"If you had told me about the pain, I never would have signed up. Why did you hold that from me? Yes, I know I bought a fantasy, but I didn't understand the cost."
I rub my aching temples. "Do you hear me? I didn't understand!" My fist slams the cinder block wall crushing my fourth and fifth knuckles. The room feels like a jail cell. It might as well be one, for what he took from me is worse than purgatory. I pace in circles as the soft floor squishes under my feet.
"This will change your world," He had told me. I look at my watch. Had that only been twenty minutes ago?
My heart thuds dully in my chest. "Clara," I wail and drop to my knees, sinking into the springy ground.
Her realness cannot be removed with a simple awaking. Her long, curly hair bounced on her shoulders whenever she moved her head. Those lips, sweet red lips. How many times had I kissed them? I can still taste her, smell her.
"Clara," I bemoan and bury my hand in my face, despite the now throbbing knuckles. A remembrance of our wedding plays in my mind. It couldn't have been more perfect. We married on the beach in Hawaii, surrounded by all the people we loved. The sun met the ocean as we sealed our vows with a kiss.
I will never find a love like Clara. "NEVER!"
We just celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary. Everyone was there, our kids Taylor and Ann. No dad would be prouder of those kids than I am. -My kids. People had always carried on about how hard parenthood was, but not for Clara and me. We had model-perfect kids. And those grandkids of mine. They brought me the very meaning of living.
A deep vise grip tightens my heart as darkness pulsates my shrinking heart chambers.
"You demon! How could you give me the world and then pull the plug?"
The darkness from my heart travels with my blood to every cell, infecting even the capillaries.
"I wish death to this. DEATH! Why don't you just kill me now?"
I stand and straighten my wrinkled shirt. -such an ugly, cheap shirt. I hadn't worn a shirt of such shabby quality in 60 years. Well, I guess that isn't true. It was only this morning I put on this thrift-store find.
"Steve, you dress like a hobo," I say to myself. Now I have another thing to mourn, the loss of my closet—rows of Ermenegildo Zegna suits. I had demanded the Italian brand of sophistication.
-Gone!
"My yacht. My servants. My island. Gone."
Where do I live? I fish in my brain, past half a century, to remember my real home. That is right. I live in some heroin user's basement. He needed someone to cover the rent, and I barely did it with my pizza delivery job.
Board meetings. Conferences. Speeches. None of that defines me anymore. Returning truth reminds me of the painful reality of delivering pizzas and begging for tips.
Behind me, the door creeks open. I wipe my tears before I spin around.
There he is. The man who gave me the world and then ripped it away. A world that promised the greatest pleasures out there. Clara flashes across my mind. Sixty years of passionate pleasure. My wife. My companion. All gone. She never existed. The grip on my heart tightens the pressure to the point it might explode. I hope it does. I can't take this. Knowing that the dream had fabricated my life is worth death.
I charge at Randell. That is his name, right? The Dream Master tech. He gave me everything I had wanted—more than I had hoped for. I had paid for that. But he hadn't told me about the soul-wrenching pain of loss.
My hands wrap around his neck.
"Give me my family back!" I scream.
"Steve, it was all a fantasy. You paid for twenty minutes of fantasy."
Sixty years. How could that have only been twenty minutes?
"Hook me back up. Hook me back up now!" I demand as my hands tighten his throat. I have never choked anyone out, but I can feel his arteries pulsate under my hand, and I must be close.
Hands grab my arms, and four men pull me away from Randell. He lets out a loud breath of air and coughs. His face looks almost as red as my shirt.
I fight the men with a strength I didn't know I had, yet they subdue me as their heavy bodies trap me to the floor.
"Steve, you must calm down," one guy says.
"Yes, if you are calm, then you always have the option of buying another twenty-minute session."
I stop fighting and consider their offer. I could get Clara and the kids back.
"You are completely in charge of your fantasy," Randell had instructed me as he had hooked the electrodes to my head earlier.
I look around for Randell, but he has snuck out of the room.
Excitement settles me. Then I remember the cost. I had saved three years of tip money for that twenty-minute session. I didn't have the funds for another round of fantasy. Disappointment hits me because I had piles of money in my dream.
Every part of it had been real.
*
Two years later, I find myself again in the white room. Am I really going through this again? The last two years had been hell as I tried to erase Clara and my family from my mind. But I couldn't. Every minute without them had tortured me.
I will only have twenty minutes, and then I will have to return to my disappointing life. But twenty minutes in fantasy is at least sixty more years of life-right?
Marc, the new Dream Master tech, hooks the electrodes to my brain. I can hardly contain my excitement.
"Clara, I am coming home!"
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Dream Addiction
by Stephanie Daich