You might go crazy

   Kareem had been having some very bad nightmares. So bad they were, that he had already gotten used to waken up two hours before it was needed to, drenched in sweat, with the sensation of having been screaming for a while. He had no idea if that was the case, but the sensation was more than enough to make him very uncomfortable. He would go then and shower right away, trying to clean away every single corner of his body. It wasn’t the sweat that made him do it, but the images in his brain after he had the nightmares.

 He would see them again, sometimes, as he walked from his home to the bus stop and also at work, where he was supposed to be focusing on sales and numbers. Kareem had always been very good at his job but his performance had steadily dropped from the moment his nightmares had started to the moment his boss called him to his office in order to explain to him how important it was for them all to have their employees focused on the job. It was a way of telling him that they would be many eyes on him from now on.

 When he got home from that, he realized that it was time to deal with the nightmares and, by definition, with whatever was causing them. He hadn’t been sick recently and he knew very well he hadn’t done anything wrong at work or to anyone else around him. His relationship with his family was a bit tense, but that had been happening for years. The nightmares couldn’t have any relation to that, unless his brain was too slow to understand how his familiar bonds were a problem to him and maybe to his way of life.

 He decided the first step was helping himself fall asleep faster and in a deeper way. So he started buying various types of teas and herbs to make infusions with, which he would take religiously before going to bed. Some of those worked and some others were definitive disasters. But even those that worked never did the same good job twice in a row. The nightmares always came back, one way or the other. He also tried exercising, which he had considered for a while but he was too lazy to properly commit to a workout routine.

 Kareem would go to the gym for an hour late at night and try to make himself as exhausted as he could. He would arrive home, shower in a few minutes and then just drop dead on the bed. It actually worked for a full week before, one Sunday morning, he woke up thinking he had wet himself on the bed. Thankfully, it was sweat, but that meant the nightmares had made a comeback. He even tried not sleeping at all but that caused even more problems at work, problems he just couldn’t afford to have. He was even summoned once more to his boss’s office for falling asleep at his desk.

 Kareem went to the nurse’s office located on the office building he worked for. After all, she was supposed to be there for all the employees of the company, which was one of the top investors in the region. So he just made an appointment with her on the phone and visited one day after work. He explained his whole problem to her and she asked for some time to reflect on it, as she couldn’t determine at first sight if there was something physically wrong with him. She also asked him to go to the hospital and get some tests done.

 He spent a whole Saturday doing that, which had to be the worst way to spend one’s weekend. He had to give a blood sample, a urine sample and a stool sample. He was also checked by at least three different doctors and even a psychiatrist appointment was scheduled. Everything was done to know what was going on with him and he was actually grateful so many people took an interest in his life. Actually, they were more interested in him not being able to sue the company, if they happened to be the ones to blame.

 The process took several weeks, in which Kareem still woke up sweating and screaming. He was so desperate and sad, that he started going to bars that closed late in order to have a drink and just avoid falling asleep. At least, he did avoid doing that at home. It was very uncomfortable when he was woken up by a very angry patron at a bar, where he had apparently fallen asleep and then started screaming like a lunatic. That just made him drink even more, which resulted in the formation of an addiction.

 He would go out at night and buy several beer cans and bottles, as well as wine boxes and sometimes other things that he could be able to afford with his salary. But all that booze was only making him fall more and more into an abyss, the same one to which his nightmares had been pushing him to. The day he found himself drenched in sweat, after passing out on the living room, all stained with vomit and alcohol, he knew he had to do something to really fight whatever was happening with him.

 But the doctors couldn’t find one single problem with his body or his mind. Kareem begged them to tell him he was insane or stupid or something, but they refused to do so. They insisted that there was nothing wrong with his and that his problems could be psychological. That was rapidly denied by the psychiatrist he had been forced to talk to, as he explained in a letter that Kareem was only a bit anxious and worried about his future, but that there was no evidence to support any other theory. So he had no answers and he was probably a lost cause.

 As a consequence, he was fired a week after the test results had been sent by mail to his boss. As the company had paid for every single test and appointment, they were obliged to notify his boss. The man treated Kareem very badly, practically ignoring all the good work he had ever done in there. He accused him of being just too lazy to realize and acknowledge that his work was too much over his head and that he wasn’t really able to deal with all of it. Kareem had to hear it all and then receive the letter were his firing was made official.

 He grabbed a box, threw all of his things inside and just left. He didn’t talk to anyone, as no one had had the balls to say something to his boss. Everyone had been able to hear what he told Kareem, as the offices were made of glass and nothing could be left to the imagination. But again, no one said anything and that hurt him deeply. He even grabbed a report he was working on, due a few days after that day, and just took it home to burn in the oven. The company depended on that report but Kareem had depended on them.

 After all of that, one would think the nightmares would have stopped. But they simply didn’t and Kareem dove even deeper into alcoholism. He was so out of himself sometimes that he would actually go out and just become that crazy person that yells crazy stuff on the street. That was how he was arrested one night, after running after a girl who had not wanted to tell him what time it was. Two police officers beat him and took him to the station.

 He was freed days later, because the woman had come and had decided to remove all charges against him. The police wanted Kareem to stay for longer, but they couldn’t do that. So they just threw him out. He was sober but very sad and walked the longest route to his house. When he got there it was very late and he wasn’t interested in all the emails and calls he had been receiving. He would deal with his former boss the next day. He just wanted to fall asleep and die or at least rest for a couple of hours, before the screaming began.

 However, he was woken up by his cellphone ringing loudly. He didn’t even know he had the volume on so high up. He almost didn’t answer but he decided to do it anyway. It was one of the doctors from the hospital with some very important news. He needed Kareem to come to his practice as soon as possible.

 In that doctor’s office, several medics and nurses were gathered. They announced that a very rare parasite had been discovered living inside of him. They had concluded all of his problems had come from the presence of that organism. Kareem stared at them for a while and then just left, in silence.

The morning after

   The moment I opened my eyes, I had to closet them shut again. The ray of light falling on the bed ignited an instant headache. Besides, the amount of alcohol I had consumed the night before was piercing through my brain. Both pains made me stay there for a while, until I realized I was not at home. It was strange to notice it by just smelling the covers in the bed, but that was the thing that really made me wake up. I was completely naked on that large bed, in a very beautiful room that seemed particularly spacious.

 I got out of bed and walked towards the window. I was in an apartment building, probably in the seventh floor or so. I could see a park right in front of me: some people were walking the dog and others their babies. The sun was up there, in the sky, shining brightly with only a few clouds covering its warmth. It was probably around midday. Then, I realized I hadn’t gotten home. Walter, my cat, would be begging for food. I had completely forgotten about him the night before, because of the alcohol.

 I turned around and looked for my things: I found my cellphone on the floor, near the bed. But I couldn’t really see my clothes. I entered the bathroom and it was very big, the size of my room in my apartment. My clothes were nicely folded on the counter, just besides the sink. I took that as a sign to wash my face. Cold water felt amazing on my skin, it really help woke me up for good. I realized I had some breakouts on my face, no idea how the hell I had gotten someone to take me to their place looking like that.

 Then I realized, rather slowly, than someone had actually been there with me. I checked the garbage bin in the bathroom and, sure enough, there were two condom wrappers. I felt kind of bad in that moment but also good because even in that state I had been careful enough to protect myself. That was something. Now, I had to put on my clothes and walk the famed walk of shame towards my home. I really wanted the man I had been with to be out at that moment, I had no intention of talking to him.

 As I put on my underwear and my socks, I tried to remember what I had done the night before. I had met a friend in a restaurant and from there we had gone to a party filled with people. So many people, that I had felt I needed some booze in order to properly socialize. I have never been the kind to be great at communicating, so I know I had drunk some vodka or something. The party must’ve worked like a charm for me because I had woken up in a very nice place the next morning. I had no idea what I had done after I started drinking. No idea at all, which wasn’t a good thing.

 When I was fully dressed, I checked my jacket to see if my wallet and my keys were there. And they were. I also found some mints, which I must’ve grabbed from the restaurant. I didn’t really want to get out of that room, but it was necessary in order to get home. I had to find the main entrance fast and just run out of there, whatever happened. Walking towards the bedroom door, I heard something that paralyzed right there on the spot: someone was whistling very nearby, probably in the same apartment.

 I doubted for a moment but then I just opened the door and walked fast, looking around me: there was a small corridor with paintings all around and then the living room. There was no one there and the entrance was probably very near. I was looking for a door as I passed the dining room but then I realized there wasn’t a main door but an elevator. I pressed the button, all the while thinking that the rent for such a place was probably something I would never be able to pay in this life or the next.

 Then, another noise: the elevator rang a bell as it arrived. Just when the doors opened, a man appeared from the other side of the dining room. His hair was all over the place and he was wearing an apron with cartoons drawn on it. I noticed right away that he wasn’t wearing any else beneath the apron. The elevator doors closed again, as I hadn’t gotten inside. I was paralyzed looking at him, as he walked closer and asked me if I was already leaving. I felt, once again, like a complete piece of shit. I wanted to sink on the ground.

 I have to say that he was a very nice looking guy. He wasn’t a top model or anything but his body looked pretty decent behind that silly apron, and his hair was very cute as it was. What got me, almost surprised me, were his eyes. He had beautiful honey colored eyes. They seemed like the kind that change colors depending on how the person feels. For a moment, I forgot at what he had told me because of those beautiful eyes. How could I not remember them from the night before? How could that even happen?

He smiled and asked again. I told him I had to leave because my cat was probably hungry and I really needed to get to him. He smiled again and asked me to have something to eat before I left. At first, I told him I couldn’t but he insisted and I just couldn’t say no to those beautiful eyes. So I followed him to the kitchen, were he told me he understood my hurry. He whistled again, but in a different way, and out of nowhere a cat, white as snow, jump out and started doing turns around his legs. The animal looked at me with a certain curiosity, but didn’t get near me immediately.

The guy asked me to sit down on a high stool on the bar the kitchen had. I did, trying to conceal the fact that I had no idea who he was, his name, profession or, really, anything about him. Remembering was not really something I could do and even if I tried, my headache would grow in size. He then put a glass of tomato juice in front of me, saying it was very good for hangovers. I smiled at him and drank some. I had been a little bit too innocent thinking he had no idea I was severely drunk the night before.

 The juice was delicious and then he served pancakes with lots of syrup and strawberries. I hadn’t eaten pancakes in a long time, as I never really had time in the morning to do such a simple thing. And the days I did have the time, I would just spent that time sleeping, trying to feel rested. As I ate, he spoke about cooking and I just stared, ate and nodded. I couldn’t really do anything else because I still had no idea who he was, what kind of person he was and what kind of person he thought I was.

 Had I been a very honest drunkard, telling him every single thing there was to know about me? Or had I been the type of drunken idiot that comes up with an alternate lifestyle out of nowhere in order to seem more interesting? He had stopped talking and apparently I was doing some funny face because he smiled again and told me it was a shame that I probably didn’t remember him. Right then, I laughed loudly. I just couldn’t help but feel relieved and the way to let it all out was laughing like a crazy person.

 I confessed I had no recollection of the night before and that I felt really bad about it. I was about to say a bunch of meaningless things, in order to make him feel a little better, but he interrupted me and said that he was very happy to have met me anyway, as he hadn’t met anyone so good looking and great in bed as me in a long time. I laughed loudly again, but he just looked at me, no smile or anything in his face. He had meant every word. I stopped and blushed like a high school girl. I felt so stupid.

 I finished my pancakes and told him I really had to leave. He asked if he could take me home but I decided against it because I needed to buy some things before getting home. After all, I had run out of cat food and I had just realized that. He smiled and asked if he could hug me goodbye. I said yes.

 You know what’s weird? I felt that hug in my soul. It made me warmer. I felt better after it and realized he was a really nice person. I pressed the elevator button again. I got in and right before the doors closed, I asked him his name. He smiled and winked at me, waving his phone at me. Right then, I got a message on my phone and the doors closed.

Joanna's zoo

   Joanna was the person in charge while the zoo was closed. She wasn’t the girl who fed fish to the dolphins while they were doing their show, or the one that joined the visitors in each stop in order to tell them everything about the animal they were watching. She was just the girl that fed the animal after hours, when everything was quiet and most creatures were sleeping or, on the contrary, just waking up from their slumber. She preferred like that as she had never been a person of the spotlight.

 What she loved more than anything was joining the scientists, the men and women that worked hard in laboratories trying to discover a cure for the many animal diseases that most humans knew nothing about. Just like them, she felt that by learning about those diseases and destroying them, they could all be able to make the human race more resistant and the whole world would see a surge in numbers for many species that had been threatened for years without a reason.

 However, Joanna had only been in school for two years. She hadn’t even completed the first half of her education. She couldn’t be allowed yet to a laboratory or anything like that. If she had a job there being so young, it was because she had almost begged for it. She needed that job to help out at home, where her mother was too fragile to work in anything and her sister Julie was still in school, so she couldn’t be able to help. It was her obligation to bring money to home.

 Of course, taking care of the animals didn’t pay as much as one would think, but it didn’t pay as badly as other jobs such as waitress ones and so on. The thing was she was in charge of feeding them and cleaning their habitats, which could be really disgusting sometimes. The animals didn’t mind doing their business anywhere they wanted, so her work was sometimes a little bit of a challenge because of many factors. And she also had to do some security work, for a couple of hours.

 Joanna actually liked her job. It wasn’t prestigious or different every day, but she did learn a lot of stuff about the animals by just watching them. Besides, the zoo was normally very quiet at night, so she could wander around just thinking about her stuff, her life. It wasn’t that she loved to do that, but everyone needs a place where they can stop for a while and just think about how life is going for them and if they want something more out of it. Of course, the conclusion was, every time, that she would like to have an easier life than the one she had.

 Her shift began when the doors of the zoo closed, at five in the afternoon. She had to stay there for five hours, until the security team hired by the zoo’s administration would come in to do their rounds. They stayed until opening time, at nine o’clock the following morning. So she didn’t have to stay that long but it was a lot of work packed in just a few hours. She had to clean everything and make it look as if it was new in that time, which was hard but she always made it.

 The only times she was afraid of anything was when she had to clean and then feed the creatures in the Komodo dragon habitat. There were five dragons, all adults with a very bad mood. She had to put the food in a special space for them to run towards it and then she could trap them in that place for a while, as she cleaned the habitat as fast as she could. This could only last for a while, as Komodo dragons eat extremely fast and they don’t care about small spaces at all.

 It was scary but entertaining to see all those majestic creatures during the night. Joanna felt she had a private glimpse into the lives of the animals that people rarely saw. She felt annoyed when she thought about all the people that visited the zoo and never learned anything about any of the animals. It was supposed to be a place for education but most people just used it as a park that you pay to go in. Some couldn’t care less about the animals, they just wanted a place to chill with their kids.

 She would often think about how the world could be changed by just ending the whole zoo system. Of course, she was one of its employees but the truth was that, as a student on the subject, she thought that zoos were not really the best way to get to know an animal’s ay of doing things, his way of life. That’s what science needed to know but by standing in front of a cage watching a bird, you don’t really learn a lot about it except that it needs a bigger space to fly and be comfortable.

 One of her ideas for the future was to create some sort of tour agency that would be specialized in getting people in and around ecosystems that have a lot to teach to humans. She would only take adults in those trips and only the ones that proof that they want to be there to learn and not only to take a nice little stroll around the jungle. They don’t have to be scientists or anything related, just interested in animals, like she was. She even had a three at home and her parents had never being against it because she actually did a great job taking care of them.

 Her cat was called Tigress, as she looked like a small tiger. Her dog’s name was Sherlock, as he was very good at finding stuff, although he had been much better when younger. He was now a little bit slow when looking for anything, yet he still was able to find things all around the house. The last member of her animal group was Ranger, a big hamster she had received as a gift from her ex-boyfriend. She had wanted to get rid of it after they had broken up, but the creature was so adorable she decided to keep it.

 When she wasn’t taking care of the animals in the zoo, she took care of the animals at home. And she also had to help her mother and sister, so her work was never really done, only on Sundays when she was given the chance of sleeping late and just enjoy herself by doing things that most girls her age enjoyed like going out to the mall or watching movies and television shows. She rarely did any of that though, as she preferred resting at home with all of her pets.

 Joanna’s story is not one that’s fun and interesting, as many others. She’s just an average person, struggling to come out alive of a situation in her life that seems to go on forever. But she knows, she trusts, that one change it will all change. She will finish college and her mother will get better. Her sister will grow older and will be able to help her around the house more and she may realize all of her dream, the ones she thinks about when she walks around the zoo at night.

 She’s not dreaming too much, she doesn’t think so. Joanna is just an average person, a normal person hoping for something to progress in her life. And she knows it happened because of the animal, because even them are not always the same every single day. They might not be people but they do have temperaments and attitudes. They do change their minds and customs. So, if they change, why not her? Besides, she had way to many plans not to make them a reality.

 Meanwhile, she cleans their shit and gives them meat or corn or whatever it is that she has to give them as food. And she has learned to enjoy it because she’s at peace with them, more than when she shares the room with another person,  fellow human.

When in Rome...

   The first thing I heard was the automated voice indicating people if they had to stand on the doors on the left or the right. I heard the sound as if it was coming from a place very far from me but then it seemed to become clearer. That made me open my eyes and then I realized I was in one of the metro trains I had used years earlier to get to know the city of Rome. People were talking amongst themselves, some tourists were looking at a map above one of the doors and a small child looked at me straight in the eye.

  I decided to stand up and get out of the train as soon as possible. There was another audio automated service and then the train entered a station. I didn’t really see the name of the station I was in. I only wanted to run away from that underground location in order to check out something above ground and feel a little les intoxicated. When I finally got out to the street, I felt very dizzy, my legs had problems letting me stand up and every sound and image apparently adjust itself in a few seconds.

 There was a park bench near the exit of the station and I decided to use it because I wasn’t feeling good at all. I felt my head was spinning around. Besides, everyone around me spoke a language I didn’t know and I didn’t really felt safe speaking to them in English. I felt I had forgotten everything about myself. I tried to remember what I was doing before appearing on the subways but I couldn’t remember.

 A young nun then came up to me and said something in Italian. She spoke very slowly for me to understand what she was saying but it wasn’t good enough for me. Anything that involved thinking hurt too much. She decided to give her hand and I grabbed it without thinking it much. She made me walk around a beautiful but very lonely neighborhood until we arrived to a very typical Roman house with an inner patio. I didn’t know much about religious people but that must have been a convent.

 She fed me and gave me something to read as he washed my clothes on a very modern washing machine. I waited on my underwear in the kitchen and was very ashamed when a group of four nuns entered the kitchen and I was there naked, reading a magazine. The nun that had saved me, I think her name was Angela, appeared out of nowhere and explained the situation to the rest of the sisters.

 They decided to give me a room for the night, as the weather was not as sunny as before and the clothes may take a longer while to be ready. I couldn’t deny the offer, even if I had wanted too. But I didn’t because in that place I felt the peace I needed to organize who I was before appearing on that city and why that had happened.

 That night was very strange. I was assigned one of the cells in the upper floors, were formerly the new novices slept before they were fully accepted as nuns. Sister Angela explained to me that they hadn’t had a new girl in a long time, as she had been the last one. The woman looked in her late thirties and explained further, commenting that girls nowadays had no desire to get in contact with their religious roots and have a life of celibacy and dedicated to the Lord.

 Through the very small window in my room, I was able to see the moon. It looked so beautiful but at the same time a little bit false. I pinched my hand in order to know if I hadn’t been dreaming or something but it didn’t work. I was really in that small room and had to get used to the idea of not remembering anything about my past o at least not in a very obvious way. I was lost, technically, and had to wait and see what I could do to go back to wherever I was before.

 I slept strangely at peace. My eyes closed early and I woke up early too. Normally, I would require several hours to feel rested but in that moment I felt I could take on the whole world by myself. It was a very nice feeling that I had never really experimented before. Normally I woke up much more tired than I was before going to bed. I guessed it had something to do with the strict code the nuns had going on there but I also expected it to be something related to the fact that I was in blank, no memories inside.

 The next day, I put on my clean clothes and they all came to the door to bud farewell to me. They were all very kind people and I would have loved to see more of them, maybe take a picture. But somehow, I didn’t think of that then. It would have been the best proof to guarantee that what had happened had not been a dream or an illusion caused by my mind. I waved at them as I walk further away from the convent, until I didn’t see them anymore and realized how lonely I felt, again.

 After walking a little bit more, I arrived in a square: it was very beautiful and tourists were all over the place taking pictures and discussing the shapes and sizes of the figures in the fountains. I was trying to understand what a couple was saying near me when I heard a voice, a very strong male voice coming from somewhere. At first, I couldn’t tell what he was saying. Then, I understood he was saying my name.

 I looked around for the owner of the voice but there was no one that seemed to have that very deep register near where I was. Besides, no one seemed to be looking at me, ignoring the fact that I was there as if my existence bothered them so much that they had decided to ignore until I decided to disappear.

 That happened a few seconds later, when the voice called upon me again and I understood that it was calling me from very far. Walking rather slowly, I was able to follow the deep voice saying my name. I walked through deserted streets, packed avenues and beautiful gardens until I reached some long and white stairs. The bright sun above made them look as if they were from glass.

 The voice called upon me again, urging me to come to him fast. His message to me had changed so I knew I was very near. When I arrived at the top of the staircase, I realized there was a museum up there. There was a small square and on one side the entrance and on the other side, the exit of the museum. The voice appeared to be coming from the exit so I walked towards there.

 Beyond the machines that controlled the exit process of the museum, there was a fountain and I realized the voice was coming from there. But there was a security guard nearby and the only way I could’ve entered the museum was by jumping over the machines. I decided to pretend I was reading some pamphlets they had on a table by the door. The guard finally moved, in order to face towards the inner courtyard of the museum. I took my chance and jumped, landing silently on my feet.

 I wanted to scream in celebration because I had never done anything so cool in my life, but I realized it wasn’t really the place and the moment for that. So I turned around and walked towards a small garden they had by a room filled with sculptures. The faces of those objects seemed to be looking at me but I knew the voice was coming from a fountain in the garden. Sure enough, there was a huge figure of the God of the seas, Poseidon, on the fountain.

 The figure did not move but it did talk to me. He told me the Gods had decided to bring me to Rome in order to let me know everything was going to be all right. When I heard that, I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or punch the statue or what. I got closer to the water and the figure told me that I was there by choice and that I could’ve left at any moment, if I had wanted to leave.

 As I heard that, I felt dizzy again and then the world became blurry for an instant. Then everything went dark, I felt my head hitting something and then my eyes opened once again. I had fallen from my bed, my insane dream having finished. I was covered in sweat and had to go to the bathroom to clean myself, ignoring the metro card that fell with me from the bed to the floor.