I Wish It Were A Dream Inside A Dream

I dreamt of a normal Monday tonight, the only problem was that it did not seem normal anymore. I woke up in my dream at 7 o’clock. I squinted my eyes and covered my face with the blanket. I reached out my left hand to wake up my wife, but my hand dropped on the bedsheet instead. ‘She must be in the bathroom,’ I thought and turned to the other side to avoid the sunlight in an attempt to sleep again. 

A few seconds later in my dream, I sat up wide awake to the sound of my name. “Why are you behaving like a child today? Don’t you have to go to the office, Vikram?” My wife scolded. “Yeah, daddy! See I am ready for school and you are still in bed,” my son joined in too. As it happens, I was well aware that I was dreaming, else I would have woken up with a start at the mention of office and school.

I ignored them and went out to the balcony. The scene outside was surreal. I could see dozens of people waiting at the bus stop for their respective office buses. School children were standing in groups, chatting and laughing dramatically, few were running around while keeping an eye on the road for the bus. There were no masks, no social distancing, no hoardings pleading people for both. There was a long line of cars and bikes slowly moving on the road. Each vehicle trying hard to make its way earlier than the ones beside it. The traffic would soon turn into a nightmare inside my dreams, so I decided to quickly accept the delusional reality.

I walked inside the bathroom to get ready for the office. My son had already left for school. My wife had changed into formals and was sitting with a newspaper on the breakfast table. She checked her watch and gave me a death stare when I approached her. “You better be quick, else I will miss the morning meeting.” “Sorry,” I said quickly to pacify her but she was out of her wits. “I should have taken the bus but you wanted to spend some quality time with me. Now, I would have to stay late in the evening to compensate for this quality time.” She air-quoted ‘quality time’ twice making me regret it even without feeling the guilt.

Dreams are as strange as movies. You directly move from one scene to another, conveniently skipping the unimportant stuff. My wife and I were sitting in the car, the very next moment, which was stuck in a traffic jam. Fortunately, my wife was not cursing me out loud because the honking outside was too much for her to bear. Needless to say, I was not looking in her direction at all. A conversation was of course out of question. Else I would have asked her a few important questions like when did the office start? Where did Corona go? Is it still safe to send kids to school? Can we not work from home always to get rid of this traffic? 

Silence is my worst enemy. However, I soon found out that speech is even worse in dreams. When I could not take the silence between my loving wife and me any longer, I said, “Let us plan a vacation.” That lighted up her face. She looked at me with a smile and I added, “Yeah! Corona is over now anyways.” Her eyes became unreadable for a second. Her posture became stiff and her hands were in fists. She was beating me on my chest while shouting, “Who is Kareena? Just tell me already.” 

It was effective. I woke up from my dream but the nightmare had just started. Apparently, I had blurted out ‘Kareena’ instead of Corona while dreaming, when she was giving me her customary morning kiss. Lucky Saif!