12.20.23

in sleep and wake

Awoken from a trance with a sharp inhale, I jolted into reality. Deep in thought, dissociating during my walk, I somehow ended up on 5th and 60th, the southeast corner of Central Park.

I took a second to recenter myself. I wondered what my mind did when it wasn’t here and now.

I approached an outdoor book sale; a row of plastic foldable tables side by side with a few layers of books on each table lined both edges of the sidewalk. The occasional pedestrian stopped to peruse the novels new and old.

I picked up a novel on the verge of breaking apart in my fingers; its cover was creased and torn and its spine malleable from being handled so many times.

“Excuse me miss,” An old man hobbled towards me, speaking in a French accent. He must have been in his 80s, hunched over a metal cane, clutching the hand grip tightly. He had draped a large blanket scarf around his neck and tossed it behind his shoulder. His long tan wool coat nearly touched the ground. “Have you heard of that book before?”

I looked down at the title. Finnegans Wake. I shook my head no.

He chuckled. “I don’t think you want to, to be frank, dear.”

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“That book is supposed to be the hardest book to read in the entire world!” He flailed his free hand in the air.

I raised my eyebrows. I flipped through the book quickly and landed on a random page. I couldn’t tell if it was written in Old English or gibberish.

“There’s even a 100-letter word in the book.” The old man stated.

“What word has 100 letters?” I was shocked.

“A made-up one.” He laughed heartily.

“That’s so weird. What is it even about?” I asked.

“How dreams are a reality and reality is a dream. And how everything is cyclical.” He gently motioned towards the book, which I handed to him.

“That’s really interesting. Have you ever read it?” I asked.

He nodded, flipping through the pages slowly. “Once. I had to.”

“Why’d you have to?”

“I kept having this dream. I still have it, actually. It doesn’t happen often, maybe once every few months. But this dream, I know I’m in it as soon as it starts. I know I’ve been here before. I know what’s going to happen but I also don’t.”

He peered from the book at me to make sure I was following along. I nodded.

“I thought I’d find some answers here. This book is based on some old philosophy work anyway. Well, turns out I just got more confused.” He shrugged.

“What is your dream?”

“Well,” he started. “It starts with me running. That’s when I wake up in the dream anyway. I’m running through a field of clovers. It’s so beautiful. It spans the width of the world, it seems. The sky is crystal blue. Clovers fly up with the wind like weightless emeralds, it’s stunning. An old man running like that.. to feel that feeling. I wish you could see it, feel the wind in your hair.”

I smiled and nodded. I wish I could too.

“I look down and notice that everywhere my feet touch the clovers, it turns to ash. I’m devastated. I can’t believe it. I stop running and I bend to touch a clover. I can hear it breathing almost. It’s so alive. But at my touch, it disintegrates. I can smell it too, like burning flesh.”

“I look behind me and the whole field is curdling slowly. Something toxic and black fills the air from the decay. It smells like rotting corpses. My nose is filled with the smell, I can’t get it out. It’s like sludge and I’m being suffocated."

“I fall to my knees, my eyes are watering with all the toxins in the air. I can’t see, I can’t smell. I find myself wishing I was dead instead.”

A short silence filled the moment. My breath turned shallow, my mouth hung open.

“And then?” I pushed. That can’t be it.

“That’s it. That’s how it ends.” He looked at me and yet beyond me, distant in thought.

I shook my head in disbelief.

“Where do you even begin, no? I’ve never been in a traumatic situation that has anything to do with any of this. I grew up near Lyon, France. I had a lot of friends growing up. My parents were good to me. I was an okay student, and of course, I’ve done some stupid things before, but who hasn’t?” He scoffed in defeat, having exhausted all potential scenarios.

“I’m more surprised you call this a dream instead of a nightmare,” I said.

The old man paused and scrunched his eyebrows together. “Yeah, I didn’t think about that.”

“Why do you think that is? This sounds pretty intense for something you relive often in such vivid detail.”

He gripped the copy of Finnegan’s Wake in his hand. “In this book, the characters have one identity and name when they are awake, and change identities and names when they’re dreaming. Everyone except one character, who is called the same thing awake or dreaming. Issy.”

His free hand clutched the book with increasing force until he let out a frustrated grunt and extended the book back to me. I hesitantly took it.

“I don’t know.” He gave up. “Have a good day miss.” I watched as he hobbled away, slumped over his cane.

After he disappeared around the block, I was transported back into reality. People walked back and forth on 5th Ave, chatted amongst themselves, peered at the lines of tables, picked up books, and flipped through them.

I took one last look at Finnegan’s Wake before setting it back on the table.

He was almost onto something, I’m sure of it. Why’d he have to get so frustrated and leave? And why did I care so much about any of this?

I walked into Central Park, slowly, deep in thought. I watched the bench-sitters, the dog-walkers, the fruit-sellers, the horse-drawn-carriage-riders, and the runners. Who were they when they’re not here and now with me? Who were they when they fell asleep?

I thought about the duality of everything. You can understand what is being said but still be confused. You can want to be alone but not want to be lonely. You can have a good upbringing and life and still find yourself wishing you were dead in your dreams.

The question of why came back to me. Why would he ever call this dream and not a nightmare? The smell of rot and visions of apocalypse stuck in my thoughts.

His last descriptor words lingered; I found myself wishing I was dead instead. Why would he say find?

I recalled the way he recited the dream. He was so animate about the rolling fields of clovers, the intensified beauty of the natural world come to life. Even in the more horrific parts, he spoke with a passion instead of a fear.

Maybe, in the most desperate part of the dream, his brain dictated a state of emergency, not his mind. He found himself in that duality; your mind can be present and your brain can be ready to end it all. Even to the end, he respected every part of the moment, the way I presume he lives his conscious life too.

I’m not sure how the book goes, but maybe that one character in the book that stays the same identity throughout the novel represents the old man. Issy going though the cyclical concept of dream and reality being one and the same.

I slowed my stroll into a halt. A couple feet away from me, a baby slept peacefully in its stroller while the mother rested her feet on a bench. Foot traffic was high, a dog barked at another passing by dog, tourists yelled at their kids to stand still for a picture, a man played music on a Jinghu hooked up to a speaker, a vendor repeatedly shouted ‘fresh fruit’ to passerby pedestrians.

And then something clicked. To sleep and to be awake are both being. Perceptions of reality are the only thing that is in question, a subjective question at most.

Maybe the old man shouldn’t question why he keeps having this dream, but rather come to understand that it is just another reality to him. That he chooses to wake up and live a different reality every time, one he controls and directs.

And to the baby sleeping in the chaos of Central Park, to dream is not to escape, but a maybe it’s to reconcile all the realities of oneself, no matter how strange the world around you might feel. It is to live without fear. It is to rest with intent.

We live in a world within worlds and universes beyond our comprehension. To be human is to have all versions of yourself all the time, in sleep and wake. But to also have access to worlds within books, within your own mind, within others too.

And when all of that becomes too much to bear, to be is enough as it is. Your reality is what you make of it.

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Thank you to Matt Hawes and Tim Cui for their help editing this piece!