Waltz of Her Life

Mark, a pleasantly scruffy guy her age wearing a beach bum t-shirt waved a hand dismissively, showing her a warm smile to go with his good looks and perfectly coiffed hair. "Don't worry about it," he said. "They don't expect much the first night, since you're getting comfortable with the lab, the masks and the sensors. You did fine, trust me."

She shrugged and walked across campus to the dining hall. Later that afternoon, she realized she hadn't spoken with Lauren since the Sunday morning after her party. The mess and her roommate's scolding attitude had bothered her, but Lauren shouldn't have to suffer for that. And she wanted to tell her all about the new job.

"Oneironaut?" Lauren repeated that night when Linda called her. "What the fuck is that? It sounds like Marvin the Martian or something."

"It's someone who lucid dreams," Linda explained. She described the process of being aware while dreaming and how they were field testing the sleep mask with the firing light bulbs.

"My dreams are so frigging weird. One time I dreamt I was making out with one of my old friends from high school."

"That sounds pretty nice," Linda said.

"It was a girl, ding-dong!" Lauren bellowed. "That freaked me out for days. I ain't no lesbo."

"That probably doesn't mean anything," Linda told her. "You could have dreamt about your friend just because you were thinking about her."

"Well, why would I dream about swapping spit with her, then?"

Linda grimaced, said the word "Ugh," and wondered why her friend sunk to the basest levels sometimes. "Just because you dreamt about kissing one of your friends, who's a girl, it doesn't mean you're gay. If it makes you feel any better, I've had one or two of those kinds of dreams, too."

Lauren laughed. "Miss wholesome, getting freaky. Was it me?"

"No." She made plans to come over the next week, after she got paid. "Would you guys let me cook something over there, if I bought it?"

"If you let us eat it, yeah."

That weekend at the library, she read about the world of dreaming, between her regular studying. Some books served as an encyclopedia about the meanings of certain dream elements or symbols. Some proposed theories about different types of dreams. One theory which intrigued her was the one that discussed how dreams could help heal the physical body. She thought about the patients at the Oncology center. She'd often overheard Jenny and the other nurses say to patients "You have to decide you don't want the disease."