Something felt different when I woke up. Sunlight was streaking through my window and onto my face. It nearly blinded me and then I looked outside. There wasn’t any snow on the ground at all. Where had it all gone? The sun wasn’t hot enough to melt all the snow away that quick. It was too cold out, but something told me that it wasn’t cold out at all. There was a pool open in the backyard and this told me that something wasn’t right at all. Then it came to me, this was a dream. But then I realized it wasn’t because I never had this much awareness and consciousness in my dreams. It wasn’t winter, which was the conclusion I came to. I didn’t understand what was happening at all. When I had fallen asleep it was winter but now when I woke it was summer. I got up and looked around to recognize my room. Nothing seemed too different except for a few clothing items and miscellaneous items scattered throughout my room. I was confused more than anything and that’s all I could seem to feel at the moment. There was no sound, not anything, just me and my confused self staring around my room like I was in the twilight zone or something. Then I saw a pistol resting on my desk along with a hip holster that was most likely used to put the pistol in. When I opened my bedroom door things just kept getting weirder.
The rest of the house seemed different. The room that had been across from my bedroom was now an office. There was a room to the right where I stood and then I walked to the door that had once been an attic. I opened the door and walked up the stairs to see that it had now become a room. The room was full of newspaper clippings on the wall and there were guns and police material scattered everywhere throughout the whole room. I began to hear noise and then it sounded like a door slammed. I quickly got myself back down the stairs and could hear several voices coming from the first floor. I seemed to just stand still in the hallway wondering what my next move should be. I was too slow though and before I knew it I could hear people coming up the stairs. I just stood there like I had been for the past several minutes and waited to see who these mysterious people were. I could tell from their voices that they were both males. When they finally came to the top of the staircase they both looked up at me at the same time. One was taller than the other but they were both shorter than me by a fair amount of inches. The taller one looked to be about 6'0 and the other one looked to be about 5'11. There wasn’t much difference in height but a difference nonetheless. The shorter one had dark brown hair, and it was fairly long, his bangs just above the eyebrows. The taller one had short, light brown hair. The taller was extremely built where as the shorter one was still built but much slimmer looking in appearance as compared to the taller one. They both looked to be in their mid twenties but it was just a guess; I was 17 and they looked a little bit older than me. All three of us stood there for about a minute before the shorter of the two men finally broke the silence.
“So you must be Joe, right? Yeah you're definitely him. What am I saying? Welcome home, my man!”
I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say other than the obvious, “Where am I? Because I am pretty sure that this is not the same place where I feel asleep last night.”
“This is what you have always wanted, your dream life, the reality you thought you would never be able to experience!”
“Dream world? What are you talking about? I have no idea who either of you are or where the hell I am except for the fact that this is my house but with a few tweaks and differences to it.”
The taller one spoke up this time realizing that his partner and I weren’t really getting anywhere with our questions and explanations.
“Sorry about my brother. He can sometimes be confusing at some of the most confusing times for someone. My name is Paul and this is my brother Jay. You are Joe, correct?”
“Yeah, but who the hell are you two? Can you tell me where I am?”
“Although my brother is confusing at times he already answered your question. Welcome to your new reality, Joe.”
I was extremely confused and I didn’t realize that for quite a while I simply gave the two a blank look. I had no idea what either of them was talking about, what new reality? I just stood there trying to figure out why this dream was so much different than all my others. It was too realistic and usually when it started feeling like that, I would wake up. I wasn’t going to wake up this time though--that was for sure. Paul then spoke up for he could clearly tell how confused I still was.
“Listen none of this will make sense right now, but this is what you wanted. You did choose this. We were just stopping by to see if you were really here, but we gotta go back out now and get some uhhh groceries.”
The two of them then left leaving me back alone in this transformed house of mine. I walked back into my room trying to think of what Paul and Jay had said to me. Paul had said that I chose this and that this was what I wanted, but that just didn’t seem to make any sense to me. I paced and I paced and then it hit square in the face. It all seemed to make some sense to me now. Paul and Jay were all of the sudden familiar figures and this whole house and environment seemed to ring a bell to me now. They had been in a few of my more recent dreams. I was your modern day “secret agent” shall we call it, but it was more along the lines of my being a bounty hunter. It was exhilarating, at least in my dreams. This was my dream, but yet it was apparently my reality now.
In what I considered the real world, my life wasn’t the best and I never seemed to find myself happy. Every night I had wished for something like this to happen, that one day I would just wake up and my dreams would come true. Well, someone must’ve listened because my dreams had all of the sudden some true. I was living in a different world and I had no idea who I was in this world. I was anxiously awaiting the return of Paul and Jay now that I was aware of the craziness happening to me.
I must have fallen asleep because I woke to the slamming of a door from downstairs. For a minute I thought that it had all been a dream but when I heard Paul and Jay’s voices coming up the stairs I realized that it had not been a dream. There was a knock on my door several seconds later and I told the two that they could come in. I seemed a little less confused and speechless this time around, which made the two seem a little more at ease.
“Well I think I have somewhat of an idea as to what’s going on now. You said I wished for this, nearly begged for it to happen to be exact actually, but how could this be? This is like some science fiction stuff that were dealing with here.”
Jay stepped forward as if he was going to come give me a hug or something but then he stopped. He hadn’t said much before when I had first met the two but it looked like he was choosing to talk now.
“That’s just it isn’t it? I mean who cares how this happened, it happened and that’s all that matters. You gotta new life now, so it’s time to throw that old one of yours out.”
“I can’t just throw my past away, my parents, my friends. How do you expect me to do that?”
“Well your parents and friends and whoever else are still around, I mean your relationships with certain people are just a little different that’s all.”
“What do you mean different? Just when I thought I was making sense of this whole thing I’m all confused again.”
“Why be confused, Joseph? There’s absolutely no point. Think about it, this is what you wanted and here you go you got it. It’s going to take some time to adjust, but you’ll get the hang of it before ya know it.”
Whoever said it was not in the room but instantly after that an older man walked into the room. He had slightly long hair that went down to the middle of his neck. It was slightly gray and it was smooth and completely straight. He looked to be about in his early sixties. He was almost a god-like figure the way he made his appearance into the room and that warm feeling that his presence automatically gave off to me.
“Sorry if these two have confused you any more than you already are. They’re just a little excited that your full conscious is finally here.”
“What do you mean my full conscious?”
“Well, Joe, you’ve gone on missions with these two before but that was in your dreams with only some of your conscious. Now you're fully here, flesh and all, and we get to finally meet the real you although what you are in this world is some of you, but we finally get to see the whole picture now.”
“Right, well I guess that makes some sense. But how am I supposed to know what I’m doing or how I was before I fully got here?”
“Your job skills will come naturally. Don’t worry it’s all in that head of yours. As far as the social life goes I am sure you won’t have a problem with that part; you sure didn’t in the other world. I thought I’d stop by real quick just to introduce myself but I must be off for now so I’ll let these two confuse you more.”
After a small smirk the elderly man left. Who the heck was that though? All these random people showing up in my life all of the sudden, I sure didn’t remember him in my dream.
Paul must’ve read my mind because out of nowhere he said, “He’s our pops, kind of runs our business. He is a good man. You’ll like him. Don’t worry.” I just simply nodded not really sure what to say, but I had to admit I did know that I was going to like him for he seemed like a very friendly and helpful man.
We just stood there for a minute or two before Jay came out and said “All right. That’s enough of this awkwardness. We'e going out and letting you see your new life, my dude.”
“Sounds good to me, man. I guess that’s the best thing to do for now--ha-ha.”
As we walked downstairs the living room seemed to be the same as my old house but with a few different features. The large flat screen was a change and the fine looking furniture of high quality was another difference. As we walked through the rest of the house I must’ve been dazed because before I knew it we were outside. We weren’t in my hometown anymore either. It was winter when I fell asleep and wherever we were now it was definitely summer. The humidity was extremely hot and it reminded me of somewhere I had been before, Florida.
“Uh where are we exactly and what month is it?”
Jay quickly responded. “It`s December, stupid. C’mon you didn’t fall asleep in June or something did you? Oh and you're in Florida now. I mean do you think you wished you could live your dream life in New York? I don’t think so.”
I had to laugh because he was definitely right but he was just naturally funny as I was finding out. Now that I was a little less confused as to what was going on Jay seemed to be opening up more. He wasn’t the quiet one that I thought he would be at first. The whole car ride to the bar we went to he was talking, jokes for a couple minutes, and then it was on to funny stories about missions we had had before. When we arrived at the bar everyone seemed to know who we were. I actually recognized a lot of faces so I was able to say hello and make myself look like I knew where I was and what I was doing but the reality of it all was that I had no idea. We sat at the bar and Paul asked for a round of Coronas. Like before Jay was off and talking again but directly to me this time.
“Place is filled with the ladies, my man. I’m surprised you haven’t gone out there and done your thing yet.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Dude, c’mon you can’t tell me you don’t know this?” Jay looked over at Paul and he just smiled and shrugged, amused at Jay’s disappointment in me.
“Dude, you're like a bachelor up in this world. You’ve got to be kidding me. You couldn’t have lost that.”
“Well, I mean I know that I have had different relations with certain girls here than in my other life but that’s about all I can remember.”
“Jesus man, we gotta a lot to work on to get you fully accustomed to this place.”
“Ha-ha I guess so, man.”
It was hello one minute and then yet another a minute later. I felt like a celebrity at one point; I couldn’t believe it. We must have been some damn good bounty hunters to have publicity like this. I enjoyed it though; I wasn’t going to deny that one bit. We left the bar and headed back to the house and the whole ride back I couldn’t stop thinking about how crazy all this was. We walked through the door and Jay let out a quick “uh-oh." I turned around to see what the problem was and Jay just started laughing giving me no indication of what was funny. He pointed to the telephone answering machine and followed the motion by saying
“It looks like some ladies called for you Joseph ha-ha ha-ha." I walked over to the phone and I recognized a lot of the names. Some of the names were names of people I was friends with back in my past life and some of them I just knew who they were.
“Why the heck are all these people calling me? I don’t even know most of them; they wouldn’t ever call me”.
Jay just shook his head in dismay amazed that I was saying these things.
“Dude, welcome to your new reality. Your life is completely different here. Once again pretty much anything you’ve dreamed has happened here and will continue to happen now."
I slept and there were no dreams no nothing, just the emptiness of a dreamless sleep. I was in my dreams now and the shock of everything that had happened to me nearly kept me up all night. None of this could really be possible could it? When my dreamless sleep finally did come there were voices, ones from my past that I used to hear everyday. I woke up and the digital clock displayed nine o clock. I had only gotten about five hours of sleep and yet I didn’t really feel exhausted at all. I didn’t go back to work until the Monday starting next week. I was glad because it would give me some time to catch up on what I did. There were texts and calls and all kinds of stuff on my phone and the house phone. I couldn’t respond, although I did anyway to most of them saying that I was busy but would get back to them. When that was, I had no idea. Jay and Paul were off at work so I was alone for most of the day. I read up on past cases we had done and this was some pretty serious stuff. We hunted down some crazy people who really didn’t care about what they did at all. It was a dark world we were dealing with and it was only about to get darker thanks to one man. His name was Roger Shay. He was known as the shadow and apparently thanks to me he had gone to jail once. He had connections and on his way to being transported to jail he escaped, thanks to his buddies. Now he was out there doing god knows what and most likely looking for a chance to get back at me for capturing him. It was a lot to handle and I had just been introduced to this whole new crazy world.
Time had passed, an hour here, an hour there, and then all of the sudden there was a knock on the front door as I was watching TV in the living room. I walked up to the front door nonchalantly not thinking it would be for me; well it was. I opened the door and here stood this gorgeous girl who it took several seconds to realize was someone from my past--the other world. Her name was Lauren and she was gorgeous from head to toe, but what the heck was she doing at my door? I let her in seeing there was really know other option and I had absolutely no idea what was going on. We sat down and right off the bat I could tell she saw something wasn’t right.
“What’s up with you? How come you’re so quiet? I’ve never seen you like this."
Lovely. I hadn’t said a word and she was all over me about how different I was acting already.
“Sorry. I didn’t get too much sleep last night, you know work and all."
“It’s that shadow guy isn’t it? Listen you need to relax, all right? That’s why I came over here. Paul and Jay were talking about how stressed out you were with this whole thing so I came over to keep you some company”.
I should’ve known they would pull this kind of stunt on me, and it hadn’t even hit me until she had said that.
“Ah yes good ole Paul and Jay. How thoughtful of them to send you over here. Well what can I say? I guess they were right. They know me too well they do."
It was a long hour because the girl liked me and I guess it was like that for any girl I knew. After I told her I had some things to do for work and I assured her that I felt much better due to her visit and that I’d call her to hangout over the weekend she left and I was alone again and free to myself. Once Paul and Jay walked through that door I was going to pummel them both. I had to start laughing though; they were two of my own brothers trying to play the dirtiest of jokes on me. This was home, who was I kidding? I started to think that maybe this was where I belonged.
There I was sitting in my old room just thinking like I always did. I wasn’t happy but I can’t really say I was sad. I remember those days sitting in my room thinking the world away, it wasn’t something I enjoyed doing. I could see myself as clear as day sitting there right hand on my chin and my face staring off into nothing. It was the look of extreme concentration, but on what? Then I was sitting in front of myself. Was this really what I looked like? My face was almost emotionless and had a defeated look to it. I was lost and confused and something just wasn’t right. Then it looked right at me as if my dream self could see me watching it. Then I woke up to the sound of two restless brothers just getting home from work. I had dozed off on the couch apparently and had to have been sleeping for a good hour or so.
“Well well well. Look who it is. I must ask where is the lovely lady we sent over here to comfort you with? The lovely Lauren I believe it was, am I right?" Jay snickered.
“She was here, you jerk, and things went fine. We talked and it was very nice, thank you very much."
I smiled and could see Jay was very disappointed with my simplistic answer. Oh well. It was all he was going to get.
“Oh how nice," Jay responded, but with not as much a snicker this time.
The night was young and we went out again for dinner and then again I found myself lying in bed thinking how amazing this all was. Now the dreams came in rapid fire and they were getting clearer and clearer. I saw people from my past and things I had done in my other world. It was like a home movie that had clip after clip of all the good times I had. Then faces and names appeared and the happy dream became a darkening one and soon I could hear yelling and shouting coming from what sounded like outside my conscience. It was Jay and Paul but it was too late because when I opened my eyes, I was in my bedroom again. When I had fallen asleep it was midnight and the clock simply read 12:01. As I reached up to the windowsill next to my bed feeling for my phone I felt two pills. There was also a small paper next to them. I turned on my light and read the paper,
The pill in your right hand, your dominant hand, is the one you take for your dominant choice of life, the one you truly want. The one in your left hand, the hand you're unsure with, is the pill you take for an unsure life. It is as simple as anything else that requires a choice though, once you make it there’s no taking it back and your decision has been made. Happy choosing.
Sincerely,
Paul and Jay
I sat there for nearly fifteen minutes debating, but I had already made my choice hadn’t I? I mean I had been there it was no turning back, but for some reason I wasn’t so sure this time. Was that really what I wanted? a whole new life and this one just put behind me? I swallowed the pill with a loud gulp and suddenly everything went blank. I opened my eyes to a brand new day, oh yes a brand new day.