An ideal utopia can differ from everyone else’s perception, depending on the experiences they have lived throughout their lives, therefore it is personal. That’s just one of the many things that Martin’s just about to discover.
It was 15:05 on Monday. He hears the faint sound of rain hitting the glass surface of his windows. Martin gets up from his bed, stumbling. In a corner of the room: a clock begins to alarm on the floor. He just sits on a comfortable, but antique sofa that lies in a living room in the middle of his apartment. The rudimentary property that surrounds it shows that he’s someone who pays so little attention to details as long as the element in question fulfills its function. There he was, between sleep and wakefulness; doing a kind of personal ritual to prepare for the day, a trance that helps him to assimilate the shitstorm that beset his soul and mind: sorrows that force him to face with the reality he wishes he could annihilate, a guilt that slaps him for his inability to not be able to vindicate the flow of events until, and even now, there were also doubts, those that arise in the bosom of the insecurity that houses the dark place that’s their conscience and collides with dizzying speed in their determination, and finally, he finds his arguments; which he exposed to other people, but which he finds unconvincing even to himself. Today was a different day from the others, and preferably, he wished he hadn’t gotten out of bed.
After a laden coffee and a too-improvised breakfast: two slices of half-toasted bread and a semi-raw fried egg, he throws himself into the concrete jungle that is supposed to be Daedalus City.
As an agent of the anti-terrorist organization they call “Austral Wolves," Martin is a stocky guy with several skills that he has developed over the years in his work. When he started in the trade he was just a pigeon with hawkish delusions and he just wanted to understand the society in which he lived back then, but now he could consider himself the hawk he pretended to be at that time, but that would only be a superb and meaningless attitude; after years of working hours and hours, he had come to realize that in his work it was better to keep a low profile, that’s how pragmatic his personality had been built by time.
He arrives at a building with cylindrical architecture, the newspaper “Nocturnal Dawn”. He climbs on the elevator to the third floor. Already in the place, he advances to an office with the half-closed door, in this one there is a sign that reads the following thing: "Harry Levi- editor in chief". He enters and then he encounters a man with an oval face and curious eyes, he’s in front of a computer, pressing hard on the keys of the keyboard. He spends just a minute until he notices Martin's presence.
“Hey ... Martin! I haven’t seen you in a while,” Harry says kindly.
“Hi Harry! It’s very good to see you!” Martin says casually while looking out of the corner of his eye at the clock on the office wall. We'd better move, otherwise I assure you that the traffic will piss off the day!
“Yes, you're actually right, that’s what I supposed too,” Harry retorts with a smile on his face, he grabs his coat and then he vociferates “Let's go out then, hurry up my friend!
Later that day they visit a monument in a square near the center of the city. On the smooth surface of the honorific structure, there are engraved names. In the place, there is a great concentration of people.
Martin puts his hand in a pocket of his jacket, so he takes out a box of cigarettes and a lighter, he just takes one cigarette, then he turns it on and takes a good drag “Today is that day in which...” He pronounces while expelling the smoke by bending its head and narrowing his eyes; and then he looks at the cold pavement, in a matter of a second he looks at the monument “My name should be on that stone instead of hers.
“Yeah! As well as mine! This might sounds to you a bit odd, but I think the same. Everything would be infinitely simpler if that were the case” Harry says with an animic tone.
A few hours pass and the sun almost disappears on the horizon, giving way to a sunset that turns the sky into a beautiful orange color. The brightest stars of the firmament are already visible, painting the celestial vault where the stars light are already absent.
“It seems that only you, me and that elderly couple are here," Harry mumbles as he lets out a sigh and then he approaches the monument, he squints while reading a name listed next to the others on the stone: Lisa Montanna. “Things hadn't had happened that way, I wish all of this weren’t that fucking hard for both of us, I just wish she were here, standing in a nice dress and staring at this beautiful dusk that's upon us, if only I hadn't suggested her going to that shitty damn place! We would’ve not been involved in that supposed terrorist attack, and she would be with us and everything would be less miserable and grayish.
“No way, it's not your fault or anyone else’s. We all choose to be there on our own,” Martin says while looking at the elderly couple, then he continues “And... There’s no point in discussing what could’ve been. Things are just the way they are, this is something she would say.
“Yes, she’d be upset if she saw how we come to whine like two fucking little girls every year to this depressive place. She would certainly prefer that we bring a chessboard and then play some games in her honor, just like in the old days.
The elders who were in the place take a bow to the stone, something –Buddhist maybe –Harry thought. Then they left making another gesture. Martin also found it curious, however, not enough to distract him from his own thoughts.
“It's been 8 years. I have a recurring dream in which I see her holding a child in her arms, I can only imagine that it’s the son she never had. It's frustrating because I never remember what her face looked like in that dream.” Martin says while taking a picture out of the pocket of his jacket, he looks at it with overwhelming nostalgia."I wonder how... how she would look right now.
“She would surely be fatter than ever,” Harry says between laughs. "It was like an older sister for both of us, wasn’t she? Our brotherhood could never be the same again, now it feels like a dysfunctional mechanism that lacks a key gear. We put our coat on and then he continues “after she left us, we abandoned our career and we focused on other options influenced by what happened to her that fatidic day.
That said, after a few seconds, he says goodbye with a hand signal; something that only they know among themselves, a remnant of good old times.
Martin arrives at his apartment at 19:39; he eats a kind of instant food from his reserve for months, which he keeps in the fridge, then he takes a shower. At 21:17 he’s already in his bed with nothing left to do, just thinking while he finds the dream, his eyes stay fixed on the ceiling of his room.
It doesn’t take long for the sleepy night to wrap him in his embrace. He starts dreaming. Again she was there, with the boy again next to her. But this time there are different patterns. On previous occasions, the dream scenario was a white and coarse space, only an immeasurable void except for himself, her and the child. She moves her lips, articulating words: she talks to the child about playing with her dog, but suggesting him being careful to not to get too far away. While the white around it’s filled with colored pigments that little by little make up an environment. A world gets materialized before his senses.
Martin is in front of a house, middle class, without many luxuries. He could breathe, and the air felt very real. There was tangible substance in the elements of this newly formed world, it was like a hyperrealistic dream, Martin was like “I have to be sleeping in my room and all of this is just in my imagination, this is just an illusion created by my subconscious”, he’s trying so hard to convince himself that’s what happens.
“Hi Martin! But what are you doing standing there like a freak? Come here! " Lisa says with a playful tone in her voice. She spoke to him from a small garden in the patio of the house, she was watering some lilies.
“...Is it your home?” Martin replies nervously, but he notices so quickly the child who’s playing with the dog. And that's your son?
“Are you fucking kidding me? Are you trying to play a joke on me, really?” She says while arching her eyebrow. “I'm immune to anything you can try, I know you too. Now come and play a little with your godson, you haven’t done it in a while.
He played along. After all, it was just a dream, –what can I do –he thought. He played with the boy and the dog for a long time. Then Lisa told them to enter the house.
“We’ve made a lot of progress in our research. Everything points to the fact that dreams can be more than just products of our subconscious,” Lisa vociferates with a sober tone while taking a sip of a cup of tea “is just like you, Harry and I imagined in our years in college. In fact, it was you who encouraged me to start this investigation. So I'll surely remember mentioning that and then give you some credit when they're giving us a Nobel prize or something like that.
After a moment of silence and a sip of her coffee cup, Martin remembered what her friend was mentioning, he answered:
“Do you mean that dreams can really be projections of our consciousness to other realities... Alternative timelines or parallel worlds?
“Indeed, but all that you have said can be the same thing at the same fucking time. Anyway, that doesn’t concern us oneirologists, we just leave the discernment of those details to the physicists.
The flow of sleep events baffles Martin. Lisa's words about the implications of her dream research put his logical reasoning in check, and her composure begins to waver.
“And what if I tell you that what you told may be happening just right now, in front of our eyes,” Martin says while making a strange grimace with his mouth.
“Well... I would say that I believe you of course and I would be amazed if that were the case,” Lisa with a smile. “But as you already know, in our research we have theorized that a kind of catalyst of an indeterminate nature is still necessary so that the phenomenon, without the presence of this, it would only be a common and ordinary dream, a mere product of our subconscious.
After that Martin decides to go to his home in this dream world. He manages to obtain Lisa's information of the place but trying not to seem to her like a weirdo.
He arrives at the place; he could no longer look more different to his apartment in his world. He knocks on the door twice, someone answers that’s on the way and then he recognizes his own voice. Martin starts reconsidering if this is really a good idea. When the door opens, then he sees him, it was like looking himself in a mirror, but in the reflection of the glass, it showed another version of himself.
“Who are you?” The other Martin asks.
“As far as I know, I'm Martin Franz... And I imagine you are too.
Almost immediately, the other Martin, who had devoted 8 years to the research he was carrying with Lisa and Harry about the dream, so he figures all out, he captured the situation by pure scientific intuition.
“This is so great! Wait, are you aware of what’s happening here?
“Yes, after all, I guess I have an idea.
Then you are an oneironaut, so that’s the reason why you’re in a lucid dream state. Then as we think such a state is necessary. In addition, you should channel the catalyst while conceiving the dream state, in addition to other variables necessary in theory. The odds are really few!
After he says that, he makes Martin go to the department room. The other Martin still playing chess habitually, encouraged by the skill of Lisa, with whom he had shared much since they graduated 7 years ago and considered themselves practically family. Take out the board and then they get ready to play.
“Then, in summary, you have the life that I could’ve had,” Martin says while moving a bishop.
“In fact, yes. That’s actually the case,” The other Martin replies. “Your conscience has connected and has been projected to an alternative timeline to which you know. How you have a physical body in this world from your consciousness is something that baffles me, there’s still a long way to go in the investigation.
“You have everything I always wanted. My own utopia, which one you are the owner. Honestly, right now I’m beginning to feel envy.
A few seconds of silence pass.
“And from what you have told me, you are an agent in an anti-terrorist organization. You must’ve had experienced many moments of action,” The other Martin says while moving the piece of the horse that captures a pawn and occupies its escape. “Despite what you say, ironically, there’s much in your life that I would like in mine. You should also know, like me, that before college, meet Lisa and Harry; we had the idea in mind to join the army or some special force; the adrenaline and the feeling that we would serve a greater good, was something that rivaled my love with sciences.
“Would you like this life, even knowing that it was motivated by her death?
“Don’t get me wrong. I would never wish for such a thing,” The other Martin replies while joining his two hands, squeezing each other. “But I confess that this lifestyle sometimes bores me, and it is something that only gets worse and worse over time...
“I suppose that what you mentioned recently; a utopia: that’s something very subjective." Finishing that sentence The other Martin declares checkmate.”It seems to me that I’ve defeated myself... We humans are irremediably nonconformist beings. From the perspective of someone else you can have a perfect life, but on the other hand, you may perceive that something is missing, something will always be missing.
They spend half an hour talking about trivia in the room and Martin begins to feel that this dream has gone on too long, -This has gone too far this time, I’m probably in a coma state, just lying on my bed -He thought.
“I think I have an almost perfect idea, but maybe it might sound to you a bit crazy... No! I'm sure it's crazy,” the other Martin says.
“What are you meaning?
“In theory, it is possible that we can switch places. I would awake in your body in your timeline and you would only remain in this, and you would replace me.
“Are you sure of what you’re suggesting? Besides, is such a thing really possible?” Martin retorts.
“I really don’t know. But if we both agree, then we can try it.
Fifteen minutes pass, and then Martin breaks the silence.
“What should we do?
“Well, let's see... I would have to sleep and try to dream recreating the same conditions present in your room at the time you did it. You have to give me all the details. If we achieve this, it is possible, at least in theory that I can synchronize with your subconscious and then manage to download my consciousness in your body. But there’s one thing missing, I’m still not knowing what’s the catalyst present in the process that brought you here.
“I think I have an idea what it is. I was holding in my hands a photo of our group, Lisa appeared in it. Also while I was sleeping, I occupied my mind imagining my life without ever having been in that attack. I did it for a long time, I think it was for two or three hours.
“I see it. That gives me an idea of what I have to do,” the other Martin replies while looking for something on his shelves, then he finds a group photo like the one mentioned by Martin. “Well, I’ve got something that can work it out.
The other Martin is reclining on a sofa, while the other os preparing a syringe with a sleeping solution.
“If you inject me that, it will accelerate the process.
“What will happen exactly once it happens?
“I don’t know it that clearly. It is a supposition; I think all my memories and things learned in this timeline will be downloaded to your mind and the same thing will happen to me once I get to your world.
“I can’t help feeling that this is a scam for you.
“Be quiet. I have already shared a lot of time with Lisa, and you, on the other hand, haven’t had such an opportunity. From the bottom of my heart, I feel I've had enough of this life, so the contrast that’s yours is my own utopia," the other Martin says while smiling with excitement. “Do you know how lucky we are? Who else in this world... in the multiverse has an opportunity like this? Also, if you continue the investigation with Lisa, you could find a way to travel freely to the alternative lines of time, then, probably we all will see us again and celebrate it playing chess.
The medication given takes effect and the other Martin falls into a deep sleep with the photo in his right hand. Almost instantly Martin feels a twinge in his head, images sounds, smells, voices, faces, among other things... A torrent of information comes suddenly to his head; he begins to bleed slightly through the nose. Then he faints.
The next day he wakes up in his new life. A coffee and some fried eggs are prepared with toasted bread. He could feel it: indeed, he was in his promised land, his own version of utopia.
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