A Dream

I woke in the middle of the night with a full bladder from the beers and more than a little aroused from a dream I'd just had. As I sat in the bathroom, waiting to pee, the dream replayed in my head. I was glad my wife was asleep. She's a mind reader, and I'd be dead if she knew what I'd been dreaming.

Back when the kids were exhausting preschoolers, and my wife and I were stressed young parents, I spent a few days away from home at a business conference. It was a routine event: dreary daily sessions, forced dinner banter, and boozy late nights. And it would have disappeared into the mist of my memory, if not for a chance meeting one evening.

I don't know how it happened. Ships passing in the night, I guess, like in the song. There was a mix-up with some colleagues, and I ended up in the wrong bar, on my own. She was on her own, too, though to this day I don't know why! I bought her a drink, she reciprocated, one thing led to another and, well, we chatted. About life, the universe and everything.

It was the most stimulating conversation I'd had with a woman since before the kids were born; when my wife and I weren't too tired to talk in the evenings. The hours flew by, and it was near dawn when we eventually said goodbye. We wished each other well and exchanged pecks on the cheek, but nothing more. We didn't even swap phone numbers.

When I returned home from the conference, I was wracked with guilt. Which wasn't fair, because I'd done nothing wrong! However, as I said, my wife can read minds, and I was sure she wouldn't see the evening as an innocent all-nighter.

So I said nothing and tried putting the chance meeting and conversation out of my head. But the truth is, I never forgot it or her. And, occasionally, like tonight, I dream of that night and of what might have been. And afterwards, I always feel like a guilty adulterer.

I flushed the toilet, washed my hands and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. How different was I from the politician on the TV news, who'd resigned over the extra-marital affair? Okay, mine wasn't a full-on fling, but I have to admit, the thought may have crossed my mind. And hadn't I kept the evening a secret?

Now I felt some sympathy for him, thinking about my indiscretion. And I appreciated his reasons for wanting to keep it secret, from the public, but more importantly, from his family.

But what about the other news items? Could I sympathise with them as well? What drives Bosnians, many of whom have been neighbours for centuries, to hate each other? Do they ever regret the destruction and killing? 

Then there was the father who'd beaten his kids. Why hadn't the mother reported him to the police or taken the kids and left him? 

And what of Winston and his meteoric fall from the record books? Would I risk cheating with drugs for the chance of fame and fortune?

I asked the man in the mirror these questions, but he had no answers. Perhaps after the skirmish with my Rambo-wife tonight, it was good enough that I was asking the questions.

I slipped back into bed, but lay awake for a while, staring at the shadows flickering across the ceiling, still thinking about the evening news items. My wife had been right, as usual. The problem with the news is it's one-sided.

Later on, I dreamed again, though not that dream. I was walking along a crowded street, and every so often, I'd stop and talk to someone. Only instead of using words, we read each other's thoughts, like my wife, the mind reader. And because we knew what each other was thinking, there were no secrets, no hidden agendas, and no betrayals.

When I woke again, it was morning. My wife was sleeping soundly beside me in bed, her book on the pillow. Sunlight streamed through our bedroom window—last night's gloomy forecast had been wrong.

I recalled my waking dream and smiled as a song popped into my head: We always need to hear both sides of the story.

© 1994, 2020 Robert Fairhead

Footnote: As I blogged on Tall And True in November 2019, I started working on Both Sides of the Story in February 1994. It was my third submission to the then annual Ian St James Awards, at the time the UK's biggest fiction prize for unpublished writers.

The idea for the story came to me while working out in a gym. The news at the time was full of items about people for whom the public (including me) had little sympathy. Phil Collins was singing his Both Sides song on MTV in the gym, and the music video set me thinking: Could I show both sides of the news in a short story?

So I started writing Both Sides of the Story, as a five-part short story. Westminster, Bosnia, A Council Flat, and The Gym are four standalone vignettes. And Bad News is the fifth and final part, which links and resolves the story.

Please note, my intention in writing this short story twenty-five years ago was not to be an apologist for my characters or their actions. Then, as now, my goal was to follow Phil Collins' lead and try to imagine both sides of the story.

Grammarly

With thanks to Steve Johnson for the image of the TV remote from Pixabay.