Dreaming
John doesn't dream too much now. He used to dream a lot when he was younger. When he got older he didn't do so as much. Not that he had nothing to dream about it was that he got too busy. After working hard all day he'd be so tired that as soon as he lie down to rest he was out cold for the night.
But years earlier when things were starting to pick up John always went to sleep with thoughts about Jill, Gideon, starting his housing project and living the perfect life. In those dreams he and Jill would be taking care of Gideon and constantly competing to see if their son would say "Mama" or "Dada" first. Jill always won. He wanted her to. Also his name would be all over the city for providing affordable apartments and getting a lot of people off of the street.
When John was a young adult he thought about his career, making it through college, finding the right girl and moving into his own apartment. When he was a teenager he dreamt much like a teenage boy would. He thought about girls and being a rock and roll star. At that he time he didn't have much going for him. When John was five he vividly remembers dreaming about being a cowboy like the Lone Ranger.
Sometimes John still daydreamed about being a cowboy. It was his little way of reliving his youth with new details to match his current fantasy. Needless to say John was the hero of the town. Jill was his lovely wife and Gideon was his eager young son that wanted to be just like his father. Zep was John's trusty sidekick and Amanda found her way as a town sheriff and a part time saloon waitress. Lawrence Gordon and Lynn Denlon often were the villains acting with the main villain of John's dreams, his cancer.
Always in the dream John would be doing just fine jailing the bad guys in town until the cancer showed up. It always seemed unbeatable. John would fight hard but he always lost. Then in the heat of the final showdown John would be close to death when he realizes he isn't fighting alone. He has Jill, Zep, Amanda and Gideon fighting with him. (Although John would never let his little boy Gideon fight; he was mainly the cheering squad.) Then the four of them would overcome the cancer and everything would be right again. After pats on the back, a kiss from his wife and a "Way to go, Daddy!" from his son the dream would end. A perfect ending.
When John returned to reality he'd hate it. He'd wake up cold, lying on a cot, in an abandoned factory. Amanda would be there asleep in a book. At that time every truth hit him hard. Amanda wasn't a sheriff or a saloon waitress. She was his struggling protégé. Zep had been gone for several months along with Dr. Gordon. Lynn was still working and giving bad news to temporarily hopeful patients. Jill had divorced him. He still had cancer and worst of all Gideon was never born.
John doesn't dream too much now. He doesn't want to. He doesn't like the idea of going to sleep and living perfectly only to wake up in the morning and realize that it would never happen. It was torture, the worst kind in the world. Worst than anything he could ever come up with. John's work was to teach people the value of life that came first, always. But part of him, a tiny part, wanted to torture the subjects because they could have the perfect life he would never have.