Deciding dreams by Aferisan

Deciding dreams

Matt had another love spat with his girlfriend, Jennifer. There he was sitting on a rock in the park, thinking. It wasn't enough that she was fussy and partially psychotic, but also that he partially loved her. Sometimes he loved her a lot, sometimes he enjoyed her company very little. Their fights were as common as their romantic actions, and in parallel the same procedure of spontaneous fervor then sudden anti-climax.
In one instance, she had overheard him and his friend in the park talking about how extremely crazy she was. Matt and Jennifer had a fight just that morning, her complaining about not being allowed to talk to guys. Matt had seen her smiling and laughing while talking to a guy, quite uncommon actions done when around Matt. Jealousy and efficiency was the top priorities in this situation, so Matt walked up to the guy, punched him in the mouth and dragged Jennifer away. His simple jealousy was very logically based in Matt's mind, but in Jennifer's he was just a horrid beast who thought of her as an object.
It would be unfair to say it was entirely Matt's lack of tact that ruined the relationship. Jennifer did have a dramatic streak within her personality, complaining and crying if he just simply ignored her at a specifically touchy moment. Matt had the duality of both aggressor and victim, her stalking his every movement, giving snappy comments when he talked any girl.

Sitting on his rock he steeled himself in order to decide whether he was going to break up with her, or propose. It was that time, being pressured by her to ask, so much so that the pressure nearly suffocated him to the point of saying "we're over". He looked at the ring in his hands, he rolled it in his forefinger and thumb, staring at the gold band and the moderately large diamond in the middle. It was a possibility he might spend the rest of his life with her, and the possibility of the rest of his life being a short 5 years into the marriage until ultimately a suicide.
Thankfully the decision wasn't today, because when Matt arrived home he found Jennifer's bags packed and in the back of the trunk of his car. His car.
"I'm leaving to see my parents for two days", screeched out Jennifer as she hit the pedal and high-tailed it out of the neighborhood.

The next day, free of El Diablo, he was able to go about his business. So he went to the store to stock up on chips and ice cream, the lifeblood of his diet. Rare delicacies often consumed by said girlfriend before the actual purchaser had more than one scoop, yet she somehow stayed thin. The punishment included the scolding of buying such useless luxuries when they were so strapped for cash that they could only buy one pair of designer pants, and heels. Mainly "the couple" buying those two vital objects because they just "absolutely fit" one member of the two-person relationship. Of course Max never tried them on, so he wasn't sure he was a size 4. Matt, with his powers of deduction reduced his list to the last possible suspect.

He got his friend to lend him his car for the day so he started driving to the local supermarket.

He bought eggs, milk, all the things on the grocery list. He laughed when he thought about sticking his arm out and running down the aisle knocking down all the products, and he nearly turned around to tell his accomplice. He had forgotten that his accomplice was currently at her parent's for the sake of them lavishing compliments upon her recent triumphs. He sighed, but then regressed and went through what would happen out, roleplaying Jennifer in his mind. She'd probably say that his ideas were immature and stupid.
In the line for checkout his eyes scanned over the shelves full of magazines. Each one he spied told girls on ways to diet, the newest annorexic fashions, and beautiful people they'd never be. Max giggled to himself in line, thoroughly scaring the little girl in front of him wearing a two-tooth gape. Smiling he leaned down to the moderately stunned little girl knees up to his chest and he pointed to the magazine.
"Do you want to look like that?", said Matt as he pointed to a magazine depicting a cute skinny girl wearing jeans and a tank.
The little girl nodded, and smiled and held up her doll, which was clasped in her left hand.
"You know, I have a girlfriend like that, trust me you never want to be her, never", muttered Matt, surprising himself as these words rolled so easily off his tongue.
"Love?", the little girl asked, pointing to the general area of her heart with a finger.
"Yes, well, no. I'm not quite sure, you see she left, but I want to marry her, yet I don't want to, I..." explained Matt.
"You know Matt, its your choice, do you really see yourself with her? If she's so despisable now then why are you asking yourself those questions?" whispered the little girl, in a somewhat deeper voice.
Mysteriously grinning, the little girl turned and ran after her mother who had just finished with the cashier.
"Sir, please stand up and move your purchases along", said the teenage cashier, looking at Matt as if he were a child molester.
Matt smiled warmly at her and said, "Kids, just so cute"
The teenage cashier's impression of him just solidified.

He lay on his couch wallowing in atrophic splendor. Bags of chips surrounded his domain while he flipped channels with the remote, not really watching yet not really thinking. He felt tired, but didn't want to sleep. With veiled surrender he just put his head on the couch pillow and closed his eyes, for only a second.

He awoke in the center of a theater, a gigantic chamber so wide that the sides couldn't be seen, they just continued on and on till you couldn't see anything but light. The roof was extremely high, and painted on it was a mural of two theater masks.
The theaters masks looked standard, with permanent grins, cut eyeholes, the round curvature and the lack of a nose, yet each had its distinct attributes. One was fantasticly beautiful, if that's possible, it smiled radiantly upon him. The second mask though, was horrible, demented with a face forced into a malicious grin, its eyes just stared out with sadistic glee.
Suddenly the two masks disappeared from the mural. Matt looked up, and kept staring, thinking if he stared at it enough they would reappear. Or if he was simpy just crazy.
Then he was gently tapped on the shoulder. Behind him stood the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld, glorious soft hair complimenting a perfect body and the face so beautiful he shied away. He was thinking it treason to stare on such majestic figure, when his curiousity piqued.
He turned back to see the woman again, but this time she had changed, her visage was malicious, yet attractive, it was the same woman with an expression of hunger, as she walked over to him and kissed him. The kiss burned into his skin, he stared into her eyes, they glowed psychoticly, filled with rage and passion.
Matt pulled away and cried out in pain, yet tried to hold onto the woman, crying, head below his outstretched arms as pain coursed through his body through his tightly clenched fists upon her arms.

Then he woke up. He forgot the dream just as easily as it came, and when the local news came on the television, he took another nap.

This time he didn't wake up, he merely was awake, he had an awareness of himself, yet no one else. Everything was white, he simply stayed in one spot, even if he was moving he couldn't feel it. He looked around, moving his head trying to get a complete view.
But it was clear he was alone, he didn't feel hungry but just floated there. A mirror appeared, and he stared at himself. He couldn't move his head anymore, or any other body part so he floated, paralyzed staring at the mirror. He was aging, it showed him, his face crippled and his black eyes telling a story of loneliness. He stood there for eternity, watching his own sad eyes play out the tragedy of his life, how being transported to this prison had shredded him of the only somewhat painful love he ever had.
He felt more alone than ever, staring into the mirror, he tried to yell or scream but all he managed out was a whimper. He remembered all the good times with Jennifer, and held onto those memories, but they slowly deteriorated like his body in the mirror. His lack of memory was practically visible as his eyes would grow deader and deader by the second, life sucked away as his body shriveled up. Finally it stopped, and he was old with no one to love him. He tried to remember, but each time he tried he knew it wouldn't work, he watched himself cry in the mirror, an unknown old man with cold black eyes and a stream of tears.

This time he remembered part of his dream, and he yelled when he woke up, and stroked his face for what he thought was a fine white beard but turned into air. He looked at the TV, then at himself, then to the chips. He immediately ran to the bathroom and peered at himself checking his body for any sign of aging, but was thoroughly satisfied with a perhaps not the best shape of his life, but a satisfactory tightness of skin and decent muscle mass.
He checked the clock as it blinked 2:56 on it, and decided the television might be what was giving him those crazy dreams, so he went to lie in bed. Snugly he had all the sheets this night and wasn't left shivering while someone else hogged the comforter.

This dream he didn't even feel himself, he acted as an invisible third person, a spectator to two teenagers huddled in a pile of rags, in the corner of a cheap motelroom. The girl stared at the boy and cried, she looked slightly pregnant, with her slim figure the large stomach was either a sign of sudden obesity or pregnancy. The boy on the other hand was gaunt, his eyes were sunken in as he stared at everything as if it were a prospective meal.
"You didn't have to buy me this, we could sell it, and maybe things will be alright", said the girl weakly, holding up a pretty out-of-place gold bracelet up.
"I bought this for you, I bought it because I love you", said the boy, stopping briefly and continued, "It won't solve our problems, I'd like to think it was, I'd like to think running away did, but all it did, all it..."
The boy broke up crying, his tears literally shaking his body, from both hunger and sorrow he stared at the girl with red eyes, and cried more.
"It's all my fault, I should've never told you to run away with me...", said the boy, guilt flitting across his face.
"If we die, we'll die knowing we loved", whispered the girl courageously.
"Yes, we had perfect love", murmured the boy.
They both turned over to lie on their side, staring into one another eyes, bracelet between them shining in great luster.

The alarm rang telling Matt it was time to get his lazy ass up and fix up the house. He finished with time to spare and went out to do some tasks.

When Jennifer came in she looked excited and sat down next to Matt.
"Hey Jennifer, I have something to tell you, and I feel a bit strange telling you this, but I had three dreams last night, which helped me decide on this", said Matt as he pulled out a ring from his pocket.
"The first dream reminded me of your faults, the vices of your beauty"
"The second dream showed me living forever alone, without you by my side"
"The third dream revealed perfect love"
Jennifer looked at Matt, amazed, but still able to open her mouth, "Matt, I will marry you"
"Too bad, cause this is a decoder ring I found in my cereal box, I returned the real ring today before you came home"
"Turns out, I can't accept your evilness, it just hurts too much, no matter how pretty you are, plus I could happily live without you, just with another woman, and thirdly perfect love may never come to me, but I sure as hell can duplicate it with someone who has ten thousand times the amount of sensitivity that you've shown me"
"Bye, oh, by the way you can have this" said Matt as he flipped the cheap plastic ring at her.