All That We See or Seem (fiction)

  Kennedy McAlasdair woke up to the feel of a gentle massaging of her scalp. She was laying curled up on her side as she usually did when she slept. Matt, spooned up behind her, was already awake and playing with her hair.  It was still dark out. The air in the room was cool, but they were wrapped in blankets, so they were nice and toasty.

As she started to stir, Matt snuggled up more closely. She loved the smell of him and the feel of having him so close to her. Not only did she feel close to him physically, but mentally, emotionally as well. The morning and this feeling of closeness brought out an uncharacteristic openness. In that moment she felt compelled to share the dream she had just experienced with him. 

“I was just dreaming about Charlie Sheen, how weird is that?”

Matt laughed, “I can’t think of a single time you have ever mentioned him—was he one of your celebrity crushes as a kid? I thought it was that other brother—Estevez.”  

“Yeah, Emilio Estevez.” Kennedy said, “Why do I always do that? It’s like I can’t just say Emilio. I have to say Emilio Estevez. Like it’s all one word. But yeah, the Charlie Sheen dream thing—That’s why it’s so weird. Why Charlie, why now? To be honest, I barely recognized him in my dream but maybe it’s because he looked like he did in Ferris Bueller. And oh my god I sound like a spazz—“

“Wait, Charlie Sheen was in Ferris Bueller?”

“Yeah, at the end. He was at the police station.”

“Huh.” Matt obviously didn’t remember the scene and didn’t seem all that interested in it. He followed up his comment with another question, “Was it in color?”

This felt totally out in left field for Kennedy, who had no idea how to respond—or even what exactly Matt was referring to: “The police station?”

“The dream,” clarified Matt, surprised by the question.

“Why would you ask that?” Kennedy responded, rolling over to look at him. 

Matt propped himself up on his right hand looking at her, “ask what?”

“The color thing.” Kennedy commented.

“Why is that a weird thing to ask?” Matt replied, honestly stupefied.

“When is a dream not in color?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. When isn’t it?”

“Lots of people dream in black and white.”

“They do?” Kennedy couldn’t believe this conversation. She only remembered one time in her life having a conversation about dreams and color and it was with her mother years ago. Her mother had said that she had had a dream the night before that was in color and when Kennedy asked why that was so weird, she had commented that it was the first dream she had ever had in color. Kennedy remembered that there was a comment on color dreams in a Pearl Jam song, but color—or lack thereof— in dreams wasn’t something she thought about much, if ever. And here it was; “Like who, besides my mother, dreams in black and white? ”

“Me. I dream in black and white.”

“Really?” This felt weird to Kennedy, like she was seeing Matt for the first time. Sure she was 14 years younger than he was, but he wasn’t her parent’s age. “Is it like an ‘I was raised in the 60’s or earlier’ thing?  

“Why would that be a thing?” Matt asked.  

“I don’t know,” Kennedy said, thinking out loud, “maybe because your baby pictures are in black and white and early television was in black and white you connected black and white with picture/memory imagery?”

Kennedy could tell that Matt didn’t know how to respond to that, so he played the cute card: “Are you hitting on me right now?”

Maybe she was being too “brainy” and she needed to tone it down and stop analyzing everything, so she answered “I’m not trying to psychoanalyze you, but maybe it has something to do with the differences in our ages.”

This seemed to put Matt on his guard, “In the broad scheme of things, fourteen years isn’t a big deal. We’re both Gen X for Christ’s sake!”

“Technically, you’re a boomer.” Kennedy followed, before she could stop herself.

“Well, I guess we’re up and ready for the day now.” Matt said, rolling to the right side of and sitting on the end of the bed to put on his pajama bottoms.

“Clearly.” Kennedy said, picking up the flannel button down on the floor beside the bed and putting it on.

“So did you want to go over to the lake today, maybe soak in a little sun?” Matt asked, standing up.

“Except that I do have work today.” Kennedy said in a tone showing both her disappointment and her annoyance, partly at him for not remembering that it was the beginning of a new work week. 

“Oh, yeah, it’s Monday.” Matt said, realizing his mistake.

“One of those things about me working a 9-5 and you being a writer,”  Kennedy said and then instantly regretted it, knowing that it sounded like a jab.

 

“Are you going to be able to cut out early?” Clearly, Matt chose to ignore the jab, turning to leave the room.

“Probably not. Where are you going?”

“The kitchen for coffee.” Matt called out, but instead of making coffee, he went to the refrigerator and started pulling out Chinese takeout cartons.

“And wait. Seriously?”  Kennedy said, following him, “You’re going to eat Chinese food for breakfast?”

“Why not?” Matt said, opening up the first carton and pulling out a crab rangoon.

“Cold egg rolls and crab rangoons. Ok, maybe this will work for me.” Kennedy said grabbing the crab rangoon out of his hand.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Matt said. Then laughing, he added “you practically took that out of my mouth!”

“You know how I have absolutely no self control when it comes to crab rangoons.” Kennedy said shoving the rangoon in her mouth.

“Or,” Matt taunted, reaching for one of the wrapped fortune cookies on the counter, “these” he said, dangling the fortune cookie in front of her.

“Ooooh!  Do we still have two left?”

“Yes, so I have my own.” Matt added, showing off the two wrapped fortune cookies.

“Great, let’s start the day with our fortunes!”

“Ok, you open yours first.”

Kennedy greedily snatched the fortune cookie and pulled open the plastic wrap.  She then broke open the fortune cookie and stuffed the crumbled remains of the cookie in her mouth with one hand, holding the fortune in the other.  She swallowed the cookie and then read, “‘All of your dreams will come true.’ Well, that could be great. But probably not.”

“How not? Aren’t dreams coming true a good thing?” Matt asked as he opened the package of his cookie and started to break it apart.

“Generally you would think so—it depends on the dream—but even in my dreams I don’t actually get what I want. I mean take a look at this morning.”

“What do you mean? I’m not the man of your dreams then?”

“Ha. Ha. You know what I mean! That dream I had this morning—Charlie Sheen.  How many awake fantasies did I have about Emilio Estevez? That I would dream about his brother? WHY?”

“Maybe you used up all your fantasy creative time for Emilio,” Matt said laughing. He popped the pieces of the cookie in his mouth and turned over the fortune, “Huh.”

“What?”

“The paper is blank.”

“That’s weird. Not even the ad on the other side? The Chinese word of the day?”

“No, nothing,” Matt turned over the piece of paper again to show Kennedy. “That can’t be good.”

“Oh, please, it’s probably nothing,” Kennedy said, brushing it off and heading for the bathroom to get ready.

“It’s literally nothing!” Matt called after her.

“Ha ha!”  Kennedy said, turning on the shower. She wasn’t happy to be going to work again, but it did feel good being in the shower. For a moment she considered calling out for Matt to join her, but she couldn’t afford to be late to work again. They had flex time, but still, the sooner she got in, the sooner she got home again.  

“So what time do you think you will be home tonight,” Matt called from the bedroom once she had shut the water off.

“Well, I do have my kickboxing class right after work, so I probably won’t be home until about six.” Kennedy said as she searched her closet for something to wear.

“I have to wait until six?” 

“You know, sometimes I feel like you can’t be real.” Kennedy said more to herself than to Matt, but he had heard and it brought him over to her.

“Where did that come from,” Matt questioned.

“Just, you know, what we were talking about before. I feel like I must have invented you somehow.” Kennedy said, putting her arms around his waist to get as close as possible to him.

“How’s that?”

“Men in my life have always acted like they were out for revenge or something.”

“Revenge?” Matt asked, holding her tightly, his chin resting on her head, “For what?”

“I don’t know, that they aren’t enough?”  Kennedy signed.  “I don’t want to go to work, I just want to stay like this.”

“Then let’s just stay like this.” 

They stood there together savoring the moment. Kennedy felt nice and toasty wrapped in the warmth of Matt’s arms. She signed, breathing in deeply. And then she heard something off in the distance.

“Is that music?”

“Forget it.”

“Hmmm, where is it coming from?  You know, the stubble on your chin is very prickly this morning—“

Kennedy McAlisdair woke up to the feel of a gentle massaging of her scalp.  Her radio alarm was going off and Cordielia, her cat, was gently raking her claws through Kennedy’s hair, prickling her scalp to wake her up. Monday had begun.