About dreams

   This time, I really thought I was living my dream. Everything looked so real, the people and their concerns. They didn’t seem to be following whatever I wanted them to do; they actually seemed to be doing what they wanted. The places looked so authentic, real and well crafted. I have no idea how my brain created that place I was in just some minutes ago but I think I wouldn’t mind going back some day. The difficult thing is that I have to be really tired and not being able to sleep a lot in order to go so deep into my dreams.

 Waking up gets so much harder like that… I would love to be able to choose everything inside a dream. Not only who appears and how, but also the setting and the story and, of course, the length of it all. They are some delicious dreams that make you believe you are on top of the world and, often, they only last a few minutes or at least feel like it. I would love to be able to choose everything because dreams are the best doors to access when the eyes are getting closed and resting is the prime objective of the evening. I love when it happens.

 Thankfully, I haven’t had a bad dream in a very long time. I actually don’t remember when that happened and I think it’s better if I don’t try to recall that event. Nightmares are awful and populated by the most disgusting creatures our mind could ever control. Nightmares are chaotic and that feeling of not being able to get hold of anything is the one that really makes us wake up sweating or screaming. Is not what actually happens, which we know is false, but rather the sense that we are not safe anywhere, even inside our heads.

 But yeah, nightmares have been off the table for a while or at least the ones that are openly awful. I have had dreams that are strange and difficult to understand. Even there, in the middle of the dream, I know that nothing is real but at the same time I know that there’s nothing that makes sense and that makes it worse somehow. Knowing that you are dreaming makes everything a little bit more real, for the better or for worse. But I think I prefer it most of the time, it kind of gives me the idea that I am a little bit more in control.

 Right now, my body hurts a little bit but that’s because I didn’t slept a right amount of time. I push myself to do things no one is asking me to do and they have this negative effects on me. Feeling like crap when I wake up is nothing really knew for me but it’s even harder and more painful when I push too hard and when there’s a dream involved. I feel I slept during a movie and now I will never know the end because it was a one time in my life kind of thing.

 What I like about dreams is that, if your head is up to it, anything can happen. You might have one of those dreams in which you fall and fall and fall through a various array of holes but you could also meet someone you haven’t seen for many years. I think the brain creates whatever is better for us at that moment: if we need a hug, it will create someone that can give it to us. If we want to feel smart, our brain will go back to a moment we felt exceedingly brilliant. Of course, things can be a lot more complex than that. Just like in real life.

 I believe that in every single dream, you have the capacity to intervene and make it yours. Many people thing they are passive subjects when they dream, having to go through some determined events in order to get to the final part of the dream where you may have some kind of revelation or maybe just wake up thinking nothing at all. I do think you can use your mind to affect the outcome of any dream and I even think you can decide when it should end, all of this in the right sleeping conditions, as they are not all ideal.

 For me, dreams are the base of what I try to do. I have been creating things out of them for a long time and if it wasn’t for that subconscious part of my brain, I wouldn’t have as many ideas as I have. I’m not saying that they are all amazing ideas that have to go somewhere but I do like that my brain keeps creating, even if just changing a little bit of some ideas that I have had before or even twisting stories that I have read or heard about. I have to admit that I am probably not one hundred percent original at all times. It would be very hard.

 What I don’t like about waking up from a not satisfying night of sleeping is that, for the rest of the day, I feel like there’s something missing and I’m right. Because what I miss is rest and what I have is an unfulfilling dream and there is nothing in the world that can make that feeling go away. That feeling of being tired and not fulfilled by anything. In those cases, dreaming come too close to actual living and, I have to say, I don’t care about that one bit. If dreams become as heavy as life, then the magic is lifted and everything goes to dust.

 I already have a real life and, although it’s fun when dreams imitate life, I know how to tell apart the imitation from the actual thing. If they both become the same thing, a very essential way to cope disappears into the world. It’s scary to think that we might, one day, not be able to dream again. Some people actively try to eliminate that experience from the nights because they think it makes them feel weak, because it scares them. They don’t want to face themselves and they hide behind any possibility in order not to do it.

 I think it makes us very human, although it also makes us a little bit paranoid from time to time but I do not think that’s always something wrong. I think it’s great when there’s something in life that can shake us so much. And who better to do that than ourselves. We are the ones creating those dreams after all and we cannot be afraid of our own selves. It is simply ridiculous to hide away from who we really are, whoever that person might be. People have to stop living in fear and embrace whatever character may lurk in the darkness.

 Of course, the word “darkness” doesn’t mean that everything buried deep inside us has to be bad or anything. There can be very good things in the dark too but we will never find out if we don’t dare to take a look. And the perfect place to do it is in a dream, where nothing can really hurt us. We have to learn to be scared and to cry and even to scream. We have to accept that some parts of life are more difficult than others. We have to learn how to look at ourselves in the mirror, without any fear but with our eyes wide open.

 All of this sounds so weird, so insane. But anyone that has ever dreamed can easily understand what I’m saying. It is a world of wonder but also a place where we can learn so much about who we really are. We don’t find out about that going to the other end of the world but just hearing and watching what our brain is telling us, all those things buried below the surface of our own personalities. Everything that we area is there, waiting to be able to surface or at least the be represented in some capacity in the real world.

 We all have bad thing and good things. No one is saying that we are going to like every single thing about our personality that we find deep inside our subconscious. But we have to acknowledge its existence in order to be able to handle it correctly. If life gives us the possibility of learning more and maybe improve in some areas of our lives, I think the smart choice is to take that chance and exploit it as much as we can. Knowledge has never really been a curse, only for the ignorant and the ones that live in fear but not for the brave.

 And brave we shall be. Yes, even when we go to bed and close our eyes or when we open them and realize we are in a brand new day. No matter where we are sleeping or who is next to us. We have to be brave in order to accept who we are and dreams are made of us. Their fabric is our life and our thoughts, so we have to learn to embrace it in order to have a stable mind and heart. No one says dreaming is easy, it never is. But it’s the first step to greater things.

Moving on

   As soon a he entered the premises, every single employee was requested to stand still in front of their assigned spaced and smile at him as he moved through the maze of corridors that made up the wellness center. Every single worker knew who Vladimir Natarenko was: the biggest name in boxing in the last decade. He had just defeated his closest rival. In doing so he had become the world’s champion and more than one woman was craving to get close to him. Not only he was very attractive, despite all the cuts, lacerations and so on, he was obviously getting wealthier by the second.

 Carmen stood still in front of her assigned room and waited for the big guy to pass. She wasn’t specially thrilled by the prospect of seeing him or anything. Of course she thought he was really attractive but that day she had receive news from the mortgage on her house and she was in desperate need of money. The one thought on her head was all about asking her boss for help, for a certain amount that she could pay with work or something like that. The center did very well and Mr. Crane was a very nice man that did the best for his workers. She trusted help would come from him.

 Vladimir finally passed in front of her door but, she was too distracted when he greeted her, smiling with his beautiful cherry lips and his big blue eyes. She just gave him her hand and shook it. Vladimir looked at Carmen as he walked away, being moved by his manager. She didn’t even notice him at all. She just went into her room and decided the best moment to ask for money was during lunch, when most people were outside of the building. She didn’t want anyone to know. It was partly because she felt embarrassed but also because it wasn’t their business.

 Trying to focus on her job, she organized her station and received her first costumer of the day. It was a very thin girl who started talking as soon as she walked in. As always, Carmen turned on some music, lit up an incense stick and asked the costumer for her favorite body oil from those she had available. Then she put on the oil on the person and the massage session would begin. They lasted for around forty minutes but people could ask for longer or shorter ones, depending on what they needed, if they felt pain somewhere in particular or anything like that.

 The girl was an actress and she just went on and on about her career and how it was very hard to get the right role and how sometimes she had to do things she wouldn’t normally do. The woman could have told Carmen all the secrets of her craft but she wouldn’t have listened to any of them. She did her job well but her mind was absent. Her hands glided over the girl’s body and sometimes she needed but that was the only way to know she was still, kinda there. Losing her house was too big of a deal to care about anything else.

 The same happened with the other two clients she had that morning: she was so distracted that, when the second one (a tall guy, very handsome) asked her for her number, she told him that it was a pleasure to have had him and just pushed him out the door. She really didn’t have time for men at that point in her life. She needed a miracle to happen in order to help her survive all the difficult things she was going to face if her house was taken away from her.

 What hurt her the most was the fact that she had inherited that house only two years ago, when her parents had died in a tragic car accident. They were traveling by car in order to have a relaxing weekend and a truck just rammed them on a very tight curve. She would always remember the day a policeman called her and bluntly told her that they were dead. She had wanted to know who he was to punch him and teach him how to have a heart. But she never knew who he was and maybe it was for the best. She was in no state to do anything.

 Thankfully she had that job and they paid better than in other places but still not as much to pay all the bills. At first, she had thought the house had been a very nice present from her parents but soon realized she would have many more financial responsibilities and Carmen was not ready to assume all of those. She barely made enough money to support herself, so paying bills for a house too big her was not easy on her. Many told her to sell it as soon as she had received it but there were too many memories and she was still in deep mourning.

 Now, years later, she had moved on. However, she still thought the house should stay with her and maybe use it one day to raise her own family. She thought of that as a tribute to his parents and her family in general. So when lunchtime came, she almost ran to Mr. Crane’s office. Her secretary asked her to seat down and wait until he was available and she complied but it was very difficult to sit still, repeating in her head what she thought were the right words to phrase her request. Her hands were now moist with sweat and she had to clean them on her jeans.

 The secretary finally told her to go in and she did so by trembling all the way to the door. She greeted her boss and he asked her what it was that she needed. She realized he was in a mood and that made her doubt for a second. Bu then she started talking, very fast, telling the whole story of the house and her financial situation. When she finished, her boss told her he was glad she was so honest. However, he confessed the business was not doing so well so he was unable to provide her with the money. He told her he would try to help her out with something but further along in the year.

 As she stepped out of the office, Carmen felt her knees shaking like crazy. Her boss had been kind, as always, but the answer she had received was obviously was not the one she had desired. As she walked to her station, she realized how obvious it was that he wasn’t going to give her any money: he was right, no one was coming to their spa. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration but the number of clients was diminishing. She used to have up to eight clients in the morning, now that was down to three, sometimes even only two.

 Carmen realized two things as she walked slowly through the corridors: the first thing was that she wasn’t hungry at all. She had brought a big salad from home but she had no time for food right now. And the other thing was that her only solution now was to sell the house she had grew up in. As hard as that decision was, it was the only possible one, unless she wanted to be jailed for not paying all of her debt. It was a horrible choice to make but her time had run out.

She stepped into her station just in time: tears came running down her cheeks and she covered her face as she squat on a corner of the room. She felt miserable. Not only sad but also very disappointed on herself. She felt ashamed of losing her family heritage and also because her life hadn’t taken her anywhere. She lived from massages and on the weekends she did the same thing for anyone who would call and she was getting very tired of all of it. She was getting tired of her life and that she was always, apparently, on the brink of losing it.

 Suddenly, she felt a hand on her forearm. As Carmen looked up, Vladimir’s big blue eyes looked down on her. He asked her what was wrong. She stood up fast and cleaned her face, in a vague attempt to pretend nothing had been going on but he interrupted her by saying he had been there the whole time as his next stop in the spa was getting a massage. He had been lying in there for a while when she came in. Carmen was embarrassed and tried to apologize but instead, Vladimir asked her o tell him what was happening. Surprisingly to her, she started talking.

 As Carmen kept talking, she indicated him to lay down for his massage. It was the first time it was her talking during a session and not the other way around. The best thing was that he seemed to ask all the right questions and seemed genuinely interested in her problem. When she finished, and the session was done as well, Vladimir told her losing the house might be for the best, as her parents would always live in her heart and mind and not in the house. With those words, he left with a smile. Silly enough, that session and those words were exactly what she needed.

 And the big tip he left her, too. Help comes in the most unpredictable packages.

Change

   It’s very strange when everything is so familiar but, at the same time, it feels so strange, as if it wasn’t real. Of course everything is real. I haven’t stepped into another dimension or anything of the sort. I just stepped into a plane and, because of the time change, it seems like an eleven-hour flight was only about four hours. I suppose that means I gained some time but I do no feel very fortunate to have achieved that. Again, it feels like I’ve cheated somehow but that’s silly, as many people do it in a day and other lose hours, myself included.

 The body is the one that is the most confused. My mind, I think, can understand the issue but the body, as you know, has a process of adjustment that takes a bit more time. And it’s not only about the fact that time was involved in the process, it’s also the change in weather and surroundings. Things cannot be more different and, at the same time, they are exactly the same. I know: I don’t really make sense. And, to be honest, I won’t be trying to make sense for the next few lines because I think it’s not necessary. Everyone can understand this situation.

 One thing that struck me right as I stepped out of the plane was the cold. I mean, I have lived with this cold for a good time of my life, but I didn’t seem to remember how peculiar it is. It feels like something gently pressuring your body from every side, very gently. It’s certainly not as awful as full-blown winter weather but it had a particularity that I think most people ignore. Maybe it’s because it can go away pretty fast if the sun and the clouds help, not that it happens that often. Oh and the clouds! So many, many thick clouds.

 I forgot I wasn’t going to see much of the sky here. It rains constantly, making the city appear even darker than it is. The weather in some parts of the world really doesn’t help at all, not the people living there or the ones visiting. And it always leaves a lasting impression because it’s the subject people love to talk about. They remember the weather in one place better than many other things that could happen. It could seem as if it wasn’t that important but I do think it is crucial to what someone might think and how a place can be perceived.

 Oh, and I’m coughing. But it’s not the weather here that caused that. Instead, it was the dry cold air in the airplane, which has been really annoying to me in the recent days. Before this flight, I took other two less than two weeks ago so it makes sense why my nose cannot seem to get better at all and why I seem to be in the brink of the flu every day. I think I’ve been able to push it away for a while but it would be difficult to do that forever. At one given time, I will have to be sick again and I’m not looking forward to that at all.

 Another funny thing, or maybe not funny but just curious, is the fact that my bags felt very full but, in the end, they did not contain anything out of the ordinary. Just clothes, some souvenirs and a bunch of paper I like to collect in the form of tourist brochures, magazines, books and others. I don’t really have that many pieces of clothing or anything. In fact, I had to throw away a few things in order to be able to get it all in the bags without making them too “overweight” for the airline’s regulations.

 I will be able to put everything in its place in less than thirty minutes, maybe even counting all of that paper I told you I have. It gets a bit ridiculous when you’re able to put every single piece of your life in two bags and then move them from one continent to the other. It really makes you think about the print your putting into this world and how important it might really be. It makes you think about your life, your achievements, everything. It can certainly be kind of overwhelming, when you’re playing close attention.

 But I did it without paying attention and I think it was for the best. It’s not useful to confront everything in your life in one go. It is much better if you just deal with one thing at a time. That guarantees that you can achieve better conclusions, instead of suffering because of everything that you might “find out” about yourself. I guess it really depends on how much you know and accept yourself. It may be even possible that you don’t have to face any demons because you don’t have any. No one knows how fast people confront their fears and anxieties.

 Sorry, I feel I veered in the wrong direction with that last paragraph. I guess it’s because change is always so hard on people, no matter who you are. Change takes a toll in the heart and the soul but not always in a bad way. It’s just one of those things you have to deal with and I’ve done it before so I know what I’m talking about. It can be very challenging to get from point A to point B, sometimes even impossible for some. But for others, like me in this very moment, it is not a matter of wanting but rather a matter of having to.

 There are clothes on the floor and objects beneath the bed. The bags are there, gently asking to be liberated from all my things and even my cellphone is asking to work in an environment different to the one he was in. Even inanimate objects seem to realize that things have changed. Or maybe that’s just me, imagining things to make everything a little bit easier. Who knows? Or… who cares, to be honest? I think I’m allowed to think and care about many different things right now, especially as I get used to the altitude, which can take a while.

 Page three and I think I have nothing more to say. It feels weird that even my fingers seem to weigh more here. My body in general feels heavier for some reason. Is that even normal? I hope it is because it’s certainly no fun at all. I expect my head to hurt a little bit in the next few days and my eyes to adjust to the light, because even that it’s slightly different. People never think about things like that and the fact is that they really affect your life without you even noticing.

 I have some reordering to do, some things to throw away and some others to fit in their new spots. I think that may happen in the next week or two because everything will feel strange for a while now, even people’s accent, as well as their way of doing things. I now it sounds silly but people are only equal before the law. In all other cases people are extremely different in ways that most people never even think about. I like that but at the same time I know how difficult it can be to adjust. Time will tell I guess. Isn’t that funny?

 I forget to say that I feel different anyways. I mean, I’m no exactly the same person that left a year ago. It may seem like I am, and probably not that many things have changed, but I do feel I have made important changes in how I perceive the world around me. It has been in my best interest and I frankly don’t think all those changes will be annulled being in here. If anything, they will all be but to the test again and that’s what life is all about so I don’t fear any of that. Challenge is a natural process and I, for one welcome it.

 I will have to make adjustments, of course. Pretending nothing has changed is a stupid way to face life. The best thing is to find out what’s the best new way to do the things you have and like to do and then it all becomes clearer and life just transforms into a good path to walk on. And that’s what I really want to happen. I want a path to follow; I want my steps to be safe and not to stumble down from one side to the other. I want to have security and also I want to be certain that life can find it’s way to me and me to it. Does that make sense?

 Probably not. I think that many of the things I wrote here, this morning, don’t make any sense at all. But that doesn’t really matter. I can blame the cold or the bed or maybe even my body. Hell, I can even blame my brain for being robbed of many hours! The truth is change has happened and it would be, at the very least, interesting to know what happens next. So many things are lurking around in life, waiting to be found or to jump on top of you. Let’s just breathe a little bit and take it slowly, trying to avoid pain and just having the best time possible.

Who Dunnit?

   There was a little bit of cold chicken in a bag and some old bread around the second big bin. The trick was to clean it all real good, being careful none of the filth of the rest of the thing inside the containers could harm the good things that were waiting for anyone to grab. Viv had been doing I for five years and now she knew how to look for the best in the best parts of town. Of course, she had to go at night, but not loo late or the guys of the garbage trucks would throw it all away.

 One day, she was even lucky enough to find half a pizza. And I was very good, made out of a lot of vegetables. The only bad thing was that it was cold but to that she was already used to and she didn’t care at all. In other places it was very hard to get any of that but that neighborhood, called Spring Heights, had the best meals for any person that happened to live on the streets. The problem was the security crews and the police who loved to fuck anyone who entered those communities.

 Every time Viv was caught there, she reminded the police that she wasn’t doing anything wrong and that no one could get harmed by her feeding herself with things no one even wanted anymore. It wasn’t like she grabbed clothes or real expensive things from he garbage. She could’ve but people in that area seemed to be very careful not to throw away things that were very valuable, except when it was about food. Then they didn’t care at all about the treasures that they gave away.

 One day she was even able to eat three sushi rolls. Viv was scared about that food because she knew it was raw fish and that, if old, she may have been in for some serious stomachache, but nothing happened and she realized how overrated that kind of food was.

 But her moment happened the day she found something very different in the garbage. She had managed to avoid the private security, again, and was checking on some boxes by a big house on the hill, when she was almost paralyzed with fear. When she took out a plastic bag filled with lots of crap, there was something in there she knew wasn’t very common to see in the trash: it was a human ear.

 It was the first time Viv ran to the police. At first, they didn’t want to talk to her because they knew her really well but after some serious consideration, they heard what she had to say. The consideration was basically when she three the bag with the ear on the chief of police’s desk and was almost tackled to the ground by two male officers. Her move had been very bold but effective, as the police sent several of their own to check the rest of the boxes she had been going through.

 They found the other ear and also a couple of fingers. When they rang the bell at the mansion the bins belonged to, they didn’t get any answer. The cops seriously had no interest in talking to anyone in that house but it was a formality that they had to proceed with. The house was better known as Montecarlo, the preferred mansion in the city of one of the richest men alive. Or maybe it was fairer to say he was barely alive, as he neared ninety years old. That and his unlimited power were the reasons cops didn’t really want to bother him.

 But in any case, no one answered the door. They tried multiple times for months and no one answered. Even when contacted through the main offices of the conglomerate the man was president of, no one would say a thing. It was very uncommon and mysterious but also predictable as no well known person would even think about being caught in a scandal such as that one that not only involved body parts found in the trash, but also a homeless woman and the police.

 The ears were sent to a laboratory for exams and the results were very interesting: apparently, they had been removed fairly recently, not even a month ago. The studies also said the owner of those ears was probably younger than forty years old but older than twenty-five years old, according to the cartilage and general shape of them. They also concluded that the ears had been sawed from the body they had been attached to, which indicated the police that they may have been dealing with the case in the wrong way.

 Those techniques to remove body parts were primarily used by men in the mob or in any other organizations that dedicated themselves to using violent methods. The cops went through every single mobster they had arrested recently in order to get a confession that they had done it but none of them seemed to understand what he was talking about. They were even so bold to say they hadn’t done that in a while.

 But how to believe a mobster when he was arrested for reckless driving and attempted murder of their own wife? Others had even had their closest enemies killed and had no problem at all talking about it. But they’d rather be damned than accept they had cut off those ears. They didn’t insisted on the subject but most of them were consistently positive they had nothing to do with it.

 That was not good news for the police that had been investigating for more than six months and nothing had come up: the mobsters said they weren’t the ones, the owner of the bins was a no show and even Viv had stopped helping them because she thought the police was only good for taking her away of all the street’s great prizes.

  Almost a year would pass until another body part was found in a garbage bin; very close to the ones that Viv ad been going threw. The foot was from a male body and it wasn’t especially big. The scientists at the police were able to confirm with a high degree of certainty that the foot and the ears came from the same person. The police couldn’t ignore this anymore, so they ordered a sweep of every trashcan in the hill. Groups of people would go through every single garbage container in order to look for the rest of the body.

 The cops were smart enough to get Viv to help them, as she was the one that knew perfectly about every single spot to throw food and possibly body parts. They started on the bottom of the hill and worked their way up. They didn’t find anything near the first houses but as time passed, other parts were discovered: a nose, a finger, and a toe. They kept appearing as the police worked their way up to the top of the hill, where the wealthiest people lived.

 Of course, the whole thing was an epic scandal and many rich people thought the police should stop targeting their neighborhood as if they were the ones to blame for whatever had happened. They insisted no one from the hill would even think about killing, simply because they were all so rich they didn’t need to do it. Their reasoning was easy to understand but simply not good enough.

 After several weeks of research, they had collected enough body parts to do a proper examination and attempt to reconstruct the whole person or at least what was his or hers most likely appearance. When Viv found a penis by a fence, they knew it was a male. All the parts were dry some that’s why blood testing was impossible and only reconstruction of the whole body was the only real solution to the problem.

 Searches on the garbage bins ended soon and the police dedicated themselves for a week to reconstructing the body, part by part. There were still some large parts missing but most small pieces were there. It was one of the female cops that dropped her coffee when she entered the room to deliver a letter to the chief of the scientific staff. She knew whom the body had belonged to.

 This time, they didn’t ask to be invited in. The doors of the mansion were toppled down and every corner of the premises searched. The head was found on a pike, in the living room, by the fireplace. Someone really hated the richest man in the city, to the point of killing him in his own house and dividing his body all over the hill. Who had done it?