respond, “his social security’s not showing up and so I either appropriate his insurance or---”

“If I were you, I’d hunt him down, Orion.” He sneered. What the, how’d he get my name?

“What?”

“Ha, yeah, I heard you listening to your messages and your mom called you Orion. Aren’t you just the little god in the stars, Baby Orion?” He laughed at himself as I blinked at him half-smiling. He continued, “Are you gonna do it?”

“Do what?”

“Figure out who belongs to that!” He poked the screen again. It wasn’t procedure, but I was curious as to why this man, who was entitled close to a million dollars of life insurance, wasn’t responding.

“Nah, Wanda’s making dinner later tonight and I promised I’d be home. Plus, that’s really not procedure, Henry.”

“Pff, fuck procedure! Man, tell you what I’d do, I’d go over to him and tell him he can take his money and not fuck around with my workday! And then I’d kick him in the squishies and fishhook his eyes and pick him off the ground and say, ‘Here’s your money, bitch,’ and then I’d crumple his check and throw it onto his chest and just walk away. Just walk away.” Henry said ‘just walk away’ very hushed and gestured with his palms facing down, pushing the air in front of him and walking backwards and out of my cubicle.

But, my mind lingered on what had just happened. Henry the Ass Hat called me Orion, the hunter, sprung from soiled skins. I tried calling again, this time not leaving a message. Afterwards, I opened up another file, keeping Mr. Blue’s on my desk. Every once in a while I would daydream about him. Maybe he’s an old man, graying and afraid of modernity. Maybe he moved away after his wife’s death, changing his name and number, traveling the world. Maybe he’s dead, too. I got directions to his house in order to visit him during my lunch break.

It was a nice house, a beautiful home, really. But tall grass and weeds were growing-- maybe he didn’t live there anymore. However, there wasn’t mail in the mailbox, nor newspapers on the driveway, so I knocked on his door. No answer. I rang the doorbell and knocked again. I looked at my watch and gave myself five minutes before leav---

“Yes?” The white, metal safety door was still closed and I couldn’t see the man speaking.

“Mr. Blue?”

“Yes?”

“Hi, I’m John Applewich, from the insurance firm, I’ve been leaving you messages about verifying certain information so you may collect--”

“No, I don’t want your money, bye.”

“No! Wait, please!” There was a pause. I did not understand my urgency, something propelled me to appropriate his insurance to him, to close that goddamn case. Then the safety door rattled. He quickly unlocked it and was scaring the shit out of me. I took a few quick steps backwards. He was surprisingly young, maybe early-mid thirty’s, like me. He was wearing jeans and a grey shirt. He was barefoot and had the most frightening, but sad eyes. Standing in the entryway he dug into his pocket, took out his wallet, and fished around with his cards and stuff hastily. I watched ants crawl over his feet and looked down at my brown dress leather shoes, I hate ants. He pulled out his social security card.

“Yeah, I know I’m not supposed to carry it around, but I do anyways. Dylan Shelby Blue, 644-90-3335. There, got that? Ok, is there anything else you want from me?” His calmness shook me. I noticed that he was wet, as if he had jumped out of the shower and threw clothes on. Beads of water clung to his neck, I wanted them to fall but they stayed stationary.

“Uhh, um well, I have to write it down…” He was watching me watching him, I dug through my pockets to find things to write with.

I heard him take a long, slow breath and say, “I just woke up, I’m numb.”

“What?” I found a pen and a business card to write on and looked up at him.

“Punch me in the face!” He was smiling.

“Excuse me?” God, if Henry hadn’t said anything…

“C’mon, punch me in the face! HAHA! You don’t even know, do you? Do you even know what happened to me? Does it even matter to you guys?” He started laughing, hard, even his eyes changed. He looked sincerely happy, like he wanted to shake my hand and congratulate me for finding him. I dropped my arms to my sides, unsure of what to do. I didn’t feel threatened, I just didn’t know.

“Mr. Blue, I—” He started to step back into his house. He shut the white door.

“I’ve got nothing! My life, my love, all gone! You! You go back to your whatever you’ve got.” I looked down to where his feet were, they were still marked on the pavement and it made me nauseous. I heard his voice again and looked up, “Call the police.”

He shut his door. I ran back to my car. I imagined him coming out with a sawed-off shotgun and killing me, ants crawling into my shoes, into my brains lying next to his footprints. Once in the safety of my car, I looked back at his house and realized I didn’t get his social security number. I drove away, what had happened to him?

I got back to my cubicle and Googled his name, Dylan Shelby Blue.

A portion of Interstate-8 will be closed this morning due to an accident involving a semi-truck. Linda M. Blue, 33, and her daughter, 4, were killed. The driver of the truck was uninjured.

The report continued on to describe that Linda had pulled their black Honda Accord off to the shoulder, partially, and had failed to turn her yield lights on. It was 3am when the semi-truck obliterated the sedan. The article was dated around a month ago and closed with a number for donation to Mr. Dylan Shelby Blue. I thought about how feminine his name was. Then I remembered about him wanting me to call the police. I was the last person he saw that day, he was on the five o’clock news. Suicide.

Before going to bed, I thought about the ants on his feet. Their creepy feelers and tiny limbs racing across the tops of his skin, how long did he stand there for them to make a trail? Did ants fall in love? I thought about the instant he realized he was alone. The phone call, the family coming to console him. I mean, we get tragic cases all the time, but something happened to me. Some stupid idea of driving over to this guy’s place to get his stupid fucking Social Security Number and then him asking me to punch his stupid face. Why? Why that?

I think I fell in love with his losses. I think I fell in love with the heartbreak and how it shook my consciousness. I think I fell in love with the tall grass and weeds, the empty driveway and those goddamn ants. No one ever knew I was there.

When I came home that day, Wanda was out by the mailbox. I went straight to bed and started having that dream. I am a coward. I am a liar. I won’t wake up for the selfish reasons. And if I’m talking to a wall, I’d lean against it. I can’t leave. Even if it is just an idea. A terribly selfish idea. A devastatingly complete idea. It’s never fleeting thoughts or prayers said under breath. Have I even heard you? After all that we say? I hate the artificial feel. The world is getting smaller. How funny that we were confined in libraries and envelopes! That we longed for something intimate and we got a screen and buttons. Touch my face, buy your groceries! Pop that ad, sign-up free! Romance the click, tomorrow is a horoscope reading! My small capsule of sleep fording a river of bright lightning treadmills, running the length from me to you.

Some day we’ll all realize that we never want to wake up. We never do.

She shook me awake, “Baby?”

I answered her without opening my eyes and then I fell asleep again.

“Baby?”

“Wanda?”

“Why did you run to bed? Is everything alright?” She asked with concern. That was the first time she woke me up from my ‘waking up’ dream. I was confused and disturbed.

I am driving to work three months after the “Blue period.” I am calculating. I find myself in the taillights of the car in front of me. I realize my mistake. It’s not the dream of waking up, it’s not about falling asleep either. This is about me. With my one hand on the steering wheel, with my Wanda wallpapering my insides, I realize why I dream about waking up: Love. For Wanda, for life, the ass hats and celebrities, the five o’clock news and raisin-colored ants; all of them crawling their way into my dreams, keeping me with them forever.