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We pass the church, but it is whole again, fully constructed.

I lose my silence by saying: “how did they rebuild the church so fast. It doesn’t look any different than it did before?”

This gets my alter ego speaking again, and he says: “the church was never burnt. You saw it that way. You wanted it that way, so you saw it.”

“I’m indifferent to religion. Why would I want to see a burnt down church. Forget it, don’t say anything. You’ll just lie anyway.”

I am now devoted to silence. He has obviously made me see this somehow. He has made me stare upon a fully erected church, a lie, just like the next words out of his mouth.

“You’re not indifferent to religion. You are interested and somewhat into Buddhism. You’re annoyed by Judaism but still admire it, and you outright hate Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity. You don’t feel that any other religion is worth mentioning. It’s all right to feel that way, even though you believe everyone should have the right to practise whatever they want.”

We are at Matt’s house. Oh god! What will happen here?

That voice sounds so familiar. It sounds like me. I can hear my own voice coming out of my mouth and going into my ears, but it isn’t me speaking the words. When I do talk, I hear nothing. My lips don’t move.

“What’s happening? Why can I hear you, but I can’t hear me?”

“It’s like a split personality thing. I can hear your thoughts, when you vocalize them, and you can hear mine when I vocalize them. Whoever is in charge of the body gets use of the mouth. Right now, that’s me.”

“How do you know this? How come this has never happened before?”

We’re walking, continuously walking, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.

“You nit wit. It keeps on happening. This is one of your blackouts. Every time I take over, you forget what happened.”

“I don’t want my personality to split. I want to have one personality. You’re not welcome here. Go away, and let me have myself back.”

“You imbecile. You’re not the true personality. I am. The blackouts are the only real moments in our life. Everything else is just our brain’s way of stopping us from going into complete mental distress.”

“You’re not the real personality. You’re a bad person. You kidnapped that poor kid.”

“I didn’t kidnap anyone.”

“Now you’re a liar too.”

“I’m no liar.”

I don’t care to talk to him anymore. I just need to get control of my body back. He has a knife. He’s going to do something horrible. What are all those flyers for? He starts talking to me again, but I won’t acknowledge him.

“Listen up dog brain. Every time I take over our body, I try to bounce you back into reality. This will merge our mind again into one cohesive brain, but you keep resisting. Every time I show you what reality looks like, you take over and forget everything. You do it on purpose, and you need to stop. Whenever we get enough dose of reality, I am able to step in and take back over again. You my dim witted friend are fantasy, and I am reality. I have to show you something so real, that it shocks you back where you belong. Fantasy shouldn’t be running us. Fantasy is for when we’re asleep or day dreaming, not for now, not for when we’re awake.”

I don’t respond. He is a liar. He’ll say anything. Despite my lack of response, he continues his pointless monologue.

“You’ll see soon enough. You’ll see that you are fantasy. You’ll understand that you’ve painted everything the way you want to see it. I’ll show you the way things are.”

I feel like I’m sleeping, like I’m dreaming. My body is moving, but I don’t seem to have any control over it. I stare down at Ann, as I’m standing over the bed. The blankets have come down off her shoulder, exposing her chest, just a little bit. I want to keep looking, but my body takes me away. I should pinch myself. Usually I can tell that I’m sleeping when I barely feel the pinch. I go to pinch myself, but I have no control over my hands. I can’t move them. I’m walking away from Ann, even though I want to look at her; I don’t want to go. I can’t stop my legs from moving. I must have finally got to sleep. This is just a dream. It has to be dream. I feel different. I don’t feel tired or energized like before; I just feel like I’m dreaming.

It looks like I’m headed for the closet in the spare bedroom. I open it up to pull out a gym bag. What kind of lame dream is this? Am I going to the gym? My body takes me to the kitchen, where I grab three different types of knives. Next, I go to the basement, and I’m rifling through my limited selection of tools. My hands look somewhat frustrated, as they tremble a little and are then thrown up into the air.

I head for the garage and start stuffing all of the flyers into the gym bag. The gym bag gets zipped up and the strap is put around my body. I leave the garage, closing the door behind me, as I’m doing it, I lunge my foot a bit too far forward, which for many people would not be an issue. For me, I have a longer second toe, so this causes quite a bit of extra pain, as that small toe cannot take the impact. It hurts, and it hurts bad. I don’t make any noise, as I don’t want to wake Ann, but the pain is really bad.

My body locks the garage door and starts putting shoes on my feet. I felt pain. Wait. Wait. I felt pain. Bad pain. Really bad pain, and it still hurts. This isn’t a dream. I start screaming at the top of my lungs: “Ann, Ann, for god’s sake wake the hell up. Ann! Ann! Please help me!”

“I’m here to help you now, stupid.”

That’s that voice again. That voice I keep hearing, but there is never anyone around. My body takes me out the front door.

I yell again: “Ann. Please Ann! I need you!”

“She can’t hear you dummy.”

“Why can’t she hear me? Am I sleeping? Am I sleep walking?”

“Man, you are thicker than frozen pea soup. She can’t hear you cause I’m in charge now.”

A long moment of silence goes by. We stare each other down, saying nothing, but she can’t take the crushing silence anymore. She lets out a sigh of frustration, saying: “say something. Damn it. Damn you Sam, damn you. Why did you ask me to come here?”

I sat down on the couch, my face dropped down into my hands, and I began balling, crying uncontrollably, like a two year old whose pet just died. Ann sat next to me, comforting me and very genuinely said: “tell me everything.”

I did, I told Ann everything. I told her in detail, every little thing. I told her about the blackouts. I told her about the kidnapping. I told her more than anyone else knew, except for Matt, but he knew more than I knew. She didn’t look at me in judgment. She didn’t insist on getting me committed. She just listened. I expected her to leave and never come back, but instead she rubbed my back. She ran her hands through my hair, as I rested my head on her chest.

“Don’t you want to leave? Don’t you want to tell me how crazy I am?”

I open my eyes, waiting for a response, afraid to hear it though.

“You’re not crazy Sam. You just need to sleep. You need to confront the situation head on. You need to go see your dad. Then, you’ll be able to sleep.”

“He’s dead. What difference does it make now?”

“You missed his funeral. You barely acknowledged his death, and you are suffering because of it. Do you know where he was buried?”

“No, but I could ask my sister.”

“How about you call her tomorrow morning? I’ll go to the grave with you. Let’s try to get some sleep for now.”

“Wait. How is all of this all right with you? I kidnapped a kid. I’ve been hearing voices. God damn it, I sun tanned.”

“When is the last time you slept?”

“I don’t know.”

“You hadn’t slept before I came to your house last time, right?”

“Right.”

“Had you slept before we were in the river together?”

“No. In fact, I think it was a day or two before the drug store robbery.”

“You stopped sleeping before the drug store robbery?”

“Only a day or two before.”

Now, for the first time, she looked at me like she really was worried about me.

“Sam, do you know how long ago that was?”

“No, but it must be at least 4 days.”

She shakes her head, so I guess again, “7 days?”

She shakes again, “2 weeks?”

“You haven’t slept in over a month.”

She grabs my hand and takes me to the bedroom, where we lie down on the bed together. Once again, I rest my head on her chest; she strokes my hair gently and says: “tomorrow. Everything will be better tomorrow. You just need to see your dad.”

Her heart beat begins to slow down and her hand goes a bit limp. She’s fallen asleep but not me. The voice rushes into my ears again, louder than ever before, shouting at me: “tomorrow. Everything will be better tomorrow. You just need to see your dad.”

Buzz . . . buzz . . . buzz

Who is at my door now?

I open the door to see the most beautiful woman in the world right there, right on my front step.

She stares back at me and says: “Are you going to invite me in?”

“Ann. It’s so good to see you. I didn’t realize you were so close.”

She pushes her way past me, gives me a very peculiar look and says: “close? Close?”

“Well, I would have figured that you were in Washington.”

“I was in L.A.”

“How did you get here so quickly? I just spoke to . . .”

She interrupted, “quickly? I didn’t get here quickly. I wanted to come right away, but it’s been days and days. On another note, I wanted you to know that Maria is going to be all right. She is setup with a new identity and a new life. If you’re not going back to Washington though . . .”

“Going back? Where are you going to be?”

“I’m going to be right here.”

“What about you? Are you safe?”

“I’m not a criminal. I was undercover.”

“Oh . . . so . . . this wasn’t real?”

As soon as I asked the question, I wanted to stop myself. I didn’t want her to say that it wasn’t real. I was terrified. I was in complete shock.

“Sam, I might have lied about my job, but I made love with you. I saved the woman that you love, even though I wanted Maria out of the way, even though it wasn’t part of my job. I wasn’t supposed to interfere at all. It’s undercover Sam; all we do is play along and build a court case against the bad guys. I jeopardized my cover. I went to Seattle, probably the only place in North America where this crime syndicate doesn’t have ties, to drop off your girlfriend for safe keeping.  I traveled all the way back from L.A., where I’m supposed to be closing a case. I don’t know if there is anything further from here than L.A. I’ve been through a lot. It’s all been for you. I started to fall in love with you at the river, on that first day. I just can’t stop thinking about you.”

Ann has this look in her eyes. Her eyes are talking to me, saying don’t reject me. Be with me.

“Maria basically just asked me to spend my life with her.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

Matt stares at me as he starts winding his watch; he looks inquisitive as he asks: “how is Ann?”

“I thought your watch didn’t work.”

He looks back at me defiantly and says: “it works fine.”

“No. No it doesn’t. This is the whole reason we met. You said your watch didn’t work. You asked me the time.”

“I never said my watch didn’t work.”

The kid knows that I’ve gone crazy. He’s probably spent more time with me than anyone else recently. Now he’s messing with me. He continues winding his watch and says: “you need to figure out what’s going on with you.”

What’s happening to this kid? It seems like he suddenly grew a pair, and he’s speaking differently. It actually sounds like I’m talking to a real life boy.

“Look Matt, I know what’s going on with me. I can’t sleep.”

“Not being able sleep is just a symptom. It’s not what’s wrong with you.”

“Who are you? You’re acting different. You sound different. I don’t get it.”

He keeps winding his watch and says: “we’ve been together for such a long time; I figured I could tell you anything.”

How long have I been with this kid? I’ve lost so much time. Has it only been days since I met him? Has it been weeks?

“Look, lack of sleep may be a symptom, but my dad dying is the cause. It’s the illness, the route of the problem.”

“Is it?”

“How are you still winding that watch?”

He tries to continue winding it, but he can’t. It’s gone as far as it will go. At that very moment he says: “it’s time for me to go.”

“Fine, I’ll walk you home.”

“I know the way.”

How the hell does he know the way home?

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you should use this new you when you get home. Stand up to your father.”

He shakes his head at me and says: “you know I can’t do that. You know why.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you can.”

“I need you. I need you to talk to my dad.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you Sam. Thank you.”

I wake up to find myself lying in a deck chair, sun tanning, in my back yard. This is weird. I don’t sit around and sun tan. I have a pair of shorts on, and nothing else, no shoes, no socks, and no shirt. My skin even feels a bit greasy to the touch. I’m wearing bloody sunscreen. This was obviously intentional. Who am I when I have these black outs. Where do I go? What do I become? Am I the kind of guy who sun tans, drives around in a big SUV, slaps a woman on the ass at her place of work (expecting her to giggle), drinks tons of beer, watches sports on TV, feels the need to talk to others about sports, picks fights at a bar, drinks and drives, but never ever smokes pot (cause that would somehow be wrong)? Am I that guy when I have a black out?

“Matt, you’re still here.”

He would know. He would know who I have become during the black outs.

“You brought me home. Remember, you said that we would figure things out together.”

I wonder, “how did we get home? Was it on a train again?”

“Yes.”

I don’t remember anything. “What happened on the way home? Did I fall asleep? Was I acting strange?”

“You did not sleep. We just rode home, overnight on the train, and now here we are, nothing strange.”

This kid isn’t all that useful. He never seems to know anything, so I just end the conversation by saying: “thanks.”

He looks a bit upset, as though he wants to help. He squeaks out a couple of words: “call Ann.”

“Why?”

“She must have given you Maria’s address in the first place. Call her. That way you can find out what you are like when you are not remembering.”

I am ready to pass the kid off again, but I can’t this time, it’s brilliant. “Kid, you’re brilliant.”

I grab a phone and the piece of paper with Ann’s phone number on it. I press buttons on the lovely contraption until it beings to ring.

“Hello”

“Ann, Sam here.”

“Sam.”

That’s all she says, just Sam, just my name, then silence.

“Ann, I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“I went to see Maria. Thank you for telling me how to get there.”

“It’s no problem. How long did you stay?”

“Only a minute.”

“You went all the way out there? You went all the way to see this woman, a woman you might love, and you only stayed a minute?”

“Ann, I need to see you. I need to talk to you. Will you come see me?”

“I’ll come see you, whenever you need me. I’ll be there for you.”

“Ann, you don’t know how much this means. Please come as soon as you can.”

Click

“You found me,” a voice says out of nowhere.

I look around to see “Maria.”

My breath is taken away, and my heart is still pounding. I repeat, “Maria.”

“Hi Sam.”

“Hello.”

“You found me.”

“I don’t know. I was just riding a train. I got off, and here you are.”

Maria giggles, a sweet little giggle, and I almost feel that it helps me catch my breath. I touch her face gently, and she closes her eyes.

“Come inside. Stay with me, as long as you want . . . forever.”

I reach my neck forward to kiss her. Our lips are touching, but I ruin the moment by saying: “I have to go back.”

“You travelled all this way. Now, you’re going back? How did you even find me?”

Maria placed her hand gently on my chest, at first rubbing gently then she just pushed me away.

“I don’t know.”

“Ann. She must have told you.”

That must be part of the lost time. I’m losing time now when I’m with people. It’s getting worse, much worse.

“Maria, my father died recently, and I haven’t slept . . . I actually don’t know when I last slept, but it’s days, at the very least. It may be a full week by now. My subconscious is controlling a lot of my actions, and I’ve been hallucinating and losing time.”

“You’re going crazy?”

“No. I just need to sleep.”

“Please. Just come inside. Sleep with me. We can hold each other forever.”

“Maria, I want that so much. I just need to take care of one thing first.”

I was afraid to tell Maria that I have had a psychotic break, and that I kidnapped a kid, so I try to casually find out about our whereabouts by asking: “where are we specifically?”

“Washington.”

I pretend like I already knew that. “Oh, no, I know that, but I meant what part of the city is this?”

“State.”

“What?”

“We’re in Seattle.”

“What?”

“Seattle, Washington.”

Oh god! Washington, D.C. is only hundreds of miles from home. Seattle, that’s quite a bit further.

“I should head back.”

Choo . . . choo

“You’re sitting in a train, traveling across the country like a stupid bum, and you have a big black eye on your face. Do you really think you’ve been doing things the right way?”

“I do not know. I just cannot stand up to my dad.”

God damn, this kid is making me angry. I’m fuming when I say: “Are kidding? God! I don’t even know where to start with you.”

“I do not know what you mean.”

“Would you stop talking like that. Speak like a normal person. You sound so weird when you talk.”

The kid just gives me a blank deadpan stare. It’s probably a survival technique he has developed from being daddy’s punching bag. I take a few deep breaths before I say: “you’re a good kid. I’m sorry I yelled at you. We’ll figure this out together. Once this train stops, we’ll figure out where we are and make our way back home.”

“Can I tell you about my mom?”

I wonder if he ever had a chance to talk to anyone about his dead mother.

“Of course.”

“She was a good kind lady. She did not stop dad from giving me bare butt spankings with his belt. She did not stop dad from giving me black eyes. She did not stop dad from telling me that I was useless and unloved, but she loved us. She did not beat us. It hurts when the one parent you can count on dies, especially when the other parent is a bad person.”

“You’ve got some real wisdom for somebody your age. Hell, you’ve got some real wisdom for somebody any age. Now you just need to figure out that you have to stand up to your dad.”

“I know I have to, but I cannot.”

I shake my head a little, not able to grasp this, and all I can say is “right.”

I hear the train coming to a halt, and the kid jumps off as it’s still slowing down. Why is he not afraid of his personal safety, but he’s afraid of his dad? I wait for the train to stop before getting off. It’s daylight, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. I see some houses just over a fence. The kid is already climbing the fence.

“Get back here, you can’t get away from me.”

I look behind me, and someone is actually chasing after me. Is this hallucination or reality? Either way, he’s going fast. I don’t want to take the chance. I run as fast as I can, jump and climb the fence. My heart is pounding, I look back to see the man still there. He yells out: “come back, and you’ll be in jail.”

Obviously he’s very serious about illegally riding trains.

Choo . . . choo

I hear the sound of a train. I make believe that it actually makes that choo choo sound, even though it sounds like a deeper, louder, car horn. The train tracks aren’t too far my house, but it’s pretty rare that I hear a train go by. I look out to see that the whole world around me is moving. How is this possible? I’m not at home. I’m on the bloody train. I’ve lost more time. This time it’s significant. I’m actually travelling somewhere. I don’t appear to be on a passenger train. There are no seats and no windows. I look around the train car to see if I’m alone.

“Sam? Are you all right?”

“Matt. When did you get here?”

“I have been with you the whole time.”

“Where are we?”

“I do not know.”

I think I’ve kidnapped Matt. I brought him on a bloody train, and we could be going anywhere, anywhere. North America is a big bloody continent. With NAFTA, trains without passengers go freely all the way from Canada to Mexico. As much as I don’t like Matt’s father, I have to respect the fact that he is going to be terrified that Matt has just disappeared, which is why I tell him that “we have to get you home.”

Matt starts balling like a little baby that has just been shaken and yelled at. He takes quick breaths as if his crying is stopping him from being able to breathe, and he forces out a few meek words: “I . . . I . . . I can’t ever go back.”

“So, what now Matt?”

I look at him, trying to stop myself from yelling, but I’m angry, really angry. His dad is only bully. He can get through this. He just needs to stand up for himself, really stand up for himself. I can’t stop myself from yelling: “why the hell am I on a train?”

Matt is shaking, shaking. He can’t steady his hands, and his voice becomes so quiet, I can only guess at what he’s saying, when he seems to say: “you . . . see . . . Ann.”

“I came to see Ann. I wonder where we are. Listen, you have to be a man. Use a bat, a rock, a knife, whatever you have to. Let your dad know that if he hits you, there will be consequences. If he gives you a black eye to explain away, you give him a knife wound to the arm; see if he ever hurts you again.”

“I cannot do that. I cannot stand up to my dad.”