Free Daniel's Dream by Peter Michael Rosenberg Page B

Surely one did not have to worry about such things in dreams.
     
    And yet, this place, the circumstances that surrounded him, seemed to demand that he take it seriously; after all, it had few qualities to distinguish it from waking life, so how was he to know that he was in a dream at all?
     
    Daniel opened the packet of cigarettes, tore out the carefully folded rectangle of gold paper that covered the filter tips, and eased a cigarette out. He placed it carefully between his lips, ensuring that his actions were not sudden or dramatic. His last fast move had knocked him from his seat and sent him hurtling back to his home in Cyprus City.
     
    He held the matchbox in his left hand between his thumb and forefinger and, with a match resting against the edge, closed his eyes and struck. This, he thought, is when I wake   up; the intensity of this action, the release of this energy, will be sufficient to hurl me back to reality. He felt the resistance of the match-head rasping against the roughness of the striking surface, the tiny, intermittent hesitations as it caught, the friction activating the chemicals into combustion. The match spluttered and sparked.
     
    Daniel opened his eyes, stared at the compact, concentrated focus of silver and gold explosions as they spat and crackled, then settled into a familiar, silent, yellow and blue flame, a wavering teardrop of hot gas and fire.
     
    And then he lit his cigarette.
     
    Daniel drew deeply on the nicotine, The powerful drug coursed through his system instantaneously. He looked at his hand holding the cigarette, at the red-and-white tablecloth beyond, and smiled. Nothing had changed; he was still sitting on the patio at the open-air taverna, and all was right with the world. There was still no sign of the mysterious Berry, but now that Daniel had satisfied himself he was not about to be shot back to his other life, whatever and wherever that was, he was content to sit there and enjoy his surroundings.
     
    With his vision restored he was able to study the menu more carefully. He was attempting to decipher the prices when his concentration was interrupted by a noise from the taverna. He looked up to see a now familiar figure.
     
    ‘Hello, Mister,’ came the voice of the waiter from the doorway. ‘This Berry, man who belong taverna.’ Daniel looked up to see a tall, slender, handsome man with deep-blue eyes and light-brown hair. The man reached out his hand towards Daniel and smiled.
     
    ‘Hi,’ said the man, in an unimistakably American accent. ‘I’m Barry.’
     
    Ever the Englishman abroad, Daniel stood abruptly and held out his hand. Whether or not his swift movement was to blame Daniel did not know, but for a second, just before the two hands came into contact, Daniel experienced a brief dizzy spell. Everything around him started to soften at the edges, to become blurred. He had a strong sense that time was slowing down, as if he were caught in a slow-motion playback of a real-time event, and as he looked around for some sort of confirmation of this, he noticed that everything - the tables, chairs, vines - looked pale and translucent, as if they might disappear at any moment.
     
    In a moment of insight Daniel knew that if he touched this man’s hand everything would fade away, that he would lose his dream, that he would be thrown back to reality.
     
    But it was too late to do anything about it.
     
    As they clasped hands, everything in the taverna dissolved into a misty haze,.Daniel fixed his eyes on Barry’s face, and had just enough time to call out, ‘I’ll be back...’ before blackness descended.
     
     
     
    Daniel awoke in a panic. He opened his eyes but found only darkness. He fumbled anxiously for the light-switch, his heart beating furiously. The white taverna had disappeared, as had Barry and the waiter. He was in his bed, in his room, in London. His breathing was deep and