Where They Wait

by Scott Carson

I was never a dreamer.

When I say I was never a dreamer, I mean at night, in the depths of sleep.

Dreaming seems normal, right? Seems like something that should happen to all of us. And yet we don’t know much about the mechanisms of dreams, for all of our scientific research and psychological theorizing. We believe dreaming is tied to memory, that REM sleep is an archival process. We believe dreams are indicative of repressed emotions, or perhaps harbingers of maladies that haven’t yet offered physical symptoms. Warnings. Messages from the dead. From God. We believe all of these things and more, but what we know is this: dreams are still not fully understood after all these years. They come and they go.

“Blackness,” I said. “It’s that simple. The world is black, and then I crawl out of it—float out of it, if there’s no alarm going off—and the world is light again.”

But there are days when I’ll think of people I lost touch with long ago and have a near-physical certainty that they’re thinking of me, too, right then, as if there’s some electric current riding through the atmosphere and we happened to connect on the same circuit one more time. It’s always a good feeling, like a kind touch.

Networking is the polite term. Begging is the feeling.

(I have a theory that some basic finance class should be taught in high school. It’s the kind of theory you arrive at in your late twenties, but rarely before that.)

I loved writing, though, loved newspapers, loved the daily grind of reporting. First draft of history, and all that.

A lot of us are headed to that place, be it through a stroke, Alzheimer’s, or dementia, and I think it is one of the great fears of my generation—we are, after all, obsessed with remaining connected, and narcissistic enough to believe that the rest of the world wants us to be.

Cruel joke, right? Cruel world, kids.

A profile for the alumni magazine. Two years ago, I’d been reporting from Kabul for international syndication. How quickly things come apart.

“Yep. Consider your quality of life if you could remove every nightmare and replace it with a sweet dream. Think that might have an impact on anxiety, stress, blood pressure, et cetera? Can you even imagine that?”

Sleep came and sleep went. Blackness rose and blackness receded. Reliable as the tide, back then. I miss those nights.

Reimagine my future and fortify my resilience. Shit, what else can you do? Get knocked down, you best get back up.

WCLZ was playing Tom Petty, “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” and how could you not laugh at that? A little on the nose, right? But there was Tom, on cue, when I needed him. I felt so good, like anything was possible… Not so hard to buy into it. I was broke, yes, but I was young and had a plan and was a tough SOB. Those were the things I knew in my bones. There’s something good waitin’ down this road… Damn straight there was. Rest in peace, Tom Petty.

The signature sound of the loon is a solitary sound. It’s a haunting cry of undeniable beauty with an undercurrent of sorrow. An announcement of peaceful northern isolation, the Thoreau of birds.

The sound is a lie, though. Loons are not solitary, nor are they peaceful. The loon’s life is a violent one. The birds will stab each other with their beaks, beat each other with their wings, and pull each other under the water. The midnight cry that makes people think of Thoreau at Walden Pond is anything but serene.

A reporter with a question is a happy human.

It looked like the space someone might design for a tech company if their only sense of Silicon Valley came from the old HBO show. They were missing the Ping-Pong tables and smoothie bar, but not much else. Maybe those were on the roof.

“Reporters are skeptical creatures.”

Puff piece or not, I wasn’t signing any nondisclosure agreements. The disclosure part of things was my business.

“Sleep songs?” He nodded, a trace of enthusiasm returning. “So cool,” he said. “So, so cool. Our brains are wired for song, you know. Story and song. Combine the two, and—” He brought his fists together with a smack, as if the collision was a good thing, but it looked like a head-on crash that bruised his knuckles. “Powerful,” I said.

The closer to the brain, the warmer the blood is perceived, I think. Blood from a cut toe feels cooler than a nosebleed, as if the brain shouts, Too close, too close! as the injury nears central command.

Nobody minds an empty building if the exterior looks good.

You should make the visits, though. Even when they don’t register, you should still make the visits.

Sailing in fog had always filled me with a cold, throat-tightening, stomach-clenching fear.

once you’re in the fog, you’ve got no choice but to fight through it. To me, it was always a unique terror. The world was wiped away right before your eyes, and then you could be on a collision course with another boat, a rock outcropping, floating debris, who the hell knew? The best navigator in the world couldn’t guarantee you open water. It was one thing to chart a course and another to know it was clear.

Was memory loss a tangible thing? Did you turn and reach for something with the certainty that you knew where it was, only to find fog in its place? Then whirl back to reorient, only to discover that the most recent landmarks were also gone?

This was how life moved along. Forward, then backward.

Our brains don’t allow us to press ahead without paying the toll of memory and making at least a short trip into the past. You can’t drive to your next meeting if you don’t remember where you parked your car. Can’t remember where you parked it if you don’t remember what kind of car it is. It’s all simple until it’s impossible.

She was a big one for theories. “I have a theory,” she’d begin, and while sometimes a serious, scientific idea would follow, the same preface would be used for anything and everything. “I have a theory that we should have key lime pie. I have a theory that the dog is eating grass. I have a theory that you’ve got a crush on the neighbor girl, Nick.”

I hated the human condition then with a sudden, fierce passion. It was a terrible thing, what had happened to her, and I was enraged by it.

I wasn’t sure what penetrated the fog that surrounded her, but I thought that emotions sent stronger signals than words, and so I tried to seal in my sorrow and project only warmth and love and gratitude.

I felt an eerie prickle. It was like being in the deep fog and seeing something take shape, clear and undeniable and dead ahead.

How long do you sit with someone who doesn’t know who you are? For me, the answer that day was: until she falls asleep.

Anyone who says he isn’t defined in some way by his job is kidding himself. If you think I’m wrong, test the waters of unemployment for a little while and tell me if you feel whole.

I loved being a reporter, loved how new each day was, how the only sure thing was that you didn’t know what tomorrow’s big story would be.

If they come for me If they take us away Do not fear, oh, do not fear For others have gone there before It was beautiful, though hardly soothing. If they come for me, if they take us away? There was menace beneath the beauty.

As we drift away As they circle around The night wind calls us forward And dark seas welcome us down No course is clear to us now No guide but the voices we hear

Down, down in the dark No stars, no guide, but no fear We hear them thrashing around And know our hour draws near If you feel you must stay, now, now is the time But if you follow me, dear, I’ll ask you to rise without fear

Far, far down we go Fearless though we are prey Nothing ahead that we know But all behind we must flee So run, run on with me Dive, dive in with me Swim, swim deep with me Rise, rise now with—

I did what you do when you fall on your ass—looked around to see if I’d embarrassed myself in front of an audience, and then, having confirmed that I was alone, burst out laughing.

Good decisions often mark the death of wild dreams.

“For a writer, you are complete shit with words.” “That should be completely shitty, actually. And I’d omit completely. It’s needless.”

“Some people say,” I finished with him, and we both laughed. That was a Beauchamp classic—spreading gossip with his preface of innocence and lack of interest. It’s none of my business, but some people say…

Time slips away, memories fade, and coming back to a place then? It’s different.

“Hometowns, Nick, are complicated places.”

“You find us a publisher and I’ll consider,” I said, a harmless line when talking about book ideas, because nobody finds a publisher easily.

today’s news is forgotten tomorrow, but folklore is forever.

I think we always push back hardest when we’re called out on the truth.