Reflections on NaNoWriMo08

Well, it’s over – I have written 50’000 words and created a brand new novel, Dead-Alive. I’m very happy with the first 40’000 words (most of which have already been published on this blog), the last 10’000 need some major editing. Is there a NaNoEdiMo (National Novel Editing Month) coming along by any chance?

I’m glad I participated in NaNoWriMo; the fact that I found out about it after it had started and just signed on without quite knowing what I was getting myself into made it all the more exciting. However, because of this very reason, I also lost many opportunities to truly learn from the experience.

Lessons for the month?

• Do challenge yourself by participating in such online events

• Do push your limits to the extreme

• Do sprain your ankle right before you have such a challenge to do, because since you will have nothing else to do, you will manage to get all the writing done

• Don’t share things unless you are certain of the outcome

• Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and

• Don’t underuse the resources that are available to you.

In short: it was exhilarating to be accompanied by so many people, some writing with me, others reading my story, others doing both and others who, while doing neither, were sending me emails of support and encouragement. The instant messaging at all hours of the night trying to get out of a writing rut was also a lot of fun. I would definitely encourage anyone who is even mildly interested in writing to get into it next year!

Until then, keep writing (and visiting Sahar’s Blog)!

November 26th post of Dead-Alive for NaNoWriMo08

The meeting went a lot better than I had expected. Even if Jeffrey had chosen people he had thought were open-minded, my years working in criminal psychology had taught me that people were usually open-minded up until their personal well-being was in the balance; then you could almost hear the doors of their mind closing with a loud bang. It was kind of scary.

But these people were willing to give me a shot. They listened to my story and decided that, until proven wrong, they would believe me. Every member of the team had even wanted to see this ability of mine first hand.

“That’s great!” Talya said. “It means that you don’t have anything to worry about. The chances that you incriminate yourself on almost one hundred crimes, some of which happened before you were born, is so minimal that you can sleep soundly as of tonight.”

I wasn’t so sure – sleep would probably elude me. The fact that these people believed me, or at least were willing to believe me, and would now start working with me, made this ability even more real. It was scary. I tried explaining this to Talya, and, to give her some credit, she did take the time to listen to me for a whole minute until she put up her hands in defeat.

“Enough, Sean,” she said, sounding weary. “This ability isn’t going anywhere. You are going to have to learn to live with it. I’m tired of raising two kids alone! Just accept it, and make the most of it.”

She left the kitchen, where we had been working on supper – for which I was thankful for. Cooking alone was a great way for me to order my thoughts.

Talya was right. I had to get over myself. Fighting against the inevitable was taking time and energy away from the most important things in my life, my children. I might as well make the most of this ability and, thanks to Jeffrey, I probably could. The great part about it is that I do have a 100% hit ratio; whatever I see will be real, and will help the cops catch criminals of all sorts. In the psychic detective world this is quite a feat. Never before has anyone had anywhere close to a perfect ratio, and never before had psychic detectives been able to help law enforcement so consistently and efficiently. I don’t give them vague information – I give them descriptions almost as good as a photograph.

“Let’s make a cop nook,” I told Talya when she walked back into the kitchen half an hour later.

“What?” It was clear she had expected anything but that.

But it made sense; it was going to be a physical manifestation of my acceptance of this ability and making the most of it. Even if she didn’t like the idea, she would understand what it meant. “Well, since this ability doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, the more we adapt to it, the more it’ll become a normal part of life. That will help the kids think of it as something normal, rather than something to worry about.”

“Keep talking.”

“They want to keep an eye on me so that they can come with me while I gallivant around town. But they can’t keep posting the poor guys in a car outside the house. It’s ridiculous, plus sometimes I have gone through the back door. So let’s have them inside the house. We have that lovely space between the kitchen and the dining room we have always wanted to transform into some form of breakfast nook; let’s make a ‘cop nook’ instead.”

She looked up at me with a smile. “I like your idea.”

So much so that the very next afternoon, the kids, Talya and I were at a giant furniture store finding the pieces we would need for our cop nook. We bought a small table, six chairs (so the cop could have breakfast with the family), cushions, a small TV and a DVD player. We also went by a bookstore and stocked up on some books, magazines and less child-friendly DVDs.

Once I had decided to accept this ability as part of my life, things seemed to suddenly fall into place. The police station called and offered to put me on the payroll on a per-dream basis. Initially I thought to refuse. It didn’t make sense to me to charge them for something I would be going through anyhow.

“I think we should accept,” Talya disagreed with me.

“Why?”

“Well the dreams do take their toll on you. Were they to break you before the kids are grown up, it would be nice to have the extra money to take care of you while raising the kids as a single mother.”

I hadn’t realised just how much thought Talya had put into this entire situation until this very moment.

I reached over and pulled her in my arms. “I didn’t think about it this way,” I admitted, hugging her tightly. “And I never knew how worried you were about this.”

“How can I not be?” Talya said. I could feel the tension throughout her entire body; it was as if she was resisting my touch. It was unsettling – she had never done that, even during our first date (I had tried the stretch and put-arm-around-her-shoulder trick while watching the movie and she had settled right against my shoulder, as if she had been waiting for me to do just that).

“I’m sorry I have been so wrapped into myself,” I murmured. “I haven’t been handling it well, have I?”

She stayed silent for a few moments before sighing. “Actually, you have,” she admitted. “I’m happy we got help, because I don’t think either of us would have been able to go on much longer.”

“Probably not,” I said, hugging her tighter, touched and a little scared as I always was when I glimpsed just how vulnerable Talya could be. “But we’ll be OK. I’m going to get the same type of counselling that new officers get to learn to deal with these things; maybe you should too.”

“Maybe,” she murmured.

“And just knowing that someone is always going to be here, watching over me, is a huge relief.”

“It is.”

“It’s like a free private security system!”

I felt her smiling against my chest. “Hopefully it won’t get to our heads or anything.”

I kissed the top of her head. “The other thing I’m really relieved about is that Jeffrey was adamant about privacy. The only people who are ever going to know about this are him, his boss, us, the guys at work and the three who are part of the team.”

“I thought they would use you as a political pawn,” Talya admitted after a few moments of silence.

“Me too,” I said. “But Jeffrey says that the increasing ratio of solved cases will speak for themselves, especially that they come without a substantial increase in expenditures. He said they wouldn’t be broadcasting my ability to the general public for two simple reasons. First of all, our security; secondly, the police doesn’t want to be inundated by people claiming to have the same abilities. If they had a real ability, they would find their way to them, just like I have.”

“Maybe we should ask for a raise,” Talya said.

“Especially since I won’t be getting any credit,” I answered.

She looked up at me. “Does it bother you?”

“A little,” I said. “I think I would look good in tights and a cape.”

Talya, bless her heart, understood me immediately. She started laughing. “You would, actually.”

“Thank you,” I said, smug.

“Well, we are getting another great thing out of this,” she said.

“What?”

“We are going to have it easy for Halloween.”

I laughed.

While I did look forward to the extra sense of security at having a cop stay every night at me house, I was particularly looking forward to working with one of them. During the initial meeting I had had, Steve had struck me as a particularly brilliant and open-minded person. He also intimidated me in that while he seemed to be extremely fair, he wouldn’t take any nonsense from anyone. Thankfully I was innocent – that meant that I would never get on his bad side.

I invited Steve to join us a little earlier than his scheduled shift so that he could settle in and meet the family. It had been a little hard explaining the situation to Patrick and Shona without scaring them, but Talya and I managed to do just that. They were now both quite excited at meeting the man who would baby-sit their father – a concept they found wildly amusing.

“I hope he won’t mind being downgraded to a baby-sitter,” Talya muttered after trying for the umpteenth time to make the kids stop referring to the cop on duty as a baby-sitter.

Thankfully, Steve had a sense of humour as well as a great culture when it comes to children’s movie.

“I’m like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop,” he told the kids, who squealed with delight.

“That doesn’t mean you are to run off into the night,” Talya said with a frown.

“Absolutely not,” Steve said. He winked at the kids. “It’s your dad that will have to do that, since I’m here for him.”

Which, of course, sent the kids into gales of laughter.

Steve was amazed and delighted by the ‘cop nook’ we had prepared.

“Of course we will adjust it as we go along,” Talya, ever the perfect hostess, said.

Steve shook his head, still in a daze. “This is already fantastic,” he said. “Thank you.”

“It’s the least we could do,” I said.

Steve grinned. “Thank goodness you didn’t do more; I’d be tempted to let you walk out alone just to stay here!”

We laughed.

“Hopefully you’ll decide to move in instead,” Talya said, smiling at him.

“Although I’m sure the two of you would be delightful hosts, I’d rather stay in my little bungalow,” Steve smiled back at her. “I’m a bit of a handyman; my hobby is to buy a run-down house, improve it – not too much, mind you, just enough to make it liveable again – and resell it.”

The conversation went on, casual and comfortable, until Talya and I excused ourselves. We made sure Steve was comfortable – “Any more comfortable and I won’t do my job!” – before heading upstairs.

“I like him,” Talya said as I slipped into bed.

“Which is a good thing, considering he is spending the night in our house,” I retorted.

She smiled. “I hope the others are just as nice.”

“Me, too.”

Talya’s breathing evened out in a couple of minutes. I used to be just like her – able to fall sleep within minutes of lying down – before this whole sleepwalking thing started. I tried falling asleep but, after sheep number three hundred did a little jig for me before jumping over the fence, I gave up on sleep.

I almost automatically headed over to my office when I remembered Steve’s presence in the house. After a brief hesitation, I decided to join him.

“Not able to sleep?” he greeted me.

I grinned. “What gave it away?”

“The fact that you aren’t sleep-walking?” he said, dead-panned.

I laughed. “You are even smarter than I thought.” I gestured to the table. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” he said. “I insist you make yourself at home.”

I grinned again as I sat down. “I see you are reading my files,” I said, noticing the papers in front of him.

He smiled. “This is all still pretty fresh, so the drive to do homework is high.”

“I know the feeling. The first couple of events were a little hard, but then for a couple of months I was getting this almost sick high.”

Steve closed the file in front of him and leaned forward. “What did you do?”

I shrugged. “Nothing, really. I mean, what could I do? I didn’t know at the time these were real things I was seeing. I thought it was a little like watching movies or visualising crimes in my head as I work a case study. So I became a bit of a cynic, with dark humour and a snappy wit that gives my wife headaches.”

Steve chuckled. “I can imagine.”

“Unfortunately, it gives some people the wrong impression, even my wife,” I continued thoughtfully. “I try to take it as a joke, so that it doesn’t affect me as much as it could… And people think I’m taking it well, and so they don’t give me as much support as I need.”

Steve drummed his fingers once, then twice. “Your plan kind of backfired, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it kind of did.”

“If you don’t mind me saying so,” I shook my head, “then let me say that you shouldn’t care what people think – except for your wife and Jeffrey, who is your principal investigator. They need to know the whole truth. The rest of us are unimportant. Your sanity is much more important – you do have a family to think of. If people are too stupid to realize what you are going through, then tough for them.”

“Not many people know about this,” I said. “And those who do are close to me or work with me. Like you.”

Steve slowly nodded. “I understand.”

“It’s hard to accept that close colleagues don’t always take you seriously.”

“Maybe you’re expecting too much from people who can’t possibly understand what you are going through.”

“Maybe.”

“As for me and the others… I can’t talk for the others, but me… Let me just say that for now, there is no reason for me not to believe you,” Steve said. “But there is no reason for me to believe you – yet. I have to admit that I am not a full believer; perhaps when – if – I see you going through a walking dream, then I’ll have more reason to believe you.”

“That’s fair – and that’s all I ask for.”

November 24th post of Dead-Alive for NaNoWriMo08

I thought that, at the very least, Tanya would be supportive of my decision not to encourage Reena’s feelings by spending one-on-one time together. What I didn’t expect was for her to start laughing, so much so that I hung up on her, something I had never done before. It rankled that she didn’t seem to grasp how I felt. I had the impression everything was piling up, from the dreams to the cops meddling to Reena’s supposed crush on me. The wound on my heart was being piled up with salt, and Talya’s laugh had ground it right in.

I had always known that on many facets, Talya was stronger than me; she compensated my weaknesses, and I compensated hers. But this was the first time it felt like a barrier between up rather than something that bonded us together. We usually fed off each other’s strengths; this time, her strength seemed to sap out the little I had left.

I shook the thoughts out of my head; they didn’t serve any purpose. This was one of my particular strengths, and I decided to make good use of it. I chose to focus on my work and soon got myself into an efficient rhythm; it allowed me to get more work done in three hours that I had been able to accomplish all week-end.

All in all, it was a great beginning to the afternoon. I had the house to myself and the dining room where I had set myself up was bathed in sunlight; the only sounds were that of my keyboard and my favorite songs blasting from the computer’s speakers.

The crick in my neck didn’t get to me, but the phone’s ringing did. Thinking it might be Talya, my heart leapt; I still felt bad for hanging up on her.

“Sorry to bother you Sean,” Jeffrey said.

I squelched the disappointment. “It’s not a problem. How may I help you?”

“Do you have a minute for me to drop by? I’m in the neighborhood, and I need to talk to you.”

Why did he need to talk to me in person? Why couldn’t he do it on the phone? “Of course,” I calmly said, refusing to give any hint as to my true state of mind.

He was there a mere couple of minutes later.

“Come in,” I said, taking his coat and ushering him into the kitchen.

I had already taken out cake and plates; I took out cutlery while going through the usual preliminary civilities.

“I just wanted to make sure you were OK,” Jeffrey said as he watched me pour him some tea.

“For?”

“Yesterday; the attitude of the two officers who interviewed you and Talya mustn’t have been the easiest thing to bear.”

Wait a second; Talya told me her interview had gone well. If Jeffrey was apologizing for both sets of interviewers, it meant… I swallowed the heavy sigh that was rising in my chest. “They were just doing their job,” I said, still maintaining an outward calm I was far from feeling.

“You’re being nice, and I appreciate that,” Jeffrey said “But I know they were pretty harsh. After all, your story does sound pretty incredible. Until they have had the time to examine the evidence and see you sleep walking for themselves, they probably are not going to believe you enough to use the data you provide us with.”

Great. Not only was I going through hell, but apparently, it was for nothing. “I can understand that they would want proof as to the validity of my claims,” I said, “but to be dismissed out of hand is pretty hard to swallow.”

He nodded. “I agree. But, and again, I’m only saying this to keep things clear, since you are probably going to work closely with law enforcement for a very long time… Well, you can come off as a little unsettling.”

“What do you mean?”

Jeffrey fiddled with his mug. It was clear he had spent a lot of time thinking about what he was going to say to me. “You did seem a little detached when you were talking about some of the things you had seen. The jokes were a little odd for the guys to hear when the situation is so dire. And your attitude was flippant. We are trained to identify inconsistencies, and your reaction seemed pretty inconsistent to the events happening in your life.”

I could understand he wanted to defend his colleagues; and I was certain that, at the end of the day, they were good people. But it was just too much. “Thank you for coming here to tell me this, Jeffrey,” I said, intending to keep this short and sweet. “I understand your colleagues’ reaction; I wouldn’t have expected anything less from a good cop. After all, like you said it yourself, this is a pretty incredible story.” So much for short and sweet; but there was too much going on that it just spilt over. “But there are some comments I really didn’t appreciate. I know I might sound flippant or callous and uncaring when I talk about crimes, especially when I talk about those I ‘saw’ in dreams, it doesn’t mean I don’t care. Unfortunately, it’s the most effective defence mechanism I have yet to find. Alongside an increased penchant for black humour, this emotional detachment allows me to remain functional. The first dream I had, the one in the jungle of West Africa, affected me like no case study ever had before – and I have had some rough ones. The clarity of the dream, the horrific details and the brutality – all of which I had theorized about in the safety of seminars and classrooms before – had been painted vividly for me. You guys are trained for this; you see crime scenes, but only after the crimes have been committed. I’m there during the actual act, and until one witnessed such an act, one can’t understand at the level that I now do. I had my second dream a very short time later, and it also broke me into a thousand pieces. As the frequency of the dreams increased and I realised that they were here to stay, I had to quickly build a ramshackle defence mechanism or risk losing my sanity. Hence the rather crude but efficient detachment and cynicism.”

Jeffrey had patiently listened to me, and, as I stopped to catch my breath, he took advantage to get a word in. “You don’t need to defend yourself to me or anyone else, Sean. What you are going through has got to be hard, even if you are working in criminal psychology. You’re right; we only see the aftermaths of a crime and it’s already hard enough. I can’t begin to imagine what seeing a crime while it is being committed must be like. I just wanted to warn you to play it a little differently when you are talking to people who don’t believe you yet, just to make sure they don’t drag their feet on this.”

I watched him for a couple of second, then blurted out a question that had been floating in my head for the last couple of days. “Why are you helping me?”

“Excuse me?” he said, clearly surprised.

“You believe me. It only took you one sleepwalking experience to convince you. It took me six months to accept what was happening to me and channel it in a more positive way; it took you two days. Why?”

Although he was very good at hiding it, I could tell that Jeffrey seemed a little uncomfortable by the very brief tightening of his fingers on the mug. “I was taught at a young age to keep an open mind, that the most obvious answer is often the best one, even if it seems incredible.”

“You would have gotten along with Fox Mulder,” I mumbled.

Jeffrey chuckled. “Absolutely. I mean, if it all fits, every single bit, doesn’t it make sense to at least give it a try?”

I shook my head. “It’s not enough. I’m sorry, but I can’t believe that someone with your reputation, who was the youngest investigator in his precinct and who has the highest ratio of solved to unsolved crimes…” My voice trailed off as a thought hit me.

“It’s because I take risks without losing my head,” Jeffrey said.

“Or,” I slowly said, “it’s because you yourself have some kind of ability that helps you achieve this amazing ration.”

Jeffrey grinned at me. “I don’t sleepwalk, Sean, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m happy to leave that to you.”

But I didn’t take the bait; it seemed like such a logical answer, the one that, because we didn’t believe in the paranormal, we wouldn’t immediately turn to, but the one that was the simplest. “You have an ability,” I said. It was a statement, not a question.

“No, I don’t,” Jeffrey said.

I only stared at him.

Jeffrey sighed. “I’m sorry I gave you the wrong impression Sean, but I don’t have an ability. I do believe that the potential for abilities is within everyone, but that we have a ways to go before we can tap into them. You are one of the lucky ones. Maybe you are more advanced in the evolutionary process,” that’s not what Talya would say, but I liked where he was going with this, “or maybe you accidentally tapped into your latent potentiality. Whatever the case, I have spent a lot of time looking into everything, the timelines, your alibis, the crimes, everything – and I have no reason to believe there is any foul play involved. Don’t get me wrong – I am, and always will be, on the look-out for foul play, just in case, but until then, I refuse to let go of a potential link directly into crimes that have been committed, a link that will help put away countless criminals who have ruined the lives of families in this city.”

His passion and vehemence convinced me where his sincerity hadn’t; at that very moment, I trusted Jeffrey like (almost) no one else.

“Sean Derek Baynes, I have a bone to pick with you,” Talya called out even before she had fully stepped into the house. Speaking of the devil.

Jeffrey’s eyebrow rose. “I see I’m not the only one you’ve been busy irking today.”

I shrugged. “It’s Olympics season. I’m practicing. Hello, honey,” I said to Talya. “Look who has come by for a visit.”

“Good afternoon, Jeffrey,” Talya said, immediately switching for irate wife to charming hostess. “What a pleasant surprise.”

Jeffrey stood up to greet her, then took a step back. “Actually, I was on my way out. I have a meeting in a few minutes that I’d like to invite Sean to.”

“What kind of meeting?” I asked.

“The precinct has decided to assign a special team to work with you on this entire thing,” Jeffrey said, pushing his chair back under the table. “I’m the head of this team, thankfully, and have only chosen the most open minded men and women on the force to work with. If you are available, I’d like you to come meet them now.”

I swallowed heavily and, before having the chance to change my mind nodded. “You don’t mind, Talya?”

“Not at all. When should I be expecting you home?”

“The meeting shouldn’t take more than two hours,” Jeffrey said, “and only because I’d like them to hear the story directly from you.”

She probably felt how nervous I was because Talya gave me a huge hug at the door. “Don’t ever hang up on me again,” she whispered in my ear.

“Don’t ever make light of something important to me again,” I whispered in hers.

“Deal,” she said.

“Deal,” I repeated with a smile.

I left the house with a bounce in my step.

November 22nd post of Dead-Alive for NaNoWriMo08

Talya’s interview also went well, or so she says.

“They asked me a lot of questions,” she explained. “I had to explain a couple of times about how we made the connections and how we came to such conclusions. I think they were impressed and a little scared.”

“I also think that can work a little against us,” I said. “One of the investigators insinuated that we were smart enough to pull a big lie like this off.”

“I like to think I’m that smart,” Talya sighed, “but I’m not.”

I usually would have laughed at that, but not today; I could only muster a smile as my hands tightened around the steering wheel. “I know it’s irrational, but I am very upset at Reena right now,” I admitted.

“Me too,” Talya said, surprising me.

“If she had kept her mouth shut…”

“Could have, would have, should have,” Talya interrupted me. “No use going there. You have to work with that girl and, if I am not mistaken, you are going to have to be civil with her now – because that’s her car and yes, that’s her waiting for us on the porch.”

I groaned; Reena’s unmistakable long hair was fluttering around her head. She stood up, clutching her purse; she always did that when she was worried or stressed.

“She probably knows we were questioned,” Talya murmured before we stepped out of the car.

“Hi,” Reena said.

“Hey,” I said. From the corner of my eye, I saw Talya raise a hand in greeting. “Is everything OK?”

She nodded. “I just got a call from Jeffrey. Well, a couple of hours ago.” Probably around the same time I had received one too, I thought. “He told me you were going to be questioned. We are, too.”

“Who?” I asked, surprised.

“Connor, David and I,” she said.

I groaned. “Great. They are going to pester everyone who has helped me. Are they also going to want to question the kids?”

Both Reena and Talya had little smiles playing on their lips.

“Probably,” Talya said with an otherwise straight face.

“Absolutely,” added Reena. “Who knows? Shona could have been your accomplice all along.”

We burst into laughter; it felt good.

“Anyhow, I just came by to see if you guys were OK,” Reena said. “I really feel bad. I know… I know you were going to go to the cops at some point in the near future,” this, I felt, was addressed more to Talya than I, “but I’m sure the fact that it didn’t happen on your terms made it more difficult.”

“Actually,” Talya said, very nicely, “I think it did us more good than harm. It came out of the blue, so we didn’t have to fret about what we were going to say and how and we didn’t suffer sleepless nights. Plus, the fact that we were in touch with law enforcement so soon after we figured it out shows them that our willingness to help. So please, Reena, stop fretting.”

I don’t know who was more surprised, Reena or myself.

I was first to regain my senses. “Talya’s right. You have to stop fretting. All’s well that ends well!”

Reena smiled. “Thank you guys.” She glanced down at her watch. “Well I have to go, I don’t want to be late for my appointment with the police. Are they nice?”

Both Talya and I nodded.

Reena heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank God for little favours. Bye guys!”

We watched her hop into her car and waved her off.

“She’s an odd one, isn’t she,” Talya murmured, walking up the pathway. “I can’t quite figure her out.”

“Is that why you don’t like her?” I blurted, opening the door.

It was so obvious to me that she had never liked Reena, and it bothered me to no end. My wife usually liked everyone she met; she could be, quite literally, the devil’s advocate, defending the undefendable, seeing the one good thing about the worse person alive. It could be quite frustrating, actually – which made her dislike of Reena even odder.

“I thought I was hiding it well,” Talya murmured, slipping her coat off. “Do you think others might have noticed?”

“I don’t think so. It took me awhile to realize it, too, and that’s only because I know you really well.” I carefully hung both our coats.

“Good, good,” Talya said, deep in thought. “I guess I am going to have to be even more careful then.”

“Maybe if you figured out why you don’t like her it might it easier to deal with,” I suggested, following her to the kitchen.

Talya threw me a surprised look. “But I do know why I don’t like her,” she said.

“Really?” I flicked the kettle on.

She peered at me for a few seconds before laughing softly. “You are just too adorably naïve, Sean.”

“I like being adorable, but I don’t know about the naïve part,” I said, pouring tea leaves out in the teapot.

Talya took out a small tray and two teacups. “Which makes me like her and the fact that you work together even less,” she said. “I would have rather had some form of distance between the two of you.”

“Why?”

Talya paused in the act of opening a pack of cookies and peered at me again. “You have no idea whatsoever.”

“No!”

“You have never noticed the smiles Reena gives you, the giggles, the blushes, the flicking of her hair, the way her eyes follow you around?”

She had to be kidding. “Are you telling me that Reena has a crush on me?”

“Congratulations, give the man a prize,” Talya said, placing the sugar bowl and three spoon on the tray.

“Talya, come on,” I said, pouring the boiling water in the teapot. “We’re talking about Reena. Miss I can only marry an Indian guy because he is the only one who can understand me.”

“Just because she has to marry an Indian guy doesn’t mean she wants to,” Talya countered.

I picked up the tray and carried it to the living room. “Is it because she and I get along so well?” I asked. “I mean, if it bothers you…”

“No, no,” Talya interrupted me. “Reena isn’t the only woman you are friends with. Reena is the only one who is always there for you, who always comes over when she can, who always giggles and tosses her hair when she is talking to you, who always is the first one to approve of what you have to say or of your suggestions…”

I blushed. When presented that way, it did seem like Reena might have a crush on me. “So what if you are right, and she does have a crush on me. What do you suggest I do?”

Talya shrugged. “Nothing, really. I just wanted you to know because you noticed I’m different when she’s around. I do trust you, Sean, and, in an odd way, I do trust Reena too – she doesn’t seem to be the kind of person to start an illicit affair. But she is also the type of person to martyr herself over her secret crush on a married man, and that bothers me.”

I could see why it would; Talya was a cut-your-losses type of woman. Had she as a single woman started developing even a hint of a crush on a married man, she would have cut him out immediately, gotten over it and gone onto other things. Plus, it was her husband Reena had a crush on.

“You know what… I really appreciate the fact that you trust me, and also that you are able to see past Reena’s capital offense of liking me…”

Talya giggled.

I smiled – I really loved that sound. “But I don’t want to create any weird situation. So I am going to limit my interactions with Reena, until you notice that she is over me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to encourage that line of thinking in Reena, and I don’t want to create a situation where everyone is gossiping about us. So I am going to make sure never to be alone with her, and to be her friend, yes, but to keep from making comments or jokes that could even remotely be considered flirtatious.”

Talya leaned over to kiss me. “I’d like that. Thank you.”

I peered into her eyes. “This bothers you more than you will admit even to yourself.”

She made a face. “Shall I pour the tea?

I let the conversation go, but made a mental note to get back to it again.

As for my promise… Well, it didn’t start that well because the very next morning, I found myself alone with Reena at the office early in the morning. We both came in about two hours earlier than usual to have the office to ourselves (ha), since we had missed a big junk of the previous day at the precinct.

I sent a panicked email to Talya.

From: Sean

To: Talya

Subject: Promise unwillingly broken

Talya! I’m alone with Reena at the office. Can you come by or something?

From Talya

To: Sean

Subject: Calm down

Come on Sean, nothing is going to happen. I don’t consider this breaking your promise. You are way too hard on yourself.

From: Sean

To: Talya

Subject: Look who’s calling the kettle black

And I’m not talking about my tan.

I calmed myself down; I didn’t want to become so anxious that I couldn’t sleep tonight. I was hoping for a dreamless night, and had scheduled yoga and exercises on top of the sleeping pills. I reasoned that I had done nothing wrong, that my wife trusted me and she was being less dramatic about this entire situation. I wondered, yet again, who exactly was wearing the pants in our marriage. Maybe I should stick to my Scottish heritage and wear a kilt from now on.

The urge to wear a kilt increased as Connor called in sick a little later, and David decided he’d work from home.

“Well then,” Reena grinned as she hung the phone up, “doesn’t that give us some quality time together.”

I grinned back, then turned towards my screen, squelching the panic I felt. This was not going well at all. A mere hour later, I myself was also on my way home, leaving behind a dispirited Reena but feeling a lot better myself. I really hoped this entire situation would resolve itself – Reena, the cops, the dreams, everything – before I became a hysterical housewife in a kilt.

November 20th post of Dead-Alive for NaNoWriMo08

Unfortunately, try as I might, it didn’t seem like I was meant to live in peace anytime soon. The very same day, only a couple of hours later, Jeffrey called with some less than good news.

“Could you please come to the station for a chat with some colleagues of mine?”

The knot in my stomach tightened. “Why?”

His hesitation made the knot twist uncomfortably. “They want to ask you some questions about what has been happening to you.”

My next question came out with difficulty. “Is it bad?”

He hesitated again. “Not really, in that they don’t have anything against you. Yes in that they want to believe it’s you.” His voice dropped. “Look, I can’t talk about it now, I’m at the precinct.”

“I understand.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be here.” His voice went back to normal. “Can we expect you here in, say, an hour?”

Oh wow. This was happening fast. “Sure.”

Talya came with me, but they wouldn’t let her in. Quite the contrary; they took her into another room to question her alone. They would probably want to corroborate our stories.

Jeffrey was there at the door waiting for me. He smiled and showed me into an interrogation room straight from television.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered, eyeing the setting. Was this some kind of joke? It looked like it was straight out of a popular cop show, including the faces of the investigators who were there to question me.

We went through the usual civilities – turns out their names weren’t, regrettably enough, straight out of a cop show. Quite the contrary; they were the most boring names ever, Jones and Thomas.

I was keeping up an internal monologue to keep myself from freaking out; it had the unfortunate effect of alienating one of the investigators.

“Anytime you would like to join us, Mr. Baynes,” he sneered. “We have all day.”

I shook my head a little. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little nervous.”

Mr. Thomas’ eyebrow rose by about an inch – a feat I would have far more appreciated had I not been so stressed. “Why?”

“Enough, Thomas,” Jeffrey snapped.

“He’s right,” Mr. Jones said. “Let’s get on with it.”

They shuffled their papers around.

“Could you please tell us, in your own words, about your experiences in the last six months?” Mr. Jones said.

“Everything?” I said. I’m afraid it might have come out a little squeaky. I hope not.

Mr. Jones nodded. “And, if you don’t mind, we’d like to record it.” He pointed to the little recorder at the center of the table.

“Sure,” I said. Did I really have a choice?

Mr. Jones fiddled with the recorder, recorded the time, the location, recited the names of everyone in the room then repeated his request.

“OK,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Six months ago, I was on vacation with my wife and children. We were in Africa, at her family’s villa. It was a great three weeks; Talya – my wife – hadn’t seen her family in ages, the kids were taken care of by everyone and got along splendidly with their cousins, I got along with everyone else, it was a fantastic vacation.” I had to stop the needless details; Mr. Thomas seemed to be getting more antsy by the second. “So that day, I was at the beach with my brother-in-laws. I feel asleep, and that’s when I had my first dream.”

I told them about the entire dream, not sparing any details.

“We didn’t think much of the dream itself; we were more concerned with the sleep waking. That had never happened to me before, and it’s quite unusual for an adult to start sleep walking.”

“You weren’t concerned with a violent death such as the one you witnessed?” Mr. Thomas said.

I hesitated. “Well, at the time… I mean… I didn’t think it was something real. We had had a horror movie marathon the evening before, and we were convinced that was the reason I had had that dream. Now we know that it had actually happened. When Talya and I started to piece things together, we gave her family a call and asked them to look into a possible event of the sort that had happened. ”

Jeffrey, who had yet to hear this story, straightened in his chair. “And?”

“Well it did happen, but about fifty to sixty years ago. Talya’s grandfather isn’t certain.”

“Why didn’t you see a more recent event?” Jeffrey asked.

“Well we think that might be because nothing much had ever happened in that particular area,” I said, “and I just tapped into the most recent thing that did happen.”

Jeffrey slowly nodded.

“Could you continue, please?” Mr. Jones said.

I nodded. “I didn’t have any more dreams in the last 6 days we were in Africa. However, the very day we got back here, I had a second one. By the third, my wife suspected this wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, so she started building a sort of chart on me.” I was still very proud of my wife for having done this.

“Why?” Mr. Thomas said. “It seems a little morbid to me.”

I shrugged in what I wanted to be a nonchalant way. “We’re scientists. We’re deeply curious and trained to explore that inherent curiosity. It also made it a little easier on me.”

“What do you mean?” Mr. Jones.

“You guys,” I said, gesturing to the three of them, “are in this job because you are made for it. You have the strength to do it, and your training has further reinforced that strength. Not me. Even horror stories give me the willies. To see these events in their full glory was – and still is – a shock to my system, each and every time. By looking at it through a scientific lens, each dream became an opportunity to study a curious phenomenon rather than a hell I had to walk through.”

Mr. Jones nodded. “Go on.”

I told them about the most striking dreams, the ones that gave me walking nightmares for weeks. I told them about being caught in the cold, in the rain, in woods, in mud, I told them about the fear, the anxiety, the depression, I told them about Talya’s breakthrough…

“How did she figure it out?” Mr. Jones interrupted me.

“It was because of a particular dream,” I explained. “I had ‘seen’ a woman raped then strangled, and it rang a bell in her head. She remembered hearing a woman at her office call that alleyway a dangerous place for women after sunset, and how at least four of her friends had been raped there. So she looked on the Internet and found a couple of articles about the rape and murder of Geraldine Forbes.”

“I remember that case,” murmured Mr. Jones.

“When she checked the case files we had started on each dream I had had, she realised that I had actually seen something that had happened, rather than something straight out of my imagination. We took it from there.”

Silence fell for a few moments; the only sound was the rustling of papers as Mr. Thomas was going through the pages of what I now saw to be a photocopy of the ‘chart’ Talya and I had made.

“That’s it for me,” Mr. Jones said.

Really? I was expecting some big counter interrogation and a potential breakdown. Or had I just watched too much television?

“I have a couple of questions myself,” Mr. Thomas said.

It would have been too good to be true.

“You say, Mr. Baynes, that you have now ‘seen’ close to one hundred criminal effects, many of which you do not have an alibi for. How can we know if you are not behind this entire charade? That you and your wife aren’t trying to bury some of your own past transgressions by creating this ridiculous story?”

I knew it was coming and yet it still upset me. There was only one way I could convince this man. “Why don’t you do what Jeffrey did, Sir?” I suggested. “Come to my house and stay downstairs, awake, for a few nights. I usually have two to three such dreams every week, more when I’m stressed. I’m sure you’ll get your fill within two weeks, but you are more than welcome to stay on for a longer time. No one can fake so many sleepwalking sessions. One, probably, two, maybe, three possibly – but over four? It’s statistically impossible.

Mr. Thomas stared at me for a long time; I stood still, refusing to succumb to temptation and stick my tongue out at him. “I just might take you up on your offer, Mrs. Baynes,” he finally said.

“Good,” I said. “I’ll let Talya know and we’ll clean up the house a bit.”

November 18th post of Dead-Alive for NaNoWriMo

Everyone has secrets, some of which are less innocent than others. Usually, having a secret out is worse for the secret-bearer than for those hearing it. Most of the time, the initial buzz of controversy quietly fades out and life goes on, almost unchanged. But some secrets, if uncovered, can completely change lives – that of the secret-keeper, the one who discovers it and those who find out about it. Those who are trained to uncover these secrets are often dragged against their will into a world they never would have dreamed of visiting. Then there are those who are not trained and yet manage to uncover secrets, sometimes against their will.

Being an untrained discoverer of secrets makes it all the harder for me than, say, for Jeffrey, even more so that I enter into the most intimate and uninhibited form of thoughts: dreams. Jeffrey sees pictures and hears words; I see the crime itself, smell it, feel it. This curious ability I have will probably help law enforcement and would fascinate scientists were they to find out about it, but it has also turned my life into hell. I’m some kind of sleepwalking psychic detective, of which I’m certain no one has ever seen before, and hopefully they never will again. The thought of someone else going through the same things as I do is very disheartening indeed.

I still wish this ability allowed me to swoop down like an avenging angel and stop criminals during despicable acts, a hero saving the day and basking in the glow of the public’s adoration. Unfortunately, that is not the case since I see things that have already happened. Some could consider me a hero because of the potential lives I could save if I manage to help Jeffrey. Nice a thought as it might be, it barely makes up for the horrors I have seen.

What keeps me going is that even with this hanging over me, many people have it a lot worse than I do. At least no one I love was murdered; at least I have a job I love; at least I have a rock-solid marriage and my kids are absolutely amazing; at least I’m not starving; at least I don’t live in a war-ravaged country where every day is a struggle for survival – these are some of the things I keep telling myself, reciting them like a litany when the thought of suicide starts lingering a little too long in my head. But up to now I have been able to get over the worst of it, not succumb to that tempting option and try to gain as much satisfaction from my ability as I can. I often wished there was a way of somehow dampening the experience. Until then, I’ll make do.

There is one way that might help give me a break; Talya and I had considered it before but dismissed it; morbid curiosity had me wanting to have more of these dreams. But I needed a break, and, encouraged by Jeffrey, I decided to see a doctor and get a prescription for sleeping pills.

It was a wonderful two weeks. I slept like a baby and didn’t go gallivanting around. Combined with special family nights Talya, the kids and I did, it worked wonders for my mood, and everyone noticed.

“Sleeping pills,” Connor said approvingly. “You should have taken some sooner, not waited to be at the edge of the precipice.”

I smiled. “I know. I guess I wanted to see how far I could push myself.”

“Are you ever going to go back to dreaming?” Reena asked.

I nodded. “Once we have figured out how to make it safe for me.”

“Speaking of safety, what is the latest update from our favourite law enforcement agent?” Connor asked.

“Jeffrey has been looking into the files Talya and I made,” I said, ignoring the anxious knot that had formed in my stomach. “He told me that it took a little convincing to take this rather unconventional source of information seriously, but once they did, they managed to crack two cases.”

Connor beamed. “Excellent! And of course, there are no connections to you?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I wasn’t ever near any one of those victims or those criminals.”

What I refused to tell them was the conversation I had had with Jeffrey two nights ago about the rumours and innuendos that were swirling around the precinct.

“Unfortunately, if things go as they are, you might be brought in for questioning,” he had told me. “Don’t worry about it; they don’t have enough to actually charge you with anything, and your full cooperation will help you more than anything else can.”

That night, I had another dream despite the sleeping pill I made sure to take. A little boy – he was probably somewhere between 6 or 7 years old – woke me up and beckoned me to follow him. Downstairs, he reached for his coat, hanging on a wall hook I had never seen before; I opened the closet and reached for mine. He stuck his feet in his boots; I followed suit. We walked for what seemed like ages. This dream was particular in that it was happening in slow motion, giving it a surreal yet starker feeling. Ridiculous details stood out in sharp contrast to the backdrop; a pebble on the ground, a particular leaf on a tree, the raindrops glistening on the fence, each little detail became a fascinating study in colour, contrast and texture. I felt like I was in art class all over again.

We finally got to a church. I sighed; this wasn’t going to be good. The little boy threw me a glance that bordered on pity before pointing towards the door of the church.

Oh, the stench that greeted me – it was worse than it usually was. The two teenage boys who were tied up were dressed in odd clothes, struggling against the binds the man at the altar had tied them up with. The man at the altar was also dressed a little oddly. My brain was a little overwhelmed by the random sharp details, like the stain on the man’s pants, so I let it go.

The dream finished with the man killing off the two teenagers. It was utterly disgusting, all the more so that the blood ran even more vividly than usual. I shuddered as I woke up, and swallowed heavily against the rolling nausea.

I got home to Talya waiting for me in the living room.

“They started again,” she said, getting up to grab my coat.

I nodded, surrendering it as I kicked my shoes off. We sat on the couch, me holding Talya tightly against me.

“I wonder if the sleeping pills have stopped working, or if it’s the undue stress of Jeffrey’s call that triggered this particular dream,” she wondered out loud after I had finished telling her about my night.

“I think I’m going to take up Yoga again.” I had taken it up for about two months and while it hadn’t decreased the frequency of my dreams, it had increased the quality of my sleep.

“You should also start exercising again,” Talya said.

While a normal amount of exercise hadn’t had any effect on my dreams, over-exercising – two to three hours a day – had not only put me in excellent shape, but decreased the frequency of the dreams.

I sighed. “Guess so.”

“And also, we should take up your best morning after cure,” Talya said.

I could feel the smile on her face on my cheek and in her voice; I smiled in return. “I guess our credit cards could take it,” I said.

She laughed softly. “And I am always up for some therapy shopping.”

Yes, she was, and so was I. And not only was a good bout of shopping the best morning after cure, but it would help maintain my best-dressed status professor on campus.

“Shopping it is,” I said, ignoring the knot in my stomach.

November 16th post of Dead-Alive for NaNoWriMo08

The first issue that needed to be addressed was the tension at work. I called David and asked him to come back in so that together, we could confront the other two.

“Wimp,” he said, rightfully so.

“Will you come?”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Together we talked to Reena and Connor and set things straight. It was a difficult conversation for me, especially the part where I tried to convey to Reena just how ‘real’ the dream had seemed.

“It was different from the others, I agree,” I argued yet again. “But it doesn’t make it any less serious.”

“So now you not only see the past but you can also see the future?” Reena said, a little mockingly.

What was going on? Usually Reena was the first one on board with anything. “I don’t know, and that’s the point,” I said. “Do you want to take the chance and find out the hard way?”

She sighed. “I guess not.”

“Just be careful,” David said. “We don’t think you should go around with an albatross around your neck, but you should be a little careful. Don’t come here after the next couple of conferences; one of us will take you home. Is your life worth risking?”

“I guess not,” she repeated.

“It must be horrible to feel like you have a death sentence hanging over you, isn’t it?” David gently asked.

She nodded.

He reached out and patted her hand. “It’s almost as bad for us.”

She smiled, her lips quivering, and turned her hand over to squeeze his.

“It’s all good then?” I asked.

Everyone nodded.

“OK then,” I said, a little relieved. “Let’s get some work done.”

When I got home that night, the files had been returned. They were stacked neatly on my desk, with a crisp white envelope bearing my name on top. I didn’t touch either the pile or the envelope, as if fearing it might contaminate me – but I couldn’t keep either out of my mind. I didn’t want to think about it anymore; I didn’t want it to be part of my life.

But it wasn’t meant to be. For the first time ever, I had a dream two nights in a row. Some might argue that my dream about Reena wasn’t a real one; but I wasn’t ready to dismiss it as such.

In any case, I had another dream that night. I had the so-called pleasure of witnessing a lovely domestic scene in a now abandoned home in an upper scale neighbourhood. It was horrible, even more so that the man looked like me and his daughter was about Shona’s age. He first killed his wife, then his children, then himself. Just great, was my first waking thought. I get to see this cozy scene for nothing.

This particular dream was a mix between what happened last night and what usually happened. I remember being woken up by someone and I remember somehow getting there, and yet I don’t remember anything about anything else. Interestingly enough, when I did wake up, I remembered a detail about the first such dream I had ever had.

“Delightful,” I grimaced at the gory detail I now wished I hadn’t remembered.

I sighed, and started walking home. It was going to be a long one – I was only wearing my home slippers and didn’t have my cell phone to call Talya (or a taxi) up.

The temperature decided to add to my misery by dipping a couple of degrees downward. I jogged for a little while to warm myself up, but the slippers weren’t made for running. I tried taking them off, but the ground was too cold and there was too much gravel for me to walk without hurting myself. I tried as best I could to keep my core temperature up. By the time I got home, the sun’s first rays were beginning to light the sky. I headed straight for the bathroom, stripped down and stepped into the water, which I had turned on, full blast and full heat. I was so tired that I sat in the bathtub, wrapping my arms around me and waiting to warm up.

I was still in the bathtub, shivering, steam rising around me, when Talya found me.

“If you want to go to a sauna, just say so,” she said in a teasing voice. “No need to finish up all the hot water.”

I tried to answer, but my teeth were chattering so hard I had to hold my jaw tightly shut to prevent myself from biting my tongue off.

“Sean?”

She hesitated. Come and get me! I wanted to scream, but didn’t dare.

She peered around the curtain and gasped. “Oh my God, Sean…” She threw the curtain aside, only to shut it back when she saw the goosebumps all over my body. “Hold on a minute, Sean,” she said as she left the bathroom.

She came back a few minutes later, shut off the water and helped me out of the tub. She threw a long, thick bathroom on me (since when did we have one of those?) and another one over my head.

“Out,” she said, ushering me to our bedroom.

She had turned the covers down and set up two electric heat pads.

“I hope you won’t set a spark,” she said, half-jokingly, as she tucked me in.

“Where…” I couldn’t finish the question.

“I’m getting you some tea.”

I nodded and she left.

By the time she was back with a big cup of steaming tea, I had somewhat calmed down.

“Here you go,” she said, giving me the cup.

It was really hot, but I still wrapped my fingers around it. Well, for about ten seconds.

“OK, I’m warm,” I said, shifting my hands around.

Talya smiled, then did what she did best. She waited until I was ready to talk.

“I don’t want this anymore,” I softly said. “I don’t care how many criminals I can help put behind bars. I don’t want to be exposed to it anymore.”

“It’s understandable,” Talya said.

“Is it?” I snapped. “You wouldn’t have given up this fast. You aren’t weak and pathetic. I don’t even see the real thing and I break down like a baby.”

“You’re being a little hard on yourself,” she answered.

I glared at her until she smiled – what? A bit of empathy, maybe?

“OK, so I probably would have taken it a little better than you,” she admitted, “but that’s only because of my upbringing. It doesn’t make me any better than you.”

“It’s easy for you to say,” I grumbled.

“Do you remember that first dream you had?”

How could I forget? I had acquired this ability randomly. You would think it would have appeared while I was involved in a particularly gruesome investigation that unlocked a capacity I always had within me. Quite the contrary. Ironically enough, my ability first appeared while I was on vacation, during what had to be the most relaxing time in my life. My wife and I had been visiting her family in West Africa who live in a lovely villa by the beach. While she and hers spent their days doings… well, doing whatever, I spent mine on the beach with the husbands I had befriended. We swam, fished, read and slept, whatever took our fancy and whenever we felt like it. For the first time in years I took my watch off and the tan line I had thought permanent disappeared.

Then one day, while I was sleeping, I simply got up and walked off into the nearby jungle. Puzzled as to where I was going and why I wasn’t answering their calls, two of the husbands followed me – which is a good thing, because had they not I would have probably gotten lost. They followed me deep into the jungle and watched, a little unsettled, as I started sweating, moaning, crying and shaking; I even yelled at someone only I could see. I think I shaved a couple of years off their lives when I fainted, falling to the ground only to pop my eyes open a couple of seconds later and wonder at their paleness. While I don’t faint anymore, the rest of this initial episode has been my modus operanti for the last 6 months.

Back on the beach, after a reinvigorating glass of thick mango juice – that stuff is truly magical – I explained that while I was sleeping, a little boy came to me and poked me until I woke up – well, at least until I thought I handcuffed. He was speaking to me in a dialect I couldn’t understand, so he beckoned and I followed. This is a salient point of every dream; I never the question if I should follow the person who comes to me or not. It feels like an obligation I have no choice but to fulfill.

The little boy took me deep into the woods, where suddenly a man appeared through the trees dragging a woman who was screaming and trying to get away. It was at this point that I realized that something was a little unusual. Remember, I thought I was awake. The first odd thing was that the little boy disappeared; then everything around me lost colour and focus, but the man and woman seem to become sharper. There was also an odd smell that I have yet to find words to adequately describe, a smell that lies somewhere between soiled undergarments sealed in a plastic bag for too long mixed with too heady cologne sprinkled on top and a faint undertone of rot – a smell that accompanies every dream. This smell is sometimes the only thing that allows me to separate reality from my dreams, and however horrid has become something of a comfort, its presence indicates that I’m safe, and what I am about to see will not touch me – at least physically it won’t.

What the man did to the woman is too horrible to relate. Suffice to say that after he was done with her, it was a good thing he killed her, although chopping her body into pieces seemed a little redundant and was very disgusting.

“Do you remember what happened that night?” Talya said, bringing me back to the present.

I did.

“You had every right to be upset. But because it had happened there, in my hometown, somewhere I had seen terrible things happen, it triggered something irrational in me. I lost it.”

It had been pretty scary actually. Come to think, Talya’s seemingly extreme reaction had made the actual dream pale in comparison. I had spent so much time comforting her that I hadn’t really focused on what had happened and all its implications.

“If you weren’t strong, not only you wouldn’t have lasted six months of this particular type of hell, but you would have not been able to give me support after that first dream,” Talya said.

My smile was a little tight, but heart-felt. “You’re being nice to me. I like it.”

She smiled back. “I certainly hope so. It takes a lot of effort for me to be nice.”

That widened my smile. “I know. I’ve been married to you long enough.”

We snuggled for a couple of minutes, silent, just enjoying each other’s company.

“What are we going to do?” I said.

“You need a break. Why don’t you take some sleeping pills again for a little while? Let Jeffrey do his job and, if he realises he can use your information to solve cases, we can set up a better way for you to go through this.”

“A better way?” I said, a little sarcastic.

I felt her cheek moving against mine as she smiled. “There is always a better way.”

November 14th post of Dead-Alive for NaNoWriMo08

Sunday was a long day. My supposed day of rest became anything but. I was still pretty upset when I woke up in the morning; I told Talya about my dream, and, apart from being initially upset at the thought that Reena had been killed, she didn’t seem much to care about the possibility that I had maybe started forecasting the future.

“The chances that you could tap into the past were already pretty slim,” she reasoned. “What are the chances that you could also tap into the future? Even slimmer. I agree with Jeffrey; last night was a good, old-fashioned nightmare.”

Her seeming lack of empathy was grating; how would she feel were she had she seen one of her coworkers dead? But I refrained from commenting, as I didn’t feel up to a debate. Plus I didn’t want to upset the kids any further. They had felt something was off as soon as they had woken up and were unusually quiet. I appreciated it – I also didn’t feel like screaming kids running around the house.

I went to see Jeffrey right after breakfast, calling Reena on the way. She didn’t seem particularly upset at my dream, which Jeffrey had already told her about.

“Was I a good-looking dead person?” she giggled.

Didn’t anyone get the potential seriousness of what had happened? I hung up on her without answering that rather offensive question. Talk about being morbid.

Monday came by as a relief. I had spent a more or less relaxed Sunday evening with the kids; we had take-out pizza in front of the Sunday night Disney movie with the kids, whom I then walked through bedtime preparations and tucked in to bed – something that always brought joy to my heart. But it was still nice to be out of their sight; I had felt so watched the entire time, and it had taken every ounce of energy I had to keep a straight face.

I came into the office with something of a scowl on my face, matched by scowls on Connor’s and Reena’s faces.

“This is going to be a great day,” David sighed, only to leave an hour later to work from home.

Not that I blamed him. There wasn’t much of a positive ambiance in the office today. I couldn’t bear to look anywhere but at my computer screen. Queasiness had taken a hold on me and didn’t seem to want to let go. Neither could I look at Reena; it would only bring more sharply into focus the sight of her dead on the floor, battered and bruised.

I managed to get about three hours of solid work done – I always worked better under duress – then fled the office. I walked around campus a little randomly, then stepped into the downtown shopping area. The hustle and bustle was a little bit too much, so I ducked into a side street. A couple of blocks down, I noticed a beautiful church, one of my favourites, and decided to do something I hadn’t done in a long while: I stepped inside.

It’s cool interior greeted me with a soft brush on my cheeks, an old friend welcoming me back.

I tried to pray, I really did; but it seemed like I might have forgotten how to, or I was so perturbed by what had been happening to me lately that it was blocking me from the long ago performed yet still oddly familiar act of praying. All I could was stare at the altar, at the paintings, at the crosses scattered throughout the church and wonder.

It was only after a few moments that I realised someone had already been sitting in the pew I had chosen. I had been so self-absorbed that I hadn’t noticed anything but the fact that I had to sit down ASAP lest my trembling legs decide to stop supporting me. I looked up, and he was smiling at me.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

Something about him touched my heart, opening up the gates to emotions I had been keep in check for over 6 months now. I shook my head.

The man nodded; it felt like he had understood me through only a shake of my head. It was unsettling and oddly comforting at the same time.

“I know,” he said. “Sometimes, when you need it the most, you just can’t get it out.”

“It might also be a lack of experience,” I admitted. “I haven’t done this in years. To be honest, I don’t even know what to say.”

Again, he nodded, his eyes filled with understanding. “That might be because you, like most people, forgot that you pray with your heart, not your mouth. Just close your eyes and think about praying; and, when the time comes, when you are ready, you will transform those emotions into words.”

What he was saying made sense. After all, if there was such a thing as an all-knowing God, He would know everything I was thinking. But a Christian upbringing, however liberal, made me dependant on the written word; it didn’t feel like praying until I would read something that was from a higher source. After a brief hesitation, I shared my thoughts with the man.

The man smiled again, so peaceful a smile that I envied it from the depths of my soul, a smile that was a sharp contrast to the deep sadness in his eyes. He took out a little laminated card from his pocket. “A friend gave this to me when I was in a terrible place and couldn’t pray. I promised him I’d never throw it out and pass it on to the next person I thought might need it.” He handed the card to me. “You must promise me the same.”

It was only a laminated card, but the gesture made tears well up in my eyes. I blinked them away and thanked him. I took a few moments to collect myself, then read the words. O God, guide me, protect me – exactly the words I needed to hear. This time, I couldn’t control them; the tears welled up and overflowed onto my face.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, but when I looked up, the man had already left. I felt my heart swell in gratitude; I carefully put the laminated car in my pocket and left the church. I hadn’t gotten any answers or any insights that would help me, but I certainly got strength to carry on.

November 13th post of NaNoWriMo08

So I lied. There is no November 13th post of NaNoWriMo08. Not because I haven’t written it – quite the contrary, actually. It’s just that I think the rest of the blog is drowning in all the NaNoWriMo posts. So to get back at what this blog is really about, I am only going to be posting new NaNoWriMo chapters every two to three days, so as to give myself time to work on other posts and so as not to drown you poor readers with it.

Enjoy the blog!

November 12th post of Dead-Alive for NaNoWriMo08

I screamed and screamed and screamed – everything, the pent up emotions of the last six months, the horror I felt at everything I had seen, my fear for my children and my wife, and the horror of Reena’s death especially with the horrible way things had ended – it got to me. I had to get it out out out – all of it had to come out before it suffocated me.

A sharp slap on my face was exactly what I needed, but I couldn’t help but resent it a little. “What the heck?” I said, shaking my head as the image in front of me disappeared. Instead, I saw Jeffrey’s pale face.

“Better?” he asked.

I took a deep, steadying breath and nodded. “Is she… is she still there?” I said. He had spun me around or something. I was now facing the door and didn’t dare look behind

He frowned, then looked behind me. “There is no one here, Sean.”

“You’re sure,” I whispered.

He nodded.

I was grateful that he was there, that he stayed silent until I collected myself and that he kept his hands on my shoulders. “I’m good,” I said a few minutes earlier.

He peered at me then, satisfied with what he saw, took his hands off. “Want to go somewhere else? It’s a bit of a walk back home, and a coffee would do you good.”

I nodded. I still couldn’t believe I had walked all the way here and… Wait a minute…

“What are you doing here?”

He smiled, a little sheepish. “Let’s just say I was doing a little bit of unofficial investigative work.”

The sight of Reena’s dead body – I looked back, just to make sure it really wasn’t there anymore – had been too much, and my brain just wouldn’t kick back into high gear. So I just stared at him.

“I decided to review all the files you got while watching the house, in the hopes that you would have such an episode tonight,” he explained. He gestured towards the door. “Shall we?”

I started walking, a little slowly and a little halted. At least I didn’t fall. “What if I hadn’t had a dream tonight?”

“At the rate of two to four a week, I was found to see it for myself tonight, tomorrow or Monday night,” he said. I just made sure I could have mornings off.”

“You can just call and figure it out?” I asked.

“If it has to do with work, you can always figure things out,” he said, leaving it at that.

Silence feel until we got to the Round the Clock campus coffee shop. “I’m glad you’re here,” I admitted after we had placed our orders.

We had chosen the table at the far end of the room to make sure no one would disturb us – or, I suddenly realised, so that no one would overhear us.

“What time is it?” I asked Jeffrey. I hadn’t thought of putting my watch on.

He briefly checked his. “A little after midnight.”

I patted my pockets and, relieved, took out my cell phone. “Let me just send a quick text message to my wife,” I said. “If she wakes up, I don’t want her to worry.”

I took a few moments to send her a carefully worded text message that explained where I was without sending her into a worried frenzy – although my wife’s frenzies were so tame compared to some that it took a real expert to identify them.

“So, what happened?” Jeffrey asked me after we had both warmed our hands around the warm mugs the waitress set in front of us.

I frowned into mine. “It was so odd,” I said. My thoughts were still scattered; I really didn’t feel like doing this now.

“In what sense?”

There didn’t seem to be a way out. I tried to feel grateful for the fact that I recently bought a brand new pair of pyjamas which I was now wearing. My old pirate pyjamas would have been the ultimate humiliation, since my coat is short and would left the large part of them fully exposed, including the hole in the, um… Suffice to say that I wouldn’t want anyone to see me in them.

I took another deep breath, reining my thoughts in. “First of all, I was very aware of everything that was going on as it was happening.”

Jeffrey remained silent, so I went on. “Usually, I don’t feel anything while it’s happening. The last thing I consciously remember is being in bed, then I am in a room, I see the event and I wake up. This time, I remember getting out of bed, thinking about how cold it is and putting a coat on,” I preferred not to get into the whole beautiful young lady thing just yet, “walking in the street and getting into the office.”

Jeffrey slowly nodded. “What about what you saw?” he said.

“Reena…” I jerked up. “We have to go make sure she’s OK.” I was fumbling with my coat’s zipper, half standing, half sitting – generally looking awkward, I’m sure – so I didn’t catch what Jeffrey said.

“Excuse me?”

“She’s fine. I already called her, while we were walking here from your office.”

For the life of me, I couldn’t remember that. Had I been in that much of a daze? Whatever the case, Reena was fine. I heavily sat back down on the bench and buried my head in my hands.

“I’m sorry,” I said a few moments later. “I feel like it’s the first time I’m seeing something like that.”

“In a way, it is,” Jeffrey said.

I nodded. “It’s a night of firsts,” I admitted. “First time I was so aware of everything, first night I saw an event” I still refused to call it anything but that, “about someone I know and first time I saw something that hadn’t happened yet.”

“So all the, um, dreams, you have had up to now, they are only about the past, right?”
I nodded.

“I wonder…” Jeffrey murmured.

I waited, taking the time to sip on my coffee. Amazing how something so bitter – especially when purchased on campus – could taste so perfect.

“How do you usually react to stress?” Jeffrey asked.

“I’m OK with, up until a certain point. Then I tend to lose it.”

“Would you say that with an accumulation of 6 months of dreams, figuring out this week that they weren’t just dreams but a sort of vision, taking in your friends on the confidence, having an accident, being hospitalised and having an officer of the law know about it might have take you to that point?”

When he put it that way, it did make me look better than I felt I was. “I guess it’s not big deal that I feel like sleeping for a year, huh.”

A small smile touched the corner of Jeffrey’s lips. “Do you think there is a remote possibility that tonight was not about seeing something, but actually dreaming about it?”

“You think tonight was a fake,” I said.

He nodded. “A good old, stress-induced nightmare.”

“And I would have dreamt about Reena because I feel guilty about the way things ended earlier at my place.”

“Ah, guilt,” Jeffrey said. “The age-old trigger of so many life-altering events. So tell me more about the dream, Sean.”

“Why? It was a fake… Wasn’t it?”

The same small smile touched Jeffrey’s lips, I noticed it was a little lopsided, just like mine – something Talya loved about me. I couldn’t help the totally irrational feeling of jealousy that touched me at that moment.

“It probably is. But just in case, we should record all the details of it, make another file for it. Speaking of which, your files will be returned to you Monday morning.”

“Thanks,” I said, watching him take out a notepad and a pen.

He waited patiently for me to start. However repulsive it was (even more so than usual), I took a few moments to walk myself through the entire dream. As the caffeine kicked in, details of my dream started coming back to me. And suddenly, one detail, seemingly random but so important, hit me as hard as that car had a few nights ago.

“It’s going to happen,” I said. “Reena. On the 15^th. She has a conference. She always stays late after conferences. It had just happened, around eleven thirty – that’s when she would have been leaving the office after typing up her notes.”

“Slow down, cowboy,” Jeffrey said with a frown. “What are you talking about?”

“In my dream, the electronic calendar on Reena’s desk – she actually has one – was marked 11h30 on the 15^th. We have conferences every 15^th of the month. They tend to finish around 10, 10h30, at which time Reena goes back to her offices and types her notes up.” Another detail suddenly clicked into place. “She hadn’t taken her coat off, and her notes were still on paper,” I said. “So she came back to her office, maybe with someone, and he killed her.”

Jeffrey was frowning a little darkly now. “I still think this entire dream is just a figment of an overtired mind, but you know what, how about we treat it as an omen and warn Reena?”

“Yes. Better safe than sorry.” My brain felt like it was about to explode and I really didn’t want to start crying in front of a big, strong investigator. “Would you terribly mind if we continue this another time, maybe in the afternoon?”

“Yes, sure. You look like you are ready to fall off your feet. Are you OK to walk all the way home?”

“Are you coming with me?”

He nodded. “My car’s there.”

Good. I didn’t feel like walking alone. We paid – actually no, he paid; I hadn’t had the presence of mind to bring my wallet with me – and left. The night was cool but I needed the walk; I think it helped Jeffrey too, because he kept taking out his notepad to jot things down.

We finally got to my street. I stopped by his car. “Thank you,” I said. And I meant it. Somehow, his strength and calm had seeped into me. I was back to my normal self.

“No problem,” he said. “Go in. I’ll be here until you turn the porch light off.”

I nodded. “Should I call you in the morning?”

“Yes. You have my card.”

I had one more thing to do. After I turned off the porch light, took a warm shower and changed into a new set of pyjamas, I went first to Shona’s room, then to Patrick’s. I watched them sleep for a little while, wondering what kind of world I had brought them in, a world where some people commit heinous acts and others just don’t seem to care. It almost didn’t seem responsible that Talya and I wanted to bring another innocent soul into such a sick, twisted world. I would have to talk to her about that, maybe wait until this entire thing blew over before we continued trying.