THE MAN FELL INTO his dream, the same dream he had each night since his reanimation. In the dream, faces—some familiar, some not—flickered and ebbed into view. Lips moved, words muttered, but the man could not discern their meaning. And then silence. Not a sound to be heard. Suddenly, the amorphous surroundings transformed into a beach, and the man found himself standing at the edge of the water. He looked down and saw that he carried a body draped in a white shroud. A voice commanded the man to step into a small boat that floated in the water before him. “What should I do with this body?” the man asked the disembodied voice.
“Toss it into the boat,” the voice answered. And the man did what he was told. He settled in near the body and the boat started to move forward of its own volition, the rippling water making a strange whispering sound.
As the boat steadily moved across what appeared to be an endless lake, the man forgot about the body that rested at his feet. His stomach rumbled and he allowed his mind to drift to imagined sumptuous meals that he had no memory of ever consuming before. How did he know what these foods tasted like? The boat finally reached the other side of the lake. The man lifted the shrouded body and put it on his back. He stepped out of the boat and onto the warm sand. The man grew angry with himself because he had forgotten to ask the disembodied voice for further direction. But no matter. He would trudge forward. As he did, the man noticed that the terrain changed. Strange trees and plants sprouted from what was now a rocky, craggy ground. The man marched a very long time, and the shrouded body grew heavier with each step, his bare feet getting cut by the sharp, rocky ground. The man eventually realized that the terrain had grown more fantastical with each step. Indeed, the shapes he saw seemed to become something more than terrain, something akin to a language. Not merely a language but a hieroglyph, ancient and mysterious, that spoke only to him. Without much effort, he deciphered the message. The man now knew what he needed to do.
The man, armed with knowledge, finally reached the place where he could allow himself to put the shrouded body down so that he could rest and gather his wits. He looked up and saw a large boulder shaped like a hand holding a ripe fig. The boulder balanced upon a pedestal of rock that jutted up from the sand. With a strength he did not possess while awake, the man lifted the shrouded body and inserted it between the boulder and the rock. When he had completed this task, the man offered up a simple benediction: “Sleep, sleep.”
After a few moments of silence, the man started his long trek back to the boat. He walked through the strange, craggy terrain, which gave way to the gentle sand that he had first encountered. The sun warmed his body and the gentle sand seeped through his toes with each step. But his serenity was dashed when a group of dark figures without faces surrounded him. The man tried to scream but couldn’t open his mouth. These dark figures pulled at the man’s arms—first his left, then his right—and bit his face and body as they snarled like rabid dogs. This torture went on and on and on. Finally, the dark figures dropped the man onto the ground and lurched away, muttering obscene sounds that were not quite words. The man lay bruised and bleeding, but in time he gathered himself up and stood. The man felt his body and confirmed that he was intact. And slowly he resumed his journey, limping in pain with each step.
The man made it to the boat, which seemed to be waiting for him. He got in, sat down, and closed his eyes. The man could feel the boat move, sliding slowly across the vast lake in the direction from where he had come. He eventually felt a presence near the boat, floating out before him in the water. The man’s eyes popped open and what he saw made him smile. A few yards from the boat’s bow floated the dark figures that had accosted him previously. There is justice, thought the man. The boat slid by the bodies and the man grinned in satisfaction at the flotsam and jetsam that had been his tormentors.
In time the man’s boat reached the shore. His bruises and lacerations had miraculously healed, and he felt fit and strong. He stepped out of the boat. The moment his left foot touched the sand, the man fell into darkness, fast and dizzying, deep, deep, deep into an abyss. Before the man hit the bottom, he awoke from his dream.
The man sat up. He breathed heavily, and a cold sheen of perspiration covered his body. The man looked upon Faustina, sleeping on her side facing him, curled into a ball like a cat, and snoring, face half buried in the man’s pillow. The sheet had fallen to the floor, and the soft amber light of the corner lamp bathed Faustina’s body in a gentle glow. The man softly touched Faustina’s skin at her left shoulder and then at her hip. Perfectly joined, not a line of rippled scar tissue, simply beautiful brown skin running seamlessly along the contours of her limbs. His breathing slowed as he calmed from the delirium of the nightmare.
The man sighed, stood, and walked into the bathroom. He closed the door and turned on the light. He looked in the mirror and considered the differences between Faustina’s body and his own. The man slowly ran his fingers across the scar tissue where his left hip and leg joined. A fairly good match of skin color and even in foot size. His own right foot takes a size-nine medium shoe, but the man could comfortably walk about wearing a nine and a half, the size of the foot on his new leg.
The man then ran his fingers along the scars where his left arm had been joined at the shoulder. His own right arm and shoulder were, of course, perfect together. But the left… the jarring line of color looked like a children’s wooden jigsaw puzzle of the United States with each state a different color from its neighbor. Couldn’t they have found skin that was closer in hue? The brown of his left shoulder stood out against the white of the arm. And his left hand was so much larger than his right. A shocking mismatch. Why? Was it some kind of cruel joke? Did the surgeons and nurses laugh and offer sniggering jibes about the man’s patchwork body parts? How could anyone be so cruel as to deny him the modest gift of conformity, that inner peace that springs from ordinariness, an opportunity to simply be only himself and not contain many? He didn’t seem to belong anywhere. Neither here nor there.
The man then reached up to examine his face—using his right hand—and traced the outlines of his eyebrows, nose, lips, chin. He turned his face left and then right. He wondered what he had originally looked like. The man sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. He then reached into his medicine cabinet and retrieved a plastic prescription bottle. The man examined it, opened the bottle, and poured the red, oblong pills out onto the counter. He carefully fingered each pill, counting them out. Thirty-one pills left. He sighed. The man cautiously picked up each pill and dropped it into the bottle, closed it, and put the bottle back in the medicine cabinet.
The man clicked off the bathroom lights and stood in complete darkness. Without light, he was nothing more than one person. He reached for the doorknob and carefully opened the door so that it would not emit a creak. The soft amber light of the bedroom slowly filled the bathroom. The man walked toward the bed and looked upon the slumbering Faustina. So beautiful! His head ached, and he sighed. The man turned and walked out of the bedroom to his study. He turned on the desk lamp and opened the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet. The man peered into the drawer, hesitated, then pulled out a battered cardboard box. He placed the box onto his desk, sat, and considered his next action.
The man jumped with a start when Faustina let out a loud cough followed by sounds of her stirring, limbs rearranging. He froze, waiting to see if she had awakened. After a few moments, she quieted, save for a soft snore. The man turned back to the box and lifted its lid. He smiled, reached in, and retrieved a children’s picture book. He thumbed through the brittle, curled pages, and then closed it. On the cover was a business card attached with a paperclip. The card said:
Dr. Marco Prietto
Clerval Industries
Beneath the doctor’s telephone number and address were the words when you are ready, written at the bottom in red pen. The man let those four words roll around in his mind. He smiled. And at that moment, the man finally understood what those words meant. He gingerly placed the book in the cardboard box, and returned the box to the drawer. The man clicked off the desk lamp and walked slowly to his bedroom. He slid the sheet back onto Faustina, who stirred just a bit but then fell still. The man silently opened a dresser drawer and retrieved his hoodie, sweatpants, jockstrap, and socks. He dressed, slipped on his running shoes, and looked upon Faustina one more time before leaving the bedroom.