Lucid - Sample Chapters, Katherine Angela Yeboah [the gingerbread man read aloud txt] 📗

CHAPTER 1
“Who wants another beer?”
Sloane lifted a reluctant head from the flattened sofa cushion. Surveyed the room, bleary-eyed, through a curtain of tousled curls.
“Better not.” Perched atop the wooden windowsill was best friend Alex, cigarette in one hand, half empty Miller can in the other. “Else I'll never drag my butt outta bed for class tomorrow morning.”
Her bare feet rested lightly on the shoulders of her boyfriend Silas, as he slouched beneath her on the hardwood floor, chewing the inside of his lower lip.
“Quick. Someone call Ripley’s.” A cheeky grin began spreading across his face. “Lex just turned down a brew.”
Unamused by the wisecrack, Alex shook her head. “You want a beer…or not?”
“Nah. I’m good.”
Sloane’s gaze drifted, then, to the final member of the group. Fellow sociology major Jamie, who was sprawled across the only armchair with her eyelids squinched tightly shut.
“What a lightweight!” Silas feigned a comical snore. “She’s totally out of it.”
“Hey.” Reaching over with sock covered toes, Sloane tapped her guest gently on the arm. “This isn’t a motel.”
Jamie woke abruptly from her slumber and blinked drowsily at her smirking audience.
“Gimme a break.” The protest was accompanied by a gigantic yawn. “I hardly got any sleep last night.”
“Don’t tell me you finally hooked up with Mr. lacrosse team?” Alex’s eyes brightened. “It’s about time!”
“I wish.” Jamie hauled herself up onto an elbow and ran a hand through her mouse-brown hair. “No, nothing quite so gossip-worthy. I just kept having this really weird dream.”
“Weird as in kinky? Dream as in fantasy?” Silas’ tone was teasing. “About bumping hips with the captain of the Lacrosse team?”
“Ha-ha,” Jamie picked up the pillow she’d been warming and tossed it lazily in his direction. “No, seriously, it was bizarre. I dreamed that I heard a rustling sound, in the middle of the night. Coming from inside my bedroom closet. So I leapt up to investigate, slid open the door…and I found my closet was full of babies! Little tiny babies. All lined up in a row.”
“That is weird.” Sloane interjected.
“Right? And they were covered in plastic. Clear plastic, like…Saran Wrap. Bundled up, real tight, from head to toe.”
Her beer, on its coaster, was warm and flat by now, but she gulped down a mouthful of it anyway. “At first, for some reason, I thought they were made out of wax. You know, kinda like those creepy, old-fashioned dolls. But then one of them started twitching. And I saw that they were real. Alive.”
“Jesus.”
“So of course, I was freaking out. Screaming bloody murder. Trying frantically to tear this stuff from their faces, one by one, before it was too late.”
“Were you able to save them?”
“Well the problem was, every time I managed to release the last kid…I’d look back along the line and see that they’d all somehow been rewrapped. So I’d have to start all over again.” Her eyes dropped, as if she were addressing the varnished floorboards rather than anyone in the room. “It was awful. These babies…they didn’t cry, didn’t struggle, didn’t make a single sound. They just stared up at me, wide-eyed, pleading silently for my help. With these pitiful looks on their little faces.”
“Maybe you were hungry.” Alex chimed in playfully. “Maybe those tots wrapped in plastic represented the packet of sausages, lurking in the back of your refrigerator. And that pleading look was ‘cause they were begging you, Jamie, please don’t eat us. Please…”
Three of the four faces in the room were lit by tickled grins.
“This ain’t funny, Alex. The whole thing totally creeped me out. I woke up in a puddle of my own sweat, with my heart racing. And for the rest of the night, every time I finally managed to drift off…I’d find myself back in that closet.”
“Wonder what it all means.” Sloane was sitting upright now, her knees tucked underneath her chin. Her toes curling and uncurling themselves over the lip of the sofa. “I know, why don’t you try looking it up in one of those dream dictionaries?”
“Dream dictionaries?” Jamie shook her head. “Nah…I don’t believe in them. I’m sure they’ll just say my dream means something completely ridiculous. Like…I’m gonna win the lotto or be married within a week. Personally, I reckon dreams are just a bunch of random images, floating around our brains, for whatever reason. They don’t really mean a thing.”
“You’re probably right.” Alex extinguished her cigarette in the ceramic ashtray beside her on the ledge. “I mean, you have a dream about…let’s say…an elephant. Books and journals and therapists might have you believing you’ve got, I don’t know, penis envy or something. Truth is, you just happened to see an elephant on TV that night while you were dozing off on the sofa!”
Silas stole a swig from his girlfriend’s beer can and wiped his lips with the corner of a sleeve. “Have you ever been in the middle of a dream, and found yourself wondering whether you were asleep or awake? Wondering whether everything you see is real…or just a dream?”
“Of course.” Alex nodded along in agreement. “I’m sure everybody has.”
“Well, the next time that happens…try to remember one thing.”
He raised both arms, stiff elbowed before him. With palms outstretched and fingers worming through the incense smoke that billowed, streamer-like, across the room.
“Hands!”
“Hands?” Jamie repeated the word with a crinkle in her brow.
“Yes! Focus on your hands.”
“What good does that do?”
“It makes you realize that you’re dreaming.”
“Er, I think you’re a little confused, honey.” Alex rolled her eyes skyward. Patted her partner, sarcastic, on the head. “Doesn’t the saying go, when you suspect you might be dreaming…you’re supposed to pinch yourself?”
“No, I’m dead serious. Think about it…you rarely see your own hands in a dream. And if you do, you immediately cotton on to the fact that you’ve wandered into dreamland, and that normally snaps you out of it. Wakes you up right away. But if you can concentrate on your hands, really see them, and manage to stay asleep…you can take dreaming to a whole new level.”
“Yeah,” Sloane chipped in. “I think I remember reading something like that once.”
“It’s called lucid dreaming.” Silas pushed the fringe away from his forehead, unveiling a pair of lively eyes that were apple-green. “When you’re totally aware that your dream is just that. A dream.”
“What’s so special about that?” Unimpressed by the notion, Jamie laid her head down on the armrest once more.
“Oh…it’s amazing. Unlike any dream you’ve ever had before. More lifelike. More…intense. You feel yourself surrendering to the dream completely. And it takes over. Becomes your world. It’s like…watching the most spectacular movie, in 3-D. And the best part is...you get to play the leading role!”
“So I take it you’ve experienced this.” Alex was messing with his hair now. “You’re not just blowing smoke?”
“Yeah, I’ve had the pleasure. I mean, it’s not easy to do, but I’ve gotten there a couple of times.”
“No wonder you’re always muttering in your sleep,” Alex giggled. “Seriously, though, it must be pretty awesome to have a dream that vivid. You could do things you’d never be able to do in real life, and not have to worry about the consequences.”
“Absolutely,” Silas agreed with a nod. “But don’t take my word for it…you have to give it a go for yourselves. All three of you. Next time you go to sleep.”
“Speaking of sleep…” Sloane rose to her feet, and stretched her back with her hands on her hips.
“We can take a hint.” Hopping down from her roost, Alex leaned against her boyfriend for support. Then teetered, on one foot, while she bent over to strap up her sandals.
They made an interesting couple to look at. Sloane had quipped that her petite friend would fit quite snugly into Silas’ top pocket. As they headed for the door, the ladybug tattoo peeking over Alex’s shirt collar was not much higher than the elbow of her burly squeeze. His skin was ruddy…hers pale. His untamed mass of sandy hair the polar opposite of her sleek, beetle-black bob. Still, Sloane mused, as she waved to them from the doorway, they seemed to be as thick as thieves.
Jamie, sluggish to rise, was the last one to leave. Escorted by her host, who’d offered to walk her to her car. They said their goodbyes on a grubby sidewalk, where the insects scurried aside to avoid the streetlamps’ glare.
A mischievous wind came tiptoeing down the boulevard, leaving the scads of litter trembling in its wake. Causing the palm trees to whisper as Jamie climbed into her Taurus and trundled off into the night.
Back inside Sloane’s third floor apartment there was no suggestion of a breeze. She flung the windows open wider, in the vain hope that it might just come to call. Then busied herself picking up beer cans and emptying trays full of cigarette ash.
Despite its years, it was a pleasant enough space, with ample closets and ceilings that were unusually high. The oversized windows allowed sunlight to flood in, and friends back home had been envious to hear that she could view the Hollywood sign through them. Low-hanging, vintage light fixtures in all the rooms added to the apartment’s retro charm. There were ancient flower boxes on the ledge, and crooked shelves had been put up where you’d least expect to find them.
The building probably dated back to the twenties and Sloane liked to imagine that, in its heyday, it had been the chic abode of swanky, showbiz types. She wondered if perhaps, long ago, each floor had been a separate, spacious condo. After all, it was mainly the outside walls that were made of exposed, russet-colored brick. Some of the inner walls were fairly flimsy, as though they’d been added much later to section the building into flats.
Of course now, the neighborhood was a little run-down. The fading glamour of Hollywood couldn’t reach this far. But at least the one-bedroom was affordable and, knock on wood, relatively cockroach-free.
It was nearly two a.m. now. Sloane stood before the bathroom cabinet mirror and pulled her raven curls into a loose bun. Although April had barely arrived, she had already begun to tan and her skin was an even toned, reddish-brown. Thank Heaven she’d said goodbye to the chill of San Francisco and chosen a school in L.A. Here, the weather forecast was almost always a welcome one, and summer seemed to last virtually the whole year long.
Sloane smiled at her reflection, remembering her parents’ faces when she had first announced her plans. Both Mom and Dad had grown up in small towns, and for them, the name Los Angeles conjured images of drugs and violence and warring street gangs. It had taken a lot of gentle persuasion, a lot of pleading, a lot of promises to be careful, but once she’d talked them round, her folks had done all they could to lend support. Sloane’s Dad, ever practical, had been feeding her college fund since around the time he’d bought her first bike. And though not exactly flush, she was able to concentrate on studying and pick up temporary jobs only during summer break.
A quick shower, then to bed, dressed in baggy shorts and a faded, yellow