It is Sunday. Nick opens the bedroom window as Emily snoozes in their bed; oddly-warm, mid-April morning air caresses his face. With the scent of them rising up, Nick knows he will need to rake the wet brown leaves left behind by the melted snow on the front lawn.
He took an Ativan last night, and he has been taking the low-dose Prozac Marsden prescribed last October. In each session with Marsden, until they ended two months ago in February, and now every day after the sessions, Nick does the work necessary to maintain his new state of mind, taking less and less medication. With the same self-assurance he developed to change thought patterns, Nick knows he soon won't need any medicine at all.
He understands for the first time that life might not be a dream. But he also understands it is up to him to protect his personal consciousness from those "monsters of the deep empty." Nick recalls like a kindergarten memory, how these demons so fascinated him as an undergraduate.
And if he needs a reason to be vigilant of the darkness that may or may not haunt his soul, whether in the form of the not-quite familiar girl or some other demon, he turns around now and sees it. Alex has slipped into bed next to Emily. He sits in an old lion-claw chair in the corner of the bedroom, a chair reupholstered by his mother, Momma Kate, and watches his family sleep.
In a few minutes, he will go into his home office down the hall. Gilmore called him last night, to tell him the agent who read the abstract for his book on society and technology was impressed. The agent wants to see a complete manuscript, so Nick has work to do. He will write at his office desk, which sits in a bay window flooded now with morning light.
Within inches that may as well be miles or light years from his bay window desk, the girl fills her presence—in a stark meadow of dry grass and fallen leaves, dancing with a night breeze. From the deep empty, whether a demon or simply a form of energy like all of us and everything, she waits for Nick, her dark-bright eyes full of nothing, and forever.
Eric van Hall is 46, a proud father and husband. From about the time he turned seven, his obsession with reading and writing found its truest outlet in numerous short stories, poems and a screen play.
In his day job over 20-plus years, Eric has written news and feature pieces, as well as software development requirements and corporate documentation.
But just like when he was a boy, Eric has most enjoyed the challenges and rewards of writing about his passions—and the people in his head.
Recent challenges include a rock music website owner claiming authorship for several of Eric's online articles. His greatest reward lately came when he finished the novella "Dreams in Time."
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