An Accidental Dream

I don’t remember how I ended up in this hospital. I was probably riding my bike, either going down a straight, steep road or standing up on the main horizontal frame of my bike or maybe, I was doing my most daring trick: going fast and straight, ignoring a stop sign to cross the widest boulevard in my small town. I only perform this trick at night, when there’s not a lot of traffic. I have fun taking risks, but I’m not stupid.

At the moment my entire body hurts, according to my pain level; I guess I was run over by an eighteen-wheeler. I can’t move, my body feels numb. I think my body’s still scared of what happened in the accident but I’m only guessing. I still don’t know why I’m here. My thoughts are not clear at all. I can’t even remember my name but that doesn’t worry me a great deal. I’m alive and complete, I think.

The room is cold and clean. Like a room that was made to last a hundred years, and everything in it too. I wonder how many people have died on this bed. I hope I’m not one of them. I don’t have any experience on this, but I think I won’t die this time, or anytime soon. I can barely move but I have enough energy to bend my head to check if I still have my four extremities, thank God, I do. I just found out another thing, I believe in God. In the present situation, I guess that’s good. I guess I’ll be doing a lot of guessing in the next few days, which is good because that means I’ll be alive for at least a few more days, I guess.

I must have hit my head and lost a million brain cells or more. I hope I still have some left. I’m so confused, I don’t even know my age, or even worse, I don’t even know whether I’m a man or a woman. Now, that’s a scary thought. Instinctively, and with great effort I decide to investigate. With my right hand, I go down to investigate. Since I can barely move it gives me time to analyze what I wish to find. It feels like a great privilege, like being born again, but this time I have a choice. When I reach my object I feel happy to find a dick. I immediately decide that I’m not a vulgar person and instead I call “it” a penis. I wonder what I would have done if I had found a vagina in there. I would probably have touched it for a long time. Oh, this is so absurd, even for a dream this is confusing. But I’m a man and that makes me happy, I’m glad I’m not a woman.

The nurse still doesn’t know that I’m back, awake, or that I just regained my consciousness. My guess is that she is Hispanic or Latina or Mexican. She is young and cute. She’s checking on some plastic bags with liquids in them, hanging from a metal stand next to the bed. I was going to say “next to my bed”, but it isn’t mine. Then a person wearing a white robe opens the door, I guess he’s the doctor. He begins to talk to the nurse, but they ignore the most important person in the room, which is me, the patient. And I decide to leave the room and fall in deep unconsciousness.

My confusion keeps increasing. I’m in another world, and I guess this is the real world, but I don’t like it either. Somebody is chasing me. It feels unreal like I'm part of a story inside a book, or like I'm in somebody’s dream. It could be my own dream.

Right after I fell from my bike, the asphalt road turned into a jungle. And someone who seems to be a Spanish conqueror is after me, chasing me, and he doesn’t seem to have good intentions. It appears that for some reason he's trying to kill me, and if he’s a Spanish conqueror, I might be an Aztec warrior. I decide to call him Cortez. And if he’s Cortez, I might be Moctezuma. And I like the idea. As soon as I decided to be Moctezuma my fears disappear. Cortez, despite his name, is not polite, and also despite his cannons, his soldiers, and guns, he will not conquer me, because this is my jungle, my Empire, and my dream.

The doctor, who by the way has a nice red beard, asks me to tell him, from one to ten, what level of pain I’m feeling. I say seven because I prefer to be sedated and remain here, instead of being chased by Cortez and his horses. Then, the doctor increases the IV drip rate that controls the morphine, or pain killer medication, or anesthesia, or whatever it is that keeps me unconscious and sends me to dreamland. The liquid runs straight from the plastic bag to my weak and vulnerable brain and immediately gives me hallucinating images.

Then, as if somebody pressed the pause button, I got transferred to la-la land and found Cortez behind my tail.

If I remember the story right according to the Spanish conquerors Moctezuma was killed, stoned by his own people on a balcony in his palace. On the other hand, the indigenous accounts claim that he was killed by the Spanish. Either way, Cortez will not succeed on his attempt to kill me this time. Just in case, while I run almost unconcerned, (now that I remember the outcome of the story) I pick some coca leaves and place them in my mouth to put more distance between Cortez and me. If I’m carrying the effects of the morphine or hallucinatory drugs from the hospital bed to my dream, I might be also able to carry the effects of the coca leaves from the jungle to my hospital room. Does it make sense? Yes, it does. This is the best movie I’ve seen all year. I wish I could remember the whole thing and be able to write it all down when this is over.

I only hear the usual noises from the animals in the jungle, I think I lost Cortez. The chase was in my favor from the beginning. Cortez didn’t have any advantage riding his mighty horse in this thick vegetation. I don’t know why Cortez is so persistent to kill me; we already gave him most of our gold, which is useless to us. In exchange, they gave us some cheap trinkets and mirrors, which are also useless to us. But I wish I could keep this beautiful medallion hanging from my neck. It feels good bouncing on my chest; it seems that my heart and the medallion are having a conversation while running to escape from the villain in my dream.

For a moment I wonder if my temporary demented mind is confounding the reality with the dream. Could it be that the jungle is real and the hospital bed is my dream? But it can’t be because if I’m Moctezuma, I can’t have any knowledge about hospitals and hallucinatory drugs. But actually, the Aztecs did have these two things too. Can you hallucinate about things that don’t exist? I guess you can. But can you imagine an Aztec warrior riding a bike? I need to discard these absurd thoughts; they’re too bizarre, even for a nightmare.

Digging in the archives of my mind while trying to refresh my knowledge about Cortez and Moctezuma another character shows up, “La Malinche”. I think that by thinking about my dreams when I’m not dreaming I’m feeding more material to my brain to continue dreaming. If I’m not wrong, La Malinche was an indigenous native who acted as an interpreter, advisor, and lover to Cortez, she was also known as Doña Marina.

The chase finished abruptly when I reached the end of the Jungle at the shore of the lake. I wasn’t afraid because I knew that wasn’t the place where I would die. But I wished that nobody would change the history. Because Cortez died before Moctezuma.

Conquerors and villains are never alone. Cortez had many men with him and I was alone. But I knew that if the fight would be between him and me, I would destroy him.

He brought me back to Tenochtitlan, to my palace and my people. Along the way I kept hearing voices from the hospital, mixing the dream with the reality, unable to concentrate on neither of them. I could hear the doctor and the nurse, while at the same time I was listening to Cortez leading me to my palace. Cortez was trying to persuade me to talk to my people and convince them to give up our arms to avoid more bloodshed. While on the other scene the doctor was chasing the nurse around my bed trying to convince her to give him a kiss. It was obvious that the amorous relationship had started recently.

It was hard to concentrate. If I can be a little dramatic, I thought I was fighting for my life on two fronts at the same time. Without knowing which one was my real life. It might be very clear to you, but it was very unclear to me. If I had a choice, I would prefer to be left alone.

But I enjoyed the fact that I was (semi) unconscious most of the time. And that I had the ability to jump from one place to the other. If I was in pain I could medicate myself and go back to the jungle. If the drug wore off, I could return for more. I didn’t have any idea how long I had been there. I had no notion of time or space.

I returned chained and ashamed to my palace and my people. I felt ashamed because I was captured without a fight. La Malinche bows to Cortez and ignores me, and I feel abandoned by my people too. When Cortez pushes me to the main balcony of my palace, I know the end is getting near. And I disappear from there hoping to never come back. The pain is too painful.

Back in the hospital, I decided to take the pain the natural way. I asked the doctor if he could remove the painkillers, and he agreed.

Then, he called the nurse.

“Marina, please remove the IV unit away from him.”

“Yes, Dr. Cortez.” she answered.

Then, it all made sense to me.

Edmundo Barraza

Lancaster, Ca. 01-14-2015

http://edbar1952-accomplishedignorant.blogspot.com