Free Hey Mortality by Luke Kinsella Page B

world.”
    “Your theory?”
    “Yeah, you said the dreams started the day you got with Lucy. I think the dreams mean you’ve made a new start with a person that makes you happy, that Lucy and your relationship with her is somehow represented by the dream.”
    “Interesting,” I said. His words genuinely were and always have been.
    “I still can’t explain the ducks though.”
    “Don’t worry about it. Look, something else happened.”
    I went on to tell Jun the details of my latest dream. Even though we were talking over the phone, I could sense that he was listening intently to every word.
    “The Bridge at the End of the Universe, sounds cool.”
    “The Bridge at the Centre of the Universe,” I said, correcting him.
    “Whatever,” he said. I could sense him smile at being corrected. “Did the man say anything else?”
    “Nope, just as I told you.”
    “Hmm,” Jun said, as if lost in deep thought. “I will once again look into it. Call me when you learn anything else. Hey, you should take a swim in the river of time in your next dream.”
    I couldn’t quite tell if Jun was gleefully mocking me or not.
    “Thanks, Jun,” I said, as the phone clicked off.
     
    ***
     
    One night Lucy didn’t come home. The next day I tried to ask her why, but I got some reply that offered nothing; somewhat lacking in sufficient reasoning.
    “I have to work, don’t I?”
    Those six words were all that she seemed willing to offer me.
    Over the next few weeks she came home in the evening later and later, and on two more occasions, she didn’t come home at all. Sex became almost non-existent, and when we did make love, it felt like she was offering herself more to please me, to keep up the false pretence of a relationship.
    After a couple of weeks of barely seeing her, I started to get suspicious of the fact that she could be seeing somebody else.
    “Have you slept with anyone else since we’ve been together?” I asked her one night.
    “Of course not, I love you.”
    Her reply included a smile, one that I had never seen from her before; a new smile. Seeing this was confirmation enough.
    “Okay, sorry to have asked, I just had to clear my mind, that’s all.”
    “We can’t keep having conversations like this,” she said, before kissing me on the forehead and heading out of the house.
    I wanted to ask her where she was going, but that would further fuel problems, so I let her go. Somehow I knew though, convinced by that fake smile and the look she gave me. I knew something was different.
     
    ***
     
    Over the next week, my dreams remained pretty much the same, and the man without a face repeated my sentiments, I have no idea . The only changes were that details grew slightly more solid. The ducks developed more detailed form. The gradient of the buildings improved drastically. The aroma of bread grew stronger, much to my delight. The fog thickened. The man without a face remained entirely anonymous, no more detail added to the darkness of his mask.
    Lucy continued to stay at my place. She never asked me how my day was, as if not interested in me anymore. What started so well became nothing more than an empty shell of a relationship. Sex became as frequent as when I was single. Our relationship had grown cold, like the slow cracking of the surface of a frozen lake, ready to shatter into a thousand shards of ice. So much for Jun’s theory about joy.
    Perhaps I was being overly paranoid. Was it me pushing her away with those thoughts of her sleeping with someone else? Could she read my mind? No, not possible. The feelings were very real.
    Strangely, it felt to me like a thousand demons were pulling at my heart, as if trying to rip it from my body, stretch it to unreal extremes, until it no longer aligned with the place where it was once held. That place became lost, like an infinite void, devoid of any emotion yet so full of darkness, hate, loss, and sorrow. Remaining empty yet so full of something else at the same