He sat nervously in the chair, hands twisted together in his lap like a tangle of branches, body rocking back and forth as if adrift on a wind-blown sea. His vacant eyes scanned the floor and never shifted up, not even later when the resounding crash and piercing squeals of tires rattled the windows from the street below.
The office was cold—brown mahogany panels and enclaves of silver legged furniture enclosed by ledges looming up, shelves threatening to spill forth volume upon volume of arcane psychological literature—and he could see his breath. Or at least, he thought he could. Why isn’t the fireplace lit, he wondered. Why isn’t the heat on. The doctor paced back and forth as if possessed by a powerful itch in each of his shoes, hands in his pockets, sweater and collar neatly aligned over the creases of his neck. His gray hair reflected the fluorescent lights overhead and the two blended together, gray with light, light into gray, bleeding into each other until the entire office faded into neutral and frozen tones. It was, or seemed, a room of statues, ancient, hewn from rock and just as unyielding, just as cold.
Then, the ceiling lifted up to reveal a bleak, cloud-covered sky devoid of color, gray and pale, swirls of thin white fading into the atmosphere above. He could see birds ascending into nothingness, flaunting their freedom at the heights of the billowing masses, soaring and calling to others to join. The walls fell away, crashing to the ground around him and the office was gone, leaving only an open platform. He stood, face whipped by wind as the black wings soared overhead, dark pinpoints in a colorless sky, and surveyed the streets spread out below him in a grid, miles above everything. He could see forever in every direction, unhindered vision as from the top of the world, buildings shrinking to inches. No walls, no doors, no windows. It was all suddenly and completely open. He saw, in the distance before his eyes, mountains framed by a golden dawn, the ice beginning to melt in a frozen lake, the blooming of a single flower, the spray of the sea on a rocky coast, a grain of sand dancing across a searing desert. Everything magnified itself for him.
The doctor turned to face him, and the walls snapped back together, ceiling pulling itself tight to the room overhead. He craned his neck upwards, searching for the dark pinpoints, but they had faded. He knew why they flew so high. He knew he could never join them. To be up there with the birds, he thought, would be no different from being here. I hide and I am lonely because no one hides with me. The birds fly and they are lonely because no one flies with them. They cannot see what I see and I cannot fly with them. I will forever only fall.
The doctor’s face is stern, yet a kindness conceals itself behind his eyes, and he lets it out sometimes when he knows it is needed. Yes, the dreams. Yes, they are the same every night. Falling. I hit the ground and I die, I see myself, a dent in the pavement. The people gather around and stare, I watch with them, and no one talks, protecting the silence just in case I get up and dust myself off, shake my head and laugh, say everything’s okay. No, that never happens. And then I wake up.
The doctor nods slightly, an inclination of the head to suggest empathy and the understanding he is trained to display. In truth, he is lost. His diplomas, his mahogany office, his silver chairs, they show no answers to this persisting case, puzzling him beyond all of his years of education. His heart begins to pound in the suddenly empty cavity of his chest. He is set adrift in an uncertain sea. He stalls for time, tries to conjure calming words from the tip of his tongue but he can find nothing in the vast store of his past experience. He opens his mouth as if to speak, then smiles stupidly, an empty grin betraying its lack of substance. The man sits, curled within himself in the chair, benign and defeated. Kindness wells up behind the eyes, threatening to pour forth tears, for he knows he can be no help.
The doctor sank into the chair, his body working in the service of a sudden exhaustion which attacked without warning. He clasped his hands together and pulled them to his forehead. He felt a swift chill descend around him as he crouched over in complete and perfect defeat. He felt what the man suffered, he felt the pain he could not cure.
And then, he is falling. Again, like he had dreamt so many times, except this time the wind stung his ears and pummeled his body violently, tearing at his limbs until he thought they would detach and he knew it was no dream. The doctor sat like a stone in his chair in the office above, the curtains fluttering in the sudden onslaught of wind. The window gaped above him, calling him back. He could feel the cold air accept him and he saw the grid of streets spread out below him like a map. He knew that somewhere, a golden sun was breaking over a mountain and the birds soared overhead. For an instant, he flew with them.
