A few weeks after he passed away,
Bartleby appeared in my dreams. He had never appeared to me like that before,
but at the same time his ways looked strangely familiar, so much that the dream
appeared to be reality. The dream I had was a really awkward one, so before I
tell you about it I’ll tell you first how I’ve passed my last weeks. When
Bartleby died in that prison room, I began feeling somewhat dazed and in a few
minutes my head was aching so much that I think I never felt so much pain in my
whole life. The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed. There
were two men wearing white dresses, whispering, but I wasn’t able to focus my
vision on them as I was still weak, and so I closed my eyes again and tried to
pay attention to what they were saying.
‘I think we should start giving him that
pill as soon as he wakes up’, said one of the doctors.
‘Why don’t we see how he’s feeling
first. Perhaps those things in his head won’t come back’, said the other.
At that moment, I must have made a noise
or a move, because their voices suddenly stopped, and I heard the door open and
close... and there was silence again. I remember trying to think about what
they were saying, but then darkness invaded my thoughts again, and I guess I
fell asleep once more. I remember dreaming about the office in Wall Street,
about Turkey and Nippers, and Ginger Nut bringing cookies. Bartleby wasn’t
there, but they were looking in the direction in which he usually stood. Then
they turned to me, and started talking to me, but I had this weird feeling that
although they were talking towards my direction, they weren’t really talking to
me, but to someone else. Then Ginger Nut offered me a cookie, and I heard
myself saying ‘I’d prefer not to’. They all looked at each other, and then
Turkey turned to Nippers and said ‘What a loony!’. And Nippers seemed to agree
with him, as he said ‘I think he’s going mad’. For the first time they seemed
to be in the same kind of mood.
I woke up screaming.
A door opened and a doctor approached
me. He opened my mouth, felt my heartbeat, measured my temperature and then
asked me, ‘What do you see?’.
‘A room and a man dressed in white’, I
answered.
‘You mean, another man dressed in white
besides me? Or is that me?’, he asked, with a slight look of worry that I
didn’t quite understand.
‘Is there any other man dressed in white
in this room besides you doctor? I don’t seem to see anyone else.’ I answered
in this matter of fact way, but I was a bit startled by his question. What the
hell was going on in here? ‘Is there anything wrong, doctor?’, I heard myself
asking.
‘Perhaps not, I was just making sure
that everything’s all right. But you slept for a long time and talked a lot
during your sleep. It was as if you were talking to someone who was here. So I
just wanted to make sure you were all right. You’ve had a bad fever and
sometimes people have some delusions. Your still slightly feverish but you
should be alright by tomorrow. Here, take this.’ He gave me a pill. I took it,
and went back to sleep.
The next day I was out and had two boxes
of pills for my headaches. I was to come back to the hospital when my pills
were over. But I didn’t. As a matter of fact, I took the pills for one week
only, but then I stopped, because I wasn’t feeling any headaches anymore and
those pills were making me feel imprisoned inside my head. On Wednesday, one
day after I stopped taking the drugs that the doctors had given me, I went back
to my offices and was surprised to see that no one was there. The offices were
empty, as if none of my employers had ever set foot in there. Amazed, I decided
I should go back to Wall Street, see if my employers had returned there. But as
I was walking toward the bus stop, I started feeling very tired and sleepy at
once. I thought it might be because of the medication I had been taking and
decided to go home for a rest before I went to the office. As soon as I sat in
my couch, I fell asleep. And this was when Bartleby appeared in my dream. I was
sitting at my desk, in my Wall Street office, and I was alone. The only thing I
noticed was that my shadow was bigger than usual, and went from my desk to the
window where Bartleby would be standing on his free time. Then, I looked more
attentively at the shadow. It wasn’t a normal shadow. I was sitting in my desk,
but the shadow had the form of a
figure standing up. It couldn’t be me. Then I looked up again, and there
was a figure standing at the entrance of my office. I recognized Bartleby
almost immediately, only he was looking fitter than he used to. I also noticed
my shadow had gone, it was just me and him. I tried to get closer to him, but
it was as if his silhouette wouldn’t let me approach it. The closer I came to
it, the more distanced it seemed. Then a voice said ‘Don’t get close to me,
I’ve already disturbed you enough’. It was Bartleby’s voice. I wanted to cry
‘Why did you go away, why did you let yourself go?’.
For a moment, there was silence, and I
thought he was gone. He wasn’t there anymore, physically, at least. But I felt
his presence. And I heard his voice once again. ‘Don’t go back to Wall Street,
you don’t belong there. You’re not destined to stay there, you’re bigger than
that. If you go back, I’ll never be able to go away, don’t you understand?’.
As I think about these words today, I
find them absolutely weird, but in that moment, or in that dream, they
completely made sense to me. I answered ‘How didn’t I understand this before?
Of course I can’t go back. I’m sick of that world. You were the only true
person I’ve met there in years’. I heard his voice once again, this time it
seemed to come from inside my head. ‘I’m you. I’m your creation. You wanted me
to come to you, that’s why I came. But you won’t need me anymore after this,
because my mission is over. I’m your salvation, but if I stay too long you will
go insane. I’m just your will to be free. Leave the offices, never go back, and
let me go back to where I belong.’
‘But, wait!! WAIT!! Don’t go yet. Where
do you belong, tell me?’ At that moment I knew I my consciousness was coming
back, I was about to wake up. But still heard his voice, saying ‘In your
unconsciousness, I’m your desire to be free. That’s why I have to go, you’re
free now!’.
And suddenly I understood everything.
‘Thank you, Bartleby, my poet, my saviour!’
No comments:
Post a Comment