Yousef

I’m in a forest at the edge of a quiet meadow which is intersected by a slow river. It’s quiet here, the only noises to be heard are those that my body makes, and the birds whose song can be heard, but cannot be seen, though I haven’t tried very hard to spot any. There’s a sense of peace and well being unlike anything I’ve felt in a long time. I emerge from the trees, and make my way to the river bank, where I find a perfect spot, on an outcropping of rock, where I can sit and put my feet in the water. As I reach down to take off my shoes I notice that I’m not wearing any. I shake off the feeling of unease at not having realized that I wasn’t wearing shoes. The water is cool around my feet and it is incredibly soothing, almost as if it could wash away any of the stressful thoughts or worries I normally carry, but I can’t seem to remember any of those familiar thoughts or worries. Just as I’m beginning to wonder why I can hear birds but can’t see any, What happened to my shoes, or why I can’t remember any of my typical stress laden concerns, I am wrenched from my state of bliss by a jarring and out of place sound. It sounds like something you’d hear in a movie when the hero’s spaceship is under attack. It’s that same blaring type of warning alarm. Alarm, that’s it. It’s an alarm.

I opened my eyes, to find the forest with it’s quiet meadow, invisible birds, and gentle stress relieving river had disappeared. I was in my bed, in my studio apartment and my alarm was going off. I reached over to my night stand to turn off the alarm on my phone, and noticed the little black notebook and pen sitting next to it. Dr. Alben said I needed to record my dreams whenever I had them. He even gave me a small stack of moleskins for that very purpose. He said it would help me manage my ever growing sense of anxiety. So far I have recorded a grand total of one dream. I’ve been using the notebooks to make notes about all my ideas for stories I’d like to write, but will probably never get around to. That’s what I do, I write down ideas, but can’t ever seem to take them anywhere.

I got out of bed and headed over to the kitchen area of my apartment to make some coffee. “Shit.” I muttered. I had forgotten to pick up beans on my way home yesterday. I'd have to get some coffee before my job interview this morning. Four months ago I was working for an education non-profit here in the city, but the grants began to dry up and with them my salary, so I was let go. My unemployment checks were enough to cover the rent and utilities,but very little else, and what little savings I had was long gone. I had applied to and interviewed with just about every local non-profit agency I could find, and had unilaterally been told that I wasn’t a good fit or that I was overqualified. I was hopeful that today’s interview would have better results. Sure, it was at a coffee shop, and yes it was the same one that I got my coffee from nearly every day, and yes I was definitely over qualified to be a barista, but unemployment benefits wouldn’t last forever and I was getting desperate.

After having deliberated far too long about what to wear, finally settling on an outfit that I thought would make me look like a cool coffee shop employee without betraying the fact that I was an out of work 30 something who was definitely trying too hard, I stepped out into a dismal overcast morning. It had been a strange winter. Almost every day had been bitterly cold and the sky always seemed to promise snow, but so far there had been no actual snow. The only weather we got came in the form of cold rain that froze over night and semi melted in the morning to create a seemingly permanent carpeting of slush over every surface. I trudged through the slushy four blocks to the coffee shop,and arrived about fifteen minutes before my interview. There was plenty of time to get a cup of coffee before I had to convince the manager to give me a job that, in all honesty, I didn’t really want. They had Ethiopia Sidamo brewing that day. It was my absolute favorite coffee. Maybe that was a good sign, or maybe it was just the brew of the day and a cup of coffee was just a cup of coffee. As I was making my way from the counter to an empty table by the window a woman came bustling toward me, I swerved to avoid her, and bumped into a chair which caused me to lose my balance and spill my entire cup of coffee down the front of my shirt. Shit, what was I going to do now? I didn’t have enough time to go home and change, I had coffee all down the front of my shirt and worst of all I didn’t have any coffee. The only thing to do was to clean it off the best I could, and try to come up with some clever reason why I was wearing coffee instead of drinking it.

The bathroom was tiny, it felt more like a closet than a bathroom. If I were to sit on the toilet my knees would almost touch the opposite wall. I grabbed a fist full of paper towels, ran them under the faucet, and dabbed at my shirt. Nothing happened except my shirt became more wet than it was already. I went to squirt some hand soap on the paper towels to see if that would help, but the pump was empty. I twisted around in the tiny closet of a room looking for some sort of storage where they might house the extra soap. There was nothing. I tried to look in the cabinet under the sink, but the room being as small as it was I couldn’t actually bend over to look in the cabinet. I awkwardly flopped my hand around inside the cabinet hoping that it would come in contact with a bottle containing extra soap. The cabinet was empty except for what felt like a rather bulky envelope. Out of pure curiosity I pulled the envelope out of the cabinet. Written in all capital letters, with a marker, were what appeared to be the words “THIS IS FOR YOU.” I couldn't fully make out the last word which looked like it said you, but had some other letters scratched out after it. “ Not really for me,” I thought, but feeling a growing surge of curiosity I opened the envelope. It was packed full of $100 bills. I immediately closed the envelope and looked around quickly to see if anyone else had seen what I had seen, but of course I was alone in the cramped bathroom. I instinctively bent to put the envelope back in the under sink cabinet where I had found, but paused mid way. I wondered how much money I was actually holding in the envelope. It couldn’t hurt to at least count it. I began to pull out the bills and count them. There were exactly 200 bills in the envelope for a grand total of $20,000. I was holding $20,000 cash in my hands. I had never, in my life, physically held that much money. “What if this is for me,” I thought, “What if some mysterious kind stranger left this money here with the intent of someone who needed it finding it here?” I definitely needed it. “But what if it was part of some sort of clandestine plan, like a blind drop for a spy, or for some sort of mob thing?” My mind was racing in all directions about where this money came from, or who it was actually for. I couldn’t even begin to think clearly about what the right thing to do was. So, I did the only thing that made sense to me. I stuffed all the bills into my jacket pockets, pulled out one of my little black notebooks, tore out a page and scrawled thank you on the page. I put the page into the envelope and put the envelope back under the sink.

Completely forgetting about the interview and my coffee stained shirt, I rushed out of the coffee shop and headed for home. I was in an oblivious haze, I wasn’t taking in my surroundings or paying attention to the gray skies or persistent slush on the ground. I was mentally livng out all the possibilities that this money had just opened up for me. If I managed this right I could live off it for at least 6 months. Maybe I could actually get started on one of the stories I was constantly recording ideas about in the moleskins that Dr. Alben had meant for dream recording. I could pay off my student loans. I could pack up my life and move to another city for a fresh start. Maybe I could… Wham! I felt an enormous impact on my left side. What the hell was that? All I knew was that I was laying in the slush on the side of the road, and looming over me was the fender of a box truck. A man was getting out of the truck and asking if I was ok, someone was yelling about calling an ambulance. I didn’t need an ambulance, I was fine, I had $20,000 in my pocket. I was feeling really good, I didn’t feel any stress, my anxiety was gone, and was that the sound of the invisible birds from my dream? My eyes began to feel heavy and with a contented sigh I closed them.

When I open my eyes I find myself on the outcropping of rock with the song of the invisible birds surrounding me, and my feet soaking in the gentle river. The sun is warm on my face and the sky is a perfect blue without a cloud in sight. This is a picturesque moment, and yet I can’t shake the feeling that I am missing or forgetting something. There was something that had happened, something that I had found and I can’t remember what it was. Then ripping through the serene landscape comes that alarm sound again, that out of place, space ship under attack warning alarm. My alarm clock.

I opened my eyes, and the forest with it’s clearing, invisible birds, and gentle stress relieving river disappeared. I was in my bed laying beside my partner with my phone alarm doing its job of waking me up. I reached over, turned off my alarm and then rolled over to look at my partner. “ Honey you wouldn’t believe the dream I just had.” I said. I began to recount the events of the dream to him, but he cut me off. “ Sweety that sounds so interesting,” He said, though obviously not very interested at all. “Shouldn’t you be recording that in your little black notebook? You know doctor Alben says it’s a good practice to help with your anxiety. Oh, and please don’t forget to drop off the down payment, for the new house, at the real estate agent’s office today. I put the money in an envelope on the kitchen counter, you can’t miss it ”

I got up and walked to the kitchen to make some coffee, and as the coffee brewed I found the down payment of $20,000 in an envelope that, written in all capital letters, bore the words “THIS IS FOR YOUSEF.”