The following is an account of a gathering of the VIV writing collective. All names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.
Day 4
The next day, I was up early and made french toast, eggs and smoothies for everyone. We didn’t have any plans for the day, we mostly wanted to finalize story assignments for future issues of This and Other Things, and I suspected that a lot of the conversation that morning and afternoon would be about the strange dreams some of us had been having. I was eager for everyone to wake up so I could hear if Gabby had any dreams. I hadn’t and as far as I know, Hallie still hadn’t eaten any of the rarebit, so I didn’t expect for her to have a dream about the black figure.
Before everyone woke up, I made a phone call. There was someone else we’d all expected to arrive that night for dinner, and to stay through our last day and night.
“It’s so funny you called, I was actually heading up early. I’m like an hour away. My girlfriend and my son couldn’t make it so I decided to leave earlier.”
I was happy to hear that Max, also known as the Rebel, was about to arrive at the summit and I was curious what his thoughts would be about what was happening. Part of me wanted to use Max as a control. If he arrived at the house and we all agreed not to speak about the rarebit or the dreams that were had so far, would he have a dream if he ate the rarebit? Would the black figure appear to him?
Gabby was the first one to come down and I was sitting on the couch in the living room.
“Did you have a dream?” I asked her eagerly.
She sipped from my coffee mug when she sat and she nodded at me with a look of frustration on her face.
“It wasn’t that bad, but I hate having creepy dreams. I woke up in the middle of the night and I was so scared that I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. I was going to get up and watch tv, but I fell asleep. I did sleep like a baby after that.”
“What was the dream?” I asked, but then I thought better of it. “Just tell everyone over dinner so you don’t have to keep telling it over and over again. Just tell me, was the black figure there?”
Gabby nodded slowly.
I told her about Max, that he’d arrive any minute and about my experiment.
“Is it ethically wrong to experiment on your friends?” I asked, only half joking.
Gabby took a moment to process it all and then said thoughtfully, “I mean, it’s a good question. Maybe you telling us about the rarebit nightmare thing, and then Angie telling everyone about her dream planted the seeds for all of this weirdness. And it’s not a dangerous experiment. He’s lucky there’s still some of that rarebit left. It’s delicious.”
We decided that Max should be our control, and we discussed it with everyone else over breakfast before Max arrived.
“I can’t wait until dinner,” Noah said to Gabby, “we’re all here now. Tell us about the dream you had.”
Everyone agreed with Noah and Gabby took a deep breath.
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