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Sunday - Signifying Something - Will M.

“You’re late.”

Normally this would be a running joke between Quinn and Jason, but Quinn was so rattled, he took it at face value.

“I know. I know.  Not a good night.”

“You didn’t hook up with some chick into domination did you?”

“Nah.  Just didn’t sleep well.”

And that was the extent of the conversation they’d have on the subject.  The dream had been far to real, and shook him up in far too many ways for Quinn to be anything remotely close to unpacking it and actually talking to anyone—even Jason—about it.

Quinn dreamt on a regular basis, but largely he either barely remembered his dreams or they were garden-variety mental cleaning: surreal regurgitations of whatever’d been on his mind that day, occasionally mixed in with famous folks from whatever he’d watched on TV or read about on line.

The previous night’s dream couldn’t be called “bad” as it didn’t come close to nightmare-territory—thinking back, Quinn could barely even remember any swears.  It could’ve aired in primetime and the censors wouldn’t have batted an eye at it.  The discomfiting thing was the realism of the dream.  “Lucid” was what Quinn wanted to call it, but Wikipedia disagreed with that usage.  Most of the regular dreams Quinn had he was sure were dreams.  Last night’s: not so much.  Not obviously a dream.  Very, very realistic.  Oh, and it took place at a dinner party (any occasion beyond that was unclear) at Kayleigh’s house.

Kayleigh: the would-be love of Quinn’s life. Kayleigh, who Quinn had not seen nor heard from in two years, who had moved to Manhattan and broke all ties.

Only it wasn’t her old house.  It was a similar style: it was loft-like, but not a high-rise.  There was lots of exposed brick, and it was far larger than her old place.  There was a bar, and a large outdoor patio area, with LED lights strung around, illuminating the woods that apparently surrounded the place.

Quinn didn’t recognize most of the people at the party, but he was sure it was a party of some sort.  Not a formal thing, but there were a few ties, and some cocktail dresses.  Not a college party for certain.  The dream went on for a while with Quinn making small talk (well, he though it was small talk, sitting at his desk remembering it) with these random folks until he saw Kayleigh.  She was organizing some sort of party game, so Quinn went over to investigate.

“Ok, this game, it’ll be a cleansing thing for all of us,” said the dream-Kayleigh.

As Quinn walked over, she looked right at him in explaining the rest of the rules.

“We’re going to take turns saying some of our worst qualities in relationships.  So if you’re dishonest, if you can’t open up when it counts,” looking right at him now, “say it now, get it out now: don’t wait until it’s too late.”

Quinn expected almost to find a cold sweat when he woke up after that.  Quinn didn’t want to believe in things like fate, but having a dream like that, less than a week after the surreal hookup with Kaylee, was quickly converting him to the idea of Kismet.