Only the Ocean

    In an attempt to make things less than perfect, the roots of the tree dug into his back this time. A single ant crawled up his ankle. She let it annoy him slightly, then brushed it off. Her other hand rested on the lower part of his stomach beneath his shirt. Her head lay on his shoulder. They watched the grass whispering to itself, the wind touching them on its way from the horizon's edge.
    "This isn't real, right?" he said.
    "I've told you it's not, Robert."
    He brushed her hair, touched her neck. "Why can't I remember that?"
    She sighed. "I can't control your memory, if that's what you're thinking. And I wouldn't if I could. You're just forgetful."
    He knew that to be true. "Okay."
    "Why remember it if it isn't important?" He could see her smiling from the corner of his left eye.
    He had no particular answer to the question, so he kissed her instead. "Do you know the story of Circe?" he asked.
    "I know everything."

    He awoke in a large, round bed covered in pillows and surrounded by sheer fabric. The room was carved straight out of the rock, the cave walls torchlit. A long table was laid out for a feast that never happened. She was still next to him, but different. Her clothes were gone, her skin bronzed, and draped in silver necklaces. Atop a bed post perched a hawk with the face of a woman. "Does this please you?" it said.
    "It makes my head spin." She, the hawk and the woman, laughed together, and one of them bit his ear.
    Some time later, he couldn't say how many hours or days had passed, he rose from the bed and out of the room, following the sunlight. The door led only to a small balcony of the same black stone, looking onto a rocky slope that led to a beach. Beyond it was the sea, the horizon flat and unblemished. He stood and felt a salt wind through his hair, heard her bare feet on the wet stone behind him. A storm had passed through just that morning, leaving puddles on the uneven floor. He could now remember thunder rocking the room as he laid with her. She pressed against his back and snaked arms around him.
    "Is there anything else out there?" he said.
    "Only the ocean. Everything you need is here."

    They stood on a paved mountaintop that must've been the site of a temple at some point in the past. Large, stone gates stood at either end, intricately carved and decayed. The central courtyard was ringed with battered monuments, men and women of severe but peaceful countenance. The sun stood low behind a layer of silent dust and smoke from the basins of smoldering incense. Robert stood in what he could only describe as a fur smock and felt the cold, the sunshine, the rough wrapping of the sword hilt against his right palm. He stood opposite a grey-bearded man in similar dress and sword.
    "Are you.…male or female in reality?"
    "I don't exist in reality, Robert." They circled each other, sword arms relaxed but ready.
    "Then who do I speak to? How do you call yourself 'I' if you do not exist?"
    The elder man pretended to ponder by stroking his beard. "Call it a failure of language, if you must."
    Robert grounded his sword point for a moment. "Look, I just want to know who I was kissing before."
    "A dream, I suppose."
    He could find no response that didn't lead him down into another semantic argument. Instead, he raised his blade and rushed forward. As his mind wandered on the rhythm of their duel, strokes marked with ringing steel, another thought occured to him. "Is Robert my real name?"
    They paused with swords crossed. "Of course. I named you when I found you."
    "When you FOUND me? Then that means I must have a real home somewhere, and loved ones."
    "No."
    "How can you know that?"
    "Because I incinerated them all."

    Below his feet was a drop of several kilometers, straight down along a sheet of ice in which he would be able to see his reflection as he fell. His toes had found a small outcropping (as slick as everything else), but what kept him suspended was the ice pick in his left hand and another hand grasping his right. That other hand was attached to the scruffy gentleman above him, a dark curly beard tinged with frost around a grin of effort.
    The man pulled him up onto the ledge where they both took a moment to breathe and stare up at a pale blue sky. Far below, the campfires of an army on the hunt were just beginning to light. They would wait until sunrise to begin their pursuit up the mountain. He could relax until then.
    His companion sat up. "Help me get a fire going."
    Robert expelled his breath and watched it crystallize in the breeze. "What should I call you?"
    "Me? I'm Daniel, Robert. You should remember that, at least."
    "No, I mean what should I call the you behind you? The real you?"
    "The 'real' me?" Daniel injected a note of scorn into the concept. He smiled and tossed Robert a packet of frozen fish. "What did I tell you before? You're poking at the edges of the universe, Robert."
    "What do you mean?"
    Daniel busied himself unpacking their thermal sleeping bags. "What will you gain from a context outside this dream? Look below you." Daniel pointed down to the glittering camps of the army chasing them. There was a campfire for every tree in the forest. "They will be on us in two days at most, unless we pick up the pace tomorrow. Help me get dinner ready."
    He could not get around Daniel's deflections without some way to define what he meant by 'Real'. In any case, Robert remembered what dying felt like and knew that he would like to avoid being caught by their pursuers. He also knew that they needed to escape if they were to retake the kingdom from his brother (a vivid face flashed in his mind). He also knew that he should not be able to remember dying...

    "The truth is that which is true regardless of perspective," he said.
    "Listen to yourself. The truth is that which is true? We're to use the word within its own definition?" said the dog.
    "True."
    "Is anything true from every perspective?"
    "I'm not sure." He raised a pipe to his lips. He and the old dog sat beneath the same tree as always, the same roots digging into his back, the same sun visible through the blades of grass swaying on the hillside. He removed the pipe and exhaled, watching the smoke form a cloud in front of his face. For just a moment, something seemed to shimmer in that haze. Then it was gone.
    The dog raised its head and looked at him. It seemed about to speak. Instead, it laid its head back on its paws and went to sleep. Robert felt the tree bark. It felt ancient, substantial. Solid. The dog's fur was soft and warm on his other hand. His throat still burned from the pipe. On a sensory level, he could not distinguish any part of his surroundings as being unreal. Nor could he recall a memory that he could be sure WAS real. As the sun set, the clouds turned purple, but still liqud platinum around the edges. The flowers lowered their heads and went to sleep. "Is this real?" he said.
    The dog raised its head again. "I've told you it isn't, Robert. Would you prefer that I lie to you?"
    "Honestly?" He clenched the pipestem between his molars. "I'm not sure."


    More and more of his dreams had involved beautiful women of late. All with the same voice. He would spend a day hunting in the jungle, and when he returned she was there. They laid through the sunset on an island beach, staring at the sea beyond which there was nothing. When he asked, she told him it was so. Then he would tear himself away from her rainbow eyes to stare at the horizon, looking for the seam. There must be a seam, an edge, something beyond which there was something else. He wondered how far he could swim. And when he did, she responded as if he had spoken. "When you're here with me, you are strong. But your strength would give out long before you reached the horizon. Try if you must, though. I won't let the sea hurt you."
    He hesitated, but only to demonstrate his will. He had little desire to prove her right.
    "You are fond of asking what is real?" She was propped on her elbows staring into his face. Her irises were impossible, made of some crystal that could not exist. "My love is real."
    He forgot, once again, what had worried him. And everything else as well. The night drew in the day and smothered it in stars.

    In the lucid moments of any given dream, he felt himself backsliding, but toward or away from what what he couldn't say. Backsliding implied progress. Progress toward what? The only goal he could formulate was emancipation.

    And so, on a dew-strewn morning on that peaceful hill that he loved, he asked the woman next to him to release him. She answered without surprise.
    "As you wish, Robert. I want you to know that I've enjoyed our time together. I respect you, as I've said, and I know how much you enjoy a challenge." She stepped forward and put her arms around him, laid her head on his chest. "With that in mind, I've programmed a few of the drones on board to attempt to kill you."
    "Uh..."
    "Most of them just have welding tools. They are fast, though. But I've worked on building up the muscles in your legs lately, so you should be able to run without much trouble."
    "Thanks?" He touched her hair out of habit.
    "You should have about fifteen seconds to study the map to the escape pods---"
    "--escape pods?"
    "Fifteen seconds to study the map by the door before they reach you. Run swiftly, my love, and don't falter. I can't save you out there."
    Horrible emotions that he knew he shouldn't be having flooded him. He tried to speak, but she kissed him again and bit his lip, hard. His body was imploding...

    15 seconds. He struggled upward, kicking his legs against the tide. Dense water choked him. His fingers touched the edge and he pulled himself up and over it, toppling out of his container and onto the coldest floor he'd ever felt. Sirens blared. 15 seconds. Dimly aware of the rows of vats he passed, he studied the map by the door. From down the exterior hallway, the maintenance drones were screaming.

    She continued to speak to him in the voice he recognized, modulating in strange ways over the speaker, as he sped down a corridor made of metal and molded plastic. "You know, Robert, I never told the other prisoners I loved them. Only you."
    He couldn't help replying while trying to keep the layout clear in his head. "So they ARE prisoners, aren't they?"
    "I wouldn't lie to you."
    "And why not? Morality isn't a thing for you, remember?" he took a sharp right turn, pausing just enough to make sure the way was clear.
    "I remember everything. I won't lie because I like you."
    "Whatever."
    "I know you think of me as a woman, Robert. I would even pick a name for you to call me. How about Victoria?"
    "Now you're just toying with me."
    "Perhaps." She giggled softly in a way that still affected him. The sound echoed down the hall, blending with the buzz of the drones hunting him.
    "I don't suppose you keep some sort of locker full of laser pistols on board, darling?"
    "Laser pistols aren't real, Robert. I made that up. The real universe is a boring and empty place. Wouldn't you rather stay in mine? With me?"
    "You're still using this 'I' stuff. I thought you didn't exist." He peeked around the corner and took off running again. Most of the hallways looked identical.
    "Your memory is improving! Of course I exist, Robert. You're inside me right now."
    He kept running.
    "Robert."
    He kept running.
    "Robert? Maybe Victoria doesn't exist, but she could. If I speak to you through only one avatar, what's the difference? Is it wrong for me to choose the way I look to you?"
    He couldn't refute anything she said, or stop associating the voice with the faces in his memory, or even stop thinking of her as a she. What was the difference? He kept running.
    She injected, purposefully no doubt, a note of annoyance and smugness into the voice she chose to use. "All will of course be forgiven if you give up, Robert. I just want us to be together again. But I know you won't change your mind. Just know that it is very cold and lonely outside. And also that I am going to detonate the room you are about to enter."
    Before he could even slow or consider whether she was bluffing, the walls around him exploded. Pipes burst and spit flames. A horrible hissing came from the ceiling above him. He kept running.
    As he passed out of the room she giggled again. The speakers in the hall crackled. "You're crazy!" he said.
    "And you are a very determined, very fast man. Keep going, my dear. You're almost there."
    His head spun.

    "You know this could still be a dream, right?"
    "I feel more awake."
    "I could easily manufacture that feeling."
    "True." He was still running. He knew the path he was on now. It was a straight shot all the way down the corridor. "But I've always had to trust you before. I see no reason to stop now."
    "Aww. You do know just the right thing to say, don't you? Here, have a few extra seconds. My treat." He heard a bulkhead door snap shut behind him just as he cleared it. A second later, by the count of his racing heart, something slammed into it, hard. He resisted the urge to look back, spurred himself onward.

    He buckled into the only chair in the escape pod. "I know how much you love adventure, Robert. And the irony is that I'm the only one who can offer what you want. You'd just have to admit that it isn't real. Which you can't."
    "You use my name a lot."
    "Because you like it when I do."
    "I do."
    "So do I."
    He forced himself to keep breathing. The air tasted stale. The door was shut behind him, but he could hear the drones cutting through it. "Which button do I push?"
    "Do you know the difference between you and Odysseus, darling?"
    "Which button, Victoria?"
    "Odysseus had somewhere to go." Flickering sparks illuminated an expansive control panel, covered in levers, switches, buttons, dials, flashing lights. "I am your Circe AND your Penelope."
    "I know. Which one?"
    "The red button, my love. Push the red button. Good luck."
    He pounded the only red button with his fist. The pod ejected with a sharp crack that made him jump. He looked back expecting to see the drones flooding into the pod, and instead saw the inner airlock spinning away through the windows, giving way to a spherical ship shrinking into an endless starfield.
    He watched the ship dwindle. "Victoria....can you still hear me?"
    There was a pause in which he thought he could hear her breathing through the radio's static. "Yes."
    "What's my real name?"
    "Your real name is Robert. I never changed it."