Earthly Concerns

Chapter 1: Dreams

Earthly Concerns

By Xavier Axelson

Chapter 1: Dreams

My phone was ringing. Not true. The ringer was never on. I looked over at the bookcase next to the bed and could see my cell phone’s faint blue light as it vibrated. I woke just minutes before from a dream that involved insects. Moths and butterflies or moths and spiders, I couldn’t remember. I felt the dream disappear as I tried to cling to its memory. I had been lying in my bed staring at the ceiling, eyes bleary, unsure if I felt a spider crawling on me or if it was just the hair on my legs brushing against the sheets. I leaned over and grabbed the phone.

“Hello?” My voice was scratchy, I had to lick my lips, and swallow to make moisture appear.

“Anson?”

The voice was familiar and sad. I thought of the dream. Definitely spiders and moths, not butterflies. I heard something bang against the window at the foot of my bed.

“Who is this?” I struggled to sit up and brushed my hand against my itchy leg. Nothing there, but I couldn’t be sure. I got up, went to the window, and saw a fat June bug crawling across the screen.

“Who?” I started to say again but was cut off.

“Barrett,” I heard the voice say. There was a pause before he repeated, “Barrett, it’s Barrett.”

I swallowed hard, I needed water. Everything started to slide sideways. Was I still sleeping, trapped inside the spider-moth world?

“Anson, you there?”

I nodded against the phone. I never thought I’d hear from him again. He was the type who every time you saw them you felt like it would be the last time. I hadn’t heard from Barrett in about a month. Our affair had been hot, intense, and painful. He had gotten so deeply under my skin that it only been recently had I trained myself not to think about him constantly. Now here he was on the phone, this man whose damage I knew only to well. I couldn’t let him back in, the stakes were too high. His particular type of game playing wasn’t for me.

“I’m dreaming,” I said aloud and immediately rolled my tired eyes. I sounded like an i***t. The bug had stopped moving and hung to the screen as if contemplating what to do next.

“I’m sorry,” Barrett said, his voice pained.

As I focused on his voice I felt my senses come back to me. I wasn’t dreaming. I was awake. The pain in Barrett’s voice made me realize the dream was over.

“What time is it?” I asked dumbly as I reached for a watch that didn’t exist. I stood up, stumbled over to the cable box, and could just make out 3:00 A.M. on its clock.

“Anson, I need your help.”

In the few months that I had known Barrett, he never asked for anything, although I often offered, he never asked. Hearing him blatantly asking for help sounded as distorted as the beetle banging against my window screen.

“What’s up?” I asked as I looked away from the green numbers on the clock and went to the kitchen. I opened the freezer door, grabbed an ice tray, began filling a glass with cubes, and then turned on the faucet.

“My daughter is gone. I need your help.” I heard his voice break.

I took a drink and found I had trouble swallowing. I coughed and took the phone away from my ear and held it against my bare chest while I coughed again.

I didn’t know much about Barrett’s daughter. I knew he had one, had seen vague pictures of her. My addled brain tried to recapture these images as I stood at my sink, eyes closed and seeing only shadows behind my eyes. I gave up and took another drink, this time managing to swallow without coughing.

“Barrett.” I said his name in an attempt to make the situation real in my head. I was unsure of what to say, I was still shocked it was him.

“Don’t tell me to call the police. Don’t f*****g say it.”

This time I recognized that what I heard wasn’t pain at all, it was terrified exhaustion.

“Well,” I said, pausing to think. “What do you mean missing?”

“I didn’t say missing, I said gone. She’s gone. Goddammit, she’s gone.”

I heard him sob and the sound sent a chill down my spine. I didn’t know he was capable of such emotion. His usually aloof demeanor was gone and it was unnerving.

“Will you help me?” he asked when he regained himself, his voice guttural.

I could feel the dreamy spider webs and flickering moth flames encroaching from my dreams. Something was wrong. I could feel it. Worse, I could see it. The flashes that came were like lightning. They were always vivid, quick and then gone. She was gone. I saw her behind my eyes; dark haired, innocent, smiling and then gone; vague and translucent like a moth’s wings.

“Barrett,” I said and looked behind me. I thought I could hear the beetle banging against the screen again. “I don’t know what I can do to help you.”

“You know damn well what you can do.”

I could hear desperate anger building in his voice.

I closed my eyes and was grateful when there was nothing but blackness. I knew what he wanted and I hated that I had ever told him about my gift. That was what my Aunt Cyn called it, I thought of it more as a curse.

“Tomorrow,” he said quickly.

I heard him blow his nose.

“Tomorrow at that Thai place over in the strip mall, you remember?”

I nodded, still trying to hold onto the darkness that was being invaded with lightning images that left electric residue behind my eyes.

“Anson?” He was pleading.

“Yes, I’m nodding, tomorrow for lunch.” I felt my eyes begin to burn.

“You’ll be there? Noon?”

“I’ll be there,” I hung up and wiped a hand across my eyes trying to relieve the burn. Why, damn it? Why?

I made my way back to bed and instead of lying down, sat there on the edge staring at the window where the beetle had been. It had flown away or fallen to the ground.

Barrett, f*****g Barrett, my heart was pounding. I knew I shouldn’t get involved. For a second I thought about calling the police, but what had happened? I knew he was skeptical about my ability. So was I, for that matter. To call unexpectedly and ask me to help made me wonder what had happened and where was his daughter?

I looked down and could see the head of my erect c**k poking through the fly on my boxers. What about the fact that I still wanted him. I wanted a man incapable of being anyone’s anything. The warnings in my brain met with the unhealthy want in my heart.

Why had he called me?

I looked away from the screen and finally lay down. I didn’t even know his daughters name, he had told me once but for some reason the only name that came to mind was Gabrielle. Although I was certain that wasn’t it.

More lightning images screamed across my mind; the girl on Barrett’s shoulders laughing, or was that an image I had seen at his apartment? Damn. I felt the burning in my eyes again. He wanted me to see, wanted me to look beyond this world into the world between and see if I could spot his daughter. I wondered if it was merely this that provoked him to call me at three A.M. or was it something more? Did it matter what the reason? Could I help him? I shook my head against the pillow and felt sweat trickle down my temples.

If you can see, then you help…

It was the voice of my Aunt Cyn I heard as I finally fell back into the shadow world of dreams and the promise she made me swear when she learned I could see not only into the future but find things hidden in the past as well.