Be in the Real Read online

  “No,” Kaila said quietly.

  Trillian bellowed like a foghorn in a stormy night, and the message warned of danger ahead, rough seas. The voice said that if she wasn’t careful she would be crushed against the jagged rocks, sunk. But Kaila knew that the warnings were too late, it was all too late. She had already crashed into the reef, her ship was sinking, she could feel the water entering her lungs, making it impossible to breathe. Even as she struggled to reach the surface, to grab the one buoy that would save her she wasn’t sure she could, or even if that buoy was really there.

  Pauline was her buoy; she hadn’t known that until right then. Kaila knew she could deal with the new room, the furniture that wasn’t hers, the things that were so wrong. She could learn to live with all the unfamiliar newness of her world that was shiny and polished in a way that made her feel ill. They could take it all away, her white tees, her grey sweats, even shockingly her precious computer. But what they couldn’t take from her was Pauline, not Pauline, anything, anybody, even Norm could cease to exist, but not Pauline.

  Kaila felt her lips part, her mouth gape wide and then she was screaming. She crumpled into a ball on the floor. She wished for a place in the White Room, where everything was quiet and she could imagine that all the things that had shaped and been a part of her existence still remained, locked within a time warp. That the changes and impermanence that Trillian liked to write about was just a dream.

  It was all a dream, or maybe a nightmare.

  She understood the difference between things and people now. She felt the poke of the needle a little later, and she was glad because she could go to sleep again. In the quiet that followed, she found the peace that she would never know in the waking.

  CHAPTER 19

  Kaila returned to the White Room, but this time it wasn’t for any of the reasons that had brought her there before. This time it felt as if her body had forgotten how to move, her eyes how to blink, her mouth how to chew, as though she had forgotten all the functions that made her human. People, who liked to diagnose and fix the patients, as if they were cars that needed to be repaired, called it catatonia; Kaila called it giving up on life.

  CHAPTER 20

  Sedated, upped and downed, and everything possible that could happen to Kaila had occurred until she couldn’t take it anymore, yet it continued. And when her only thought was death and an end to it all, Trillian came to her. This Trillian in the White Room was agitated and nervous. Kaila knew that Trillian didn’t want to be in that space, but she was also aware of the truth, that without her intervention Kaila would never come back. If Kaila never came back then Trillian would dissolve like a puff of smoke. Trillian needed Kaila, needed her fingers to type the words that Trillian imagined.

  So Trillian entered that place that was so blindingly white and sterile, where the sickening scent of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol, and things that couldn’t be named but existed all the same, was heavy in the atmosphere. Trillian nudged inside Kaila who was now just a living shell, her mind shelved indefinitely. With Kaila in this altered state it was easy to take control, to move her limbs that were stiff from disuse. It was easy to pretend that she had healed, that she was whole enough to be set free of this prison, sent back to the place where she belonged.

  Trillian was exceptionally good at the task of impersonating Kaila, so much so that before the days had finished a week she was out, and the White Room was all just a past. Trillian stepped into the future.

  Kaila woke a few days later. When she did, she found that she was once again sitting in the cafeteria, only this time Pauline was nowhere to be found. Trillian tried to make her forget, block the memories of Pauline, but there were far too many for her to be successful at the task. Eventually, the truth converged in on Kaila, bringing with it a rush of hopelessness, and Kaila fell back, allowing Trillian to take over.

  This pattern went on for a while, until it didn’t. One day Kaila finally took back the control that Trillian was only too happy to relinquish, for in Trillian’s perspective, human life and all the caring and loss that went with it, was too much to bear.

  CHAPTER 21

  Kaila picked at the green peas that skirted around her plate every time she tried to spear them with the tines of her fork. It wasn’t really like she wanted to eat them, more of a game to pass time. Since Pauline had left, all her food tasted the same, the textures varied but the flavor was absent, leaving her unable to decipher between things she liked and those she did not.

  The cafeteria was decorated with the red, white and blue of the Fourth of July weekend. Banners with patriotic colors were draped across the glass showcases of food, making it difficult to see what you wanted to eat. Balloons, some with just a few puffs of air inside, dangled limply from the metal rafters above their heads. For the past week the cafeteria staff had donned tall black Lincoln hats, fake goatee beards and white Washington paper wigs, as if it were President’s Day not the Independence Day weekend. This kind of mistake wasn’t unheard of in Wildwind, where most of the staff were imports to the country, but who having secured their position and citizenship were eager to assimilate all the customs and nuances of the country they felt privileged to be a part of. Natives to the land probably would have deemed themselves too sophisticated for such trifles and would not have shown the vigor that these people did.

  Kaila saw the decorations and knew time was nearing a holiday, but where once she cared, now she didn’t. New food day didn’t matter anymore either, hadn’t for a very long time. Her life had always been about routines but never as rigid as they were now because it was in the order of the routines that Kaila found solace. She ate, drank, showered, brushed her teeth, dressed and all the things that were required of her, yet she didn’t live outside of these boundaries because it was unsafe to do so.

  Most days Kaila moved from one space to another, like a robot programed to do so. When she found herself positioned in a chair in a stuffy office with a doctor quizzing her about her life, Trillian stepped in and became Kaila. In those moments all the parts that were rusty from disuse creaked to life, and they believed her because they wanted to, because it was easier to do that.

  Kaila startled at the loud pop that sounded to her left. She turned to see that one of the residents, an elderly man named Henry, with a shock of pure white frizzy hair that reminded her a little of Einstein, and thick glasses that magnified his eyes, had snatched one of the Poppers off the table and set it off. Kaila wasn’t sure what day it was, but she was quite certain that the day hadn’t come for the Poppers to be set off.

  Poppers were cardboard tubes stuffed with colorful foil confetti and long streamers that made a terrible mess when they were released, but that the staff continued purchasing each year all the same. The dollar store trinkets were another way to celebrate the holiday and were loved by all.

  Henry sat at a table, an expression of pleasure brightening his face. His thin purplish lips curved into a smile, showcasing the fact that he only possessed a half dozen teeth. Several residents clapped loudly at the show then leapt to their feet. As if on cue, music, like that of a marching band, blared from the speakers and then everyone was releasing the Poppers. Even if Kaila had wanted to set off her own Popper, she didn’t have a chance because before she could blink, a posse of patients of all shapes and sizes had swept in like hawks to prey and had stolen them all from her table. The cafeteria soon broke into a cacophony of hoots and hollers, people danced to the music, most missed the beat of the tunes, but reveled in the moment of elation and fun that weren’t commonplace in Wildwind.

  “Kaila.”

  The voice was familiar but was difficult to place, until she remembered. There was no fondness attached to this name, just a grim reminder of all that had once been but wasn’t anymore.

  “Derrick,” Kaila said blandly.

  His name across her lips sounded the same as if she had said carpet, chair or had named an inanimate object. Whatever intrigue Derrick had once had, had fizzled
a long while back when Kaila’s world had tipped sideways.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  Kaila didn’t much care about Derrick, but the tremble in his voice was undeniable. His apparent anxiety made her pause. She placed her fork at a precise ninety-degree angle to her plate, a new habit that she had adopted in the time that had passed since Pauline had left. There was no reason for Kaila’s need to place all her eating utensils just so, other than it was a way for her to gain control over something, when all else in her world had become foreign and uncontrollable. With great difficulty she lifted her gaze to Derrick’s face.

  Kaila hadn’t seen Derrick over the past few weeks; in fact she couldn’t remember the last time she had set eyes on him. For this reason, she noticed that things had changed with him; Wildwind was leaving its mark on him as it did everyone confined to its space.

  There were deep dark hollows beneath his eyes that were bleary from what appeared to be lack of sleep. His hair had grown longer and instead of being perfectly styled was unwashed and limp. His clothes were rumpled, his face unshaven, and there was something in his eyes that might have been fear or tension; Kaila didn’t care enough to gauge which one.

  “I’m busy,” she said in the same monotone.

  This voice which had become her new way of speaking of late. More Poppers were released all around them. A few streamers fell between Derrick and Kaila, they were ignored.

  “This is serious.”

  His eyes tracked back and forth across the cafeteria, not quite focusing on one thing in particular. It seemed quite a feat since bodies were everywhere, dancing and singing in a celebration that seemed to make the boards of the building hum with enthusiasm.

  “I had another dream…”

  He shifted in his chair, locking on Kaila’s face. There was little that interested Kaila these days, but his mention of the dream ignited something in her, made her sit a little straighter and take notice. A light that had been switched off a while back was flicked back on, still dim, but on.

  “A death dream?” she asked, leaning in closer.

  When she did she was assaulted by the stench of unclean. Derrick smelled like he hadn’t showered in some time.

  He nodded, cutting his eyes to the table, before returning his gaze to hers.

  “How long ago?”

  Kaila shoved her plate to the side, finally abandoning the peas that she would never eat.

  “A day back ,” he said.

  His eyes brimmed with tears.

  “So you have less than a week before it happens?”

  He nodded again. “I need to stop it, I need to get a message to them…I have no fucking clue what to do and…it’s so fucked up.”

  “You know the person?”

  “Yeah, a little and…”

  He trailed off again. Despite the crazy all around them, Kaila felt as if she and Derrick were encapsulated in a bubble, alone.

  “Someone in here?”

  Derrick shook his head no.

  Another light illuminated in Kaila’s brain, the mystery of it was too interesting to ignore. Predicting was everything to her, and the allure of seeing time unfold as Derrick had dreamed was significant. In fact Kaila was quite sure that the opportunity to study Derrick’s precognition was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

  Kaila felt Trillian awaken, ready to listen, study, dissect. Kaila wondered if Derrick’s abilities could be harnessed, groomed and used to see more future events. But more than that Kaila pondered if his predictions would allow them to shift an outcome, change it by some kind of intentional intervention so that the person didn’t die after all. And if they couldn’t adjust the outcome was that because it was fated to happen? More questions surfaced as her mind hummed to life, ready to be there, to observe, record and decipher.

  “I need to stop it Kaila, I can’t deal with knowing that I could somehow have saved this person and I didn’t do it.”

  “Okay,” Kaila said, nodding vigorously.

  Something that felt a lot like hope blossomed inside her, as if someone had thrown the door wide open, letting fresh air into the dank space.

  “Can’t you call them and tell them what you dreamt?” Kaila asked.

  Even though she had posed the question, she hated her own suggestion because it somehow felt like a too easy fix, where the thrill of hunting for the answers had been tugged out of her grasp. Kaila had always loved to work things out on her own, solve puzzles the hard way because when she did it felt so much better than if she had been given the answers.

  “I need you to help me with this Kaila.”

  Derrick leveled his gaze on her with an intensity that seemed to imply that all his hopes and dreams rested upon her shoulders. Kaila was already ready to help, still she couldn’t help but wonder why he had come to her when there were so many more residents in Wildwind, cleverer people.

  “Why me?” she queried.

  Derrick thrust a shaky hand through his floppy hair a few times. His mouth worked to speak, but he stopped just short of releasing the words, until he finally did.

  “Because I dreamed about Pauline, and if things go as they always do, Pauline will be dead in less than six days.”

  Kaila felt the world spin around her, sounds amplified, the colors grew so brilliant that they became blinding. Trillian jostled for control. Trillian knew that Kaila was losing all of her restraint. Knowing that Pauline was in the outside world, living, experiencing and just being, was one thing, but for her to no longer exist, like a candle that had been snuffed out, was unimaginable.

  “We’re in,” Trillian said using Kaila’s lips and voice box, articulating the words that Kaila couldn’t. Then Kaila let go and released. Soon she was falling into a dark place as Trillian took over. But Trillian’s reign could only last a moment since there was no time to waste. Pauline’s life depended on Kaila pulling it all in, being more than she had ever been before, changing the future.

  CHAPTER 22

  “I must apologize dear readers for my extended absence, and that I have not imparted my words upon the collective, who based on the commentary so need to hear what I must say. But please know dear readers that these words that I pen across the waves of the space, bring into existence only that which all of us know.

  If in fact I was no more, the truth would not stop at my passing, for the truth will not be vanquished. It is the light upon which knowledge grows, thrives, a place where everything is real, and nothing that must be known is unknown. There will always be others to tell you what I have, the words may be unlike mine, but the meaning will be uniform in that we are alone, but never alone, apart but never apart.

  How can a car run without its engine, without its wheels? That the car runs at all, says that everything that needs to be there, is, and so too is the earth that we live upon. All that is needed is here, and just as a car is complete when made up of parts that become one, so too is humanity, all are together, working with, and because of the other.

  You may not see the continuity of your actions yet that does not make it any less so. For when you act or react, you set off a chain of events, a domino if you wish, where one to the other, to the other, and so on and so forth, connect. This connection cannot always be seen but yet remains so, always there, like an invisible thread that ties us all, thickening, thinning, lengthening and shortening, always changing, shifting, becoming different because that is the life we live. There is an impermanence in all that is, and all that has been, and all that will be. A life is lived, until it is not, and then at the very second a life ends, another returns to the collective, another soul enters the world and there is a circle that is unbroken, that is infinite.

  Glance at the infinity, a wave that is never ending, and just as that symbol has no beginning nor an end, so too do we. Energy is infinite, it is all and nothing at the same instance, it cannot be held, yet can be manipulated, directed into a space until the power moves another. There again is the chain that connects us all, the
blood that is our life force, the meaning that never stops meaning, the knowledge that we are one, we are all one, any other belief is an illusion.

  There is no separation other than that which the mind imagines. The material world draws a boundary between the people, but if we see the truth, distill it into a concentrate that is difficult to ignore, it gains strength and power and there is nothing to fear but the illusions that we have created. We are the same and also different, all parts necessary, all necessary for life to thrive, to continue and become. We are all a value in this place, believing anything less is absurd. Trillian”

  Kaila relaxed back against her chair. She could feel how Trillian was deeply contented after being set free to write, something that Kaila had refused her since Pauline had left. Trillian had been more than a tad bit miffed about Kaila’s refusal, but Kaila had stood firm. Kaila understood the importance for Trillian to have her time to articulate her thoughts and words. Trillian was never quite at ease until her words were placed carefully in the blog, but it hadn’t been enough to dissuade Kaila’s stance.

  Until the moment that Derrick had approached her, it had been impossible for Kaila to even look at her computer, much less place her fingers on the keyboard. In her estimation the laptop was a part of the past, lost with Pauline. She hadn’t cared if Trillian ever wrote another word of her musings because they wouldn’t bring back Pauline, they wouldn’t return her room to what it had once been. Words wouldn’t help, they couldn’t change everything back. To this point, Kaila had fought Trillian vehemently.

  Trillian, whose need for expression had grown even greater than Kaila could contain, had wrestled and won control on several occasions. Those times, she had spoken the words that she wasn’t permitted to write. Kaila had let it happen. She had caved in and allowed a wave of numbness to crest over her. During those times, when Trillian spewed her personal diatribe, Kaila found peace. She appreciated being away from it all, absent from the feelings and the loss of all that she had once had, but didn’t have anymore.