The sky was the or of pale concrete. The rain that started to fall a little while ago had hurried away in a sudden moment of hastiness, as if it forgot something very important.  

The rooftop restaurant was empty except for a few tables. Our table included, there were only five occupied tables at this hour. From here I could see the city skyline pressed against the backdrop of the cloudless sky. A A perfect languid afternoon.

As we sat and ate, I couldn’t help but take occasional glances at Malmora — a well-known actress still in her prime — who had undoubtedly aged very gracefully. She exuded a gentle yet charismatic aura that reminds you of a noble lady in the medieval age. The youthful glow of her beauty still shone, even in her late forties. Sitting before her, I couldn’t help but feel a bit self-conscious.   

We first met at a gala event last month that was held by an organization my husband works for. The first time I saw her, a wave of unexpected familiarity struck me hard. It was very strong, as if I had seen her before somewhere in the past, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember where and how. It’s true that I have seen her a lot on TV or in ads, but I felt like I had known her on a deeper, personal level. She seemed to feel the same way, she told me. In a strange way we clicked instantly, as if we were once childhood friends that went our separate ways in this vast world and were once again reunited somewhere along the meeting points of our lives.

That’s why I’d like to invite you for lunch, she said, there is something that I’d like to talk to you about.  

“Sometimes when I looked back into the past,” she started as we enjoyed our dessert. “I get this feeling that some events that I thought actually happened get intertwined with other false memories. It happens I such a way that when I try to recall something, the memory turns course like a lonely marble in a wooden maze, the kind of toy that children play with, you know? In my attempts to remember, that specific memory wobbles in and out, bumping against many irrelevant memories along the way. Some of which I have no idea whether they really took place or not, but the after-effects come out as real as the pain you feel when you prick yourself with a needle. Have you ever experienced such a thing before?” 

“No,” I shook my head. “But why do you ask?” 

“You see, there is this strange part of my life that I never told anyone before. Back then when I was in my early twenties I was in a relationship with this guy. As a young and inexperienced girl, I was head over heels about him and I was a hundred percent sure that he felt the same way I did. 

“What I can recall about those days are hazy now, but if I try hard, I can see some of those memories in sequences of still images. Him coming out of the bus. Us taking a quiet walk on the bridge at sunset. But of course, that happened so long ago it no longer bears any relevance to where I stand now.  

“Then one day he vanished. No explanations, no goodbyes, no nothing. Looking back at that time I was so foolish that I actually spent hours waiting outside his apartment, and back home I’d sit beside the phone waiting for it to ring. I held steadfastly tight to the thought that he was coming back. It was really a hard time for me. I kept thinking, what was the problem with me? What did I do wrong? These thoughts kept bothering me for a long time.” 

She took a sip of her tea and looked outside the window. A kite was flying aimlessly over the roof, as if searching for something that was not there. 

“Fast forward about eight years after he left. Life happened and I had completely forgotten about him. Until one night I had a strange dream.  

“In that dream I was standing at the bottom of a staircase. Everything around me seemed as real as reality itself. I could smell the pine trees somewhere around me and felt the chill of the wind on my bare skin, as I only had my pajamas on. There were no hints or clues that the staircase was a part of a house or a part of a building that I might know of or was familiar with. It was just a detached, stand-alone stairway that exist there in the heart of my dreamscape. I went up the stairs and once on top I saw that I was now standing in the middle of a hallway. There was a high window at the far end of the corridor, where the moonlight slipped in, dimly illuminating the long, still passageway. I walked toward the end of it. The moon was shining brighter now and I could see a door on the left side of the passageway. I turned the doorknob and slipped inside the room. I remained as quiet as I could. 

“The room was dark. It took me a time for my eyes to adjust to the dim darkness before me. A wardrobe. A window with its curtains drawn. A bed with two people sleeping in it.  

“I stepped closer to the bed. One of them was the man I used to love, the other was a woman, maybe his wife. Their soft, regular breathing seems to reverberate in the depth of the false night. I held my breath. Everything was so quiet that I could hear the clock ticking. I took a glance at it: a few minutes before two o’clock. 

“I stood there at the edge of the bed, doing nothing else except for standing there watching them sleep.  

“As the night wore on, I slipped out through the same door and went down the stairs.  

“I came again the next night. Then the night after. Then the night after that. 

“Before I knew it, I became used to the recurring dream. Every night a little while before two o’clock I found myself ascending the staircase, walked through the still hallway and stood there at the edge of their bed, watching them sleep. I watched their tiny movements. Their rhythmic breathings. Their facial expressions. Night by night I could sense that they grew restless in their sleep, as if deep down in their consciousness they knew someone was there, watching them. They would unconsciously toss around in their sleep. But still, they never really woke up. 

“It never occurred to me to do something that would wake them up. In these episodes I somehow knew perfectly well that I shouldn’t let them know that I was there. If I did, then the false reality around me would collapse, leading to a consequence I didn’t quite know what, but I knew well enough to avoid.  

“As they grew more agitated, I, on the other hand, felt refreshingly energized when I got up in the mornings.

“Then one day, without any warning or signs whatsoever, the dreams stopped. I never saw the staircase, the hallway, or the sleeping people again.” 

She stopped her story and sipped her tea again.  

“Then what happened after that?” I asked.  

“I forgot the whole ordeal and moved on with my life. The next year, I met Kevin. Two years after that we got married. If I think about it now, the dreams lasted every night from around February to September that year. Then they just stopped abruptly, leaving behind unanswered questions that I still have no answers for. Why him? I didn’t even have feelings for him anymore at that time. Like I said, I had completely forgotten about him when the dreams first started. Second, the dreams felt compellingly real and unavoidable. As if I had some preordained task I needed to finish. But to what end?” 

I had no answers to that, of course. At this point I was more confused than curious.  

“But why are you telling me this story now?” 

She smiled, a flash sparkled beautifully in her bright deep brown eyes. 

“Remember the gala where we met last month? I saw him there, too. It’s been more than 20 years after our last encounter in the dream, so it was a long time indeed. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, imagine that the man who stood there was the same man I was hopelessly in love with.”

I waited for her to continue.  

“And it was only yesterday, after some time thinking and remembering, I realized something. Guess what?” 

“What?” 

“The woman that I saw in my dreams? I think it was you.” 

I didn’t say anything. I was trying to recall, somewhat painfully, the last time I slept well. 

_________________________

Feliciana Elita Tjokro is an Indonesian writer. Her stories have previously appeared in The Jakarta Post.

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We are looking for contemporary fiction between 1,500 and 2,000 words by established and new authors. Stories must be original and previously unpublished in English.

The email for submitting stories is: shortstory@thejakartapost.com

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