Dream Cleaner

Richard dragged the last of the heavy electrical cables across the floor and finished plugging them in. Stepping back, he retrieved a rag from his pocket to mop his brow while he surveyed his work.

The floor was covered with a thick conglomeration of cables that lead from a series of panels on one end of the room, across to the one he was working on. From there, they disappeared behind the machine, terminating at a box mounted on the wall beside it.

Basically, the machine itself was an enormous iron ball. A narrow roped ladder hung to the floor, allowing access to the inside of it. From the outside, it resembled a gigantic potbelly stove with wheels, built on a circle of railroad track.

Satisfied with his work, he stuffed the rag back into his pocket. Since his automobile accident seven years ago, Richard suffered from terrible, mind-numbing nightmares--the kind you read about in books.

He'd been trying to make it home one night in a snowstorm, when a patch of black ice sent his car careening head-on into a telephone pole. He hadn't been wearing a seatbelt and his head had gone through the windshield, lodging him there until the paramedics arrived.

While he'd recovered physically, the nightmares had all but completely destroyed him mentally, and emotionally. As a writer, the income from his previously published novels sustained him marginally, but he'd unable to do any real work since then.

According the doctors, his dreams were a peculiar side effect of the accident. A phenomenon brought on by the blow to his brain. Though they didn't understand exactly why the accident had caused his dilemma, they reassured him that the nightmares were nothing to worry about and that they would fade in time.

Seven years later, they'd given up trying to convince him.

None of the psychotherapy or experimental drugs that the doctors offered quelled his horrible nightmares. In fact, they'd grown worse. The final diagnosis was that he should simply learn to relax and live with his condition.

While he'd done all he could do to take their advice, in the end, the diagnosis just didn't work for a man who screamed himself awake every night--running from the nightmares that chased him to the very edges of his own sanity.

With nowhere left to turn and desperate to escape his no longer bearable life, Richard had decided to take matters into his own hands.

He built the Dream Cleaner.

In the beginning, as the idea for the Dream Cleaner grew in him, he spent the days drawing up plans and collecting the materials for it. But as the frequency of his gruesome nightmares increased, so had the intensity of them, leaving him drained and useless most of the time.

Switching shifts, he tried to cope with the situation by working nights, snatching bits of sleep whenever he could during the day. He slept sitting up, in the corner of the room with his alarm set to wake him every hour. The sleep he managed was hardly enough to survive on though, and Richard was sure that if not for the idea of the Dream Cleaner, he would have been long dead by now.

The Dream Cleaner had been his soul hope of escape during those times--it kept him going when he knew that nothing else could.

Finally, now, the fruition of his struggles stood before him. With a final check of the turbo, he was satisfied that everything was in order.

The doctors might not have been able to help him, but he was betting his life on the hope that in a few moments he would catapult himself into a happier plane of existence. But in his heart, he knew that hope alone would never be enough. What he needed would be nothing less than a miracle--a cyclopean leap of faith.

Climbing into the orb, he pulled shut the heavy, iron door and locked it behind him. The lock wasn't really necessary, but he felt safer with it in place. Since his accident, he'd learned to take certain precautions that way.

He pushed his arms through the seat harness and pulled it over himself, latching the buckles in place, before donning his helmet. Thumbing the metallic switch at his side, he flipped it, applying power to the mammoth engines.

While they droned to temperature, he carefully went over his start-up list for the last time, double-checking everything. Finished, he exhaled and pulled his visor down over his face.

He was ready.

Cautiously opening the throttle, the huge machine rumbled and shook, filling the room with its groaning, as it came to life, like some ancient sleeping monster. The lights in the cockpit dimmed, bathing everything an eerie yellow.

With more prodding, the engines gave out a low roar and the machine turned, rotating slowly at first then gaining speed quickly. Confident now that everything was operating smoothly, Richard cracked the nitrogen valves that fed the boosters.

If he had calculated right, he should begin to feel something at forty-five seconds.

A quick glance at the counter confirmed it. Forty seconds on the dot, and he already had a growing headache.

With nitrogen racing to the engines, the machine was forced to a breakneck pace in seconds, turning faster and faster, humming deafeningly as it spun. The g-forces increased with each revolution, as did the pain in his head.

Richard had constructed his seat on a series of bearings that allowed it to move proportionately to the machine. Acting as a sort of free-moving gear ratio, it compensated for the Dream Cleaner's fantastic spin, keeping him in one piece. Without it, he would have been torn to shreds in seconds.

He only hoped now that his handiwork held.

Grasping the throw handles on the dash in both hands, he watched the counter.

Sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six--timing was critical, it meant the difference between freedom and death.

At seventy-one seconds exactly, he jerked the handles down, closing the circuit.

Instantly, the cockpit flashed, filling with a hot, blue-white light so intense, he would have been blinded if not for his face shield. The machine boomed, exploding into high gear, taking on speed at an impossible rate.

The pain in Richard's head magnified exponentially--jumping from the back to the front and back again, it threatened to push his eyes from their sockets.

At ninety-four seconds he puked violently, spraying the contents of his belly onto his face shield, covering his eyes and blurring his vision with its putrid stickiness. He was helpless to do anything about it, as the hot vomit filled his mouth and nose, before seeping down to soak the base of his neck.

His skull pounded and throbbed as if to crack, threatening to burst in his helmet.

Gasping to breathe, he struggled for the red button on the console in front of him.

After seven years of huddling in corners, fighting desperately to stay awake; after seven years of doctors, psycho drugs and injections, after seven years of losing the fight for his life and his mind, it had all come down to this.

With but a moment to live, Richard reached the button--and he leapt.

#

Sipping his coffee at the breakfast table, he breathed in, deeply.

The warm, flowery, smell of the early May morning wafted to his nostrils through the open window, washing over his senses. It was absolutely delicious.

The Dream Cleaner was gone now, the room having since been converted into a library.

Gazing lazily, he spotted a squirrel making its way cautiously across the top of his fence. Stopping to look at him, it seemed to smile.

Stretching, Richard leaned way over in his chair.

And smiled back.

END