Dream Eater

by K. Bird Lincoln

  “Bring those translations back in a week, Ms. Pierce,” Hayk called out.

  I nodded, shutting the door behind me very, very carefully, not exhaling until I heard the latch click.

  Immediately the tension simmering in my belly traveled up to my temples where it started a pre-headache throbbing.

  What was that? Oh god, I am losing it. A professor asked me to translate some words and I freaked out. So he touched me. So maybe I got another fragment. Did I have to rush out of there like he was a serial killer or something? I gulped. Okay, bad analogy. But it wasn’t like he was researching medieval torture instruments or germ warfare.

  I glanced at the sheaf of papers in my hand. He just wanted the Herai Dialect equivalent of these words. Poetic phrases that had no direct English equivalent. “The feeling of a memory you know you once had but have forgotten,” and “an instance of total surprise,” and “the poignancy of an ephemeral beauty just before it passes.”

  I squinted at the bottom sheet. A whole list of scientific looking names, possibly plants? Nothing I couldn’t handle with my own grasp of Herai dialect and black-belt google-fu.

  Hardly research to make me queasy. I shook my head. It was easy to run away from awkward situations. Much harder to stay and deal with my stupid paranoia. And I’d determined not to take the easy way out anymore.

  Marlin’s exasperated voice piped up in my brain. Don’t be the ‘noid’ in ‘paranoid,’ Koi Ne-chan. A weird, high-pitched giggle escaped my lips. Time to follow Marlin’s advice. Head home and find comfort in the safety of my apartment.

  The shuttle bus was crowded, and I had to concentrate on my breathing and keep very, very still not to accidentally brush anyone. Down the street from my apartment, a thought finally percolated through my exhausted fugue.

  Ken. Crap. And Marlin dropping off Dad. Holy crap. Even the sanctuary of my apartment was breached.

  I took a deep breath. Okay, first things first. Sort dinner, and then tackle the other problems. I could detour to Trader Joe’s and pick up some of that pre-packaged bulgogi Dad loved, and hope Ken wasn’t a vegetarian.

  Somehow the image of Ken with veggie sticks and tempeh didn’t quite mix. I imagined him tearing the flesh away from a bulgogi rib, wiping sauce from the corner of his wide mouth.

  Inside Trader Joe’s sliding doors I stopped, my heart pounding for no good reason at all, causing a guy with two squirming toddlers in his basket to crash into me.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. He gave me an exasperated look. I quickly took a hand basket and made for the relatively less crowded snack aisle. I sifted through my encounters, thinking about Ken, and how I’d not been afraid of him even when I thought he was a stalker. Outside of Stumptown Coffee when he’d touched me while rescuing me from Hayk, I hadn’t once flinched. Like the deepest part of me held no fear of his fragments. His hand on my elbow had been a cocoon of warmth.

  I squatted to reach some of Dad’s favorite sesame-flavored senbei crackers on the bottom shelf. Ken was coming to dinner. Inside my apartment.

  The plastic-wrapped senbei crackers crinkled loudly under my grip. Big deal. People went into other people’s apartments all the time. It was normal. I liked normal.

  Make the dinner, lock the door on your bedroom tonight, and try not to make things all morbanoid and dramatic. Drama was Marlin. I was supposed to be the rational one. I gave a firm smile to the Hawaii-shirted clerk at the only open check-out counter. Of course it would be the one with Trader Joe’s current chocolate display.

  Their dark chocolate left a gritty aftertaste that wasn’t my favorite, but I snagged a tub of chocolate-covered dried blueberries.

  Antioxidants were important.

  Outside the store I popped open the tub and ate a few before stuffing the rest in my bag.

  Velvety bitter-sweet washed the last tint of salty cardamom from my mouth. I walked down the almost empty streets not caring about the sprinkle of light rain coating me.

  Ken was sitting on a bench under the double-blossom cherry tree outside my apartment building’s garage when I walked up the sidewalk with my grocery bag.

  My weariness drained away and something suspiciously bubbly welled up in its place.

  Ken stood up, a smile lighting his face. He gave a little wave, his smile turning to a sheepish grin. That grin, the flash of white teeth peeking through his lips, did something to my insides. I frowned.

  Why did the sight of him feel so normal?

  “Don’t tell me,” I said, “You’ve been waiting here the whole time?”

  He pointed to his shirt, no longer an OHSU sweatshirt, but a short-sleeved button down shirt in a black and white geometric pattern. “Not the whole time,” he said. Maybe it was just the drizzle in the air, but he seemed less round-cheeked, as if the rain stripped him down to cleaner lines, sharper-boned features.

  He reached for my grocery bag.

  “It’s okay,” I said, pushing past him to cover my awkward flinch. “I’ve got it.”

  “I was being careful,” he said. “I wouldn’t have touched your hand.” I heard him take a deep breath. “Why don’t you…why won’t you acknowledge what you are?”

  I swiveled around. I remembered very clearly Marlin in our backyard, recoiling from me, her own sister, as I told her of what she’d dreamed the night before.

  A lesson burned into the marrow of my bones. Don’t tell, don’t speak of it to anyone. Even Mom had skirted carefully around any hint of my strangeness, as if this was the one thing even she couldn’t wrestle to the ground.

  Let it go. Smooth it over. Act like nothing’s out of the ordinary. First Hayk, now Ken. Everything that I’d kept secret all these years was threatening to explode all over my new-and-improved life. Hell to the no. I was going to get my degree. I was going to have a normal life. No more scared hermit.

  I flung myself around, hefting my bag toward Ken. He grabbed it just before it hit the ground. Wide irises of French roast brown searched my face as if answers were written in the pores of my skin. My cheeks tingled. Please play normal for now. Please.

  “Well, come on,” I said, in Mom’s no-nonsense, let’s get on with it, voice. I ran up the stairs to the second floor and paused outside my door. Had I left underwear anywhere embarrassing? How messy was my apartment?

  No help for it now. I fumbled the key in the lock.

  Behind me, Ken hovered, a warmth on my back in the chill of the covered corridor. I’d already touched him twice today. Would I dream his fragments tonight? My back bowed into an awkward curve to get the door open without backing into him.

  Not fear of a fragment, this skittish energy. Certainly not afraid to touch him. It must be natural hermit reluctance at the intrusion into my lair.

  Really, that’s all it is.

  I directed Ken toward my galley kitchen and he started unpacking groceries. He opened my fridge and laughed.

  “Do you survive on coffee alone?”

  “It’s been a busy week.” And Subway was cheap.

  Ken perched on one of my second-hand barstools, sitting with a straight posture I usually saw in people who did yoga or were ballet dancers.

  I took things out of the grocery bag, setting the senbei snacks on the counter. After a moment of silent reconnaissance, Ken got up. “Here, let me help with dinner,” he said.

  “It’s okay, I’m just heating up bulgogi in the microwave, and then some marinara and spinach noodles.”

  There wasn’t room in my galley kitchen for two adults. Too little space between us, and every particle of it charged with the tall length of him, towering over me this close. His long limbs rested on a bar-stool, waiting, patient. For now. How much time and space would he give me before whatever had sharpened him, sitting under the Portland rain, won out over this amiable façade?

  Whatever this was, this unspoken tension filling the room, it certainly made me feel awake—like a double shot Depth Charge espresso awake.

  I coughed, turning back to my distorted refl
ection in the metal sink. Evidently he was content to let this simmer. Small talk. That’s what we need. I pushed the jar of marinara toward him and indicated a saucepan hanging from a hook by the stove.

  “I guess you can heat that up,” I said. The bag of baby arugula ripped down the middle, so I dumped it all in the salad spinner. Then, in a passable approximation of Marlin’s cheery chatter voice, I said, “So…where did you arrive in Portland from?”

  He stopped in mid-unscrew of the jar.

  “You really don’t know, do you?” he said.

  My hands crept up to rub over my upper arms, trying to soothe goose bumps prickling all over me. “Illuminate me.”

  Ken bowed his head for a moment, taking a deep breath. He muttered something in harsh, male, Japanese. He didn’t strike me as high-strung, but there was definitely a battle going on behind those dark eyes.

  After a tense moment, he looked up, evidently having decided to go along with the inane small talk instead of letting out whatever was brewing. He poured sauce into the pan and took down my wooden spoon to stir. “I was born in Tochigi, at the base of Nantai-san, but I grew up all over Japan. I’m usually based out of Tokyo now, but I’ve just spent some years in Kyoto.” He said Kyoto gingerly, like he was expecting me to nod knowingly or arch an eyebrow or flinch or something. A test of some kind?

  Instead I bent over the sink, filling my spinner bowl with water. I was going to fail this test. “That sounds nice.”

  Ken’s presence behind me felt close, too close. My back went all shivery as if it were cold, but the kitchen was warm, too warm. “I didn’t spend much time touring the shrines and palace. It was more of a…duty than a pleasure.”

  What to say next that isn’t inane? I rubbed my eye with the back of a damp hand. I was reacting to his presence like a hormonal high school girl. He was just a nice, weird guy reheating spaghetti sauce. I was just a nice girl a tad more introverted than most. We should be able to make conversation and dinner.

  Ken closed in behind me. I tensed, clutching the plastic spinner bowl to my stomach for protection.

  “Koi,” he said, his voice a soft breath on the back of my neck. I felt the pressure of a hand on my shoulder, and then the spiciness of male aftershave swallowed the bitter arugula smell.

  “Koi?” he said again and this time his voice delved all the way inside and made me want to lean back into him, enfold myself in that warmth and scent. His palm lightly trailed down my back, and then fell away. My breath caught. A rush of awareness swept down my body, curling my bare toes against the chill floor tiles.

  “I’m not here in my official capacity,” he said. “There’s no need to be so wary.”

  “I don’t understand.” Space, I need space. I couldn’t keep up this façade of normality with him invading my personal bubble.

  “This wall between you and the world, it doesn’t hide your nature,” he said. “But you have nothing to fear from me.”

  I whirled on him, sharp words about strangers and their unasked for advice ready on my tongue. The open bewilderment in his eyes stopped the words, but we were too close, pressed together in each other’s space. It was like he gave off an ambient glow, and my skin soaked in that warmth like a sponge. Our breath mingled for a jittery moment; coffee and wintergreen.

  “Who are you?” he whispered, an urgency twisting between us, forcing me open and vulnerable. The laugh crinkles were gone. His eyes bored into me, really seeing me.

  Koi Pierce didn’t do vulnerable.

  “I’m Koi.” The hard syllables of my name lanced the tension in the air. “And existential questions of existence can wait until after dinner.”

  Ken laughed, his features softening “And just as self-sufficient and full of gravitas as your namesake, I suppose.”

  I squinted at him. “How the hell did you come up with a word like gravitas?”

  He leaned forward, sniffing. “I think the sauce is burning.”

  I elbowed him out of the way and grabbed the wooden spoon. A burnt crust had formed on the bottom of the saucepan. I switched off the burner.

  “Hope you aren’t too hungry,” I said.

  “Actually, I’m ravenous,” he said, and circled to the other side of the counter.

  I gave him most of the rescued sauce and covered my own noodles with a boatload of parmesan and cracked pepper. We sat on barstools at the counter. Ken hardly touched the salad at all. He slurped up his noodles Japanese-style, proving once and for all he wasn’t American-bred. Mom had complained a million times when Dad did the same thing.

  Between bites we talked about school and my sister. Every time I probed into Ken’s life, he steered the conversation back to me. There was no way to fend off his skillful chatter without being direct and rude. The twinkle in his eyes told me he enjoyed watching me try to wrangle words.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  I flinched. I’d forgotten entirely about Marlin. And Dad.

  Ken pointed to the door with a fork burdened with noodles. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”

  “Of course,” I snapped, savagely spearing a piece of lettuce.

  I dropped my fork, lettuce uneaten, and pushed away from the counter, almost knocking over my water glass.

  I clicked open the two locks and slid the sticky deadbolt. Marlin stood in the hall, one hand clasped around Dad’s middle.

  I gave her my most baleful big-sister stare.

  Marlin sighed. Dad sported a scraggly, half-grown beard and gray-translucent skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones. My always fastidiously clean father, even at the worst of his spells, never left the house unshaven. One of Mom’s Hawaiian flag quilts draped across his shoulders like a lifejacket.

  “I can’t handle Dad like this,” said Marlin. “The Daycare program nurse won’t take him anymore.”

  “Damn it, Marlin,” I said, stepping forward and putting my arms around Dad. I could feel him trembling slightly, like an alcoholic in withdrawal. “How long’s he been like this?”

  “A week.”

  “Is he taking his meds? Why didn’t you take him to the doctor? You can’t just let this go for so long!”

  “Don’t,” said Marlin. “Of course I took him to the doctor. Of course his meds are fine.”

  I blinked back tears. This wasn’t easy for Marlin, either. Miss Fixer not able to fix one of the people who mattered most. I shook my head and pulled Dad into the apartment. Ken stood up, but I waved him back out of sight. Marlin didn’t need to meet him right this instant.

  Dad fell onto my couch like a limp jellyfish. Marlin turned away like she was leaving. What? I lunged out into the hall. “Look, I know Dad’s difficult. But I’m trying to make something of myself here. I can’t take him like this and still get to classes.”

  “Really?” said Marlin, spinning around to reveal red-rimmed eyes and her own tears making wet trails down her cheeks. “This time is going to be different, how? You’re not going to start skipping classes when things get too difficult? You’re not going to stop returning calls? Ignoring all the boring details of life that just weigh you down, like, maybe, oh just off the top of my head, something like Mom dying of cancer?”

  “You don’t understand what it was like.”

  Behind me, I heard Ken shift, murmuring something in Japanese to Dad.

  “Save it,” she said, palm out as if she could physically stop my protests. “You’ve given up on every course you’ve ever taken. You copped out on Mom when she needed you most. You can just suck it up for once in your life, for Dad.”

  “Marlin,” I said, anger turning to a leaden pain. It wasn’t true. I didn’t just give up. She didn’t understand how difficult it was every single damn day for me.

  I shuddered. How could I explain what it felt like when Mom was dying? At first she kept wanting me to touch her, and I’d hold her hand and feel a chill, crawling emptiness pass into me.

  But even worse was when Mom figured out something was wrong. She looked at me, and
slowly, her fingers had loosened in my hand.

  “Do you know why I named you Koi?” she had said. “Because you were always so sturdy, so strong, even when you were just a keiki. And I wanted you to remember, when it got hard,” here Mom’s voice had cracked. She coughed, and I took her water tumbler from the side table and carefully held the plastic straw to her cracked lips.

  She swallowed with such an obviously painful effort my own throat ached.

  “Koi can live on any continent, in almost all temperatures. Survive even in the muddiest water. And that’s what you’ve got, eh?” I looked through the glass window where the OHSU nurses in their cheery scrubs hustled back and forth down the corridor. “Muddy water,” Mom repeated.

  “It’s okay,” I said, moving to hold her hand again.

  She batted weakly at my fingers. “You’ve got to take care of yourself when you spend all day stirring up what lies on the bottoms of ponds.”

  The morphine was messing with her brain. Mom was being all emotional and fuzzy and skirting dangerously near topics best kept packed away. I hugged the stuffed red devil I’d sewn with a cape and giant A when she’d started her Adriamycin chemo. Captain Red Devil. It was supposed to kill all those pesky, metastasizing cells.

  “Sometimes being strong, my little fish, means settling down to the bottom of the pond and sitting tight through winter,” she said. “Surviving has to be done alone, in the end.”

  My heart broke into a thousand painful shards there in that room. Mom was giving me permission. Not to come to the hospital. Not to touch her. Not to get those bone-sharp chill fragments from a dying woman.

  She would never say it out loud, but she knew.

  Dreaming her death night after night had hollowed me into a shell of bone and grief.

  Tears burned at the corners of my eyes.

  I curled my hands into fists. Stuffed toys or blubbering isn’t going to help Marlin or Dad. Keep it together.

  “Please,” said Marlin, pleading. “See if you can help him.”

  “I’m…” I bit back the word “sorry” forming on my tongue. If I apologized, it would be like admitting everything she accused me of was true.