Gradie dreamed of being chased and a gun that refused to fire. As he awoke, the details of the dream faded like vapor, but the fear remained. He told himself it was the fear of being late again, another write-up, another meeting, but it wouldn’t fit. It was the fear of having forgotten something. A revelation given by the dream, slaughtered by the alarm.
Morning broke open as he hit the highway and the sky turned a sweet pinkish-orange, like the strawberry-banana drinks he used to get as a kid, glass bottle shining in the summer sun, dripping condensation like mercury. Thin clouds took on the colors and floated lazily above the grey concrete chopping by. Passing cars reflected the sky on back windows, chrome strips, and side mirrors. He tried to ignore it. There was something about it all that reminded him of the dream, of something forgotten.
He worked at an office park off the highway, in a water-stained cement and glass tower. The little gazebos that had seemed so charming during his interview looked like gargoyles two years later and the bowl-shaped cracked parking lot seemed about to fall through into something unknown. He walked across it, trying not to see, wondering how it would look to him in another two years.
He beeped his ID on the door and the noise found a thousand others in his memory, all singing that he’d be here forever. He rushed past the coffee gargling break room, already smelling of microwaved Styrofoam, into a cubicle maze of white noise and coaxing voices. A clock on the wall said 0801. He dropped his bag next to his desk and clocked in without sitting down.
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After a few minutes of daydreaming, he clicked the icon that brought up accounts, like shooting an old friend. The first one had a long history of phone calls to an insurance company with nothing accomplished, each one spent entirely on hold. A small mercy. He opened his bag to pull out his book, a thick paperback fantasy, and locked up like he had touched a live wire.
He went through much of his day, especially at the office, in a series of automatic movements that slipped by unnoticed. (He would park his car at the apartment and be unable to remember anything about the drive home). But now that automata had encountered something unexpected, and froze.
The shape was familiar, but the familiarity was fleeting. Fluorescent light caught a textured matte-black grip and a mirror square of metal.
A handgun. His thoughts became a solid tone, like a piano key held down. He broke out in a full sweat and slumped over in his chair. When he could move, he reached back in, expecting his hand to pass through the gun like a hologram. He wrapped his fingers around it and lifted. It was heavy and real.
What the fuck?
Someone walked down the aisle throwing out good mornings and he closed the bag in a hurry. He pressed his fingers into his palm to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
He was undeniably awake.