Otter Lake Part 15

       A hand gripped his shoulder and shook roughly. 
      "Wake up...hey you, wake up..."

     Travis pushed through the cobwebs.  He opened his eyes. A woman with a stern expression looked down at him. He closed his eyes. But contrary to his hopes, when he reopened them, she was still there. He sat up.  

     “Do I have to stand here or can I trust you not to go back to bed?  You have one hour to get ready," this angry sounding woman said.

      She was a tall, with long, straight, auburn hair, about thirty-five and a little too thin.   Small lines in the corners of her eyes and mouth made her look tired.  She wore a white blouse and the type of jeans "ladies" wear to work in the garden. They blended perfectly with the bedroom’s neutral green paint and plain woodwork.   
     Travis felt a bolt of panic as the thought presented itself to him that this woman was his wife.  Wake up, wake up ...he told himself.

     He took another look around. This world was definitely not the circus.   

     The woman stood in silence.  He felt the pressure of her focused attention. Travis still had not spoken.

     “Crap, you have that look again,” she said with a hint of cold disapproval.

     “What look?’ he said hardly recognizing the sound of his own voice.

     “The Otter Lake look…” she replied a bit wearily.  “That's it, isn't it?"

     She knew about Otter Lake? How was this possible he wondered? Travis felt his strength draining through a crack in this new reality. 
     “Give me a break,” he said stalling for time.  

      Ignoring him, she continued, “And who is Maria?  Is she one of your Otter Lake friends?”

     “Yeah, sure,” he lied, hoping she would quit speaking. 
     "Travis got up and went into the bathroom to take a shower and try to sort things out. He wondered how he knew this room would be the bathroom.  The door opened and a pile of clothes landed on the floor.  He felt numb and was relieved to hear the door close.  

      Hot water streamed over his head, down his face and shoulders.  With all his heart, Travis wished he was back at the circus.  Otter Lake, the circus and now this strange angry woman who may or may not be his wife.   It seemed quite surreal and not at all pleasant. He thought of fun house mirrors facing each other.  No, these dueling worlds were not distorted he decided, it was more like realities stacked one on top of another, like a dream within a dream. Travis felt a tidal current sweeping him out to some place of oblivion.
     He closed his eyes and let the river of hot water run down his neck and back.  “Relax” he told himself and concentrated on deep steady breaths.  The soothing water, steam and measured in and out of his lungs were like tiny hooks stopping his fall.  Even the sharp knocking on the door did not break his trance.
     "Ray get out of the shower!  We have a half hour."
     "In a minute," he yelled back, somehow knowing she always subtracted an hour from the real time.
     It was working.  He felt much calmer.  Still confused but more in control.  The shower became his comforting cocoon.  Pieces of his jumbled world intruded and then faded.  Nothing beyond this little room existed.  Words from long forgotten poem came back.

 You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

 He did not know what this meant.  He no longer knew really what anything meant.