The Deep Dream

Hello My name is James I didn't think my life would end the way it did—or begin again in the same breath. If you’re reading this, then I survived. At least physically. The rest of me is still debatable. This book isn’t an apology. It’s not a confession either. It’s more like proof that I existed the way I remember existing. Because memory gets slippery when alcohol is involved, and even worse when you wake up somewhere you don’t belong. I’m writing this while drunk. About being drunk. After ruining my life drunk. That sentence makes sense to me. If it doesn’t work for you yet, give it time. I had a best friend once. His name was Luther. We were inseparable—the kind of friends people assumed would grow old together, sitting on barstools, telling the same stories louder every year. We shared everything. Laughs. Fights. Bad decisions. The only real difference between us was that he knew when to stop drinking. I didn’t. We had a favorite bar in New York called Jean’s Rabbit Den. The name alone should’ve been a warning. It was dark, loud, and smelled like spilled whiskey and regret. The kind of place where time didn’t move right. Where nights blurred into mornings without permission. That’s where everything went wrong. It was February. Snowing hard enough to make the city feel smaller, quieter. I called Luther that night while already buzzed, which is how most bad ideas start. “Wanna go to the bar?” I asked. “You, me, the girls.” He laughed. “Yeah, why not?” So I told my wife. She didn’t hesitate—she trusted me back then. That still hurts to admit. We got dressed up. Fancy coats. Clean shoes. Pretending we were better versions of ourselves than we actually were. The cold slapped us the second we stepped outside, like the city was trying to sober us up before it was too late. It failed. Jean’s Rabbit Den was alive when we walked in. Music thumped low and heavy. Lights flickered just enough to feel intentional. Luther and his girlfriend were already there, drinks in hand, smiles loose. We sat. We drank. We laughed. Thirty minutes passed. Maybe an hour. Hard to say. Time starts losing its edges once the alcohol hits a certain level. Everything after that feels smoothed over, like a dream you remember but don’t fully trust. At some point, I stood up. “Bathroom,” I said. Luther’s girlfriend stood up too. “I’ll go,” she said. I didn’t think anything of it at first. That’s the lie I tell myself, anyway. She followed me down the narrow hallway. Red velvet dress. Heels that caught the light when she moved. She looked unreal—like the bar had imagined her into existence. I remember thinking she didn’t belong anywhere else. We reached the bathrooms at the same time. When we walked out, she smiled at me. I was already drunk enough to believe the smile meant something. “You’re fu—” I stopped myself, laughed. “Beautiful.” She laughed too. Too easily. “Let’s go somewhere more private,” she said. And I went. I didn’t think about my wife. I didn’t think about Luther. I didn’t think at all. We ended up in the janitor’s closet. I remember the smell of cleaning chemicals mixing with alcohol on my breath. I remember laughing. I remember hands. Heat. Guilt buzzing somewhere far away, like a radio left on in another room. We were gone for a while. Too long. Luther found us. I remember his face before I remember his voice. Red. Shocked. Hurt twisted into something sharper. He looked at me the way my father used to look at my mother when he drank—like love had curdled into something dangerous. My father died when I was seventeen. That look died with him. Until that night. “f**k you,” Luther said. “Let’s take this to the roof.” In my head, I panicked. I knew what that meant. Out loud, drunk and stupid, I said, “Okay. Let’s do it.” The roof was freezing. The wind tore through us like it wanted us gone. Snow stuck to the concrete in uneven patches. The city lights below looked unreal—too far away, too quiet. Luther was six-foot-five, two hundred thirty-five pounds. I’m five-nine, one-fifty-six on a good day. He clenched his fists. I remember sweating despite the cold. He charged. All I felt was pressure. Hands. Weight. A sudden absence where the ground used to be. They say I flew. I don’t remember the fall. I woke up to the lights. Sirens. Voices that sounded far away. Someone is lifting me. Someone shouting numbers I didn’t understand. The ambulance doors slammed shut. The ceiling moved when I didn’t. At the hospital, everything happened fast. Surgery. Tubes. Pain that flickered in and out like bad reception. I drifted in and out of something that felt like sleep but wasn’t. I didn’t dream. Or maybe I did, and this is the dream. My wife divorced me. I learned that later. Apparently, I needed time to recover. Apparently, I was lucky to be alive. Apparently, I was unconscious longer than I realized. Time stopped meaning anything. When I finally got home, I didn’t wait long before ruining things again. A month in, I started looking for someone new. I told myself I was lonely. I told myself I deserved it. I met a girl. She said she was twenty-seven. I was twenty-nine. We went on our first date at Jean’s Rabbit Den. Yeah. That bar again. We drank. Of course we did. We went back to my place. The next morning, I woke up next to someone I didn’t recognize. She screamed. “I’m seventeen!” she yelled. The room spun. I swear she wasn’t. I swear. She threw a book at me before running out. I picked it up. My name was on the cover. I don’t remember writing it. The police came. Hands behind my back. Cold metal cuffs. Just like that, I was gone again. Prison stripped time down to its bones. First day in, I paced the cell like an animal. Dinner came. Lines. Stares. Threats disguised as jokes. “What the f**k did you say?” someone barked at me. “Nothing,” I said. “Sorry.” That was the right answer. I found a seat eventually. “Name’s Eric,” one said. “Church destruction.” “Robert,” another. “Harassment.” “Ronda,” the woman said calmly. “Killed my boyfriend.” Then they looked at me. I told them about the girl. They didn’t believe me. I don’t blame them. That night, lying on a thin mattress, staring at a ceiling that felt too close, I realized something was wrong. Not just with my life. With reality. Events didn’t line up. Ages shifted. Time stretched. Things repeated. It felt like I was stuck in something deep—something layered. Like a dream you can’t wake up from. My name is James. And this is where everything starts to feel unreal.