Echoes of the other life

Chapter One: The Stranger in My Dreams The first time I saw him, I woke up with tears in my eyes. Not the kind of tears that came from fear or pain, but something quieter—an ache that sat heavy in my chest without a name. I didn’t recognize him, but I knew him. He stood at the edge of a lake, early morning light spilling across the water. His hands were in his pockets, the sleeves of his sweater pushed up to his elbows like he’d been there a while, thinking. He turned when I stepped closer. His face wasn’t remarkable in the way people describe beauty. He looked like someone you might see on the subway or in a bookstore aisle—ordinary, almost forgettable. But in the dream, when he looked at me, everything else dimmed. There was a sense of completion, like finishing a sentence you didn’t realize was waiting in your mouth. And then I woke up. I sat up in bed, heart thudding hard. It was 4:11 a.m., and the room was quiet except for the soft hum of my fan. I touched my face. My cheeks were damp. I didn’t usually remember dreams, much less ones so clear. This one felt different. Like a memory I didn’t own. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t. The image of him stayed with me—the shape of his jaw, the way his eyes met mine with a kind of soft, sad recognition. I had the sense we had been meeting at that lake for a long time. And each time, we forgot until the next time. By morning, I told myself it was nothing. Maybe my brain had stitched his face together from people I’d seen lately—someone on the street, a stranger in a movie. That’s what dreams did. They borrowed and rearranged. Still, I opened my journal and wrote it all down. ________________________________________ It kept happening. Not every night, but often enough that I started to expect him. Sometimes we were walking through a city I didn’t recognize, talking like old friends. Sometimes we sat on a rooftop under warm light, our hands close but not quite touching. One night, we were arguing. I don’t remember what about, only that my voice cracked, and he reached for me like he couldn’t stand seeing me cry. In each dream, he was the same. Same height, same quiet confidence, same way of listening like the world narrowed down to only you. And I was always me. Not younger, not older. Just… me. I never asked for his name. Somehow, I already knew it. ________________________________________ One afternoon, I sat across from my best friend Tolu at our usual cafe, stirring a cold latte I hadn’t touched. I was tired—dream-tired. A kind of tired that coffee doesn’t fix. “You look like you haven’t slept in days,” she said, eyeing me over the rim of her mug. “I’ve been… dreaming.” “Dreaming or thinking?” she asked, raising a brow. “Because they’re not the same.” I hesitated. “Dreaming. Of someone.” She leaned in, interested. “Like a someone someone? Or random dream background character?” “I don’t know. He feels real.” She smiled like she was trying not to laugh. “Okay, dream guy. Tell me more.” I did. Not all of it, but enough to watch the smile fade into something more thoughtful. “You’re serious.” “I know how it sounds.” “No, it’s just—” she paused, choosing her words. “Dreams can do weird things to your head. Especially when you're stressed or lonely.” I didn’t argue. She wasn’t wrong. Life had been quiet lately. Routine. Wake up, work, come home, repeat. Maybe this man was just my mind reaching out for connection, the kind I hadn’t allowed myself to want in a long time. Still, when I walked home, I passed a man standing on the corner in a grey hoodie, and for half a second, my chest tightened. Same posture. Same look. But when he turned, it wasn’t him. Of course it wasn’t. ________________________________________ Three weeks in, I started drawing him. I wasn’t good at art, not in any real way. But I needed to see him on paper. To prove I hadn’t imagined the details. His face was blurry at first, like my memory was fogged. But the more I tried, the clearer it became. The shape of his mouth. The slight slant of his nose. The way his eyes seemed to carry an emotion that had no word in English. I left the sketch on my desk, not sure what I was hoping to find in it. Maybe a clue. Maybe just something to make me feel less crazy. ________________________________________ Then came the shift. It was a Tuesday, cold and damp. I was at the grocery store, staring at two identical jars of tomato sauce, trying to decide between them like it mattered. And I felt it. A pull. Like someone had just said my name across the room, but no one had. I turned, and for a brief second, I knew he was nearby. My heart pounded. I scanned the aisles. Nothing. A mother with a toddler. An older man reaching for a can of soup. A teenager with headphones. But no one like him. It took minutes to come down from the feeling. I stood still, embarrassed by the sudden flush in my cheeks. Back home, I told myself it was stress. Again. My mind playing tricks on me. That night, the dream was different. We were in a bookstore. Old, dimly lit, the air thick with dust and the scent of old pages. He held out a book with no title. Inside, it was filled with small, handwritten notes. Not sentences. Just names, dates, places. My name was on the first page. “I found you again,” he said, almost like a whisper. I woke up gasping. ________________________________________ I didn’t go to work the next day. I took a walk instead, aimless and slow, through streets I didn’t usually take. I don’t know what I was looking for—maybe the bookstore from the dream, maybe nothing at all. Half an hour in, I stopped at a corner where an antique shop sat, its windows cluttered with things too old and too strange to be decorative. I had passed it before but never gone inside. Something pushed me through the door. The bell above the entrance rang as I stepped in. The air was still. Dust floated through beams of light from the front windows. Shelves lined with books, vinyl records, framed photographs no one remembered. I wandered without thinking, fingers trailing the spines of books with faded covers. And then I saw it. On a shelf near the back—a small black notebook. Plain. Unmarked. I picked it up and opened it. Inside were lines of handwriting that wasn’t mine but looked eerily familiar. Slanted, neat, deliberate. The first name written: Lena Adewale. My name. I dropped the book. The shopkeeper looked up from the counter, not surprised, not smiling. Just watching. “You’ve been looking for that,” she said simply. I didn’t answer. My hands were shaking. ________________________________________ I took the notebook home. The woman didn’t charge me. She said something like, “It finds who it needs to.” Inside, every page was filled with names and notes. Not just mine. Dozens of them. Some crossed out. Some circled. All dated. The most recent entry was from three days ago. Beside my name, in that same handwriting, was one word: “Found.” I didn’t sleep that night. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, the weight of the notebook beside me like a question I couldn’t ask out loud. The dreams were more than dreams. That much was clear now. The stranger wasn’t a stranger. I didn’t know how or why—but something in me had been waiting for him. And now, somehow, I had been found. _______________________ _________________