“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Doctor.”
“Anytime, Elysse, I’m here for you. Now, you said something about a troubling dream?”
“Yes, I see it so vividly still… I haven’t wrapped my mind around it yet.”
“Why don’t you walk me through it. I expect your concerns will emerge with the telling.”
“Well, I’ve lost the beginning—”
“Isn’t that always the way on the dream road?”
“—but I started out as a government agent, part investigator, part negotiator. There were several of us, and we’d been sent to this isolated community, an island. We needed to convince a rebel leader to return to the table, instead of using the bomb.”
“A bomb?”
“Right, a nuclear bomb he’d acquired. Like in any spy movie. And after meeting him, I just knew. He had conviction in his voice, a bottomless thirst for justice. He refused to budge. And I knew we would push too hard and he’d set the thing off.”
“What did you do?”
“I fled, went to my family and tried to persuade them to leave.”
“Did it work?”
“No. They wanted to stay, completely discounted my instincts regarding the guy. And I told them, any nuke he had would flatten the island and kill us all. But they refused to move. The threat just didn’t even register.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I went to the airport, conveniently located in the lobby of a hotel, and tried to buy a ticket off the island.”
“Did you succeed?”
“Yes, and so bizarre. The women selling tickets were gossiping and telling stories like they had no fear of imminent death. When I asked about tickets, they asked me where to, as if that mattered. And then they wrinkled their noses when they said the only available seat was on a plane to somewhere in Utah. I couldn’t understand it.”
“You happen to like Utah?”
“I’ve never been, in dream or otherwise. But how could the attractiveness of the destination compare to the need to escape a nuclear conflagration?”
“And this was all without your family?”
“Yes.”
Through a long silence, the doctor makes some light notes, while Elysse plucks at her clothes with her trunk.
“Yes, doctor, that’s what bothers me: I planned to leave my family to their stubbornness and escape.”
“Were you so certain the bomb would go off?”
“Oh yes. I had met personally with the rebel leader, had spoken quite civilly while he puttered about his shop. Despite my status, he had no fear that I might hurt him, might force him to disclose the bomb’s location. He possessed no fear of a double-cross. Such serene confidence, I knew he would carry out his threat.”
“And were your family members any less intractable?”
“No. No, they were worse. But I didn’t even try. I made my arguments and then left them to theirs. Why didn’t I press?”
“Didn’t you yourself tell me that elephants never insist?”
“But I should be more than an old saying, Doctor! I mean, for my family I ought to just bull my way forward like a forest pachyderm clearing trees. I knew their decision would lead to death, and I just left. What does that say about me? If I can abandon them in my dreams, how quickly will I turn tail in real life?”
“Look, Elysse, what if you consider your dream an alternate ending? Or your brain testing a result? Does that help?”
“Like, I dreamed up a complex scenario where I leave my family to die, to see how that felt?”
“And how did it feel?”
“It felt like nothing I ever want to feel again.”
“So if, in some unspeakable future, you faced the same choice in real life, do you think you might insist a little more strongly?”
“Yes. I would make my point like the five-ton elephant in the room.”