“There you are. You really do have some screwy dreams! Let’s get going.” The crocodile has a way of talking that was fast and to the point. Usually the point made sense only to him but he definitely had a point. I got off the camel I was sitting on and followed the crocodile. Even as I was doing it I realized how silly it would sound when I wrote about it later.
He had become my guide ever since he bit off my hand and I would almost say we were friends. The thing is that even dream crocodiles are not really suited for friendship. If he was feeling hungry you had to watch out. With that one exception, I realized that I enjoyed his company. He always led the way through my dreams. Searching for Sarah was always on the agenda but I am not sure that the crocodile saw it as a priority. We spent a lot of our time pausing while he ate something that passed by. Usually it was something slightly annoying that he would gobble down. One time a rabbit with a whistle was following us blowing away on the whistle; I kicked it and then he ate it. When I woke up my alarm clock was smashed and I was three hours late to work. I am happy to say that has only happened once.
As I left the camel behind and followed him, I thought I saw something familiar enter my peripheral vision. It was a face amidst a rainforest landscape but when I turned to get a better look, it disappeared. I stood there for a while staring out into the forest. When I turned around the crocodile was eating a monkey that looked suspiciously like the animated Curious George monkey. I blinked my eyes and the crocodile was gone. To be truthful so was everything else…. I was in that same white space I had lost Sarah in. The couch faded in through the white. Perhaps extruded would be a better term as it seemed to plop through like a Twinkie from the Twinkie extruding machine. Sitting there on the couch, delicately perched on the seat cushion, was a letter. I stared at it but did not move towards it. I was not really sure that I wanted to open it, but even from across the room I saw it was addressed to me. Instead of walking towards it, I sat down on the ground and waited. I needed time.
“Well aren’t you going to open it?” I turned toward the voice and saw the crocodile. I was a little puzzled as to when he had come into the white space but I let that thought trail away. He was eating again. This time he had a napkin tied around his neck and he had a bucket of fried chicken in his lap. I shrugged at him in response. “So what is your whiny reason this time?”
“This time?” I asked, confused by the addition of these words. Had we done this before?
“Yeah.... This time! When I first met you there was a letter. You refused to acknowledge it even after I put it in your hand. You kept talking to me about my eating habits I was feeling a little frustrated so I bit off your hand; the one holding the letter. Then all you could do was whine about your missing hand.” He shook half of the bucket of chicken into his mouth.
I turned to look at the envelope again but it wasn’t there. “Hey… uh… where…”
“I put it in your hand again.” The crocodile interrupted, predicting my question. I looked down at my hand and saw he was right. I looked at the lettering of my name on the envelope; it was not Sarah’s writing. I was not sure how I knew this but I did. I slid a finger along the lip and opened the envelope. The letter itself was a light blue shade with a hand written script in darker blue. I had a hard time deciphering the signature at the bottom and decided I had to read the letter to have a chance of figuring out who sent it.
Shawn,
I am not sure what is happening between you and Sarah. She has not been herself these last few weeks. Has it really been weeks?
Where are you? I can never find you to talk and we need to. I have never been given a name verbally in your dreams but I do have one. My name is (the name is smeared as if he decided not to reveal it). You will know me as Sarah’s friend and your best friend in this dream realm. I have been a director, a tour guide, a pick axe wielding dwarf and scores of other people. I am always there and I usually help you get together with Sarah. I am always the first to find you which is why it is so weird that I can’t find you now.
I think we may be in trouble here. Your dream world has been chaotic since you and Sarah had that talk. It is not safe for me to spend much time there. Something keeps interfering with any attempt of contact I have made. The one exception was the last letter but I know you never read it. I am headed to find someone who might be able to help me find you and fix this strange degradation of your dreams. If you see a letter in the future make sure you notice it sooner.
Your friend,
(The scribble is undecipherable)
I reread the letter twice. I can’t remember his name or read through the blurred writing. Meaning that I still have no idea what name I should have in my head to search with. A lot of searching in dreams is done through names. Faces, bodies and species are subject to change. The name doesn’t, it sticks with the wearer of the name. I star to think about reasons why he might be looking for me and wonder about what he meant when he said the dream world was no longer safe. A distressing idea occurs to me idea, that someone has changed the rules of my dreams on me. I turn to ask the crocodile for his advice but my alarm goes off instead.
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