Better Off Not Knowing

I open the window as I watch the birds fly around in the blue sky. Not a single cloud. There is a warm breeze, the curtains swaying. Someone had just recently cut the grass. I breathe in. Summers have a particular smell; cut grass, flowers, together with the hot air.

“Sam, you shouldn’t be up!” says his therapist as she walks in to the room.

“It is truly a lovely day.” I say as I turn around. Mrs. Hills had just walked in; she wore her dress, the one that she usually wore during our sessions. I think about it for a second, I have never seen her wear anything else than just that.

“It sure is, but still, it’s only been a few days since the accident.” she says, with a lecturing voice.

I and Mrs. Hills talks for a few minutes; it is evident that she wants to talk about it, the “accident”. Lately she has become more eager to know about what happened, almost impatient. She would ask about these details; what people wore and how they looked. It sometimes seemed as if she was interrogating me.

“I want you to go back, Sam” she begins. “You are in the car, what do you see by side of the road?”

“Ehm...” I close my eyes, the voice staggering. It was always painful going back. Seeing the things I saw, experiencing it again. But I continue, focusing on the people by the bus-stop, as she wants me to.

“There are several people by the bus-stop, standing under it, sheltering from the rain.”

“Please Sam, be more specific.” She says.

“There are around five people, sheltering from the rain. They all have umbrellas, by their sides. Three of them are women. They all have dresses. Almost like yours.” I look back at Mrs. Hills. She looks into my eyes, as shrinks usually does, almost staring.

Uninterested in the information I have given her, she presses on:

“What about beside the bus-stop, what do you see there?”

“There is a group of men, around four of them, wait. Five.” I look at her again. She looks encouraging back at me:

“Focus on that fifth man. You have never told me about him before” she says.

“He… Ehm… does not have an umbrella with him, compared to the four. He stands with an awkward distance from the other ones. He wears a hat, a black hat, with a costume. The man is staring at me, almost unaware of the pouring downfall of the rain.”

Mrs. Hills sits back, almost as if she received the confession from the criminal of his crime. Then she stands up and leaves me with a confused look and she says,

“See you during next session”.

I sit back, enjoying the tea which I just poured myself. I have been in two quite major accidents in my life, two accidents that have, in some way, changed my day-to-day life. But this recent one has caused far more disturbance to my surrounding than the previous one. The first one changed everything; now it’s almost if I am stuck in this routine of eating the daily meals, having that shower in the morning, going out for that run, and never trying anything new. Every day I wait for my wife to get home by doing some work in the garden, after picking up our two kids at school. It’s always been really good weather, luckily. When you wake up, the rainclouds have just left, leaving that nice smell of fresh rainfall. It’s all perfect.

I do not have to work any longer at the police station, according to my boss. He thinks the accident was too serious and could interfere with my police-work, and then made me retire early. I barely remember the exact moment when I was hurt; apparently I received a fatal blow to the head but was lucky to make it.

I stand up and walk over to the cabinet to look for something to eat. But the cabinet is almost empty. The delivery should have been here a long time ago. I look around and I notice that there is dust all over the furniture, when looking across to the next room there are toys, from the children playing, scattered all over the floor. The maid usually cleans around two o’clock, it’s almost five, and the children and my wife should be home by now.

Slightly confused about what to do next, I take one large step over the huge pile of mail in front of the door, and walk out to the car that is parked on the driveway. How come I did not see all these stuff lying around when Mrs. Hills was over? I could at least have cleaned up before she arrived.

As I drive through the main street downtown, I realize just how empty the streets are, there are not even any cars parked by the sides of the road, Usually there are kids running around; chasing each other by the sidewalk, with the mothers in their heels trying to calm them down; both elderly and young people sitting by the cafés, enjoying their coffee or tea. Not today. I feel just how cold it is outside when I pull the window down. There are no leaves on the trees; instead they whirl around, almost like they were dancing to the wind. Suddenly, that man appears, wearing his black hat, and black costume. I see him through the passenger window. He just stands there, on the sidewalk watching me. A brief moment passes. I can barely breathe. Frozen, I don’t know what to do, my car stands in the middle of the road. I should move. Then the man slowly, lifts his arm, pointing in my direction. I stare at him. Realizing he is not pointing at me, I look through the window on my side.

A huge truck is racing towards me. I grasp for the gear, reverse. But as I lift the clutch my car shuts off. Failing to open the door, I see the truck coming towards me. I grasp for air. There is a massive BANG, my door, metal presses into the side of my body.

Then I open my eyes and take a deep breath. The sun is blinding me and I feel something soft lying underneath me. I feel with my hands, running them up and down, it´s grass. Then someone appears, shading the sun. I sit up. There, just beside me stands that man, the man who wore the black hat, and black costume. But only now he wears a white hat, and white costume. He smiles.

“Am I dead?” I ask.

“Some would use that expression, yes” he answers. The man has a soft voice, and continues to smile as he turns around and slowly walks away.

As I stand up and I can see my two daughters playing under a large tree in the middle of a field, with my wife sitting under it, knitting. The tree has long branches that extend far down almost touching the ground in some places. There are small, fluffy things floating in the air, and the sun resting over a hill in the horizon. The scenery reminds me of a place where I have previously been, but cannot really put my finger on where. It is beautiful.

I slowly walk towards them, touching the long straws of grass with the palm of my hand. Tickling, I smile. I would not have imagined it this real; I think for myself, all the feelings remains even after death. I yell for my wife and kids and run up to them. I lift my two kids up in the air and hug them for several minutes. As I put them down, I recognize that my wife is still sitting by the tree. Frowning, I put my kids down; they are still smiling as they look up towards me. There are only a few meters between me and my wife. She is sitting, curled up, on one of the tree’s large roots that bulge out through the earth. Her blonde hair is hanging down towards her knees, forming a veil, covering her face. I sit down beside her on the large root, studying her. I reach out to move her hair away from her face, she straightens her back. As I move her hair away, I flinch. Horrified of what I see, I fall off the giant root. On my back, I quickly crawl backwards, away from her. Her blank face stares back at me, without eyes, nose and mouth.

“And what will happen to Sam this time?” says one of the professors. Working with the enormous machine connected to Sam through a mixture of colorful wires.

“Our technology is far better, though we are still limited to his memories. But this time we won’t have to update it before Sam actually dies.” replies one of the professors, responsible for the animation in the so-called Dream World, and continues,

“He wouldn’t be able to live a normal life with his injuries, so we put him here, so he can live his life happy. We were lucky though, if he would have noticed that something was wrong, since we failed to “kill” him the first time after the activation, he would have become a prisoner of his own mind”