FADE IN
Interior of Psychologist’s office. Doctor sits cross legged in chair. Patient on chez lounge.
PATIENT stares at the ceiling with a puzzled but focused stare. DOCTOR in a tweed jacket and horned rimmed glasses fiddles with his pen as his notepad is pressed on his leg, absently engaged in listening.
A pause is held for a few seconds, until the man on the couch launches back into his story of the dream.
PATIENT: I’ve had it a few times now. It’s the same every time. No detail, no matter how small, ever changes. It always begins in the same way, follows the same arc, then ends. Which is weird, because I always thought your dreams had something to do with your day. Like if I saw a cockroach get squished by a woman walking to work, I’d dream of getting stepped on by a woman in heels.
DOCTOR: Interrupting Well, that’s not always the ca—
PATIENT: But this one doesn’t seem to have any connection at all. No heels stomping on me. Not that I see women crush roaches often. Anyway. Here’s how it goes. I’m in this plane and its small. It’s loud. I’m vibrating with the propeller engine as it churns away through the clouds. I look down and I’m in some kind of body suit that’s purple, kind of like a racecar driver would wear. But with a lot more straps. I look up and realize there’s no seats—just benches on either side of the fuselage. And this guy is across from me. Just staring at me. He’s wearing a suit similar to mine but there’s a big difference. He doesn’t have arms. He doesn’t have legs. He’s staring at me intently and I stare back. Before I can soak it all in, his gaze shifts to my left and I follow it, turning. He’s looking at an open door. This is the part where I put it all together—I’m going to jump. Free fall. Sky diving. Terminal velocity and all that. So I look back at the guy and I think to myself, “How the hell does this guy skydive with no arms and no legs? I mean, how does the chute deploy? Is it like one of those tongue-controlled power chairs that paraplegics use?” The guy can see me staring at him and he must see the wheels spinning inside my eyes. So he’s just looking at me. And looking at me for what feels like a baker’s dozen lifetimes. Then he speaks: “Trust”
Now, in the dream, I never jump. And I never see the guy jump. It just cuts to me falling toward the earth. It’s not loud or anything—I can’t hear wind rushing by, I’m not screaming, nothing. But I look down to my left and can see the guy just floating through the air spinning around like a Vienna sausage or something. I start thinking to myself that even if this guy’s parachute opens, then what? It’s not like he can steer it. Unless he does have one of those tongue things. He just lands wherever he lands, I guess. A lake would suck—he’d be like a bobber. Or maybe an ornament in a tree.
So there I am wondering what’s going to happen to this sausage person when I see his parachute deploy and he starts drifting down. As I hurtle past him, I reflect on my own situation. I’ve never skydived before. And there’s definitely not a parachute on my back.
DOCTOR: Absent mindedly, Recurring dreams of freefall are commonplace. Go on…
PATIENT: Well. I look down just in time to see the ground right in front of me.
DOCTOR: And then?
PATIENT: And then I wake up. Every time.