Well, it's not the first time I started off alone, I guess Haruna will join me soon.
"You're not alone, not in the traditional sense at least," a voice, no, my voice boomed out.
I turned around. On the opposite side of the bed is a man in a brown fedora and trench coat with dark shades, like one of those stereotypical secret agents.
"I know what you're thinking," he interrupts my train of thought, "I don't believe I need an introduction."
"You're him, aren't you, that guy from that dream."
"Yes and no; think of me as His messenger," he says with special emphasis on 'His'.
He paces towards me, the room disappearing behind him, the discrete objects blending into a white void. He snaps his fingers, and I am now in my uniform. He passses by me and opens my room door. It no longer leads to my living room, instead it is now the entry way to a seemingly infinite hallway lined with doors. With a slight tilt of his head, he beckons me to follow him.
What other choice do I have? The room disappears behind the two of us as the door closes. I walk a few steps forward before taking a glance over my shoulder. The door itself had already disappeared, and in its place is the inifinite hallway. Well, I guess the only way to go is forward. As I walk past the doors I notice each of them has their own nameplate, YanHaru with a series of numbers and letters seperated by dashes, none of them in any specific order.
Curious. I walk along with my hands casually in my pockets, looking at the numbers as I pass by to see if there is any overaching pattern, when something obvious came to my attention.
"Hey, where is Haruna? From how I know the pills work, she is supposed to be somewhere nearby."
"She is just fine, she knows where you are and is waiting patiently. It took a while to convince her to let me speak to you directly, something about her liking the status quo. I'm not too sure what caused her to just come around, but I guess she decided it is time that you know the truth," he spoke quite nonchalantly.
"Hold up, you mean she is seeing Him," I feel something defensive inside me clawing its way forth.
"You misunderstand, she understands both of your happiness requires you to believe that you are the sole arbiter of your own destiny, when in reality the both of you are following a script, and in a way, I am too," he ends off with an amused chuckle. "But to address your more immediate concerns, your Haruna loves you, your Haruna loves only your version of you, and your Haruna is, has been, and will always be loyal only to your version of you."
"Versions of me?"
"I jumped the gun a bit on that one, but yes, you will learn soon enough. Today's lesson however is about these doors," he gestures with his hand. "Pick a door, any door."
I stop to glance around. All the doors might as well be the same at this point. I turn to the one to my right.
"Ah, YanHaru-31-546865-486172756e61-556c74696d6174756d. Not my first choice, but a decent one nonetheless," he drones without as much as a peek over his shoulder. "Open it"
I gently open the door. What greets me is another infinite hallway, itself lined with doors.
"Think of the process of creation. You start with the basics, and then you build up upon that by adding layers of detail until you are satisfied with the outcome. You can go down that hallway and open any of the doors and you will see the same thing. It does come to an end, only when you choose for that to be the end. The question then becomes how far do you want to go before you reach the end that you want. I cannot answer that; I don't think even He is able to answer that. There can be problems if you go too far or not far enough, but I am confident that if you let your heart decide, you will be satisfied with the outcome nonetheless."
"Okay...so how does that relate to anything?" I ask with skepticism.
"My good man, I know you know the answer already. He may have a certain set of paths and doors that He would like for you to open, and there is a good chance you follow them to the T, but at the same time you have the choice to do what you want, and to Him, that is alright."
"Right..." I am still not thoroughly convinced.
"Look, we both know it is a metaphor for something. I can't share too much more. If it is Haruna you are concerned about I can assure you that when you truly believe you have gone far enough, you will meet her waiting for you behind one of the doors. If I recall correctly she would have set up that dream state to have the two of you watching the first time you two made love on the night of that Christmas party. You two would then have lovey-dovey sex in the dream state before it devolves into hard fucking, which is sort of how it went back then, which would then result in you two waking up and continuing. Urgh, I said too much," he says impatiently as he shoves me into that door, slamming it shut behind me.
I turn around wanting to give him an earful, but the door is already gone, with an infinite hallway in both directions. I begin walking around and going through doors, initially for the sake of opening them and getting nothing over and over. I get annoyed at the dreamtime I am burning as the nameplates of the doors blur together.
Obviously this isn't working. I take a deep breath. Right, the lesson: the joy of the process. I close my eyes and take another deep breath. I let all my frustrations flow out with my exhalation. The joy of the process; I have to remind myself. Another deep breath, and with that my doubts are gone. I take casual steps forward, looking at each door and wondering genuinely what is in them. I open a few to see another infinite hallway, not a problem. I go down a few of them, and sometimes I will a door behind me into existence; it is probably a backtrack. I let my imagination run wild with what weird shit would be behind the doors I did not touch.
I turned a door knob. It felt different, but in a familiar way. I opened that door, and I see Haruna standing at the door. I want to ask her what is going on, but she beckons me to come in, winking with a finger on her lips, so I guess that is a story for another time. I see my quaters at my naval base as they were all those years ago on the night of the Christmas party. The living room lights were off and the door to my bedroom was ajar. We both peeked in to see our drunk selves caressing each other's faces, exchanging sweet nothings as we were stripping each other's party costumes. I hold Haruna from behind as we hear our kissing become sloppier and sloppier. It is finally when I am on top of her, with her giving an almost imperceptible nod to continue that we chose to let us have our first times in privacy. We shut the door behind us as we move towards the sofa, and I guess what 'I' promised myself came true then.