The hero had forgotten the most important absolute, that when he wakes he is no longer a hero. The sad reality of dreams is that they are dreams and that worlds in which they take us do not exist as we toil through the day. Too many times our hero had woken from a dream of love, connection, and hope into the world he loathed. Sadness filled him the moment he realized the people around him weren't there.
It happened so cruelly, it would be in the midst of a kiss or conversation, his partner would become none responsive and he had to begin working harder to get them to hear him. He would rush behind them through a door and find himself lying in a dark room with only the remnants of the world in his memory. There was no feeling like that feeling the hero has in the shower the next morning remembering only a shadow of the glory for which he lived in the dream, preparing for a job he hated, and hoping to find a girl to take to his parents.
It has been years for our hero since he felt that feeling. It had been since he met Jane. A short buxom woman who's love out shined any dream he had once had. Her touch, thrilled him to the point of ecstasy, and though that carnality did fade he never turned down her touch, not even when they were angry at one another. Our hero knew that he finally had a girl to take home to his parents.
He noted early on the wonder of lying with her. He joked that her feet were freezing and her body was like fire, but secretly he enjoyed it. Wrapping his arms around her while they lay like two spoons interlocking he would wake in the middle of the night whispering in her ear when she was half asleep. He loved the way she rested against him in bed. He could talk for hours of the ways he had enjoyed her body, the look and feel but that was not the place where he rested his thoughts only. The support she had given him when he lost his job, sitting next to him during the death of his sister. She knew, not only, how to comfort him in pleasure but also in pain. When he met Jane he had almost lost hope, he expected to be alone the rest of his life.
Love was the reason they married. A small service, family present, and the hero's brother stood next to him, while Jane's sister stood next to her. Of course the hero can't say that the moment the preacher pronounced them man and wife was the greatest day in his life, there were too many great days. The honeymoon, their first Christmas as man and wife, their children. Finally the hero had found the thing he'd been looking for, love that met him daily and nightly never forgetting him, to never wake alone again. All these days brought him joy, so much happiness that he could never name one best day. Of course, some days the hero rested in fear, fear of the greatest rule.
However, fears just like rules can be forgotten, and for our hero this was the case. It was a Friday, the kids were now old enough to ride the bus home from school and he waited anxiously for them, having come home from work early so they could leave for their family vacation to the beech. Jane was busy packing in their bedroom. He was so excited it felt like it was taking forever when the hero noticed that is was getting dark early, “There must be a storm coming,” he said with chagrin.
It began to get dark so dark in fact he could barely see out the window. The rain beat against the shutters, and the drops sounded loudly from the overflowing gutters in the house, the power lines hummed as they always did when it rained. He waited and waited and waited for the bus to come but it must have been running late, the power lines buzzing now.
He ran to the bedroom to find Jane sitting alone in the middle of the bed. He called to her but it seemed like his voice could not carry, his feet were like iron and he finally made it to the bed and lied next to his wife. It took everything to choke the words “I love you” from his mouth. He was afraid that she couldn't hear him over that asinine buzzing. Why is the buzzing so loud, and why did he feel paralyzed, unable to rise or talk?
Finally after a minute, he realize he had to urinate badly and popped out of the bed, turned off his alarm, and remembering little of the life that he knew as the hero he got out of bed. He went to the bathroom, relieved himself, got in the shower preparing for work, and thinking maybe today he would find a girl to take to his parents.
