A Dreamy Encounter - Part 2
First Published in Roses Aren't Read Anthology
“I HAD THE dream again,” Damilare said into the phone. He took a deep breath, trying to steady his fast-beating heart. “It’s getting more and more vivid every time,” he added.
“Where were you this time?” His therapist, Ms Davidson, asked from the other end.
“A beautiful place,” Damilare replied.
“You always say that but what makes this dream different?”
“This time, I wasn’t alone. I met a girl,” he blurted out and then realised how pathetic he must have sounded, even to his therapist, whom he had been seeing for almost three years now. Since realising that he could not handle his anxieties by himself with DIY remedies he found on the internet, he had sought professional help.
“A girl, huh?” Ms Davidson croaked, and he could swear that even she was laughing at him. He wanted to be angry at her for finding his predicament amusing but he couldn’t because even to him, it was funny. He was thirty years old, a medical doctor, he was handsome – well, so as not to sound vain, he’d say he wasn’t bad looking. His last relationship ended pretty badly two years ago and since then, he hadn’t been on a single date. Not that there hadn’t been opportunities; he had just been too anxious to make a move. And if he was being completely honest with himself, he was still reliving the traumatic experience of his last relationship.
What if this one ended badly, too? Was the excuse he gave to avoid going on dates and meeting new women. Sometimes, he wished he was like those men who could have casual, noncommittal sex with women and forget about them the next minute, but he wasn’t. He wanted a relationship, something beautiful like what his parents had.
“Hello, Damilare, are you still there?” Ms Davidson’s voice brought him back from his reverie.
“Yes, yes, I am still here.”
“I want to know more about this girl you met. Do you mind telling me about her?” Ms Davidson was all seriousness again.
“Errm… I don’t even know where to start,” Damilare said. The other end of the line was quiet. If he was in Ms Davidson’s office right now, she would be watching him intently with her almond-shaped eyes, patiently waiting for him to speak.
“She looked arty,” was all he managed to say, when what he really wanted to say was, she was beautiful, but maybe not in the way the world regarded beauty. He wanted to say he liked the way the sun kissed her dark skin, that he was lost in the beautiful sound of her voice, deep, husky, that he enjoyed the way her brown eyes widened with excitement as he told her his stories.
His stories – that was what he called them now. In his dreams, he was sometimes himself, Damilare, the simple and uninteresting medical doctor, and sometimes, he was a warrior from a land that no one had ever heard of, who had interesting stories to tell about the goddesses and priestesses. His stories were magic. Ms Davidson had once suggested that maybe he was reliving his past life in his dreams. She strongly believed that he was a reincarnation of an African warrior in his dreams. As a man of science, he wasn’t supposed to believe such things, but he was an African man raised by a superstitious mother, so yeah, he believed her. The problem was that in all the research he had done, there was no Kingdom of Ire in the history of Nigeria or any other place.
That made the whole concept more mysterious and exciting for him, so he wasn’t giving up, not yet.
“Damilare, you are drifting off again. Why don’t we talk about something more real? Tell me about work.”
“What’s there to tell, really?” Damilare shrugged as if his therapist could see him.
“How are you coping?” she pressed.
Damilare sighed. “I guess I’m getting by. It’s not like I can stop people from getting the virus.”
“But could you stop working?”
“I could but I won’t. There are never enough doctors and now with the spread of the virus increasing daily, I can’t just leave.”
He understood her concerns. He suffered from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and was even on medication. The coronavirus outbreak took its toll on him at the beginning: he suffered occasional panic attacks and as the death toll continued to increase all over the world, his empathy level spiked and his occasional panic attacks turned frequent. Ms Davidson had had to write a prescription for something stronger. Ordinarily, it was common sense to take a step back from something so triggering, but Damilare knew himself; not doing anything to help would stress him the more. So, he couldn’t just sit still.
“Speaking of work, I’m on call and really shouldn’t be on the phone for this long,” he said.
“I understand, you should go. Maybe next time, you would be able to talk more about your mystery woman. I find her quite interesting,” Ms Davidson said, bringing to an end his therapy session for the week.
To be continued….
Thank you for reading the second part of my short story. Click here, if you missed the first part. The third part will published next week Tuesday. Please share, like, leave a comment. In my next post, I’ll be discussing 10 things that helps me stay creative. So click the subscribe button below, so you don’t miss a thing.
A Dreamy Encounter - Part 3
“TELL ME A secret,” Omoronke said. Damilare turned to her and laughed out loud. Three months ago, she would not have thought of his lopsided, shy smile as fond, but she had grown used to not just his smile, but also to his presence, his smell, the essence of him. In the last three months, Damilare had been appearing in her dreams, som…