Richard Matheson - What Dreams May Come

“This isn’t a dream,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“It isn’t a dream.”

“It could be.”

“Why do you say that?” She sounded upset again.

“I’m trying to help you,” I said.

She answered, “I wish I could believe that.”

It seemed as though a faint light touched the shadows in my mind. She hadn’t believed me at all before. Now she was wishing she could believe. It was a small step but a step.

A new idea occurred; the first I’d had in a long time, I realized. Was something clearing in my mind? “My son, Richard, has been . . . ” I paused, the word eluding me. “-looking into ESP,” I finished.

When I’d spoken his name, her face had tightened.

“He’s been talking to a psychic,” I said.

Again, the tension in her face. Was I harming her or helping? I didn’t know. But I had to go on.

“He’s come, after much thought, to believe-” I braced myself. “-that there’s life after death.”

“That’s stupid ,” she said immediately.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, he believes it. He feels there’s proof that survival exists.”

She shook her head but didn’t speak.

“He believes that murder is the worst crime anyone can commit,” I said. I looked directly into her eyes. “And suicide .”

She shuddered violently; tried to stand but didn’t have the strength and sank back down again. “I don’t see . . . ” she said.

My mind felt clearer now. “He believes that the taking of life is reserved to God alone,” I told her.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked in a low, shaking voice. She trembled as she spoke, huddling against the sofa. Ginger was looking at her frightenedly, ears back. She knew something was wrong but couldn’t fathom what.

Again, I braced myself. “I’m telling you because my wife committed suicide,” I said. “She took an overdose of sleeping pills.”

That blank look crossing her eye again. For some reason, it lifted almost instantly as though she couldn’t manage to retain it. She shook her head. “I don’t believe . . . ” she started. Her voice sounded feeble.

My mind felt clearer yet. “What bothers me is that Richard believes she still exists,” I said.

No sound. A shaking of her head.

“That she’s in a place not unlike our house,” I said. “But a gloomy, negative version of it. Everything depressing and cold. Not functioning. Dirty and disordered.”

Her head kept shaking. She mumbled inaudible words.

“I think he’s right,” I said. “I think that death is a continuation of life. That the person we are persists afterward.”

“No.” An escape of sound, like a stricken breath.

“Can’t you see?” I asked. “Your house was beautiful and warm and bright. Why should it be like this? Why? ”

She kept drawing back. I knew she was terrified but had to continue. This was the first approach that had accomplished anything.

“Why should your house look so ugly?” I asked. “Does it make any sense? Why should the gas and electricity and water and telephone all be off? Is there any logic to that? Why should the lawns and bushes and trees all be dying? Why should the birds all be dying? Why shouldn’t it rain? Why should everything in your life go bad at the same time? ”

Her voice was faint. I think she said, “Leave me alone.”

I kept it up. “Don’t you see that this house is only a replica of the home you knew? That you’re only here because you believe it’s real? Don’t you see you’re making this existence for yourself?”

She shook her head, looking like a panicked child.

“Can’t you understand why I’m telling you these things?” I said. “It’s not just that my children have the same names as yours. Not just that my wife has the same name as yours. Your children are my children. You are my wife. I’m not just a man who looks like your husband. I am your husband. We’ve survived-”

I broke off as she lurched to her feet. “Lies!” she shouted.

“No!” I jumped up. “ No , Ann!”

“Lies!” she screamed at me. “There is no afterlife! There is only death! ”

WE FACED EACH OTHER, NOW, LIKE GLADIATORS ON THE SANDS of some mysterious arena. A struggle to the death, the strange thought came to me. Yet both of us were already dead. What was our struggle then?

I only knew that, if I failed to win it, both of us were lost.

“There’s no afterlife,” I began.

“None.” Glaring at me, almost cowing me with her defiance.

“Then I couldn’t know of anything that happened after my death.”

A moment’s confusion on her face before she muttered, scornfully, “Your death .”

“I say I’m Chris,” I told her.

“You’re-”

“Your husband Chris.” “

And I say you’re a fool for saying it.” Now she seemed to be regaining strength.

“Believe what you will,” I persisted. “But, whoever I am, I couldn’t know what had happened to you after your husband died, could I? I mean details ,” I added, cutting her off. “Could I?”

She looked at me suspiciously. I knew she wondered what I was getting at. I continued quickly to keep her off balance. “No, I couldn’t,” I answered myself. “You know I couldn’t. Because if I did-”

“What details?” she interrupted fiercely.

“Details like you and the children sitting in the front row of the church. Like someone touching your shoulder, making you start.”

I knew, from her reaction, that my opening move was a failure. Obviously, she didn’t remember my touch. She gazed at me with open contempt.

“Things like the house filled with people after the funeral,” I went on. “Richard serving drinks at the bar-”

“Do you think-?” she started.

“Your brother Bill there, Pat, your brother Phil, his wife and-”

“Is that what you call-?”

“You in the closed bedroom, lying on our bed, Ian sitting beside you, holding your hand.”

I knew I’d made a hit for she jerked as though I’d struck her. It was something she’d remember vividly, being a moment of sorrow. I was on safer ground now-unhappy ground but safer. “Ian saying, to you, that he knew it was insane but he felt that I was there with you.”

Ann began to shake.

“Your telling him: I know you want to help-”

She whispered something.

“What?”

She whispered it again. I still couldn’t hear. “What, Ann?”

“Leave me alone,” she told me in a rasping voice.

“You know I’m right,” I said. “You know I was there. Which proves-”

The filming across her eyes again. So fast it appeared almost physical. She turned her head away. “I wish it would rain,” she murmured.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” I demanded. “These things really happened. Didn’t they?”

She labored to her feet, looking groggy.

“Are you afraid to hear the truth?”

She sank back down. “What truth?” Her body jerked spasmodically. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s no afterlife?”

“No!” Her face gone rigid with fear and fury.

“Then why did you agree to a seance with Perry?”

She jerked again as though struck.

“He told you I was sitting by you in the cemetery,” I said. “I’ll tell you what he said, word for word. ‘I know how you feel, Mrs. Nielsen, but take my word for it. I see him right beside you. He’s wearing a dark blue shirt with short sleeves, blue checked slacks-’ ”