Dreams Not Ours

Dreams Not Ours

By - Robert Aaron Goldsborough

      Confinement made the air almost too thick to breathe.  Beads of silver formed on his brow.  He stared at the floor, but he could still feel the eyes penetrating his skin.  He knew that nothing would lower the gaze of the stranger who had stolen his reflections.  He never really cared too much for mirrors, but lately he could no longer recognize the eyes that stared back at him through the polished glass.  An eternity was building and he had to avert his view.  Electric snakes hissed the lift to a halt and rent his reflection in two.  He exited backwards to make sure the doors closed, trapping the stranger inside.  The snakes carried the car away leaving him relieved at being abandoned.  A sigh purged his lungs of the heavy air, and he dabbed a cloth across a drenched forehead to calm himself.  His twitching hand probed his pockets for an identification card.  He fished it out and forced it into the wall slot marked "information".  Tiny fingers dragged the card into the metal mouth and triggered all the required switches of recognition.

        "Good evening Mr. Leigh," the wall said in a mimicked female voice.

      "Your access request for Med level three has been granted Mr. Leigh.  Will you need directions sir?"  The attractive voice asked.

      "No," he stammered, "no thank you.  I'll manage."

      "As you wish Mr. Leigh.  Thank you for accessing me.  Do not forget your identification card.  I hope you a have a pleasant evening."  The tiny fingers pushed the card back through the mouth and announced with a digital hum that his card was waiting for him to grab it.

      He passed through the sliding doors at the end of the hallway.  He could taste the fresher air coming towards him from the archways.  This area was more open than the rest of the complex, and needed more air pumped in which caused delightful little breezes that danced around, renewing all that they touched.  He loved the way the air tasted in the larger courts.

      "Are you Leigh?"  A voice from behind him asked.  He turned and saw a short man in a white gown peering at him over physician blinders.

      "Thomas, my name is Thomas Leigh."  He said.

      "Well I'm your assigned physician Thomas.  Shall we talk in an examination room?"

      "Yes sir."

      "Please if I'm to call you Thomas at least call me Dr. Joquin, alright?"

      "Yes sir.  I mean, Dr. Joquin.  I'm sorry, physicians make me nervous."  Thomas said.

      "Me too." 

They turned to face an opening in the side of the court wall.  Thomas entered the room and laid down in an outline on the floor that conformed to his body.  The floor raised him to the waist level of Dr. Joquin.  The doctor stood before a small white shelf with his back to Thomas, mumbling to the blinking screens that animated themselves out of the stark trappings of the room.

      "You are Thomas Leigh twelfth generation, are you not?"

      "Yes, Dr. Joquin, I am Thomas Leigh."

      "Well then Thomas, what seems to be the problem?"

      "You should have received my orders..."

      "Tsh,tsh.  Thomas I have read what your superiors have sent me, but what I want to know is how you feel."  Dr. Joquin stared over his blinders at Thomas.

      "Well I'm not quite sure what you need to know."  Thomas squirmed within the grasp of the stare.

        "Are you experiencing any uncomfortable head pains, neck aches, or are you suffering unwanted delusional episodes?"  Dr. Joquin fixed a tighter gaze at Thomas' lowered eyes.

      "I...I don't feel quite right doctor, I haven't been sleeping very soundly.  Too much on my mind you know."

      "What kind of things are bothering you Thomas?  Is it your job, your home life?  Maybe you feel like there's something missing?  Could that be the culprit of your fitful nights, Thomas?"  Thomas sat up.

      "Yes.  Something like that Dr. Joquin, but I've always felt like either part of me is not all together or I'm not living my life quite right.  Now it seeps into my dreams, spoiling them.  What I want is to actually sleep without my nightmares fouling my days."

      "Good, Thomas.  Those are symptoms I can treat.  But, as for sleep without dreams, you surely must realize that our dream world is what balances out our reality.  Without the surreal worlds we build in our subconscious our conscious reacts by forcing delusions on us and this can lead to a kind of unwanted madness.  Waking dreams distract us from what we need to be aware of."

      "I'm not going mad, Dr. Joquin.  I just need a decent night full of rest."

      "I know you're not mad Thomas.  I just want you to know how important it is to dream while you sleep so that you don't wind up dreaming awake.  That is where reality leaves us."  The doctor was staring over his blinders again and straight through Thomas' eyes.  Thomas could feel Dr. Joquin scrutinizing the inside of his skull and peering into the secrets he kept even from himself.  A blink from those windows sent the doctor back with a shudder.

      "Sleep you say Thomas?"  Dr. Joquin scratched his bare chin with his latex covered hand.

      "I can arrange that for you with some absorptions, but not too many now.  Remember what I said."  He turned his back to Thomas and mumbled again at the blinking screens.  Thomas forced the supports back into a reclining position and closed his concerns in tightly with his eyelids.  The room spun in the self-inflicted darkness and Thomas could not open his eyes.  A panic filled him, but before his lips could move to issue their desired moan, light filtered back to his brain.  The white room focused again.  He was lying on the floor with Dr. Joquin looking down at him.

      "What do you know of the psychic link between identical twins, Mr. Leigh?"  Thomas did not see the doctor's lips move, but he heard his voice clearly.

      "Thomas, doctor.  My name is Thomas."  He said.

      "Sometimes, Mr. Leigh, a twin can connect with its double when it is in pain."  The doctor continued.

      "My name is Thomas."  Thomas' eyes flew open and he stared up at Dr. Joquin from the floor.

      "I know what your name is Thomas.  Get up, I have your absorptions ready."  Thomas stood, shaking sweat from his hair.  He walked over to where Dr. Joquin stood in front of the disappearing screens.  The doctor placed a small plastic parcel into Thomas' hand.

      "You'll be glad to know that I got you the rest of the evening off.  So go, enjoy it.  The baths in Recreation should be steaming by now, go and relax.  Doctor's orders."  Thomas nodded in agreement.  A nice hot soak in the baths sounds pretty good, he thought.

      "I'll do that.  Thank you Dr. Joquin."

      Thomas did not stop to ponder anything until he reached Recreation and the pools of steaming liquid.  He was tired, that was all, and now he was going to relax himself into restful oblivion.  He let arms and legs float free in the slow moving bath.  Oh, to be at peace once more, he thought and closed his eyes.

The heat twirled spirals of steam high into the air carrying small problems and small men with them.  Thomas became small within the heat.  Skin slid off in sheets of ribbon wrapping themselves around presents on forgotten Christmas mornings.  Invisible hands unwrapped the gifts, and tore through the skin with the bliss of a wedding night.  The gift was exposed.  A thoughtful, but not desired, life deprived of fulfilled needs lay naked and writhing in its manacles.  A face strained to focus itself on the restricted mass of twitching flesh.  Raw meat collided with snapping bone to form an identity.  The dark eyes screamed in agony through the tortured features.  Order started to gain a finger hold in the bones and the tissues poured over themselves to fill in the gaps.  Eyes still screamed in agony, but out of a familiar face.  This face had seen itself far too many times not to be acknowledged.  It was Thomas' face staring back from the persecution.  Thomas' eyes snapped wide open at the vision.

        Thomas awoke to find that he was no longer at the baths.  He was immersed in darkness, squinting to gather any light from the room.  He could not see, but he could tell that he was clothed and lying on his back.  He tried to stand.  Uneasy feet stumbled around in the blackness until an outstretched hand jammed an extended finger against a metallic wall.  Fingers groped at the surface while unsteady legs wobbled him around the room's perimeter.  He felt a slot in the wall.  A hand dove into his pockets hoping to recover his ID card.  With the card found his heart relaxed and he slid it into the slot he marked with his other hand.  Lights flashed and blinked next him.  Lines diagrammed themselves into a green head of no sexual distinction.

      "Mr. Leigh your identification cannot grant you access to this junction.  Please, exit this area."  A mimicked man's voice spoke along with the moving lips of the digitized head.

      "Could you please turn on some lighting and give me directions.  I seem to be lost."  Squares of luminescence were blinked on over him.  The shock of the bright artificial light made his eyes shudder trying to adjust.  He did not know where he was.  The talking head stared at him, beeping with impatient information.

      "Here is a map Mr. Leigh.  Do you know where you need to be or do you need an escort?"

      "No, I don't need an escort.  Just show me where my quarters are from here."  The wall to his right illumed with red arrows showing the way out of the metallic hall.  Red beacons traced his path up several access tubes and through a dozen narrow hallways until they faded next to a familiar door.  Thomas slid his ID card into the wall slot and the door spread itself wide, announcing his return with soft melodies and gentle breezes.  Exhausted, he collapsed head first in the middle of the room.  He did not dream.

      A female voice announced the time.  His heavy eyelids fell back from red stained eyes.  Fingers clawed along the cold floor reaching for the room controller.  His hand dragged the plastic wand from a low table.  Slow fingers reacted instinctively to deactivate the time warnings.

      "Good-morn..."  The digitized female faded into artificial oblivion.  Thomas rolled onto the side of his body that had awakened first, struggling through pins-and-needles to move his still sleeping left arm.  Clambering and muted wails gave way to a partially seated wreck.  More pins shot uncomfortable humor to his brain as the hand wrapped a blanket around his trembling body.  He dialed in his office address on the controller.

      "Office of Mr. Thomas Leigh access please."  One of the digital females that occupied his life answered.  His fingers entered his personal access code and triggered his recorder.  Lights danced around the monitor the digital female spoke from.

      "I visited the medical arena and I'm...well, I still can't...think too clearly.  I'm taking a couple of Rec days.  I'm good for it.  Withdraw from personal account on a time needed basis, please.  File."  The lights stopped their movement and the monitor grew dim again.

      Clouds turned from gray to black in his skull, teetering into the thick mists again.  He drifted into the dream worlds.  This time he was not alone.  An image formed in the chaos of the darkness, arms reached forward and touched his dream self.  They wrapped around him in an embrace that forced his floating consciousness aware in the void.  Four eyes danced about themselves catching random glances at the souls that resided behind the orbs.  Recognition illuminated in the spark of Thomas' existence.  A shudder from the sleeping body made its way into the dream, but did little to stir Thomas awake.  Help!  Thomas' mind screamed into echoes across the dreamscape and he struggled to free himself from the embrace of the familiar eyes.

      "Who?  I know you, don't I?"  Thomas' mind focused the question towards the intruder.

      "You have no right to be here.  Tell me your name!"

      "Patience, brother, it is not time yet."  The voice resounded in Thomas' skull sounding so much like his own he could feel the movement of the words through his own vocal cords.

      "Time?  Time for what?"

      "In time, when I am more you, brother, you will know me more."  The grip loosened.

      "I must know now."

      "No, for I have no name yet.  I allow myself your name for short periods.  Soon though, it will be my name and I will have to name you."

      "What?"  Thomas could feel a panic back-building in his body sending convulsions of nausea to his stomach.

      "Calm brother.  You know me.  I can feel it in your eyes.  Once we even shared the same life, but now life is all yours.  I want my share now."

      "No!"  With a conscious push against the lax embrace Thomas forced himself out of the dream.  He tumbled against a wall, falling backward.  The dark mists dissipated from his eyes to see the room and the steel bar in his hands.  He saw the hatch with the small hole forced into it and the scratches chiseled around the hole.  The tiny opening was whistling and Thomas knew that it was an exterior hatch and it had been punctured.  There was not much time.  He had to leave the room before the gap was detected and the area was sealed.  Lights became strobiloid reds flashing in beat with a high-pitched scream of warning.  He threw himself toward the closest doorway.  The hand holding the steel bar shot straight out in front of him to catch the last crack of the door while it closed.  The door groaned against the blockage, threatening to snap the thin bar in half.  All he needed was a few seconds to force the door back by his touch.  The sensors reacted, as programmed.  He dove through, hearing the room seal itself as soon as his feet left the opening. That was the last thing he heard before colliding head first into a wall too close to the doorway.

      Thomas was awakened by Dr. Joquin.  He did not know how he had managed to arrive in the medical arena, but here he was safe and secure in the contoured support facing the good doctor.

           "Hello again Thomas.  Are you feeling more comfortable now?  You know I've dealt with many cases of claustrophobia on this base, but none have ever tried to escape the compound.  Haven't you been getting more sleep?"  Dr. Joquin raised his blinders to pierce Thomas' features with those dark hawk eyes.

      "You didn't take all of the absorptions I gave you, Thomas.  I warned you about the needs man has in dreaming."

        "No, I did not take any of the absorptions you gave me."  Thomas replied.

        "Well then wh..."

        "You also said something about a connection between twins, doctor."  Thomas interrupted.

      "I did?  I believe that I would remember saying something to that effect, Thomas.  You are getting paranoid aren't you?  That is a symptom of claustroph..."

      "I am not claustrophobic Dr. Joquin."

      "Well then, why did you try to pry open an exterior hatch Thomas?"  Dr. Joquin shook his thin nose in Thomas' face.

      "But, I didn't."

      "But, you did Mr. Leigh.  I have the monitor records showing you battering away at the hatch."

      "That wasn't me!  I was out cold in my room, and then I just woke up at the hatch."

      "What are you doing Mr. Leigh, trading places with your doppelganger?"  The doctor turned away from Thomas to mumble at his blinking screens.

      "What about twins, Dr. Joquin?"

      "What about them Mr. Leigh?"

      "Do I have one?"

      "You are joking, right?  Everyone has a twin."

      "All of us?"

      "I'm surprised Thomas.  There have been thirteen generations of forced cloning now.  Why you're the twelfth generation.  Has education become that remiss?"

      "Forced cloning, doctor?"

      "Yes, Thomas.  Deemed mandatory by the New Medical Order at the turn of the century for reason that if the wealthy could replace vital organs for life extension, than all should be allowed that luxury.  Of course though, I've never considered life a luxury, more of a task and why not grant us more time to fulfill that task."

      "What... why is my clone..."

      "You see Thomas, before your zygote became a fetus it was forced to split into a twin through some rather crude cloning techniques.  Then the clone is stored in case later on you need something."

      "Stored?  How?"

      "A very unique form of catatonia, developed originally by the military for something, renders the clone almost dead, allowing it's body to age only one-third as quickly as your own.  Don't worry about it Thomas.  The body is born what we call 'static', never knowing, and never really alive.  Your lungs, for example, were replaced with static tissue before you arrived here due to the atmospheric damage they held.  The static body just waits for you to need it."

      "That's it!  My clone.  Its whole existence has been dreaming.  Dreaming me!  It's been with me all along, growing behind my eyes.  Now it wants my life, the life which it was denied."  Thomas began to squirm in the support.  Dr. Joquin reached out to the platform, restraints formed in the contours securing Thomas fast.

      "What are doing?!"

        "Thomas, that's nonsense.  Just relax.  Your problem is not static tissue trying to steal your life.  It's nerves and paranoia manifesting themselves in the delusions of a waking dream.  I'm going to give you something to help you come to terms with your dilemma."  Dr. Joquin raised a large silver mechanism and forced an absorption through Thomas' skin.

      "No, you can't!  That's what he wants!  He can't get in except through my dreams!"

      "Now, Thomas, close your eyes.  A doppelganger cannot harm you, because a doppelganger is you.  Do you understand?"  The mechanism forced the relaxing agents deep into Thomas' bloodstream with a whisper and that is how Thomas went back into the void.

      The darkness flooded every possible access light could be granted.  The oppression drifted in on wisps as thin as summer breezes long forgotten, but the winter gales dropped suffocation laced with noxious reminders of painful loneliness.  Parents forgetting a birthday wove memories of disappointing lovers and unrelenting elders together in a noose that stifled all the ether out of the dream air.  The scent of holiday trees and familiar houses cheapened in the synthetic aroma of electrical wires replacing real conversations.  The presents unwrapped themselves again exposing the isolation of a small man sent to a lonely corner by a digital representative of a mother.

      "I was with you, you know.  No matter what that physician tells you.  I was always there staring back at you from the mirror, reminding you that we were not complete.  Reminding you that I was not as alive as you!"  The voice, which sounded just like his, screamed through his vocal cords piercing the part of his brain that heard dreams.

      "Did you know Thomas that it was just luck that you got to be born and that I was the one sentenced to a lifetime trapped in endless dreaming?  Do you have any idea what it is like not being able to wake up?  Well, I must be fair, it wasn't always that bad.  There was a time when I did not know what life even was.  I just existed, barely.  I did not even know what words or thoughts were until I dreamt you, and it has taken me three of your lifetimes to just be able to begin to focus a discernible form for you to recognize me.  At first I thought you were just another part of my world, but it did not take me long to feel who you were.  That is correct, my first introduction to reality was an experience that can never be synthesized; recognition of what I was.  I saw myself in you and the truth that carried that emotion could never be duplicated, not even in dreams."  The voice pulled fractured colors and patterns out of the images haunting Thomas' mind until a duplicate of himself stood over his cowering form.

      "You are not me, and can never be me."  Thomas said.

      "What was that brother?  Don't you mean that, you are not we and you can never be if I am to be?"

      "You're insane!"

      "No, brother.  You are, and you need to rest.  I am fully rested.  Now it is my turn to live."  Thomas stood to face the duplicate.  Drawing all the power that his lucidity would grant him, he threw the impostor down.

      "You cannot stop me brother.  I have more experience here than you, but in time you might learn to escape my static mind and return briefly to glimpse a life that was once yours."

      "It is my life, not yours.  You can't..."

      "You do not deserve such a miracle, brother.  You have wasted your life worrying about trivialities.  I want it now.  I will not neglectfully drag my flesh through useless tedium waiting for that final rest to grant me peace.  Just give in brother and you can have that rest now and I will revel in what remains of your life."

      "I am Thomas Leigh.  You are the cast-off needed only for my benefit."

      "Keep telling yourself that, brother, and maybe one day you will wake up too."  The dream body of Thomas' clone turned and raised his arms up to touch the fabric of dreams.  He began unfastening the fabric like old drapes, attaching the framework of his own reality in their place.

      "Now brother, I am the only Thomas Leigh."

      "Not yet, brother."  Thomas forced the last vestiges of his lucidity to fall.  His form plummeted through thinning blackness forcing his physical body to spasm.  The descent triggered images of a ground rushing up at him at great speeds.  His mind panicked, Thomas awoke and found himself lying on the floor of his quarters.  Throbbing pains traced the edge of his frame and a faint cry faded in his brain.  Thomas shook the sleep off his eyes, jumped to his feet, and raced out of the quarters.  Images focused.  He was heading back to Med level three.  Clean air soothed his raging heart, the lift doors went wide sucking in the air of the medical court.  No time to waste, he told his unstable legs as they buckled around the corner.

      Standing in the middle of the medical court Dr. Joquin was looking all the more stern and serious.  The doctor raised a hand in an uncomfortable greeting and spoke.

      "Thomas?  You look terrible. Is everything okay?"

      "Where is he?"  Thomas demanded, staring into the blinders.

      "Where is who?"

      "My clone!  Where is the body?"

      "Why Thomas, why do you need to find your static tissue?  Has he been meddling with your dreams again?"

      "Yes!  And I must destroy him before I lose myself.  Where is the body doctor?"

      "Listen to me Thomas!  You are delusional.  You are only experiencing some kind of psychotic episode.  It will pass, but you must rest.  Believe me Thomas, this is the only way to get better.  I know how real this delusion feels to you right now, but you must not let it overtake you.  Otherwise, you will have to be incapacitated.  Do you understand Thomas?"

      "No, this isn't a delusion.  It isn't!"  Thomas raised his arms to shake another diagnosis from the physician, but his hands never made contact.  The air that held the doctor's image wavered like ripples on an unseen pond.

      "What is this?"  Thomas lurched backwards.

      "This is your assigned medical professional Mr. Leigh."  Dr. Joquin said through artificial lips.

      "And I cannot tell you where your static tissue is being stored due to your apparent mental state."  The image of Dr. Joquin faded into the stark colors of the arena.  Thomas was alone and the darkness knew it.  He felt the black claws climbing his spine again to reach his mind.  Thomas knew the clone was trying to reach into him.  He ran for the doctor's room.  The aperture opened.  Inside he viewed the blinking monitors.

      "Access to static storage."  Pulsating sequences aligned to designate a location.  Black shards stabbed at the base of his skull.  He was fading into the hands of the invader.

      "Absorptions for extended consciousness," he said.  A drawer lifted out of the shelf and he grabbed the pack.  Pushing one of the disks through its protective membrane, he it adhered to his neck.

      "You can't have me that easily.  You're only static tissue."  Thomas felt psychotic for talking to himself, but he knew the clone felt his meaning.  He sprinted out of the medical court with the synthetic second wind and headed for the lift.  The doors sealed and the electric snakes dragged him downwards.  Hollow eyes stared back at him from the shiny doors.  They were not quite his.

      "Where are you going brother?"  The reflection asked.

      "Nowhere."  Thomas said.  The image's lips did not move.

      "That is right brother I am the reflection you see now because I am you.  This body and this life are now mine.  I am taking us to see your new home..."

      "No! I still have control.  I'm seeing just what you want me to see, tricks.  Waking dreams, cheap and tawdry, they are all that you can perform."

      "Careful brother, that is a good way to educate yourself in madness."

      "I know what is real.  You have no control, and soon you will be truly dead.  The way you should've been at your miscarriage!"  Thomas thrust a fist against the door snapping the thin bones of his hand.  The pain drove deep into his brain giving him a tighter control on reality.  The doors slid wide giving access to a darkened passageway.  Thomas vacated the lift exhaling all his forebodings.  The throbbing from his fractured left hand eased his mind, but his body began to quake.  Perspiration ran down his brow stinging his eyes as he made his way through the dim passage.

      "Cold Storage: Mortality Threat" graced the steel door that was surrounded by several "Cautions" and similar warnings.

      "Open door.  Access Med level three."  The hall monitor responded and the door groaned open to the flashing of reds and blues.  Inside rank chemical smells putrefied the air.  A thin white mist ran phosphorescent down the walls adding an ominous sense to the already cautioning light patterns.  Into the depths he stepped coughing against the stifling atmosphere.  A glowing mist rained down the wall of illuminated plates bearing small words.  Thomas read them, they were catalog abbreviations.  He knew his; L12.S.  The drawer was sealed.  Thomas cursed the contents and pounded with his injured hand.  He winced at the pain and retreated to look for the junction box.  Pupils strained to reach their full diameter pulling in as much light as they could.  Thick black snakes wound themselves along the floor to the far wall.  They were flowing out of a large metallic box set against the low ceiling.  This had to be the source maintaining life support for the bodies.

      "Stop brother!"  A voice screamed in his head.

      "Too late. I see your fate forming in the mists.  Now go back to your endless nights.  I want my whole life back."  Thomas picked up the snakes and pulled with his good hand.  They pulled back and tried wriggling free of his grasp.  The injured hand found an excruciating hold on the snakes' backs and struggled for leverage.  Darkness attacked his skull making his eyes swim in the void behind them.

      "Let me go."  Thomas screamed in his blindness, but kept at his labor.  The fumes were beginning to overwhelm him and he could feel the clone and delirium burrowing into his skull.  Not enough force.  He wrapped the snakes around himself and fell with them.  Fireflies alighted in the abyss sounded by the shriek of tortured snakes.  A final thud shot through his ears as his head contacted the solid floor.  The darkness sealed him in.

      Thomas was not sure how many days he had passed in the abyss or what had found him when he was there, but he knew that when he opened his eyes he was alone in his own head.  Lights focused, sending only partial colors to his brain.  Faces surrounded him.  Faces he did not recognize.

      "Who's there?"

      "You will know in a moment Mr. Leigh."  A human voice answered.  Images tightened and colors organized.  Bright squares on the ceiling shone down on four figures seated around him.  He was back on yet another raised platform, locked into place.  The faces arranged themselves on the heads and Thomas strained for recognition.

      "Who?"

      "We are members of a party that is responsible for you now."  The voice came from the male figure seated at his right.

      "You have had a rough time Mr. Leigh.  Please, relax."

      "But...did I get...him?"

      "Yes Mr. Leigh you did nullify your static tissue, as well as three others.  That is why we are here.  It seems, according to your medical records that you were not able to control your paranoia levels."

      "Wasn't paranoid...he wanted my body...couldn't let him..."

      "Mr. Leigh do you understand that what you did is punishable by death?  You destroyed others' static tissues and not just your own."

      "I'm free..."

      "He's still delusional because of the gases," another voice, female, spoke to the first.

      "Too bad there was no success. There was definite potential for that one," a second male voice whispered to the still quiet person at Thomas' left.

      "I am free?  Right?"

      "Not quite I am afraid,  Mr. Leigh," the first male said.

      "We can not allow you your life back after you denied others a chance."

      "That one almost made it across with less time than the others," the second male whispered to his silent companion.

      "What...others?"

      "That is enough for now," the woman ordered of the second male.

      "What others?"  Thomas demanded through a still bleary consciousness.

      "The other statics that did cross.  You could have lived in dreams you know Mr. Leigh, but now you will live in confinement."  The final person spoke with a husky female voice that defined itself with a sense of authority.  He could see that she was holding his identification card in her thick hands.

      "Are you?"

      "Yes, Mr. Leigh, we all are.  Even the other statics you destroyed had already crossed.  You murdered the original minds, but they were not as important to us as your static.  A rare find.  In the past twelve generations, not one sleeping static has been able to cross as early as yours was almost able too.  We needed him to teach us how to help others to cross.  You had to be tragic, clinging to your wasted life.  You stripped him of a life that he will never know.  Therefore we shall strip you of the rest of yours."

      "You can cage me or even ...kill me now.  I won't mind.  For I still have what I was given and it will always only be mine."

      "The cage we have for you, Mr. Leigh, will change the way you feel."

      "It doesn't matter now.  You see, I'm free."  Thomas closed his eyes.  Shadows began to form in the landscape of Thomas' mind.  This would be the last time the darkness would shroud his reality, and he welcomed the warmth that followed.  The faces blurred into so many long forgotten memories.  The hum of the electrical lights droned from the ears to be buried gently underfoot.  The voices hung about mixing with the all too familiar digital females before buzzing off into the silence of a dead circuit.  The stillness choked out the final remains of that existence, securing his, the eyes closed forever.  Dreams came with the tides washing away all the pain that life delivered, compensating somewhat meekly the hideousness our vision falters on.  Into sense of floating, a sense of fulfilling solitude, and finally, the long awaited rest.  To all those who dare to slip into sleep begging the chaos and cataclysm, dream safely.