The Waking Dreamer Read Online Free PDF

another reason not to leave, Emmett was surprised by the quiet whisper that instead came through the phone.
    “I never had to, Emmett. I got married,” she whispered, and in her hushed tones permitted herself the momentary vulnerability she secreted away even from her husband—the vulnerability that, in rare, quiet moments when she thought no one was watching her, would lead her to look out the window at the people exploring life and long, too, for freedom.
    He said nothing, for nothing else needed to be said. On some level, Emmett knew Nancy finally got it—more than just accepting, that she finally understood. Emmett was his own man. And he was leaving.
    “So,” she said finally, her tone curt and matter-of-fact. “How long’s your drive?”
    “I should get to Ormond Beach by tomorrow.” The only thing Emmett had learned of his mother was that she was from that Floridian seaside town overlooking the gray Atlantic. It wasn’t much information, but it was somewhere to start.
    “Promise you’ll call when you find what you’re looking for.”
    He took a deep breath, willing the winter chill to steel his resolve. He would find a job. He could live in his car until he had the money to get his own place. Anything was better than what he had, floundering through purposeless days thirsting for some measure of truth in an otherwise unremarkable life.
    “It wouldn’t be an epilogue if I didn’t,” he answered, hanging up.
    He checked the rearview mirror and saw the glass towers behind him silently awaiting his acknowledgement that he did not have the courage to leave. He pictured Nancy waving at him from the corner outside one of those towers, standing in the shadow of her comfortable, careful life, where the routine was exciting and the ordinary was comforting.
    Emmett’s foot reacted; the itching desperation to escape something that almost imprisoned him was quick to flare. He allowed one final moment’s consideration for the commonplace life he was rejecting. Could he quench his desire for the exotic and the bizarre in the stylized suburban supermarkets and kitchen table fundraisers that subsumed Nancy’s life?
    Emmett released a heavy, deep breath of purpose. He needed to believe that life could be untamed, unbound from schedules. Life had to be about more than just existing. It had to be about living .
    Edging forward in the congestion each time he saw a sign for the interstate, he had to constantly remind himself to slow down.
    Five exits away.
    His phone sounded from an incoming text from Nancy: Not going to see u again?
    Three exits away.
    Emmett did not respond. Only words on a screen, Emmett understood their underlying message. They were not accusatory but rather as a statement of fact, as if Nancy were finally accepting what she had not wanted to believe. And she was right. He had no intention of returning to Houston again. It was not his home.
    The only place home exists is in your head , he quoted to himself. Dark City had it right.
    Again, he fought the urge to push the car forward in traffic, feeling as if the city’s skyscrapers were poised to reach from the heavens and bar his exit. He pictured the constructs of metal and glass wrapping their beams about his car, both embracing and strangling him all in one motion.
    One exit away.
    He was ready to leave it all behind in search of the adventure awaiting those seeking its fickle attentions. When he finally banked off onto Interstate 10 East, he jolted the car forward eagerly, reverently thankful to bleed the neon from his eyes as he sped toward the promise of an unknown, strange new day.
    I’m ready. Let’s do this .

CHAPTER 3
    Morning soon became afternoon, and a sticky twilight descended over the Gulf Coast. Hours passed as the interstate proceeded southeast from the glass-topped skyline of Houston before turning north through the bustling port of Beaumont. Plumes of white smoke funneled up from massive refineries along the water’s edge.