"Could I be dreaming?" he asked himself before noticing, almost immediately after, that he spoke aloud. Even his own voice seemed distant and dreamlike. He then noticed people staring and whispering, and as how nothing seemed real, he paid no heed and re-fixed his gaze upon the painting that he had not yet noticed that he had been staring at. It was a magnificent piece that depicted what appeared to be electric palm fronds amidst a sea of blood. Gunnar, at this point, realized that he must be awake, for he could never imagine such a beautiful painting. His mind simply didn't work that way.

"Do you like it?" a woman's voice was asking him.

"Oh! Professor Means! I didn't see you there," he responded.

"Are you okay, Gunnar?" she asked.

"I don't know. I fell a bit strange." Gunnar then paused, shook his head, and then continued on. "What were you saying before?"

"I was asking if you liked the painting. It was left in the rotunda yesterday."

"Yes, it… it's amazing," he said just as his eyes once again locked onto the piece. The professor smiled at him, turned, looked over her shoulder, and then walked away. Gunnar had already forgotten and remembered the conversation before she was even out of sight. His gaze was broken just moments later when the alarm on his wristwatch sounded. He started across the rotunda, continued down the hall, and turned to enter room number 714, but he found the door to be locked when he tried the knob. There was a note fixed to the window that said that Professor Reagan's sociology class would be cancelled for the day. He decided that he should return to his dorm room and sleep off this strange state that he was in.

Nearly every time Gunnar would drift off, he would be suddenly awakened by a remembered spoken word that would come to his mind as sharply and loudly as a gunshot. Strangely enough, these words would hold more substance in a flash of memory than when they had fallen on his ears for the first time. Once this subsided, he finally fell into a deep sleep where he dreamt of the painting. In his dream, the objects that resembled electric palm fronds seemed to dance. They seemed to have some knowledge of some importance that they were aching to share with the sleeping man. The sea of blood was ebbing and flowing under his feet, yet he did not come to float upon it via a raft or boat. As he maintained his place floating atop that sea of life essence, watching the dancing objects, he entertained the thought that the somnambulant state that had been in, and the daze that the painting seemed to draw from him, must have had some deep meaning that he was yet to understand. Upon his waking, he thought it strange that he could come to such a meaningful conclusion while in the grips of such a deep sleep and odd dreams. He also thought it odd that he remembered speaking to a Professor Means earlier in the day, seeing how he did not know a Professor Means, nor did he even recall anyone at the university by that name. He did, however, distinctly remember speaking to her and knowing exactly who she was. He also remembered her smile, yet knew that he wasn't looking at her when she smiled at him before her departure. This was very odd, indeed.

The time was 9:12 PM, and it was nearly time for his science lab, so Gunnar got out of bed and went into the bathroom to have a gander at himself in the mirror. He needed not get dressed, because he took his nap still clothed and his garments were still unwrinkled and smelled quite fresh. Apparently, his hair was suitable for the public eye also, still well oiled and looking sharp.

Gunnar began his trek across campus, and when he approached the quad, he saw a group of kids sitting around one of the hills with candles lit. To him, this just appeared to be some dreamlike occurrence, and so he continued on. He approached the science building and drew the door open. There, he spotted strange lights in the air about the rotunda. He marveled at the shimmering, laughing tadpoles that zoomed through the air in a manner that was similar to a game of tag. After a few moments of witnessing the strange sight, he shrugged it off as some sort of delusion caused by whatever sickness had stricken him earlier in the day.

He approached the door to the lab and another note caught his eye. It stated that Professor Glenn's forensics lab was cancelled for the day. There would be a make-up lab the following Tuesday.

"What is going on in this place?" Gunnar thought to himself. He shrugged and started to go back down the hallway. Just before he entered the rotunda, he stopped to think about what he had seen there just moments earlier. He remembered those shimmering electric blue tadpole-like organisms that seemed to swim through the air, took a deep breath, and moved through the large double doors that led into the rotunda. Just as he got midway through as he headed toward the doors that went back out into the quad, one out the things stopped just in front of his face, jittered in the air for a moment, giggled, and jetted away.

Gunnar was terrified by this for some unknown reason, and so found his legs starting to run while his mind was still back there in the rotunda. He started across the quad, continued on through the group of students with the candles, and across campus. He had made it almost all the way to his dorm hall when he encountered Professor Means for the second time. She looked a little less happy than she did during the first encounter.

"What are you running from, Gunnar?" she asked,

"There are strange things in the science building. They shake and they laugh and jitter through the air like tadpoles. One of them stopped and laughed in my face as if it knew something that I didn't."

"Of course it did! It knew a lot of things that you don't know. You will soon enough, though. Either way, don’t go worrying yourself over those little guys. They can't hurt you," she assured the frightened young man. He looked upon her and his face must have shown that he was quite confused. "You will have the answer as to who I am very soon, as well. Just be patient."

Gunnar looked down at his feet to take in the words that the woman had just spoken. When he looked back up, he started to nod in agreement but she was not there. He wondered if he had been imagining these encounters the whole time. Just as this very thought crossed his mind, he wondered if he should return to the psychology hall. Perhaps some sort of answer could be found in that painting. Perhaps those fronds may be able to tell him in the real world what they couldn't in his dreams.

Gunnar then turned around and made his way back to the quad. He saw the kids still sitting around the hill and found it a bit odd that they said nothing to him. He approached them to apologize. As he stood there waiting form one of them to look at him, he saw how sad they looked.

"Excuse me," he said in attempt to draw their attention. One of the girls in the group glanced over her shoulder in his general direction and shuddered a bit. He continued to speak. "I just wanted to apologize for my rudeness earlier."

As he continued on with his apology, one of the guys started talking about some accident that had occurred on campus. Gunnar thought it very rude for the fellow to have cut him off in the middle of an apology and so left them alone. He continued on across the quad and to the psychology building where, just outside the main door, he was overcome by a terrible sense of dread. He had no idea what could be the source. He opened the doors and went on in.

He approached the painting where he fixed that gaze that he had remembered bringing so much comfort just hours prior, but this time found only sorrow. The fronds seemed to glow a little brighter, and he could almost see the sea of blood rippling. Memories of the day had bombarded him at an overwhelming rate. He recalled the jittering things from the science building, Professor Means, and the kids in the quad. A new memory came into play here, as well. He remembered hearing one of the kids say something about the wind blowing out his candle and the others laughing at him claiming that there was never any gust.

Gunnar then found himself, once again, inside the painting. The palm fronds dancing around him and the sea of blood ebbing and flowing beneath his feet, he stood in awe as one of the familiar tadpoles jittered up to him. He was curious as to the creature's presence in the painting when he heard the voice of Professor Means coming from what seemed to be the air about him.

"I am here with you, Gunnar. You are not dreaming, and you are not hallucinating. Everything you see about you is more real than everything you had seen before today. Who I am is of no significance to you or what is happening. I was just in your position in the very same spot, so I felt it the right thing to do to try and guide you through this day. I've led you here so that you could find all the answers on your own. Good luck to you and don't look back."

Just after these last words were spoken, Gunnar found himself standing in the rotunda just as normal, staring at the painting. He looked down to the lower section of the frame to see a little plate, where engraved were the words, "In Loving Memory of Gunnar Hilligross."

©2005 Michael McGouirk

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