Through the gates of the sun lies the land of dreams, and beyond that...the realm of the lost.
In a private hospital room, motionless and still beneath a sheet, lies Joseph Caldwell. His surgery has passed, to all intents and purposes, successfully. The doctors offer no explanation for why he hasn't awakened from the medically induced coma. The stream of visitors trickles down to nothing, and still he lies in endless sleep. Nearly everyone has given up any hope for his recovery.
Anaesthesiologist Oliver Gideon is racked with guilt and confusion. Could he have somehow done something wrong? His superiors assure him he is not at fault, the science he reviews tells him his dosages were correct, but the longer Caldwell sleeps the more Oliver is haunted by the loneliness of the figure in the bed. He spends every possible moment with the patient, reading, talking, trying to fill the little room with sound, to stir a response that science isn't sure is possible.
Morpheus, King of Dreams has welcomed Joseph to his realm. Some dreams, he explains, are true, and some are false. There's only one way tell. Joseph loves the dream world Morpheus has woven for him, for in it, he's found something he never found in reality—a soul mate. For the first time, his life is perfect.
In the end, he has to choose. He cannot stay in the Realm of Morpheus forever. It's either back to the land of the sun, and potential loneliness or on to the realm of the lost.
Reader Advisory: This story has been previously released as part of the 50s Mixed Tape anthology by Totally Bound.
General Release Date: 17th January 2014
“It’s my half day today.” As though having time off means you’ll be away from the hospital. Dr Oliver Gideon perched on the edge of the uncomfortable chair beside the bed in room 32B at Beachport Memorial Hospital and searched the pale face on the pillow for any sign that his words had been heard.
The night nurse had turned the patient’s face so he looked into the room. If he could see, that was. The comatose man’s eyelids remained obstinately closed after six months of long sleep. There wasn’t even a flicker of eye movement that Oliver could latch onto and pretend the patient dreamed, or merely slept. Those lids lay stubbornly still, immobile as the rest of the man.
Coma. It was supposed to have been a short-term state induced to enhance the body’s natural healing processes following Joseph Caldwell’s surgery. Instead, hours had stretched into days, and days into weeks, and still the man slumbered on, if sleep it could be called.
It didn’t matter that the patient’s eyes refused to open of their own accord. Oliver knew they were slate grey, almond-shaped and, when he was conscious, they telegraphed every emotion the man felt. Oliver knew that, because he’d stared down into those eyes on an operating table six months before, seen the interest in the grey depths turn to fear when he’d caught sight of the gas mask. Fear wasn’t unusual in his patients—he had a practised litany of words designed to ease the uncertainties of patients who were scared of losing consciousness.
Some people feared spiders, some feared the unknown. Joseph Caldwell, he sensed, feared losing control. He was a man who was accustomed to being careful. His whole being screamed caution and reserve, from the precisely trimmed hair to the neatly plucked eyebrows. If he peeked into the plastic carrier that held the man’s belongings he would surely find a pair of highly polished dress shoes, neat slacks, a button-down shirt and a tie. Even his build was a perfect balance of casual fitness, muscled but not buff, lean but not thin.
The patient had lost muscle and fat though over the ensuing weeks. Allowing his gaze to wander down the thin frame, skipping guiltily over the IV needles and catheter tubes, Oliver counted the man’s breaths for a minute. Each breath raised the thin sheet reassuringly, establishing Caldwell’s claim to life. Persistent, tenacious, clinging to life. He might look waxen and pale, but Joseph Caldwell lived, and that was something.
It wasn’t much consolation, and Oliver felt at times that if the man had died on the operating table he might have been better able to get over the whole mess. This lingering sleep-death tugged at his heart and head, made a mess of his entire reason for being. His mother clucked at him and told him he was obsessed. He might well be. He just couldn’t forget the way trust had replaced fear in that grey gaze, the way the man had held his gaze until sleep claimed him, had clutched Oliver’s hand until his body went limp.
“I could chuck it all,” he spoke. He sipped his coffee idly and grimaced at the bitter flavour. He’d forgotten the sugar again. “And go off to become a bohemian artist. Make splashes of colour on grey landscapes and tell the world I’m just misunderstood.” The idea had come to him more and more often of late. He had come to despise his job and the science behind it. Science he felt had betrayed him. All his life he’d loved the quantifiable, the predictable. When science screwed you over what else was there but art? Draining the cup to the dregs, he swallowed the strange lump in his throat that seemed to have been a near-constant problem for the last six months.
My family moved a lot when I was young. A constant stream of new schools, new locations and new people made my family and my books my only constant companions. As a child I was swept away into incredible worlds with the turn of every page, from Camelot to Sherwood Forest, the deck of a whaling ship, or the frigid Alaskan tundra. Every book I read spurred new adventures…if only I were there to turn left when Lancelot went right, or some such.
Even before I started putting my what if's on paper, I was telling myself stories. As I grew, the stories changed, and the focus changed from wild adventures and feats of daring to simpler, more enduring themes. Today I write about what I believe is one of the most basic of human needs…the need to love and be loved.
Reviewed by MM Good Book Reviews
This story is very different and intriguing.
This is a beautiful, yet gripping, love story and almost made me cry.
If you like 50...
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Reviewed by Hearts on Fire
I like how Joseph’s story and Ollie’s are woven together. Quite cute and clever. The ethereal quality to the dream sequences are done well. Time moves appropriately and the sudden changes witho...
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