Free Daniel's Dream by Peter Michael Rosenberg Page A

this wonderful place will disappear.
     
    Daniel toyed with this idea for several minutes, unsure whether to test it out. He knew there was such a thing as a recurring dream; indeed, when he was younger he had suffered from one, a nightmare in which he was chased along an empty street by a big black dog with huge fangs and flashing red eyes. It was a dream he had had every week for the best part of a year. He knew all about recurring dreams.
     
    But not dreams like this. He had never heard of anything quite like this, where you returned to the same place and picked up where you left off. That wasn’t a dream, that was a soap opera. Besides, the whole place felt far too ‘real’ to be a dream; all his senses were intact; he could taste and smell and see everything vividly. The sound of the music was clear, and the table had substance, the coffee was hot and fragrant, and even the breeze could be felt brushing across his skin. But if he were logical about it he knew it wasn’t real, that it couldn’t be, and that, as he had already found, one little shove, one abrupt fall, was all it needed to jolt him back to reality, to wakefulness, and - if he was completely honest about it - a world that he cared little for.
     
    With that admission Daniel realised that he wasn’t about to test this idea, because if this was a dream, with its strangeness and sunshine and sweet, sweet smells, and reality was a darkened room in a terraced house in a  busy, crowded street in north London, then despite the strangeness, despite the mysterious circumstances, despite the lack of answers, he’d rather stay than return. At least for a while.
     
    Daniel looked back towards the doorway. There must be someone other than the waiter working there, he thought; he couldn’t be alone. What if someone wanted to eat, or a whole family came along? Perhaps the owmer was there, or a cook or someone? 
     
    In the darkness, Daniel could see the shadows move. ‘Excuse me!’ he called, quite loudly. The shadows stopped moving for a moment, and then the waiter appeared at the doorway. 
     
    ‘Yes?’ he said cheerfully. ‘You like some baklava now?’
     
    ‘Ah... no. I was just wondering who owns this place,’
     
    ‘Eh?’ replied the waiter.
     
    ‘This place... taverna,’ continued Daniel undaunted, ‘it belongs to you?’
     
    The waiter smiled again and then started to laugh. ’Belong me?’ he chortled. ‘No, no. Taverna belong Berry.’
     
    ‘Berry?’
     
    ‘Yes yes, Berry. You not know Berry?’ Daniel shook his head. ’You wait, I bring Berry!’
     
    Daniel nodded. Berry? Well, perhaps this Berry might be able to answer some of his questions. He sipped some more coffee and reached into his pockets to see if he had brought any cigarettes. At the same moment, a rather prosaic, but none the less relevant question arose: how would he pay for the coffee? It had only just occurred to him that he probably hadn’t any money with him, and even if he had, it would certainly not be in the right currency, whatever that might be. He feared an embarrassing situation.
     
    But that’s plain daft, he thought. After all, it’s just a dream and, what’s more, it’s my dream.
     
    In his pocket, much to his surprise, Daniel discovered a full packet of cigarettes, a box of matches, and a few dirty, crumpled banknotes. He spread them out on the table and examined them carefully. There were three notes, all the same size and colour - a sort of dull pink - and they all had “100” printed on them. The rest of the script looked similar to that he had seen on the sheet of newspaper that had tumbled towards him along the dirt track outside.
     
    Drachmae? Daniel had no idea whether possessing three hundred drachmae made him rich or poor, not that it could possibly matter. After all, was he really expected to concern himself with such mundane matters as conversion rates and paying bills?