subconsciously manifested anxiety

Characters:
Paul: my 7 year old son
Delilah: a professor in my department at school
Babs: Chair of the department
Willy: super-cool mentor type
PCU: my current university
PU: the university where I got my B.A.
Bastard: the ex
Whore: his current girlfriend (there was overlap)
Shelly: My aunt who lives in NY; I see her about 5 times a year
Carol: My aunt who is a professor of graduate education at a local university; very much a mentor
Jesse: My older, screwed up sister


I was living on PCU’s campus. It was huge and included within it an entire neighborhood. There were four main buildings. There was the building where I lived, which was also set up to be an administration building, my mother’s old house, my old apartment that Jesse was living in, a dark shadowy building that the dream began in.

Carol, Shelly, my mother, Paul and I were sitting on couches in the shadowy building, talking about family stuff. I realized that it was very late and it was time for Paul to go to bed. He was already in his pajamas so I told him to go on home and go to bed. If he left out the back door, it was a lot quicker getting home than if he left out the front door; there was a short cut or something. He started walking home and my mother soon left too, out the front door.

I was talking to Carol and Shelly about a meal that I was to have prepared for some family function. I looked up at the calendar, which was completely full and marked up and realized that the date of the function had come and gone and I had completely forgotten about this meal. I was suddenly struck with a feeling that I should go check on Paul.

I looked out the window because I could see his bedroom window from where we were and I saw that his light was still on and he was not in his room. Even as I was doing this, though I wasn’t completely sure if it was his room I was looking at. I decided to go check on him. I hugged Shelly and Carol and left out the front door, taking the long way.

I walked through a very nice neighborhood that was also on campus. As I was walking past a house, a man was leaving, yelling at someone inside. He walked with me for a bit. He seemed to be, very obviously, hitting on me. When we got to the administration building where my home was he said “I have to tell you something, I am a professor at PCU, I teach math” he was telling me this because of the university’s policy on dual relationships. I told him that I was done with all of my undergrad stuff and wasn’t going to be taking any more math classes.

Babs, Willy and Delilah were getting out of a car, having just gotten back from some conference. They were all dressed alike. Willy approached me and told me that she needed to have a meeting with me about something. I asked her if it was alright if I checked on Paul first. She said, “of course”.

I walked past Delilah and Babs on my way to his room. I noticed that Delilah was wearing a dress (very uncharacteristic). As I walked past, she told me that we needed to have a meeting.

I had to pass through a bunch of students who were watching some sporting event.
Roxanne (a girl I dance with) was there watching too. She note that it was funny that PCU had a team of killer fish (actual fish) participating called “the sharks” I told her that PU had one too, called the rays, but I never went to a match.

I finally got to Paul’s room and he wasn’t there. I tried not to panic but I was having a lot of trouble breathing. I made my way back to the faculty lounge. There I told Babs to please call 911. Instead she called my phone so I would have her number and she would have mine. I left to look around town.

I looked in Jesse’s house and Paul was not there. Outside I ran into my dad and told him what had happened. He wasn’t too concerned but I wasn’t breathing. I was in a full blown panic but was trying to conceal it. I asked him to call 911 but he could not work the phone.

I went on, running through the streets shouting Paul’s name. Finally I leaned against a fence and imagined what I would do if he were gone forever. I decided that I would cease to exist, that if I didn’t find him that night it would be my last night on earth. I was shouting his name as I passed my mom’s house and she came out and said, “See, when you yell like that sometimes you wake people up and then you get what you want” I looked to see Paul sleepily walking down her stairs. She didn’t feel bed at all and didn’t understand why I was upset that he was with her. Paul was mad at me because he wanted to stay with his grandma that night so I let him go back in and go to sleep.

When I got home after being gone all day I found Bastard and Whore asleep on the floor next to my couch. Before Bastard woke up I went over and sat next to Whore and put a pillow over her face. He woke up and stopped me. He told me that they had been going home and couldn’t make it so they decided to sleep at my house. We sat on the floor for a while and talked about stuff. Some of it was pretty personal relationship stuff, I said I had been unhappy for years, and a lot of it was what he was doing at work. Every once in a while I would reach over and hurt Whore; I would pinch her or slap her. When Bastard expressed to me that he didn’t like me hurting his girlfriend, I told him, “at least I didn’t break her face, and I wanted to”. He said, “Why don’t you then?” I said, “Because I’m better than her...” They both agreed.

X

*All names have been changed, to protect…myself.*