Film | Luc Saber

WRITING SAMPLE

FABRIC

DREAMS

By Luc Saber

This short story is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, places, or real people are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Therapy Session

INSANITY! Was that it? Was everyone around me insane? Did I exist in a world devoid of common sense? Or did I suffer from pure madness? Perhaps I was trapped somewhere deep inside the circuitry of my brain.

As these thoughts consumed me, I stared at the ceiling fan, watching the blades spin round and round while lying on the therapy couch. I remember a bright light shining in my eyes, but it wasn’t from any light fixture; it was just there. I think it was them again, whoever they were. This brightness appeared and disappeared from time to time, and every time I looked at the light, it temporarily blinded me. It was that powerful.

Was I imagining a world in an altered state of consciousness? Did I create another dimension in my disturbed brain? Was it a dimension in which I lived from time to time and one from which I could come and go as I pleased? Was it insanity? Or was it real? Did I somehow stumble onto the truth about life and death? Did I uncover the mystery of love, hate, and betrayal? Most importantly, was my experience the answer to whether or not our consciousness continues to exist beyond the confinement of the body?

Those thoughts, those impossible questions, raced through my troubled mind as I lay there, incapacitated, unable to move a muscle. I felt trapped, as though I needed to explore all the questions that stirred the soul, and yet it felt like an invisible but powerful cord held me back. I imagined that’s how a kite may feel, if it had feelings at all, or a balloon wanting to soar above the clouds but limited in its flight by the string, in the hands of a child, that held it captive.

A sonar sound, similar to that of a supersonic submarine ping, became more pronounced. Just like the light I described earlier, this sonar sound came out of nowhere from time to time. It was a sound with which I was quite familiar. That sound was the ringtone on my phone, and it was the microwave alerting me that the food was heated. All the electronics I came close to made that eerie sonar sound.

This time, that sound was the therapist’s timer on his smartphone application, alerting him that the therapy session was over. He reached for the phone and canceled the alert.

“Sounds like my time’s up,” I said to the psychologist, but he responded simply by telling me not to worry about the time and that he’d be happy to talk a little while longer.

“I feel vulnerable in this position. I feel paralyzed, trapped inside my body,” I told him.

“Do you feel vulnerable, physically or psychologically?” The therapist asked, and I told him that it was a physical weakness.

He explained, as he did so many times before, that my psychological condition tends to wear out the body but added that I had the power to get up. He said it was up to me to come out of this weak condition and that my brain had the power to execute whatever command the mind would give it.

“Have faith,” the psychologist said.

Faith, I thought. The kind of faith he suggested, I’m sure, was different than the faith I practiced since I was a teenager. Throughout my life, I slipped in and out of this trust in something I couldn’t see or touch, and when faced with adversity, I was always drawn back to my faith.

Regardless of how he meant it, digging deeper into my mind to find the kind of faith that moved mountains was a good suggestion because I wanted to get up from the couch. I wanted to stand; I wanted to be free and go for a walk or, better yet, a run along the shore. From my point of view, lying there on the couch, the psychologist looked like he was sitting sideways. I wanted to see him straight on and look into his eyes, so I mustered up all the strength I could, and I sat up. It felt like a chore, as every muscle in my body ached, but I sat up, and I got a clear view of the therapist.

He was a man in his early thirties, unshaven, with a golden tint throughout his shoulder-length hair and his five-o’clock shadow. I remember wondering if he had highlights, and it struck me funny because he sported a dark olive complexion. Perhaps it was a tan, but no, his skin was radiant and natural-looking.

The bifocals were distracting because they occasionally reflected light and made his eyes look like a ray of sunshine or a beam of intense light, although the blue tint of his eyes did show through the lens from time to time.