A walk through the dreams

Ishaan had just woken up from a deep sleep. He sat on his bed rubbing his eyes. He was not surprised to see his bed empty. Normally, before that morning, his wife used to be there. He used to wake her up kissing softly on her forehead. She would open her eyes smiling and say, “I love you a lot.”

I am the luckiest man on this earth, Ishaan would think and hug his wife more tightly than ever. He would run his fingers through her hair and see true love for himself in her eyes. They would cuddle up kissing passionately.

 I know you are gone, Megha. I know you are not coming back this time. I hope it works out separately, Ishaan threw himself back on bed and thought. Many thoughts were vibrating in his head, and his heart was beating erratically. He pressed left portion of his chest with his right hand to make his heartbeat normal but it was of no use.

Happiness was temporary. Anguish is going to be permanent, Ishaan mused. It was only yesterday that he was able to see and feel her.

“It’s not working out together, Ishaan. It’s time we see our lives separately,” Megha had said crying. A long fight had taken place. It had started with meaningless arguments and had turned bitter eventually.

“I know it already that it’s not working out. Maybe, we should give one last chance to find a solution,” Ishaan said choosing his words wisely.

Megha got up from bed wiping her tears and started moving to another room. Ishaan followed her and said trying to control his anger, “Say something at least. Don’t keep on turning your back on me.”

“How many chances are you looking for exactly? Can’t you see, we have been trying to find a solution for past several months? Every time, it’s going to end up like this. Things are no more in our hands now,” Megha said irritatingly.

“What do you mean things are no more in our hand? Why don’t you say clearly what you have in mind?”

“I don’t wanna cry for the rest of my life. I don’t wanna feel cornered. There is nothing but pain left in our relationship. Everything has changed. I don’t feel happy from within,” She complained angrily.

Ishaan lost his temper. He shouted, “Even I don’t feel immense happiness being with you. My heart has become pain factory, not for producing pain but for consuming it every day. I don’t cry doesn’t mean I have suffered less. You can go away if you want. I won’t be stopping you now.”

“Of course I will go and I will never come back this time,” She shouted back.

Ishaan came back to previous room and lay down on bed. It was almost midnight. He was trying hard not to think about the fight. He closed his eyes forcibly to sleep. He couldn’t remember when he surrendered to night. He woke up next morning and she was gone. Forever.

I wish I could see you for one more time. I wish I could hold you once more, Ishaan felt a sharp pang in his heart. He realized everything was finally over. Another tale of love had come to an end. It hadn’t ended abruptly, it kept on decaying slowly and slowly, and when the love was completely sickened, both of them were in their separate ways.

To deal with separation was the most difficult thing to do for Ishaan. He loved Megha truly and no matter how hard he tried, her face kept on coming in front of his eyes. He was laying here and there for days trying to figure out something for himself. Her thoughts were still not out of his head. He remembered how perfect their love was–like both of them were born to be together. But then the worst part of their relationship would come in his thoughts, and he would feel deep pain knowing they weren’t together anymore.

Love is such a thing, Ishaan thought. It makes us feel like soul mates at one time and stranger than strangers at the other. Megha wasn’t coming back but he had to carry himself on for his remaining life. One day he woke up and thought, Of all the people, whom I have met and never going to see again, I will miss you the most. He opened his wedding ring and kept it in a drawer. He got ready and left for work.

He came back exhausted. He opened his shoes, threw his bag on sofa and went straight to bedroom. Its emptiness reminded him again of Megha. Had I loved you less, I would not have been suffering more. Your absence can’t ever lessen my love for you. He went to open the drawer where he had kept the ring. He took it and put it back where it originally belonged: in his finger. I will not stop believing. My love for you was always true and will always be.

Ishaan was on his rooftop, trying to feel alive by watching Nature’s serenity. The sky was gray white; the clouds were blown swiftly by strong wind. Far away in the west, just above the horizon, the sky had turned dark orange due to sunset. Ishaan watched, as the sky changed its color from orange to light orange and, slowly, to pitch black. The thick clouds blotted out the stars, and Ishaan was still there, thinking about the perfect life he once had.

“How long are you going to believe, Ishaan?” a pleasant voice whispered from behind. 

Ishaan turned around, and to his beautiful surprise, there stood Megha–more gorgeous than ever. “I knew you would come, honey. I believed so strongly in our love,” Ishaan said almost crying with happiness. He ran to hug her, and as he held her in his arms, he felt himself complete again.

Megha withdrew herself back and said, “You didn’t answer my question; I had asked something.”

“I want to believe in our love forever, dear. I have promised I will never let my love die.”

“It’s not going to work out between us. It never has. It’s time to stop believing and move on.”

“Our love is true, Megha. Don’t you remember, we had dreamt us being together for eternity?”

“There is no such thing as eternity. Everything is mortal. You will have to remove words like eternity, immortal, unconditional, and forever from your thoughts. Unconditional love doesn’t exist in this practical world. We are never going to be happy together.”

“We can at least try for one more time,” Ishaan said trying to convince Megha, but she was as rigid as mountain.

“No one can help us to be together. Even we can’t.”

“But—” Megha had already left, and Ishaan stood there alone in bewilderment. His heart started to ache more. He felt very weak from within, and as he bent against the railing for support, he lost control and toppled over it. In few milliseconds, he was free falling from the height of about hundred feet. He felt weightlessness for a second or two, and then there was a loud bang on his head.

He woke up screaming. It was a dream… It was only a dream, he thought hesitatingly. He ran to switch on the lights; it took him few minutes to believe that it was just a dream. He could still feel himself shivering, and his head was paining furiously. He looked at his watch; it was no more than half past two. He had to sleep back. He switched off the light and came back to bed.

Although he tried hard, he could not get the dream out of his head. All the scenes kept on playing sequentially in his mind. I don’t believe a nightmare woke me up, Ishaan thought. Ishaan was a heavy sleeper—he wouldn’t wake up even if someone slapped him while sleeping. He hardly remembered any dream, and he had never seen a nightmare in his life. This one, however, made a great exception.

Two hours had passed, and Ishaan was not even close to sleeping. His eyes were burning, and his body was tired of laying uselessly. He decided to get out of bed. He went to corridor, and started roaming from one end to other. Each second passed like an eternity. After lot of struggle, few hours elapsed, and it was time for him to leave for the office.

It was a normal day at office; Ishaan managed not to think of the dream again. He didn’t want his nightmare to haunt him forever. He tried concentrating on his work more. He finished his work and returned home early. When he entered his bedroom, he thought, it’s the same room, and it’s the same memories, but love is no more the same. Funny things—great people have said about love and died—no such things exist. Or maybe we, human beings, are not true enough anymore to carry on the legacy. He was too tired to do anything; he directly went to his bed.

Few hours later, he could feel several mouse running in his empty stomach. He was damn hungry; he wanted to have some good food. He got dressed, and went to a restaurant in another lane. He ordered his favorite Hyderabadi Biryani, vegetable curry and nans. He ate all of them like a pig. Half the people of this world must be doing jobs to fill their evil stomachs, he wondered while leaving the restaurant.

It was raining outside; the roads were glistening in street lights. Ishaan thought fresh drops might revive his energy, and he started walking down the road in rain. He reached the intersection in few minutes. He was waiting for the signal to turn red, so that he would cross the road. As he stood there, he saw someone at the bus top of the road going east. In a heartbeat, he knew it was Megha.

I might be able to see her one more time. I might be able ask her how she is! He hurried to reach the right most lane of the road. He was about to cross the junction, but the signal turned green for the vehicles going east. With great difficulty, he managed to cross the road and reach the bus stop. 

Unfortunately, Megha had got into a bus which was just about to leave. He couldn’t let it leave; it was his last chance to see her once more. He started running to catch the bus. I wish I had practiced running in my school days, he thought while running and increased his speed. But the bus had already left, and in spite of running at his full strength, he was no match for the speed of bus. He saw her vanishing in front of his own eyes. He gave up and stopped when the bus was totally gone.

Ishaan was totally drenched in rain water, and he could feel his heart pounding loudly. He knelt down for a while to gain breath. After sometime—when he got up to cross the road—there was a huge truck, at a distance of arm’s length, coming towards him. Before he could think of anything, he was dead.

He was screaming again in his bed. God! This can’t be happening again. Ishaan woke up confounded. He was feeling feverish. He just wanted to ignore the dream and go back to sleep again. I don’t want to spend another night in frustration, he thought and forcibly closed his eyes. He kept his eyes closed for few hours, trying not to think about his aimless life, but sleep was still beyond his reach. He kept on struggling till next morning.

Slowly and slowly, one month had passed. He was still not able to get rid of nightmares. Days used to pass normally but nights were getting scarier. Every night, in his dream, he would feel his true love coming to an end, and then he would see himself dying. He tried all the methods he could to stop those nightmares, but he wasn’t successful.

He tried sleeping early; he tried sleeping late; he tried changing the room; he tried reading a book until he fell asleep. None of those methods worked. He thought all those dreams were part of his subconscious mind; so he stopped thinking about his past life and focused more on present. He met new people and started spending time with them. He felt the ring, which was even now in his finger, may be one of the causes of nightmares (He believed Megha was, somehow, still attached to him through that ring). He removed it and kept it back in his drawer. He turned to happy music, and watched only comedy movies. 

No matter how hard he tried, those nightmares were still haunting him. He was tired of dying every day; he was tired of living a dreadful life. He was confused between dream and reality. He wasn’t sure whether he was dead or alive. He decided that he needed a psychiatrist before he became total mental. He searched on internet for psychiatrists, and was able to find theirs website: Happy2Help. The website was user friendly and quite easy to navigate. There were four methods through which one could discuss their condition with an expert: Face to face Counselling, Telephonic Counselling, eCounselling, and Emergency Telephone Sessions. People mostly discussed their personal, work, relationship, and parenting issues.

I won’t be able to express everything face to face, and eCounselling won’t solve my problem. I should better opt for Telephonic one, Ishaan thought. But what if my problem is not solved even on telephone, and I might need to go for Face to Face. Will I be allowed to switch the counselling mode? I should better ask all my queries through email first, he decided.

Sub: Query regarding different modes of counselling

Dear Support Executive,

I need to seek help immediately. However, I am not sure which mode of counselling to choose first. I wanted to know if I can change from one counselling mode to another, and will the counselor be same all the times?

Thanks & Regards,

Ishaan

Reply came back within few hours.

Dear Ishaan,

Greetings from happy2help!!! Thank you for writing to us. Yes, you can change your mode from telephonic to face to face, but the counselor may not be the same. We have counselor in every city who conducts face to face counseling.
Do call us on 09072000212 or write to us for any further clarification.

Regards,

Webmaster

Ishaan picked up his cellphone, and started dialing the number he had received in email: 0-9-0-7-2-0-0-0-2-1-2. He was just about to place the call when a sudden impulse passed through his nerve. He kept his phone aside, and said to himself, what are you trying to do, Ishaan? You are expecting a total stranger to solve your life’s problem. A psychiatrist may try to understand your feelings, but they will never feel through your heart. It’s your life, and only you will have to deal with it. So stand up like men, face your nightmares, and beat them with courage. Victory will surely be yours.

Ishaan logged on to his laptop, and opened a browser. At first, he needed to know the meaning of all those dreams. He searched in various dream interpretation forums; each one of them tried to give their own thesis. They were just trying to sell something on the internet by drawing viewers’ attention. Some attracted users by telling themselves a resort of dreams, some prided in telling themselves a dream’s dictionary, and some of them had the tagline as, ‘How dreams actually work?’ There were many varieties in which they gave different meaning to the same dream.

Internet is getting messier day by day, Ishaan thought. While he was still surfing hopelessly for the analysis of his dream, he came across an article of a realist. It grabbed his attention instantly.

“Life is infinitely simple until people start making it complicated. I don’t understand what the big fuss about dream is? It is the natural tendency of humans to dream. There are no good and bad dreams; there are just happy and unhappy minds. Make yourself happy and your dreams will eventually be good. To be happy, you always need to follow your heart. Never indulge your brain in your decisions—it may try to fool you by its unnecessary logics. Follow the logics, and you will always regret later. It’s the heart which gives true happiness. I agree, however, that it is not always in control of people to be happy. This happens when the heart itself gets lost. People start having nightmares, and it becomes quite difficult to cope with life. The only solution is, you bring your heart back into its right track. For this, I am introducing you to the concept of lucid dreaming…”

Ishaan studied the complete article attentively. It took him one complete week before he achieved his first lucid dream. Every day, before going to sleep, Ishaan would say to himself, I will remember my dream as soon as I wake up. He maintained a dream journal in which he wrote every details of his dream for analysis. He picked up every sign from his dream that linked to the reality. He focused more in his real life and tried to implement the same in dream, only after manipulating it. He wanted Megha to be there, happy in his arms. He wanted to express his love, and the only way to do it was in his dream. He kept on experimenting more on his methods; he knew one day he would be successful.

Ishaan was dressed like a gladiator standing at the center of Roman arena, surrounded by enemies, each one of them ready to kill him in a blow. But his eyes were fixed on ultimate victory—who was waiting for him eagerly—pining to feel his love. He moved towards exit, slaughtering every enemy with his sword that came in his way. He had killed all of them, and as he came out victorious, he sensed freedom he had never felt before. It was the freedom for his love. She was standing right behind a magnificent pine tree in distance. He ran up to her quickly, and when she turned around, he was lost in her flawless beauty. She hugged him promptly, and he kept his arms around her feeling blissful for his true eternal love…

Read My Other Stories Here:
A Thorny Way To Heaven
Life: As we live it
Together Forever : An Untold Love Story
Cyber - Love
3 Bullets
Hide And Seek
Love Wars  
Ghost-Hunt