In the explosion, he didn't see his life flashing before his eyes. He didn't have some meaningful last thought like his last words were. He didn't see the light, he didn't hear a voice, didn't feel God's hand wrapping around him like a forgiving vice to pull his soul away. He felt the fire like his body was incinerated to the marrow, felt Rose's hand slip out of his. He heard only the vast explosion, saw only green. Tasted green, felt green. It burned so bad.
And then nothing hurt. It was just dark.
"What do you think?"
"Honestly? It may not be exactly what you want to hear, but I believe Dave has a point."
Rose sighed and looked up at the ceiling. It was patterned with little swirls of millions of dots; during silences in her appointments she'd often found herself looking up and imagining she saw various Eldritch creatures within them. Her therapist, Dr. Scratch, was an understanding man who was excellent at his job, knowing the way almost every mind worked. She'd seen him in her dreams, too, but in a different form. He never made her talk if she didn't want to, but somehow she always ended up spilling one way or another.
"Perhaps you should start taking your dreams more literally. You're a smart girl, and I think that if anyone can shed light on these things it's you. What is it that makes you so afraid to accept what he's saying, or even take it into consideration?"
She leaned back on the couch, violet eyes falling to her lap. What was the answer to that, she wondered? Why did she hate the idea? She thought about her dreams, about her death, about long expanses of time and explosions and blood. About her mother, then, and about graduating early and having such a 'bright future' ahead.
"Because," she found herself answering, "I don't want to learn that everything in this life is just the product of another." The words were just flowing out of her mouth now, as if streaming directly from her subconscious. "I don't want this to be the second try or to find out that I made promises in some other life, where I was different, that I can't fulfill. I'm not her, I don't think. Your experiences shape who you are."
Scratch sat in his chair after that, just the same as he always did. The lines on his face gave no indication to whether they were caused by smiling or perhaps by scowling. Rose had always found herself wondering what color his hair had been before it went white with age; she couldn't imagine him any way other than the way he was now. As though even as a child he'd had a face set with wrinkles and hair white as fallen snow.
Rose waited momentarily to see if he would say anything. Normally he didn't, and if he did it always came almost immediately, like he'd known exactly what he'd say for the past hour and was just waiting for her to let him say it. But his silence was always intent to keep Rose talking, to promote thoughts to flow naturally into one another. She let out a soft sigh.
"Back on the subject of my dreams," she started, "I believe it's just inherently hard to take something so nonsensical seriously. The mechanics make sense, really, but the main villain of my dreams is a three-legged, bipedal, carapacian dog creature with one wing, who is also omnipotent. And then there are… timelines, deaths, so much symbolism I could fill a landfill with notes – incidentally, you ought to add a recycle bin to your office – …"
The man gave a slight, knowing smile, standing from his spot to approach the bookshelves that lined the walls around his mahogany desk (at which he only rarely sat). "There is an author I adore, who once said that you have to look at a bigger picture, although it's hard to see." He pulled down a huge tome with what appeared to be very little effort despite his age and tiny stature, long fingers behind white gloves finding just the exact page he needed, as though by magic.
"She wrote that you must see beyond this universe and the next and see there are thousands of very sheer copies, doomed ones perhaps, and in every single one just one different thing happened; a butterfly was swept in the opposite direction fifteen years ago, and now there's a woman for president in that one. We are the bacteria under the microscope; we cannot see the bigger things looking down upon us, so we must create their visage best as we can in our mind's eye and understand that they are there. That there is more. We must keep our minds open to these possibilities. We must keep our minds open, to realize the preposterous is probable in this part of the paradox we live in."
Rose took a long moment to process all of that. The preposterous is probable in this part of the paradox. What a cute little alliteration, she thought to herself, wondering if the author had put that in with a gentle smile on her wise face, hoping someone else might notice such a detail. "She sounds like quite an author," she said finally, looking at the tome, trying to discern a name on the spine. As if noticing her efforts, Scratch closed the book with a slight puff of dust and replaced it on the shelf.
"She is," he answered in return, that knowing smile still on his lips. "One day I'm certain you'll meet her. Your paths are more or less destined to cross."
He returned to the armchair across from the couch where Rose was sitting, her knees up to her chest. She played with her sleeve, then looked at her therapist with expectant eyes. "So, what should I do now?"
"Your homework," he started, "is to try to understand a world in which your dreams will sew themselves together seamlessly, and perhaps also understand that this world may have existed at one point in time. As a writer, I know you can accomplish this."
Rose took a moment to look away, then looked back. "And what'll I do with Dave?"
"I cannot predict what you'll do, or want to do. I can only tell you what I've observed and give you suggestions."
"What do you suggest, then?"
"Honestly, Rose. Ask him to lunch. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Enjoy yourself, primarily. You don't have so much down time and you ought to stop being so very tense over situations that don't require it. Now shoo. Your appointment is over."
She glanced over at the clock, and certainly enough it was time for her to be going. Right on the dot, as always, though it often felt like hours spent in her appointments. Sometimes it just seemed as though time passed at different rates in there.
"Goodbye, Scratch."
"See you next time, Rose.
