The Missing Brick

I saw through your eyes, in a dream. I saw something throw a new moon at the sun, and push it away from your world. Your planet was saved from consumption by a burgeoning sun, but thrown into a cold darkness.

And then I woke up, and left my bed with that shard of a memory. Less than a minute of vision.

But the visions were becoming more frequent and longer. I reveled in the new insights and seethed at the new enigmas.

Very odd, to discover a new brain function while also losing brain control to a new drug habit. And I suspect that's why I took the meth binge as far as I did.

Did you know that methamphetamine creates a sort of verbal diarrhea effect? Similar to descriptions of demonic possession, I often felt a foreign consciousness (or a suppressed internal subconscious) take control of my mouth, like I was a wind up doll, and spit venom and wisdom, at random.

At least, it seemed random. Then I realized that you were seeing through my eyes, at various points during my waking hours, just as I saw through yours in my dreams.

The wind up doll version of me seemed to insult my lovers and friends, at very precise moments. I'm embarrassed at how long it took me to connect those dots, but my girlfriend was hot and she liked to snort meth.

While I explored my sensual passions and pondered on my dreams, the wallers focused on repairing the wall between us, on both sides.

On the dream side, the wall was my limited flesh brain. What a piece of work (does God have patents?), and yet how vulnerable. My memories of dreams often disintegrated upon waking. Only in my thirties, with careful mental focus, did they start to stick. And even then, I often felt the recollections slip from my grasp as I returned to the material world, and frantically wracked my brain to find the lost memory.

Eventually, I could tell that you were dancing with me, on the other side of the wall, looking for the missing brick, to pass little notes through.

I'd feel a memory of a dream slip away, then I'd feel you pass that glimpse of your world back to me, through the missing brick. I'd forget and have a blank...then POP! the memory would return.

I detected a will, a consciousness, with the same desire as mine, to know and be known, to love and be loved.

We both fought the wall.

And I slowly regained control of my mouth, as I realized that the wall faced my waking life as well.

I focused. And I thought. And eventually I could feel you, peeking through my eyes and ears for brief moments.

I shuddered at the thought of what you might have seen or heard in my life.

Did you see my anger? Did you see the danger?

Did you see my lewd escapades after the children's mother went away?

Did you hear the awful insults that I didn't really believe, uttered in private to clear my cluttered head?

Each of those moments might have been another brick in the wall between us. How could you hear or see such foulness, and not instinctively say "uh-uh!" in your spirit?

And yet I continued to look for missing bricks, and I perceived you doing the same.

Once you get to know the wallers, you can preempt them. One day, I noticed them pulling the strings in my brain to insult you, and I cried out to you that my brain was under attack. After that, I noticed that you found another missing brick in the wall, and my dream memories became stronger.

Then I sobered up, and remastered my mouth.

Another missing brick.

Then my dreams became more focused on our story, instead of grandiose tales of wars and worlds' ends.

And I came to understand how we can come together.

Another missing brick.

And in waking life, as I thought of you, my soul pregnant with questions, I seemed to see your answers in the forms around me. The knots of a tree, the decorations of the people's houses, all seemed to speak to me, as if a divine dancer behind the wall was answering my silent inquiries.

Another missing brick.