Out for a date

   The moment the food arrived to the table, Anne started eating. She was please that Ryan had finally called her and asked her out for dinner but the truth was that she had been at home wondering about how she would survive the next couple of days, without any food on the cupboards or on the refrigerator. Then, she felt as if God himself had called her when Ryan timid voice came out of her cellphone, asking if she would be willing to go out with him for dinner and some drinks afterwards.

 Right after accepting, she realized she had probably made a mistake. After all, it wasn’t the first time that Ryan had come up to her and asked for a date. He was always looking at her in the office and would be kind of creepy about it, always nearby, pretending he wasn’t really looking but obviously doing it. For a moment, Anne had thought of even calling the police in order to ask for advice on how to handle a stalker. But she had other things to do and she eventually learned to live with it.

 He had actually stopped being so creepy until that night in which she had accepted his invitation. While dressing up, she tried to come up with ideas of what to say when he asked why she had finally accepted. Maybe Anne could tell him that she had always been very appreciative of his intentions and his presents, such as candy that he had always left on her desk. He never said it was him but it was obvious. She had a full jar, filled to the top with candy the candy that he had left her over the last year.

 As she put on her high heels, she realized it might be the best idea to tell him the truth. Maybe, as a person of the same age, Ryan would be able to understand how difficult of a time Anne was having with money. She was barely able to pay the rent and all of her taxes, so food money was always scarce and this was the first month she found herself trying to save every single piece of food for a later date. But now she had nothing at all. Maybe he would understand that.

 She grabbed her purse, her coat and walked to the main door. She looked back and realized she did feel guilty to take advantage of the poor man. It wasn’t fair for her to just take on his proposal when she could use it and then drop him like a bag of potatoes. It wasn’t fair. As she entered the elevator, she decided to tell him the truth and just try to enjoy the night. Maybe he would understand and they could become friends. After all, they worked together and sometimes people find out they have more in common that what makes them different, so they could really be friends, for real.

 Anne arrived at the restaurant just in time. She asked for Ryan and one of the waiters took her to their table. It wasn’t the fanciest restaurant in the world but it was much more than Anne would ever be able to afford with her salary. The people there looked entertained, some of them were clearly faking it but others did seem really happy. Other people were there for business meetings, some even with their families and, a couple or more, were there cheating on their wives or husbands. It was obvious.

 They finally reached the table, were Ryan had been waiting for under ten minutes. He helped Anne sitting down and they discussed what everyone discusses for the first five to ten minutes: the weather and what had happened that day. It was trivial talk and clearly none of neither of their interests, but it was always kind of expected to talk about how cold or hot the days are and criticize the taxi services in town or maybe blame some politician or group of people for traffic jams that have always been there.

 Passed that time, they ordered the food and then a very heavy silence fell between the two. It was difficult to really start a conversation with someone you already know but do not really know anything about. So Anne opened her mouth to talk first, ready to tell him the truth about why she was there but Ryan was the one to talk first. He looked really nice that night and it was the first time Anne really looked at him, paid attention to his face and his words and not the character she had made up in her mind of him.

 He said he was very glad she had accepted the invitation and talked a little bit about the restaurant and how him and his parents loved to go there together, whenever they were in town. He told Anne about how he had grown up very far from the big city, in a farm were everything was simpler and, somehow, better. He always had trouble communicating with people but he was happy that he was making some advances on that field. Again, Anne tried to talk but Ryan, with a hand, asked not to be stopped.

 He continued his monologue, saying he had met the most amazing woman ever. He was in love, deeply in love and he wanted to ask her hand in marriage. However, he didn’t feel he knew everything he needed to know about her and that’s why he had asked Anne for dinner. For a moment, Anne had no words. She had no idea of what was happening. What was Ryan thinking, just coming out of the blue with such a statement? Who did he think she was, an easy girl that would marry any man just because she’s single? She was about to stand up and leave when he spoke again.

 Ryan was in love with Erica, from accounting. They had hit it off right away once he had been transferred there and he knew very well how good friends Erica was with Anne. So that’s why he had thought about her in order to discuss his next move. He wanted someone who knew her to tell him more about what she liked and didn’t like and to know if they thought it was a good idea to propose so soon. They had gone our countless times but maybe that wasn’t enough.

 Anne was speechless. She had really thought it was all about her. She was really prepared to yell at him and make a huge scene in order for everyone in the restaurant to know what a pig and crazy he was. But that wasn’t going to happen anymore because the man she had profiled a while ago as a creep, was not even interested in her. He was interested in Anne best mate at work. She wouldn’t even call her a friend, just a person that she liked to hang out with during lunches and such.

 So after the food came, which she practically devoured, Anne explained all of that to Ryan. She had to be very clear about her not really being friends with Erica. She didn’t even know much about her past or who her parents were or even what she liked to do as a person. But Ryan didn’t really mind about that. He needed a woman to tell him if what he was thinking of doing made sense, if it was the right move. He clarified he didn’t care about their relationship, he only needed urgent advice.

 Ryan suddenly got very grim and seemed to be on the verge of crying. Anne felt very sorry for him and started to talk about what most women like and don’t like and some clues he should be attentive for if he really wanted to pop the question. They talked for several hours, having drinks after the food and even laughing at some of the points they were trying to make. Anne realized it was good that she had come, not only because she was helping Ryan but also because she was making a friend.

 She eventually explained her reason for coming and Ryan just smiled, telling her it was not a surprise that a young person would have struggles with money. No one seems to have enough to survive anymore, or so he said. He was understanding and even charming about it.

 When the moment came for them to day goodbye, Anne decided to ask Ryan about the candy on her desk. She asked him bluntly if it had been him. But Ryan was confused by the question and then they went their separate ways. So Anne had a new friend but she also had a mystery to solve.

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.

What I saw in the cave

   No matter how much I try, I will never forget what I saw in that cave. The scientists had already done their digging and everything was as organized as it could be. To my surprise, people I had known from the past and from afar, were working with them. I didn’t know why but I never asked anything in detail, it was better if I was in the metaphorical dark. In the cave I was in the real dark, a humid place that appeared to be like a museum, at least in the first area I stepped in. It was a scary thing to do, entering that place, but I did it anyway.

 Then, I saw him. It was very strange: he came up to me and said “Hi” and I answered. We knew each other but, deep in my being, I didn’t know from where or why. He seemed to stare at me to much, making me a bit uncomfortable. I tried not to look at him too much because he made me feel worried somehow. Then, another man appeared, one that was already leaving the cave. That one I knew very fast who he was: I had bought my ticket in from him and I think I don’t really have to explain what that’s supposed to mean.

 We didn’t looked at each other for long, instead pretended to ignore one another. A kind girl I had known back in high school gave me a helmet and some protective goggles. I had to loosen them up a little bit because they were really tight around my head and I was already getting a headache from seeing two guys I had been intimate with in the same place. I suppose that didn’t really spoke very well of my behavior but, to be honest, I don’t really care how others perceive me as long as I’m able to get whatever it is that I want.

 With the girl, I started to descend into the depths of the cave. I was getting more and more nervous because I knew what they had found there, I knew very well why I had come and it was because I wanted every single piece of the truth in my power. I wasn’t going to give up an ounce of the knowledge I had gathered along the years and I certainly wasn’t going to pull back from getting my hands on every piece of information I might need. I think everyone that knows me has that in their mind when they see me and, to be honest, I like it.

 Julia, the girl who takes me deeper and deeper into the ground, doesn’t seem to care about any of that. She had always been so kind and respectful of everyone when we were in school together. She was a little bit like me: never excelled in anything, always been a very average student. However, she had it clear in her mind what she wanted to become: a renowned journalist. She worked her ass off for it and made it. Now she worked with this corporation because she thought she would get the first scoop on the story.

 I got scared for the first time when I stepped on a rock covered in moss and I almost fell right in the hole they had made in the ground. Julia was very agile and managed to grab my hand in the almost dark, pulling me back afterwards in one go. She was stronger than I had imagined and now I understood why they had hired her. Maybe she had being trained, like all those other security guards that I had seen around the compound. They were like huge rocks, impossible to overcome. They weren’t even scary but massive.

 We descended a little bit more until Julia took my hand and told me to let her lead, as there was a doorway built into the wall that lead into the space which I wanted to visit. After walking for a bit, we crossed a plastic curtain and then there was a very potent light. She told me to grab one of the hazmat suits that were hanging on hooks on the side of the tunnel and put it on as fast and as efficiently as I could. I don’t know why, but I started to shake a lot right there.

 When I was done with suiting up, I realized she had been ready for a while. I couldn’t hear her and she couldn’t hear me. I guess the suits prevented even know from getting in or out. I felt strange, not very sure of what I was doing but I was already there and there was no turning back. Julia walked first and I followed her. The tunnel continued for, at least, fifty meters and then it opened up into another chamber in the cave system. Julia had a flashlight and made me realize how massive the space was. A building could have easily rested there.

 Then, she grabbed my hand and indicated with her hands that she was going to be pointing the flashlight downwards. And then she seemed to ask something of me: to remain quiet. I didn’t really understand why she would do that sign. I did moments later when I didn’t obey her advice and screamed at the top of my lungs. It was the most awful thing I had ever seen and the image was now stuck in my head, in my eyes even. She pulled me out as fast as she could and, in what seem seconds later, we were on the entry point of the cave.

 I ripped off my suit and decided not to listen to her orders or to anyone else. I dropped every piece of equipment as I walk straight to his office, to Michael’ office, the guy I had slept with in order to get in there. He wasn’t in the office. I started looking around for him but the small group of trailers that made up the camp next to the cave was not exactly a big one. There were not really many options to where he could have gone. I left the last pieces of the suit there, turning around as if going crazy.

 Then, Alex came and grabbed me tight. He took me to one of the trailers and close the door. He was the guy I thought I knew but didn’t quite remember. When I saw his eyes from a close distance, I remembered him all right: Alex had been one of the guys in my life that I had to convince of things that weren’t real. That was my life and now he was in front of me again and the worst part was that he seemed to still think that everything that happened was true. But I wasn’t up for that, not then.

 I asked him, before he could say anything, if he knew about the cave, if they all knew. He told me only a handful of people had gone down there. He hadn’t and neither had Michael. Only Julia and the group of scientists had been there but the rest of the crew in the camp knew exactly what was down there. I started crying. I couldn’t control myself. I told Alex that it was horrible and that I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I had wanted information and now that I had it, I didn’t know if I wanted it anymore or if I could do anything with it.

He held me in his arms, which were very strong, and I realized how nice it felt. Actually, I remembered how I had lied to him for a long time in order to get to another secret I was seeking. He knew who I was and, instead of trying to arrest me or something, he was hugging me and trying to make me feel better. We looked at each other’s eyes and I realized he was crying but I never got to know why that was. Someone was knocking on the door and Alex opened it. He got out and I got confused for a second and then I saw Michael coming in.

 He closed the door behind him and demanded me to tell him what I had seen in the cave. I told him he knew exactly what I had seen and demanded his thugs to let me out of the camp. Michael smiled in the most awful and disrespectful way and told me that now I was theirs and that I had to work with them as a mean of payment for what I had seen. I told him he was insane if he thought I would tell anyone about what they were keeping underground. I would never be able to reveal such a secret to anyone a live unless I wanted to scare them for life.

 He grabbed me by the arm and reminded me how I had thought I had used him to get inside that camp. Now, he was giving the orders and the most important one was that I wasn’t going to get out of there anytime soon. Then, I felt the most awful look all over my body. His eyes felt like the most awful medical devices, making me feel more than naked, almost violated. He got out of the trailer without even closing the door and I collapsed on my knees. My job, my life choices, had taken their toll on me and now I had become something I had never wanted to be: a prisoner. Basically, they had beaten me at my own game.

Corina, Silkat and the pirates

   She left all of her clothes by the shore and the slowly entered the water. The sunrays coming from both suns toasted her skin but it was not necessary because Corina already had the most beautiful skin, which she completely submerged into the ocean after a while. She felt the water cooling down her body and a certain peace of mind that she hadn’t felt in quite a while. She swam from one of the big rocks in the beach to the other. The water was not very deep and it was very clear, so much that you could perfectly see if anyone or anything was too close to you.

 Corina stopped swimming after a while and went back to the beach where she sat down on the sand, leaving her feet in the water. She had wanted to do that for so long. She had been very stressed lately and just needed to relax a while. She worked very far from there, as a nurse. Silkat was one more of the many new colonies, so she didn’t really have a lot of people to handle back in the infirmary, but Corina was ok with that too. Even with a few people coming in, she was glad to help and to learn.

 Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw something in the water. Instinctively, she stood up, stepping away from the water. The water moved again by one of the rocks and it was then she saw it: it was a medium sized creature, swimming very slowly, with not a lot of grace. Corina couldn’t tell if the creature was violent or not but she didn’t move any more than she had. She just waited to see if the creature came closer or if it was just passing by.

 The creature then jumped out of the water and landed almost in front of Corina. She almost screamed but covered in her mouth in time. She realized screaming to a creature that was double her size would not be a very smart thing. The creature looked like some old pictures Corina had seen as a little girl in storybooks. It resembled a lot to what her parents called a seal but this one was larger and its husks were smaller and its skin was light blue. And the end of its flippers, it had something like fingers.

 The creature walked towards Corina and she decided not to move. Even if she had wanted to, she wouldn’t have been able to do so because she was very scared. She even forgot for a while that she was stark naked in the middle of a beach she had just found. The creature slowly walk (maybe it had something like human feet, too) and then raised its “hands” and touched Corina.

She almost screamed but she was surprised to realize the creature was nice and warm and its skin had a nice thing about it, it felt good. It was like its skin had the power to make you feel better. Somehow, she saw the creature’s face form something like a smile and Corina responded with the same. So she had found a friend.

 Corina was about to touch the creature when something loud broke the peace of the beach. The creature apparently felt it just before because it moved quickly back into the water. Corina stumbled to the ground and saw how two men came out of the wilderness by the beach and started shooting something at the creature. It was obvious they weren’t trying to kill it but they were hurting him somehow. The men got near her and she tried to get to her clothes but another men, that she hadn’t seen, blocked her way. When she tried to run the other way, she found another men.

 The creature was caught inside a huge net that appeared to hum, like a bee. It was probably taking its energy in order to control the animal’s strength. The creature complained for a while, but then it stopped making sounds. It had died or maybe fallen asleep. As for Corina, one of the men was holding her and the other one was smelling her clothes and then threw it all to the water. They pushed her into the wilderness and made her walk for a while until they reached the water again but this time there was a boat and they made her go into it.

 Silkat was made of many islands, both big and small. They were no big continents like in other planets. The island on which Corina met the creature was next to a bigger one, where a small town called Pazu was located. The pirates, the men that took her with them, probably used another island as their hideout.

 They tied Corina’s hands with a thick rope and she was able to see that the creature was being transported on another boat, behind hers. She wondered what they were going to do with her. She looked at them and saw only men so she remembered the tales that some of the woman in Pazu had told her. They said that Silkat was not very advanced and that men ruled life in here. It wasn’t like in the rest of civilized planets. Silkat was still in the Stone Age, in that sense and also in many others.

 They reached another island when the sun was setting and they put Corina in a cage made of a strong wood. She would stay there for days, never to see the creature again. She wondered if it had been killed or if had another use for them besides food. It was very classic of her to worry about others when her own situation was not the best. She decided she wouldn’t fight unless she had a clear shot at escaping.

 But that opportunity didn’t present itself the first year. She remained on that cage for many months until they decided to put a collar on her and then make her work for them. They threatened her to activate the bomb on the collar if she ever did something wrong or if she tried to escape, so Corina had no choice but to bare with everything those men did to her. They touched her a lot, like an object of their property. They made her cook for them and also clean their boats and their clothes. She was a slave. They never gave her anything to put on her body except that collar but she didn’t really care because the weather had gotten somehow hotter.

 Every single night, when they stopped harassing her and she could just lay down on her cage, she looked up to the stars and wondered if someone was missing her at all. Maybe the people of Pazu were looking for her, although that was unlikely because she didn’t feel the town was too far. If they had been searching, they would have found her. And her family and friends abroad, they probably had no idea that she had vanished so long ago.

 Some days, most of the pirates left and left her to do her chores almost on her own, only one bodyguard with the activator on his belt. But even so she just couldn’t get herself to steal from him. She didn’t think she could win in a fight. Besides, every single day she felt less like a human been. It was as if they were draining her energy very slowly, second by second. She recalled the net they had thrown over the poor creature and how it made it weaker.

 The other thing was that she worked so hard, in so many ways, that when she was left alone she could only think about sleeping. Corina had stopped wanting real food after she realized the men treated her like a pet and just threw whatever they weren’t going to eat to her: some bones with very little meat on them, hard flat bread and some rotten fruits from the nearby trees. So she preferred to dream. And those dreams she asked, way to often, to be killed or to die fast.

 One day, after almost two years, she saw most of the pirates coming back as she was cleaning their clothes by the shore. Then, some of their boats exploded and she could hear gunfire. She tried to take a better look but her eyes weren’t what they were anymore. She could only see there were other boats there and that the fight was savage. Then, she felt someone stand behind her. It was a woman, fully clothed, with the activator on her hand. She pressed the button and Corina thought her death had come.

 But it didn’t. The activator was actually a deactivator. The pirates had never wanted to kill her. As the woman that rescued her told her some days later, “They need their slaves”. She was dragged into another boat and brought into civilization were she was cured and then asked if she wanted to remain on Silkat or if she wanted to be transferred. She thought about it for a whole day before realizing she wanted to stay to help build that society, to make those men realize they couldn’t do what they had done to her. She wanted the universe to be fair.