Chapter 6: Her - A Dream of Waking Life

A firm grip shook gently at Matt’s shoulder, and he opened his eyes to see the scarred woman wearing a bus driver’s uniform, shaking him awake with a look of great consternation.

“Lady, let the bum sleep!” someone demanded.

“You okay?” she huffed at him as she squeezed her large body between the seats to check on him.

No, Matt thought. I’m not.

But he said, “Yeah, fine,” then lifted himself quickly to save her from the ridicule and shouting of other passengers.

“Sorry, I…” Matt started, but he wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t even sure where he was.

“I remembered your stop, so I just figured…” she said, struggling for the right words. “You just looked really out of it when you got on.”

“You know me?” Matt asked, his heartbeat quickening.

“I remembered you after you got on, yeah. You used to take my route all the time. You always said hello to me. Then one day you just weren’t at the stop anymore.”

“You want me to drive so you can talk, lady?” a passenger shouted as the busload of people grew tangibly impatient.

She nodded to Matt and walked back to the driver seat. He followed along, avoiding eye contact with the other passengers.

Meds! Matt urged himself. Call Dr. Heron and get a script for meds right when you get into the office.

He felt better with a sense of concrete direction, but he still couldn’t shake the disorientation of his current state.

Get the fucking meds.

“Thanks,” Matt said again, almost calling her Putch. “What’s your name?”

She blushed a deep crimson and smiled softly. “Fernanda,” she answered, beautifully accentuating each syllable. “Yours?”

Maybe not her musculature, but her finer features – she’s almost identical to the character in the dream. And she’s identical to the character on the poster. I must have designed the character based on her…Yeah, that has to be it.

“Matt Willish,” he said, hoping she might be able to mend some of the missing details of his life.

Her smile vanished and she cocked her head in confusion. “As in...Matthew Willish?”

“You do know me?” Matt checked. “I mean, beyond just being my bus driver.”

The bus’s groans were turning into an uproar. “We all know you, Mr. Willish!” a red-faced man called out with terrible anger. “Now get the fuck off the bus before I drag you off, eh?”

Fernanda smiled half-heartedly at Matt and nodded to him. “I’ll see you around, uh, Mr. Willish,” she hesitated, acting as if he truly was insane. She looked embarrassed and stared through the windshield, pretending to focus on something. She seemed to want nothing more to do with him.

What did I say?

“Sorry,” Matt stammered as he dragged himself off the bus and onto the sidewalk.

Fernanda closed the door and accelerated away.

Through the open windows, Matt heard the uproar of the bus simmer back to murmurs. “He’s one of them. The motherfucker said he’s Matthew Willish,” a passenger laughed hysterically with another. “Matthew fucking Willish!”

The bus clambered with wild laughter as it faded into the distance.

What the fuck.

Matt stood in place, trying to piece together what had occurred. His forehead throbbed, and he expected the bandage would already be damp with blood, but when he checked it with his finger, it seemed perfectly dry.

At least there’s some good news, Matt thought. Now, get to the office. Call Dr. Heron. Get your –

“Mr. Willish?” came an elderly woman’s voice filled with genuine surprise.

Matt turned to find a woman dressed in a formal suit standing like a guard outside the large, tinted glass doors of a polished skyscraper sparkling amidst other glass towers. The handles of the doors were golden and styled as an M and W, which merged together into a seamless symbol exuding power and luxury. The woman gawked at Matt as if she had just witnessed him return from the dead.

“Mr. Willish...is that really you?” She looked more horrified than surprised now as she visibly processed information in her mind that she found unsettling. “But I thought…”

She knows me!

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember you,” Matt admitted. “But...can you help me?”

The woman shook her head in complete bewilderment.

“Help you?”

“Yes,” Matt confirmed. “I...I seem to have forgotten a great deal...and…”

She stared at him as if he were a compelling, exotic film.

“Can you help me?” Matt asked again.

Something isn’t right.

She nodded finally, breaking herself of her stupefaction. “I don’t understand, Mr. Willish. Or –” she gasped suddenly. “You’re one of those imposters, aren’t you? These fakes that keep showing up! You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

Her confusion transformed to vehement indignance.

“Shoo!” she ordered, waving him away. “Get outta here, you…you…you baddie! You cretin!”

Matt backed away, shaking his head the whole time.

“You don’t understand,” he tried to explain.

No! Matt corrected himself pitifully. It’s me who doesn’t understand. Someone help me. Please!

His mind reeled with anticipated madness, but he grabbed it back from the edge.

No! I’m not crazy. I just need my meds.

Matt pictured himself in the old office, sitting at his old tower computer in the RGB glow of numerous computer fans.

I can remember that, Matt rejoiced bittersweetly. He needed to get back there – back to normality. Back to reality.

He peered at the old guard standing between him and sanity and couldn’t help a twinge of anger.

She thinks I’m an imposter at my own office? This is my office!

Matt walked confidently to the door, not giving the guard any opportunity to stop him.

The woman moved aside in seeming fear of whom she seemed to view as a crazed “imposter.” She grabbed the radio at her hip and began warning someone of an intruder.

“This is my office!” Matt asserted with sudden uncertainty despite his previous surge of confidence.

This is my office, isn’t it?

He pushed the heavy door open and walked into the foyer of a lavish building. Waterfalls and ponds and live plants and koi fish filled every inch of the room except for a single walkway covered in golden carpet, a set of elevators at the rear, and a reception desk at the center. Suspended multiple stories above the reception desk was a gaudy looking chandelier in the shape of the MW symbol. That chandelier alone must have cost a small fortune. The symbol was also displayed in front of the reception desk and again on the door of each elevator.

MW. Matthew Willish. Is that what the symbol means? He looked about the lavish room with newfound disgust. Is all this mine? All this gold and luxury – is this my personal empire of dust?

A young woman with a green ponytail and numerous piercings jumped up as Matt approached her. She wore a golden blouse of sequins and matching leggings.

“Mr. Willish,” she gasped. “This is...you’re alive!”

People think I died and just left behind all this? Matt tried to recollect his past and what she might be referring to, but the furthest back he could remember was the first time waking up in the video game dream. Everything else seemed so hazy still.

The woman from outside walked in and lifted her hand in warning.

“He’s one of those imposters, Linda! The back room is off doing god knows what. They aren’t responding. Call the police. I left my phone in the back.”

“Alice. Good lord, woman. Calm yourself,” Linda said, obviously familiar with Alice. “It’s him, Alice. Just look at him,” Linda confirmed with a streak of genuine relief. “You ever seen an imposter this convincing?”

Alice considered it. “Yes,” she confirmed stiffly. “Poor Mr. Willish is dead, Linda. Dead! This man is insulting the great Mr. Willish’s legacy.”

The great Mr. Willish, Matt echoed inwardly with apprehension as he reexamined his wastefully luxurious surroundings. Few people in history ascribed the title of “great” could ever be thought of as genuinely great outside of things like conquest and power.

“Can you please just help me?” Matt asked Linda, clasping his hands together. “I need to call my therapist. I need my meds. I don’t have my phone on me.”

Linda didn’t look at all suspicious and said in an excited rush, “Okay, Mr. Willish. Okay. Do you want to use my phone or...do…do you want to go up to your office? I just...this is just…just so unexpected, Mr. Willish. I hope you understand.”

Matt almost laughed at the irony of her hope, but he just wanted this ordeal to be over with.

“I understand,” he lied. “Yes, take me to my office. That’ll be fine.”

Alice threw up her arms. “He’s an imposter, Linda!”

“That’s enough, Alice. Mr. Willish has obviously been through a lot.” She turned to him and offered a supportive grin. “Don’t worry, Mr. Willish. We’ll figure all this out. You seem...a bit off. Like you said, I’ll take you up to your office, okay?”

“Sixth floor still, right?” Matt checked.

Linda blushed. “I can’t tell if you’re joking,” she said, but the confusion on Matt’s face must have been obvious. “You own the building, Mr. Willish. Your company used to rent out the sixth floor just a few months ago, though. Maybe you’re just misremembering?” she offered sweetly.

Matt nodded, unsure what to say.

Misremembering reality itself, apparently.

She brought him to the elevators and used a keycard to open the one at the center. They both walked in, and again, she swiped her keycard.

“One-way trip to the executive suites,” she announced as if she might be an old-time lift operator. As the elevator ascended Matt’s building, heading for the 81st floor, Linda glanced at Matt, and he could see a longing in her stare.

I’m rich, Matt thought with equal amusement and despair. How? Did the game get big? Did I miss the release?

He remembered that the calendar said it was July. It’s like I just wasn’t here for a few months. Like I died, just like Alice said. Maybe...she was right?

Matt thought of the old man suddenly and remembered his realizations.

Or maybe this is just a dream? No! Matt stopped the thought immediately. No!

“So…” Linda said, unsure how exactly to form into words whatever she wanted to ask. “What...happened exactly? Where were you, Mr. Willish – if it’s okay to ask.”

“I don’t know,” Matt said honestly.

Linda nodded herself into silence, taking Matt’s honesty as an attempt to brush her off.

“Are we friends?” Matt asked, truly unsure since he had no memory of her or anyone else he worked with.

She giggled and hit his arm softly with her palm. “I asked you out for drinks, remember? You said, ‘maybe one of these days when I’m not working my life away.’”

I don’t remember that at all. Am I a fucking imposter after all?

“That’s right,” Matt lied. “We should do that some time.”

Linda’s smile disappeared in a flash, and she looked completely disarmed.

“Sure,” she blurted. “I mean…yeah…I mean…that sounds great, Mr. Willish. I mean, Matt. Can I call you Matt?”

She likes me. I just asked her on a date. Fuck.

“You can call me Matt, of course.”

She tried to stifle more giggles, but her bubbly excitement was overflowing.

She must be half my age.

“So, when should we…I mean…do you want to…err…I mean –” Linda stammered excitedly.

“Things are...crazy right now,” Matt said, and Linda nodded rapidly to show her understanding.

“Of course, Mr. Willish…err…Matt, of course. I was just, I mean, I just wanted to see if –”

“Let me just get my life in order, okay?” Matt offered gently, not wanting to hurt her feelings but also not wanting her to be suspicious that he was one of the imposters Alice warned about.

“How did you know it was me, by the way?” Matt asked uneasily. “And not an imposter.”

Linda scoffed at the idea. “Everyone’s been trying to get at your fortune – even getting plastic surgery to look more like you. These last few months...well, anyway, it’s not like they ever look anything like you. You’re actually cute, but the imposters are always ugly old saps.”

She glanced up at him to check his reaction to her compliment, but Matt couldn’t help going silent and wide-eyed as he imagined swarms of others wearing his face as they each demanded ownership of his single identity.

“You okay?” Linda asked with concern.

The elevator slowed and finally came to a halt.

Floor 81.

The doors opened, and Matt turned to Linda with a smile, ignoring her question for both their sakes. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

She looked rejected and tried to say something more, but she simply said, “Okay, Mr. Willish,” before the elevator doors closed.

I’ll have to actually take her out for drinks now, Matt noted to himself, feeling terrible for leading her on.

But the meds come first, Matt thought with freshly mounting urgency.

The executive suite floor consisted of a short hallway with a head office at the very end and several offices lining each side of the hall. Plastered on every window was the MW symbol.

“Matt?” a familiar male voice asked with incredulous surprise. “Matthew?” he repeated with just as much disbelief.

Matt turned to see a group of five or six people in the first office to his left sitting around a large conference table. There were a few faces on laptops as well – people working from home or a different office. They all gawked at him in shock.

“Matt?” came the familiar voice again, and Matt pinpointed it to a well-built man beginning to droop in his middle age. He wore black slacks, a sky blue, button-down shirt with a pocket full of pens, pencils and a pocket protector, and a golden bowtie with a crimson MW at the center. His dark black skin stood out against the blue of his shirt. Matt traced the man’s face and absorbed his hauntingly familiar features.

It was Igwe. Unmistakably.

“Igwe,” Matt gasped, reeling at the unreality of seeing another character from his dreams and game.

The man howled with laughter and jumped out of his seat, pushing the others aside to reach Matt.

As the man approached, all smile and open arms, his real name finally came to Matt. It’s Chike! Matt rejoiced. I coded the Igwe character based directly on him. He’s a good man. He started the company with me. We dormed together in college. We were childhood friends. This is Chike. Chike!

“Chike!” Matt gasped with a childlike moan, and he embraced the giant man, feeling like he might sink securely inside him.

He can help me! Chike...my friend! He can help me, finally!

“I need help!” Matt cried, letting it all out now.

Chike recognized the seriousness of the situation and nodded at the others in the office to carry on without him. He closed the door and held Matt by his shoulders.

“What happened, Matt? I figured you just ran off to some island with a few hotties, ya know? The whole world thinks you died, though. What in the heck happened?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Matt sprayed, tired of asking himself the exact same question without ever getting an answer. “I don’t fucking know!”

Chike nodded hastily and walked with Matt down the hall, half-carrying him as Matt's mind throbbed with the bittersweetness of finding a familiar face amidst utter confusion.

Tired. Weak. Thin.

Someone opened an office door as they walked past, but Chike nodded to them that everything was all right. Matt heard the office room break into a flurry of whispers and gossip before the door closed.

Meds. I need meds.

“Come on then,” Chike said, taking on more of Matt’s weight.

Another office door opened. A man dressed in a leather jacket and a stylish button-up shirt featuring peacock-like, polychromatic geometries peered out. He wore a meticulously sculpted mustache and goatee, and his hair hung naturally about his head in lustrous, black, Adonis-like curls. His mocha brown skin shone with a supernatural aura.

Kartikeya! Matt gasped. It’s him.

He looked at Matt in shock, then looked to Chike for an explanation.

“He just showed up,” Chike explained hastily.

“But...what the hell, man!” Kartikeya demanded.

“Souvik, just help me, will you!?” Chike scolded the younger man.

Yes! I know him. Matt gawked as more memories flooded his still hollow mind. Souvik. I hired him. He’s a programmer. He looks like a fucking celebrity. Memories of Souvik sleeping with every other woman in the office returned. That’s right. I was jealous of him. He’s the best programmer there is other than me.

“Souvik!” Matt said with sweet recognition.

“Matt! My man, I…” Souvik stopped himself and grabbed Matt’s other arm.

The two men easily carried him to the single door at the end of the hallway. Chike opened it, and they brought Matt into an expansive, lavish room that was a near replica of the building’s foyer: lavish gold and crimson carpeting, mahogany desk at the center, living plants and softly frothing pools of water filled with fattened koi, and the MW symbol everywhere he looked. The windows at the far wall looked out over the Chicago skyline, filling Matt with an intense feeling of déjà vu.

I’ve been here. I’ve stood at those windows. I’ve looked at and pondered that skyline.

“I’ve…I’ve been here,” Matt stammered to the others as they carried him to a small couch.

“I’m not sure you have, actually,” Souvik said with uncertainty. “You disappeared before this room was finished. People were saying –”

Chike cut Souvik off with a forceful grunt.

“You found him?” a familiar female voice asked with painful incredulity. All three men looked to the other side of the room to see a petite woman sitting barefoot in lotus position on a crimson couch surrounded by ferns and daylilies and various other plant life. A butterfly fluttered from one frond to another as she unwound her legs and hurried over to inspect Matt. She wore a dark-purple sports bra beneath a slate denim jacket that only came halfway down her waist, revealing most of her midriff. Thick leggings made of a soft fleece material quieted her movement. Her black hair was shaved close to the skin on one side, but it cascaded freely down the other side. A small, high-quality diamond nose ring in her right nostril glimmered with the same spectral light of the three diamond studs lining the top of her left eyebrow.

“Mu!” Matt almost cried, desperate for her rejuvenating words of magic.

It’s her. It’s absolutely her.

She stopped short, seemingly dumbfounded.

“Did he just call me…?”

Chike nodded. “He’s confused. He needs our help. Matt, that’s May. You remember her, don’t you?”

Yes. May! It’s her! Matt nearly burst, tears welling his eyes as her beauty filled his blurred vision and her presence stilled his aching soul. She was like a blazing fire amidst arctic cold.

Her! Matt rejoiced as the memories returned all at once. She’s our marketing specialist. She was hired in the early days. I had a crush on her. I’m in love with her. I’ve been in love with her for years...maybe a whole decade. But I don’t remember the details. I don’t remember our love – just the idea of it. How can I not remember?

“I don’t understand,” Matt pleaded with them, on the verge of breaking down and crying. The room took on an air of steely darkness, and Matt was suddenly reminded of the cell from the video game.

“Honestly, bro, we don’t either,” Souvik said, looking at the others helplessly.

May strode to the phone on the desk at the center of the room and began dialing a number as if from memory.

“I’m calling his doctor,” she said, seeming to force herself to remain calm despite her shaking hands.

All three men nodded in agreement.

“Dr. Heron! Call him!” Matt urged. “I just need my meds. I’ll be fine if I can get my meds.”

May nodded with understanding. “I know, sweetie. We’re going to figure this out, okay. Everything will be all right.”

Tears streamed from Matt’s tightly shut eyes. His body started shaking, shivering with overwhelming convulsions.

“What’s going on, bro?” Souvik asked, raising his hands with uncertainty.

“I don’t know,” Matt said through gritted teeth.

So tired. Weak. Frail.

“Yeah, this is May Anh. I work with him!” May explained, retaining her calm composure.

Chike gripped Matt’s hand and stroked his forearm with brotherly affection. “We got this, Matt. Just relax, okay? We got you now.”

So confused.

“He’s here, yes! We found him!” May urged, breaking from her perfect calm.

“This is nothing, bro,” Souvik said, nodding rhythmically and trying to keep his cool. “You’re back. That’s all that matters.”

“I don’t fucking know!” May shouted, all composure tossed away. “Just tell us what the fuck to do!”

Matt cracked a smile. Yes, he remembered. May had a temper when something was urgent.

May…

She hung up the phone and reached into her pocket. She removed several small baggies, inspecting each one carefully before confidently choosing one. “Help is on the way. In the meantime, this’ll do the trick.”

Matt’s body was shivering intensely now. He felt totally stripped of life.

Help me. Somebody. May. Help me.

She removed a small blue pill from the baggie and crushed it with her thumb on the polished mahogany desk. Crushing the pill further with her manicured, unpolished nails, she finally lined the powder into a small ridge on her thumb.

“It’s just some low dose Xanaxi. Snort a bit. It’ll calm you down.”

Chike pushed May away from Matt. “Are you crazy? He needs his meds, not drugs.”

“Meds are drugs, Chike!” May insisted. “They’re .25 milligram Axies. He’s freaking out, man! This’ll help him.”

Chike shook his head in exasperation. “No! No drugs!”

Anything! Yes, anything!

Matt reached for her hand and brought her closer.

Both May and Matt looked to Chike for approval.

“Bro, I snorted, like, six times as much in one line at that Tokyo convention,” Souvik told Chike. “He’ll be all right with this amount.”

Chike huffed with disapproval, but nodded at Matt to go ahead. Matt snorted hard, inhaling the blue powder, forcing it through the loose congestion leftover from crying beforehand. Coughing just a few times and wincing away the burn, Matt finally lay back and felt the room become lighter.

A rapidly increasing weight blanketed Matt in enrapturing warmth.

I need to let go. Shut my eyes. Just for a second.

He stopped shivering. His heart slowed to a state of deep sleep.

“It’ll all be all right,” May said, her words like a magic spell.

Or is that Mu? Am I dreaming? Am I awake? Am I...something else?

He wanted to know the answer, but a quicksand heaviness was bathing him in calm, whisking the worry softly away. He felt the silent darkness lick at his heels and fingertips, and then it enveloped him whole.

.