When I finally slept, and a few hours had passed, the nightmare returned. I had ducked it successfully for almost two weeks, but it happened that night. In that horror that is so real I can hear the freezing Arctic wind slashing at the bedroom windowpanes. I groan and pull the blankets tightly around me. There is a woman lying beside me—dead. The frozen north winds roar steadily while whipping the empty streets and house roofs with an unrelenting barrage of stinging ice pellets.
The woman beside me is my wife. She is the woman I loved when I was younger and who I married when it seemed the right thing to do. On that frozen morning, I realize that our life together has changed. My perceptions about living and people are different from the ones that we had shared when we were younger. We have changed—not in a bad way or a good way—just changed. She has become someone who I no longer really know or understand. Yes, we live in the same space and often sleep in the same bed, but somehow, through the years, our once exciting and growing intimacy has dwindled. We have slowly but inexorably grown apart. We have become a habit.
Flash to a dark night and a convenience store parking lot. I am off duty when I respond to a “shots fired” call. The two responding uniforms are down when I get there. I am in a running gunfight with the two guys who have just stuck up the store—not their first by a long shot. They are armed with a sawed off, double barrel, Winchester sixteen-gauge shotgun and a cut down, Marlin Model 990, semi- automatic twenty- two-caliber rifle. They are young, reckless—high on crack. Shots are fired and returned. When it’s over both of them are lying lifeless on the garbage strewn surface of the parking lot. I am propped stupidly against the wall of the store. My empty, standard issue, Glock 27 is still grasped loosely in my numb hand. Just before I black out, I remember wondering where all this blood is coming from.
Blend into the ambulance guys telling me to hold on and then the blinding overhead lights of an operating room. I see blurred shapes hovering. I hear voices. One is female the other male. The male is severe as he loudly gives instructions. The language is almost foreign but I hear that I’ve been hit three times. The kid with the twenty-two had hit me twice in the knee area and again in the shoulder. The guy with the shotgun had sprinkled enough buckshot through my anatomy that the doctor says that he has taken enough metal out of me to start a lead re-cycling business. There is a sprinkle of laughter and then again—everything goes black.
Flash to a hospital bed. A high ranking uniformed police officer informs me that I am about to become the recipient of the police department’s medal of valour for exceptional service in the line of duty. I should be proud. Then I’m reading a letter notifying me formally that my injuries are of a nature that I am no longer fit enough to be an active police officer. Following the award ceremony, I can retire and start to receive my disability pension. Oh yes, and I have the sincere good wishes of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Department. Frank is laughing crazily. And then there is a fiery explosion. I wake up trembling.
The dream is real and only five years old. And I’m tired of it, but it won’t let go.
The Next Day—We Take A Drive