“No, tell us,” I say, folding my arms across my chest. “I’m dying to know what’s so funny.”
Max sighs. “You’re just exactly the same.” He shrugs. “Generally forgetful, often late, blowing into the room with your hair all over the place.” He flaps his hands around his head with a goofy smile but then clears his throat and goes serious when he notices the look on my face.
I am shooting daggers at him with my eyes, but I can’t help but notice he seems to be staring at my hair like he wants to reach out and touch it. “Thank you for that observation,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
Max gives me a look. “You’re the one who asked for it,” he says. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” We hold each other’s gaze for a minute.
Petermann looks like he couldn’t care less. “I was just telling Max more about the science of dreams, and why we study them. Do you have any idea?”
I think for a moment, about the parrots and the Jenga blocks, how happy I was in that dream with Max even though my rational mind should have known we weren’t together anymore. “I guess because they’re often so weird and disjointed, and they seem to come out of nowhere?” I reply.
Petermann claps his hands together. “Bravo, Alice. That’s very close. Most people just say the first part. But it’s the latter that’s the real fascination. Recorded history tells us that from the very beginning, dreams have been just about the most universally fascinating subject on earth. Poets, philosophers, religious figures, and, of course, scientists have grappled with what dreams mean and why they exist.” Petermann leans back in his chair, looking from me to Max.
“In the most basic terms, we define our dreams as a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. In more specific analysis, Freud asserted that dreams were where we revealed our deepest fears and desires.”
I look over at Max with an expression that says, See? I am your deepest desire.
“Ancient Greeks, for example, believed the dreams of a sick person would communicate what ailed them. But again, to me the real question is, why the obsession in the first place? Why the desire to prove what it all means?”
He pauses as though he is waiting for us to answer, but when I start to speak, he just talks over me. Petermann is in his element. “Turns out, it’s not the content that gets under our skin, so much as the word involuntary in the definition. We don’t like that dreams just happen to us. We don’t accept or want to accept things beyond our control . . . especially when they come out of our own minds.”
Max is staring at Petermann intently, and I realize that’s the big difference between us. Max is that person. Max is here because he doesn’t like the loss of control, the ambiguity, the disruption of his daily life. I don’t mind what happens in my dreams. I don’t even mind that my dreams are now part of my reality. But Max can’t stand it.
Petermann gets up quickly. “So there you have it! That’s why we’re all here, and today we will begin to try and fix it. Follow me please.” He walks out his office door without looking back.
Max and I reach the door at the same time. We gaze at each other coolly before he steps aside, making an after you kind of motion. I respond by shaking my head and mimicking his motion, extending my hand to gesture toward the door. But as I do, my iPhone goes flying, clattering to the floor with a sound that echoes through the halls.
“You should really get a case for that,” Max says from above as I stoop down to pick it up.
I stand back up, clutching the phone in my fist. I know he’s not teasing; he’s serious. But I really don’t need him butting into my life. “Go,” I say.
“Fine,” Max announces, following Petermann down the black-and-white-tiled corridor.
The walls are lined with paintings. I peer at a picture of a clock that looks like it’s melting into a desert landscape, and then a larger painting of an eyeball with a cloudy blue sky where the iris should be, followed by a portrait of man wearing a large black bowling hat, but his face is obscured by a big green apple. The objects in the paintings are clear and distinctive, but put together, nothing about them seems to add up.
“Why paint someone’s portrait if you are just going to cover their face with a piece of fruit?” I say out loud.
“They’re surrealist,” Max says from up ahead.
“I knew that,” I shoot back. Sort of.
“Why the fascination with surrealism, Dr. Petermann?” Max calls out.
At this, Petermann turns on his heels to face us, arms outstretched. “Because in our dreams, we are all surrealist painters, creating narratives and pictures that are often as beautiful as they are nonsensical.”
Petermann motions us inside a room, where we find Nanao looking bored, holding a clipboard. To her left is a machine that looks like a giant glossy white donut, with a center the size of a manhole.