Smith was asleep. He was dreaming. But these dreams somehow were more than dreams. He could see, he could smell, he could touch, he could feel. He had had these dreams before, but never paid any attention to them. But this was different. The imposing façade of the Empire state building loomed over him. He could barely see the top. It was lost in a hopeless sky. Slivers of grey shone through clouds of black. They weren’t moving. The air was still. The smell of dust hung in the air. The smell of old and rot. As Smith looked up, it started snowing.

The snow was hot. He caught a few flakes in his hand. Rather than melting into a tiny puddle, they crumbled. It wasn’t snow. It was ash. The sky was weeping ash. Smith covered his eyes. The smell had changed as well. Now the acrid smell of burning was everywhere. Smith blinked once. In the instant before his eyes refocused, he could see pale outlines. Blurred images in the shapes of cars and people and trees. They existed only in the instant he blinked. The place all around him was white now. He looked down. The shirt he had on was ruined. It was covered in ash. He tried rubbing it off. He ended up with a black smudge on his left sleeve. He looked around. The absence of anything but vacant buildings was unsettling.

Then Smith noticed the silence. It was an oppressive weight on his ears. There was no noise at all. It was like he was deaf. The ash made no sound as it fell. There was no wind to whistle in his ears, no people to talk and no cars to blare their horns. Smith could feel himself panicking. He felt the world was closing in on him. He tried to take a deep breath, but ended up coughing as the ash burned his throat. When he looked up after his coughing fit, the scene was different.

Smith could hear something. He felt himself calm down. His heart stopped pounding, and his breathing slowed. It was a ringing. He couldn’t place it. It seemed too urgent to be a telephone. He turned his head this way, then that trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. He turned around. The noise was coming from behind him. He was standing outside a door. It was red once upon a time, but the paint had peeled off. Whatever color did remain was muted in the dull light. The building the door led into was a two storey one. It had windows in the upper floor, but the drapes were drawn. He couldn’t see in. Smith walked up to the door and tried the knob. It was locked. Smith remembered something he’d read in one of his wife’s magazines. It was called lucid dreaming.

‘If you know you are dreaming, you can take control of the dream.’

He willed the door to be open. No luck. He was just about to try breaking down the door when he noticed a bunch of keys on the floor. He picked them up and tried one after another till finally the door opened.

He stepped in. The smell of dust hit him. The air was heavy. The sunlight from the doorway cast surreal shadows on the ground. Smith could make out his, but there were others as well. Shadows that were cast by objects that weren’t there. He blinked. Pale outlines of tables and chairs. Smith kept on blinking. Like an old movie he could see frames of a forgotten life. A maid was setting breakfast. A little girl was climbing down the stairs in front of him dressed in white pajamas and carrying a teddy bear. A man was sitting at the head of the table, coffee in front of him reading the newspaper. Smith couldn’t make out the date on it. He could hear other noises coming from different rooms. One of clanging that he assumed was from the kitchen was coming from a door off to the left. The ringing he had followed was still audible. It was coming from upstairs, from where the little girl had come from. Smith stopped blinking. The family disappeared. But a lingering smell of coffee was in the air. The ringing was the only sound now. Smith headed over to the stairs.

The stairs were huge. They were at least three meters wide at the base. They got narrower as they went up. Somewhere in the middle they split in two and the two sides curved up separately, one to the left and the other to the right. They were covered in red carpet. The banister was polished wood. It was cool to touch. Smith started walking up. The steps creaked under his feet. The ringing was coming from the left side of the top floor. He followed the left branch of the staircase and found himself in a hallway. There were three doors. One right at the end, with the other two set into the side walls. The ringing was coming from the end room. Smith started blinking, but he couldn’t see anything. A faint smell of soap was the only new thing Smith noticed. He opened the door to the end room and stepped inside.

The ringing was from an alarm. The room was a bedroom. From the looks of it, the little girl’s. The bed was slept in. The pink covers all over the place. The ash hadn’t invaded this room yet. Everything was still clean. The carpeting was soft. The wallpaper was of fairies and flowers. There was a white table near the bed. The alarm was on it. Smith picked it up and looked at it. The date was wrong. It showed November 13th. He placed it back down. The drapes were drawn on the window. He went over to it and opened them. He could make out the Empire State far in the distance. Standing alone. Smith looked around the room. There were toys stacked in a corner. A wardrobe was placed up against a wall. It was filled with little girl clothes. He turned back to the door.

A shadow stood in the doorway. Smith thought it was his but it reached out with one hand. Touched Smith on the cheek. The hand passed through his cheek. He could feel the touch on his tongue. The hand had no substance. Smith stood. Terrified. The shadow tilted his head up at the ceiling and started wailing. A haunting sound of loss and despair. It looked straight at Smith.

“You caused this. It was you.” It said in a voice heavy with emotion.

Smith stood dumbstruck. He was sweating despite the cold. The window was wide open now. Ash was blowing in. It started piling on everything around him, but it blew through the figure in front of him.

“It was you. YOU”. The figure’s wailing grew louder. The ‘YOU’ seemed to resonate. Soon all Smith could here was the despairing, accusatory ‘YOU’. He closed his eyes and blindly ran through the figure out into the hallway. He ran down the stairs. As he ran, the stairs turned to ash. He reached the door. He turned the doorknob, but it too turned to ash in his hands. The front wall of the building disappeared in front of him. He could see outside. The whole city was just melting away. Towers falling. Roads crumbling. The world around him was literally falling apart.

He started running. He didn’t care where. In his mind he was screaming. He was trying to wake up, but he couldn’t. Ash filled his lungs. He started coughing violently. He tried covering his mouth. Blood spattered onto his hands. The silence was pressing down on him again. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t smell. He couldn’t touch. He couldn’t feel. All he could do was run. Then the laughter started. It echoed around him. The Laughter was all around him. Enveloping him. But it wasn’t joyous or uplifting. It was sinister. It was mocking. It only made Smith even more afraid. As he ran with the sound of laughter in his ears, he noticed a speck of color in the distance. A red door. No wall around it. Just a door. Smith thought for but a moment before changing direction and heading right towards it.

He reached the door. It stood alone. Nothing around it, nothing behind it. The laughter still echoed in his ears. He opened the door and stepped through it. The nothing behind the door became a room. The room was warm. The wooden floor was polished, the walls covered in dark red wallpaper. Ornate fixtures dotted the room. Lights were glowing in most of them. The far wall was entirely a window. White framework divided it into little squares of glass. Two leather armchairs were placed near the window. A small wooden table was placed in between them. There was a single glass on it. It was half filled with a deep golden liquid. A few cubes of ice were melting. Beads of condensation had formed on the glass. They were trickling down the sides, forming a circular pool at the base. As Smith watched, a hand picked the glass up. It disappeared from view for a few seconds, before being replaced on the table. A man’s head was visible now. The man walked around the chair and stood in front of Smith.

“Hello Smith.” The man was around twenty-five. Taller than Smith, with long blond hair till his shoulder. His eyes sparkled blue in a perfect face. He was dressed in a white suit.

“Who are you? Where am I? WHEN am I?” Smith blurted out.

The figure laughed. It was the same laugh as he had heard outside. The sinister mocking laugh that had so terrified Smith. The man looked straight at Smith.

“It was YOU” he said in that despair filled voice of the shadow. He chuckled again.

“That was you? Why? What did I do?”

The man stopped laughing. He put his hand into his pocket and brought out a handkerchief. He handed it to Smith.

“Clean yourself and come sit”

The man walked back to his chair and sat down. He motioned for Smith to join him. Smith looked at the table. There were two glasses now. Both filled with the deep golden liquid, with cubes of ice melting in them. But his had no condensation on it. The man saw Smith looking. With a smile he indicated Smith should drink. The drink was sweet, but more than that it was pure. Smith felt himself getting clean from within. A warmth rose inside him that pushed away his fears and doubts. He took another sip and felt himself sink into the soft cushions of the chair. He placed the glass back down and wiped his brow with the handkerchief. He turned to the man. He was watching Smith. Smith asked,

“Now will you tell me what is happening?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it hasn’t happened yet. And I don’t want to ruin the surprise”. The man’s face twisted into a grin.

“This is the future?” Smith asked.

“For a scientist, you’re not very bright are you? Didn’t you see the date on the alarm clock? I made sure the date was right. There’s your when. And even though you’ve never been to New York, you surely could recognize the Empire State. That’s your where. As to who I am, I don’t think you’re ready for that just yet. But for now, I’m in your head. This is a dream, isn’t it?”

Smith couldn’t tell whether the question was rhetorical or not, but the man was looking carefully at him.

“Oh don’t worry Smith. You won’t have to see this. You’ll be long dead before any of this happens.” The man chuckled.

Smith swallowed. His heart was pounding again. Nothing the man was saying was making any sense. He looked at the door, and decided to make a break for it.

“I know what you’re thinking Smith. I am inside your head after all. Go if you want. I won’t stop you.” The laughter started again.

Smith got up and walked to the door. His head was spinning. Just as he turned the knob, the man called out

“One last thing, Smith. Thank you. After all, it was you.”

Smith opened the door and found himself in the street again. The door vanished behind him. The ash was falling even faster now. And it was hot. It burned his skin. Smith couldn’t keep his eyes open. He closed them. The world was spinning. He could feel his knees give way as the earth opened up beneath him. He could feel the crumbling of ash against his legs as he fell. Smith screamed, and that’s how he woke up. Screaming.

Smith sat up. He was still in his chair. The TV was still on. A re-run of the bikini show. The empty bottle was still where it had dropped on the floor. He picked it up, and rubbed his eyes. It was morning, but Smith didn’t feel rested at all. He sneezed once and put his hand in his pocket. Pulled out a handkerchief. It was covered in ash. He turned to look at the chair. Ash where his head had rested. He started screaming again.