Worlds Connected

Not many people go out during a rainy day. I don't mind the cold weather and I find the smell of rain relaxing and healing. It was a late Monday afternoon when I decided to walk home after work. Instead of taking the train I took the sidewalk that led to a park near my home. I had brought an umbrella and was well aware of the weather that day. What I was not aware of was what I was about to find.

Not many people go out during a rainy day and not many things happen. I see rainy days like a reset for the world. A break from a rather loud and busy world. The streets are washed down, the trees have a drink and the lakes replenish their water. That day, I felt like I was going through a reset of my own.

It had been months since I experienced anything in life worth telling. Everyday seemed like a repeat of the day before. Even the weekends were forgettable. Day in, day out, I was a zombie in a leash. Work, eat, sleep. I was addicted. I had no friends to talk to and I didn’t really care. All I wanted was to go home and sleep. That was my goal everyday, if I didn’t get good sleep or didn’t get enough, I would consider it as having a bad day. I couldn’t care less if I had the worst day at work or anywhere. As long as I could sink my face in that pillow and run away in my dreams, nothing else mattered.

The rain had gotten weaker the closer I got home. Once at the park, it became nothing but a small drizzle. The winds had died down as well until there was nothing but a cool gentle breeze. The sun started to dissipate the cloudy sky a bit and the pavement became as reflective as glass.

I slowed down my pace to admire the scenery. I’m not one for recognizing beauty but that sight was very eye catching. I came to a halt after I noticed a strange bench. I had been going to this park since I was a kid and was familiar with everything it had to offer but this was different. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had just put a new bench at the park, I always thought the park needed some anyway. What seemed weird about this particular bench was the fact that it did not look new. The paint was chipped and it had already been showing some rust. On top of it all, there was a small black book laying on the bench.

The book didn’t seem to be affected at all by the rain, as if someone had just placed it there not long ago but I did not notice anyone. I was all alone in that park. No cars, no birds, no people, nothing but me and my reflection. I looked around carefully to see if there was anyone that I might have missed. I felt very alone. Curious about this book that I had found, I felt reluctant to pick it up just because of the chance someone had lost it. I decided to pick it up just to see if it had any kind of contact information in it.

It was a small notebook. Minimal and sleek. Nothing was written on either the front or the back cover which made me think it was new. Maybe someone had just bought it and left it here by accident. I flipped through each page rapidly predicting that I wasn’t going to find anything written on it anyway. I didn’t examine it very carefully and just decided to take it with me as it was just going to get ruined in the rain or snatched by someone else.

Not thinking much of it, I resumed my walk home. Once I arrived, I threw the notebook on my desk and dived into bed. I fell fast asleep since I was tired from the walk there.

That night, I had a very interesting dream. It was somewhat of a nightmare but I didn’t feel scared at all. It was more of an uneasy feeling. My dream took place at the same park I was in earlier, but instead of the beautiful setting that I went through that day, it was night and everything looked dead, along with the lake. The trees were dry with no leaves as though it was winter and the lake was empty with nothing but dead fish and trash at the bottom of its basin.

The same bench was there with the same small black notebook that I had found earlier. As soon as I was familiar with my surroundings, I became lucid. I knew that I was capable of waking up if I wanted to but I decided to wander a bit longer in this dream. I was not lucid enough to change my surroundings, only lucid enough to know I was still asleep. Everything seemed to be the opposite of what I had experienced earlier in my walk. There was no breeze, no beautiful sights. Everything I looked at was destroyed or decaying.

I picked up the notebook once again, this time examining it more thoroughly. As opposed to the real one I had picked up, this one had some sort of weird lettering on the cover. Symbols that I couldn’t understand. At first I thought they were hieroglyphics of some sort but they suddenly started shifting positions and morphing into more and more complex lines. I started to lose my lucidity the more I stared at it. I had a sensation that I was being sucked into this notebook as I started to open it to the first page. I tried to stop my actions but it was too late. The book had completely opened and I was sucked into the first page.

My dream shifted me into another dream world where I was now at a convenience store. The dream was quick and seemed more like a far off memory than anything. There were two people in my dream, the clerk and a hooded man. I recognized the clerk but I was unable to distinguish the other person. He was standing behind me at one point while I was in front of the register and I heard him say something in a low tone. I couldn’t hear him clearly and tried to turn around to ask him what he said but I could not turn my neck. He said it once more and all I could understand was the word three. I awoke after that.

I woke up in a puddle of my own sweat. The clock read 3:45 am and I felt restless. I sat up which made my head hurt. The room was pitch dark and spinning uncontrollably. I kept wondering about my dream, it was hard to piece it back together as bits and pieces were escaping my memory. One thing that really stayed with me was the convenience store. I knew which store it was since I would stop there ever so often to grab a snack on my way to work or from work.

Sleep was unattainable from then on. I spent the next couple of hours in my living room eating junk food and watching the news. On nights where I had trouble sleeping I would watch TV to bore me to sleep. It would usually work but on this occasion I just wasn’t able to.

The notebook was still where I had left it the night before. The sight of it triggered a burst of images taken from the dream that I just had. I started looking for a pen to write out the details before they were completely erased from my mind. I shuffled through my miscellaneous drawers until I had found a ball pen without a cap. I tried it out on my hand to see if it would write to no luck so I used my kitchen lighter to heat up the tip.

I wrote down everything I could remember. The empty lake, the dead trees, the notebook, the convenience store and the hooded man. I didn’t exactly know why I was writing it down, or why any of it mattered. All I knew was that I didn’t want to forget it. If I did, it would only bother me afterwards. Something about a forgotten memory haunted me like a bad omen.

The time was 8:00 in the morning which gave me an hour before I had to go into work. Usually, I would barely be waking up around that time but today was different. I decided to leave early and head to the convenience store to grab a coffee and something to eat. I tried not to think too much about my dream. I didn’t really believe in any dream meanings or supernatural occurrences so it all seemed like a waste of time when morning came around.

The convenience store was right in front of the bus stop that took me to the train station which was definitely convenient for me. I went inside and immediately started to wonder if I would experience the same things I experienced in my dream. I looked around to see if by any chance I would see someone wearing a hood of some sort. No one was around except the clerk which gave me a sense of relief and disappointment. On one hand, I wanted to believe everything was a dream and go about my day normally with the pure intention of having a good sleep at the end of the day. On the other hand though, I kind of wanted something to happen. I wanted something to correlate with my dream to bring some sort of excitement to my life for once.

I stared at the clerk while wondering, why of all places, did I dream about this one. I felt drawn to something. A reflection of myself in the glass behind the cashier. It was faint but I could distinguish the shape of a person behind me. I tried to turn my head but was unable to. It felt as though I were frozen. Then I heard it again, that same voice I heard in my dream whispering to me, “Three”. It all happened so quick that I didn’t really have a chance to react. All I did was repeat what he said out loud.

The cashier clerk wasn’t paying attention to me but rather a magazine that he was reading. It wasn’t until I uttered the number three that he gazed up and noticed me. He asked confused, “Did you say number 3?”

Not knowing why I said it, I nodded yes. I didn’t explain why I said it since I was confused as well.

He slowly put his magazine down and got up from his chair. He walked towards the scratch off ticket section placed behind the counter and asked again if I said the number three to which I replied yes. At this point, all I was doing was avoiding any more awkwardness. He removed a scratch off ticket from the behind the display case with the number three. He scanned it, charged me and went back to reading his magazine.

I slowly looked back to check if there was anyone behind me. Once I realized there was no one, I dashed out to the bus stop. The rules for the ticket were simple: Scratch all three boxes and win the amount repeated 3 times. I scratched vigorously with an old penny I had in my pocket. I tried to keep in my excitement but there it was, three sets of $20,000.