NY: The City Where Dreams Become Reality

New York: The City Where Dreams Become Reality

I was walking along 34th street, on my way home from work in the center of Manhattan, when out of nowhere a man wearing all black and a ski mask came running past. He was apparently running from some form of authority (not a new sight), and carelessly shoved me out of the way. It was no big deal that he had shoved me; it is actually very seldom that you can walk the streets of this city without being pushed or flicked off with every step of your journey. It was the fact that he pushed me in front of a bright yellow taxi. You would think the driver would stop, being a caring citizen and all, but what citizen is caring in the city that never sleeps? Hence, I get pushed in front of a taxi that has a complete imbecile at the wheel, he chooses not to stop, and the yellow piece of dented garbage crashes into me head-on.

I lay sprawled out across the thick black pavement during rush hour, and all I can remember thinking, is how many other morons will run me over while I am lying here. I had hit the ground like a rock falling from the top of the empire state building, and with the impact of the taxi, along with the fall, I was knocked unconscious, but not before I heard the shouts of the arrogant cab driver ordering me to get out of the way. The shouting began to get lower and quieter, and I felt as if my world was slipping away, and I was drifting out of being.

Do you know how that saying goes, that your life flashes before your eyes when you are getting close to death, or having a near death experience? Well, not only did my life flash by during this black out period, but the lives of three other people did, too. Maybe not exactly their lives, but they themselves did. Of course, I could have imagined it, but if it was my imagination, I must have a pretty damn good one.

As I traveled along the dark passageway of my highway to hell, or so it seemed, I saw a man sitting ahead of me. He had dirty blond hair, and was sitting on a solitary stool surrounded by the overwhelming darkness, as if it were engulfing him. The only light shone from above him like a spotlight on a stage, but he had no audience. He held his guitar closely across his chest, and strummed it with his free hand, moving rapidly across the six thick strings, letting a harmonious sound come out from the wooden instrument. His voice nearly floated with the hum of the strings; it was beautiful.

I approached him silently; quickly noticing that the man who was playing guitar was the legendary Kurt Cobain, lead singer and guitarist of the highly influential grunge band called Nirvana. He had controversially died in 1994, where no one is exactly positive how he had died, but the media has seemed to revolutionize his death into some huge, out-of-proportion, dragged out chronicle of deception.

I sat near him, intrigued by his music, fascinated by every strum, allured by every sound of his voice. He paused, a few moments after noticing he had gained an audience.

“Hey. Who are you?”

I sat there speechless, too enthralled with the fact of speaking to Kurt Cobain himself.

“Do you talk?”

“Huh?” I stuttered out. “Oh, My name is Nicole.”

“How did you get here? There is rarely ever anyone here to listen to me play.”

“I’m not exactly sure. The last thing I can remember is lying on the pavement in the front of a taxi, and then walking down this dark passageway. Are you always sitting here playing guitar so desolately?”

“Most of the time.”

“Even though I have yet to see anyone else around here, I am sure you get asked this question all the time: if you do not mind me asking, how did you really die?”

“Ah, how could I not expect that question? Well the media has turned it into some big piece of trash, making me infamous for bad influences. Tell me, why, if they can dig up so much information they cannot dig up the truth? It was all her fault. That psychotic wonder of a woman wanted everything as her own. She drove me insane and although I would have loved to commit suicide, it was all her doing.”

“Courtney Love?”

“Yes, her.” He said this with a tone of bitter hatred toward the woman he had once loved entirely.

“Wow, um, well, that must have been horrible, dying with people believing the wrong cause.” I did not know how to respond.

He slowly began fading, I am not exactly sure what caused him to be fading, but it was as if he was a hallucination, or a dream, evaporating into the distance. But before he completely disappeared, he spoke this:

“It’s better to burn out than to fade away…”

Before I could speak another syllable, he was gone. There were so many other things I wanted to ask him about and so many other things I wanted to learn. He had been my biggest idol. But I suppose those few moments were better than none, weren’t they?

I turned to continue my journey when there was a sharp tap on my shoulder. I turned quickly, only to see that there was no one behind me. I heard a screech, and glanced upward. There flew a majestic black raven, fluttering his wings and squawking as if he were being attacked. If it was intended to gain my attention or speed up my adrenaline, well then it accomplished that much.

It began flying in some unknown direction. Based on the dark, I would not have been able to tell which way the ground was if I hadn’t been walking on it. The tunnel was so solemnly dark that I could not have followed the bird if I had tried. It flew back and pecked at my sweater sleeve, dragging me along with him to wherever it was heading. That bird must have known exactly where it was going, because I know he could see through this darkness just as little as I could, and I had not run into or bumped into anything while being dragged. It brought me to another path, where in the distance I saw a desk, illuminated by a small lamp, with a pen and paper on it. Next to it, there lay a sticky not saying a single message… write a detailed narrative of how you envision your funeral.

Before I could think, the shiny black raven grabbed my shirt by the back of the neck, and practically had a seizure trying to drag me into the seat. I was so stunned, that I fell easily into the shiny, brown leather cushioned seat. Was I supposed to write this? Was someone expecting me? I thought. The raven then pushed the pencil toward me as if it was reading my mind.

I sat trying to figure out what I wanted to write, silently and quietly pondering. I lightly tapped the pencil onto the desk, trying to concentrate, but that hideous and repulsive bird kept nagging me; I guess it was for me to finish quicker. I began writing; writing my morbid and sad funeral, when I thought about all the people who would never show up. It finally hit me then, that I was dead. I had to be; there was no way this could be a dream. That was it. My funeral could be happening right at this very moment. I became overwhelmed and sat in silence. Out of the darkness and stillness, I head a deep and mysterious voice boom through the echoing tunnel, if that is what you would like to call this passageway between life and death.

“Did you finish the piece?” The echoing voice came from a strange appearing man, dressed in dark clothes with a mustache and shaggy hair. The raven squawked and flew away from us. I took one look at him, and knew in a second who he was: the famous Edgar Allan Poe, the inspiration for all of my writing.

“Yes… I love your work…” I said at the sight of him.

“That’s good, I do not care.”

“Um, alright.” I was nowhere near sure of what to say next.

“Where is the writing?”

“Right here.” I handed him the paper.

“Let me see…” He began reading and then stopped with a disgusted and appalled expression. “Your funeral, it is pathetic. This writing should have been deeper than just the funeral, I did not want this, I wanted better. This is garbage.”

He tore it up and threw it into the wastebasket. I simply glanced at him, without a solitary word.

“Do not look at me with that look of astonishment, it was rubbish, and you know it.” He replied when he saw the expression on my face. “Writing needs to have feeling.”

By this time I was getting really infuriated by his attitude and criticism.

“Well, you shouldn’t talk, all your writing is about death and depression!” I responded, somewhat pretentious.

“You act like your writing is any different. I know the basis of your writing is depression, it is the best time for you to write.”

“How could you possible know this about me?”

“It is easy, you can see it in your eyes, your expression, and that piece of trash in the can over there. Listen, I do not want to sit here any longer wasting this time talking with you, I have better things to do. You can learn what you need on your own by thinking deeper into words… But know this: All that you see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.”

With that, he was gone. I remained at the desk for quite some time, trying to comprehend what Poe had told me. All the thinking had gotten me tired, and I rested my head against the desk, and dozed off. I am not sure how long I was lying there, but I know the reason I awoke.

I jumped from my snooze the second after a huge crash was heard, and then a boy’s scream echoed through the tunnels. I looked around in panic. A heavy-set man dressed in a clown suit came running form one of the many dark paths, trailing behind him footsteps of blood, as if he had stepped in a pool of red paint, and walked over a new white carpet. The blood was that iridescent. He stopped in front of the desk, and I could make out the shadowy object grasped by his right hand. It was a long, silver, glistening butcher knife, dripping with the same red spots that were seen on the floor around his feet. I was hesitant; he was standing about fifty feet form me with a cold, hard, stare.

I decided to break the silence, and make things a bit less awkward by saying something.

“Hi?” I tried to induce a conversation. He simply grinned at me, still with the same hard stare. I could not move; my body had been frozen in place like ice. I felt that if I made any sudden movements, he would attack like a ravenous dog.

“Ha-Ha. You don’t know who I am; do you? Otherwise you would be running because you would know what is best for you.” He spoke the words almost too triumphantly, followed by a short, echoing laugh.

“No, I don’t.” I replied in a low voice.

“I am John Wayne Gacy.”

“I’m sorry?” I did not know who Gacy was.

“John Wayne Gacy,” he repeated. “The madman, the clown, the troubled teenager that turned into a serial killer, the legendary killer who viciously tortured, raped, and murdered more than 30 young men in a three year period.”

“And you are proud of all of this?” I remarked at the stupid smirk on his face.

“Actually, I am. They say I’m crazy, that I’m mentally insane, but a clown can get away with murder.”

He began laughing hysterically, in a malicious kind of way, the way that scared me half to death; I thought I would faint. Abruptly, he ceased his laughing and glared at me. He stepped toward me, slowly. Repeating himself over and over about a clown getting away with murder. My stomach was starting to feel uneasy and my head was beginning to spin. I could not move; I was like a statue, cemented to the chair I was on the edge of. He began rushing at me, and it all became a blur; it happened so quickly. He held the blade to his knife slightly above my head. I glanced upward, and watched him as he held a small giggle. I began to scream as he rapidly lowered the blade towards my throat…

The deafening honk of a car snapped me into reality. I glanced around, trying to figure out where I was. I was lying in the middle of an intersection, with cars stopped all around me. The cab was still parked behind me, with the driver back in the car. I turned to raise myself from the ground, and winced in pain. A woman came over to help me up. I had no idea who she was, but when I brushed myself off and turned to thank her, she was gone. The ignorant, arrogant, halfwit of a driver began honking at me to move out of his way. I walked to the car nonchalantly, spit some foul language out at him, and kicked his bumper as I walked away. A couple of bystanders helpfully asked if I needed an ambulance to be called, and I was honestly shocked at the sudden care from the citizens of New York City. Ah, maybe they were tourists.

As I walked the busy street home, I recalled all of the previous events. Maybe you would call them dreams, or near death experiences, I guess. I walked past the corner delicatessen when I overheard something familiar. I stopped and listened closer. The preacher at the church across the street was trying to hand out flyers while calling out:

“It’s better to burn out than to fade away. All that you see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

My breath caught in my throat as I recognized what he was saying and remembered where I had heard it from. I practically raced up the stairs to my run-down third floor apartment, to take a couple of pills and go to sleep; the day’s events had worn me out and I felt like I was going crazy, hearing things and seeing things. I took off my sweater, throwing it on the bed in a careless manner, and continued to go into the bathroom to take a sleeping pill. I glanced into the mirror, having to take a second look, and saw a torn hole and a huge spot of blood on my blouse. Confused, I moved the collar of my shirt, and saw it was coming from my neck. I moved my hair out of the way, only to discover a huge attempted gash in the side of my neck, and in the mirror, red scribbled words, “A clown can get away with murder.”