Disclaimer: Sandman and all characters and the world contained therein belong to Neil Gaiman. I am making no monetary profit off of this.
I went for my drink today. My centennial drink--same time, same day, same place, every hundred years. And this time I think I drank alone.
It's funny, the things you learn in immortal life. I was in a car wreck, towards the beginning of this century--although of course I lived when I shouldn't have, though my girlfriend didn't. I felt guilty. We hadn't been close, and I didn't love her, not yet, but it almost made it worse. After all, I still lived.
I still live.
I only really accepted the changes upstairs, if you'd like to call it that, after that crash. I mean, I only saw the guy every hundred years, and I never really knew who he was. He didn't tell me--not the talkative sort, if you know what I mean. I told him about the smell--maybe for him a few years is like two weeks? I mean, people die. I know that better than anyone. It's how I met him. But I remember after the crash but before I woke up, I dreamed. And that was the first time I got a proper introduction to Dream of the Endless.
He's a nice kid. A really decent kid. But you can tell, if you knew what his dad was like--or whatever he was--that he's still new on the job. Hah. There's a laugh--me, telling someone who is (somehow, in some way I don't understand) the same guy who told me I would never die how to do his job. He wouldn't have really looked that much different if it weren't for the change of colour scheme. That's still a little disconcerting. But his eyes are the same: dark, unreadable, and disconcerting as all hell. But he smiled, and welcomed me, and when I asked him what in god's name was going on, he actually told me.
I think that's when I knew he wouldn't be coming for a drink this time. I said it, too. "So, I guess I'm having a drink alone in a few dozen more years."
I can come if you'd like.
I waved him off. "I'd hardly want to trouble you--this place looks like it needed patching up. Idiot," I said with a snort. "I told him so. I'd've like to tell him I told him so. Death's a mug's game. What's he doing playing around with it? And after I told him, too."
Yes.
I guess some things never change.
Some things do, though. He stopped by one day. He said he wanted to see some of life, and some brother or sister or other had told him to stick to what he knew. I think. No, that's not quite right. He said he'd gone looking for advice, and one had told him he needed to learn what life was about, and one had told him to see the future he had to know the past. So he came to me. And all I can say is... nice kid. He even paid for the beer. Gives him points in my book any day, and I told him so. He smiled.
I wonder if my brother will agree with you.
He still doesn't make sense.
It's not a set day, now. He just stops by for a drink or a chat while doing the rounds. He says his sister told him that, too. There's always time to talk to people on the job. I'm guessing it was the girl who told me he was gone in the first place. Morpheus, she called him. They're both Dream, according to the kid--he said to call him Daniel if it got too confusing for me. He was here just last week, in fact. I asked him to do me a favour and keep little Aislin's nightmares away. The poor girl had been crying for weeks. Dream said he would. He sounded disapproving. See, before I would have found that
frightening. It's almost sweet, from this kid. Like I said, really decent sort. Just a really nice kid, with his heart in the right place.
But today was the day, and so I went for my drink. Same time, same day, same place--and I started to drink. And here I am, still drinking, and the bastard's late. I thought was the last time, too. I'm his friend and what does he do? Stand me up. Of course he does, and after he was the one who made the damn arrangement in the first place.
I'm shocked humanity hasn't destroyed itself yet. It's 2089 and we're still strollin' on, would you believe it? We've even gotten somewhere, I guess. It's 2089, and I'm still here drinking, waiting. I didn't know till Dream--Daniel, whatever--told me that he shouldn't have been able to make our last meeting. Or not him. Whatever. It doesn't matter anymore. What matters is that I need another beer. You'd think that if I can't die I might be spared some things. But I still get hungry, I still get sick--and I still get hangovers. My wife's gonna kill me in the morning, figuratively speaking of course. I thought I was a lot drunker than this, though. Come to think of it, I thought I'd gone home and slurred to my wife that I was mourning for a friend. Then I see movement out of the corner of my eye as someone sits down.
Dark mead for my friend and I, he says in that quiet voice of his.
"God, I haven't had a good mead in a couple centuries. It'll do me a good turn, especially with that new-fangled technology I've been trying to sell lately..."
I trust life has treated you well, then, since we last met?
"It's always got its moments. Missed Audrey for a few years, tried to move on and lost her before I even began... but life goes on, hey? Or it does for me." I take a swig of my mead, and it tastes good. It tastes like life. "But Kate and I are happy, especially with a little boy on the way and our little Aislin."
I appreciate the name.
"Huh?" But he doesn't answer. "Y'know, I really didn't think you'd make it this time. What are you doing here, anyway?"
I believe I said, once, that I'd heard it is considered impolite to keep friends waiting, and I didn't inform you I might miss this one.
"Still. Bit of a surprise and all. Mainly seeing as you're dead."
Would I be here if I were dead? He seems vaguely amused, and for a moment I wonder if I see the flash of an emerald or a streak of white hair, but then hey, I'm pretty damn drunk.
"I've dreamed about dead people before." I pause. "What am I doing telling you that? You already know."
Naturally.
He still hasn't answered the question, but I don't seem to really realize it, or care. "Seeing as your sister's Death and she told me you're dead, and I assume she knows what she's talking about, and that nice kid's keeping the shop, you're dead. And shouldn't be here."
Hmm.
"And you know what? I told you so. I told you you smelled like death, and I was right. You learn things, in immortal life. And I told you so."
Indeed.
"You take a lot of the satisfaction out of saying that. Bastard." He knows it's a joke, which is good. I don't want to piss this guy off. He just smiles faintly, ironically, the kind that makes me wonder how many women tried to slap that smile off his face. "Seriously, man, you're dead. Long dead. What're you doing here?"
You ask the King of Dreams why he exists in a dream?
"Yeah, but you're not. The kid is."
I am Dream.
"You're a lunatic, y'know that?" Again, the smile, and I call for another drink. He hasn't touched his. He could pretend, at least.
I have much to do, I am afraid. I must apologize for my haste. In a hundred years, Hob Gadling.
And he stands, and is gone--and I wake. With a pounding headache, of course. But Kate's not awake to scold me yet.
But I remember my dream. And the bastard's dead--and the kid and I already had the talk about coming to that drink. And then I seem to hear a quiet whisper, almost carrying the image of that ironic smile. The Dreamlord always keeps his word. And I glance out the window, and I swear for a moment I see a star glimmer brightly, almost in amusement, and then it's gone.
And I smile, and start to swing out of bed before my hangover reasserts itself, and my curse wakes my wife. But I don't even hear her good-natured scolding. All I can think is, ninety-nine years, three hundred sixty four days to go.
And I just know he'll be there.