The Experiment of Dreams by Brandon Zenner Page B

They ate and drank to their last night in Paris, offering cheers to a job well done. Both Iain and Dr. Wulfric seemed elated. The work was over and early the next day, the three of them would be flying home. Before they ordered their meals, they’d polished off a glass of wine each, and had happily poured a second. Iain undid the top button of his shirt, loosening his tie.
    “Ben, have you ever tried escargot ?”
    “Yeah, once.” He shook his head. “I didn’t like it.”
    “I bet you never tried it in Paris. You’ll love it.”
    “Well, I don’t know about that, but if it makes you happy, I’ll give it another try.”
    “Believe me, it’s not like anything you’ve had in the States. Here, Ben.” Iain reached across the table to refill Ben’s glass.
    They toasted.
    “So, where did you practice law?” Ben asked.
    A group of maybe twenty tourists passed, speaking a Slavic language akin to Russian. Iain cupped his hand over his ear. “What’s that?”
    Ben spoke louder. “Where did you practice law?”
    “Practice law?”
    “Right, like, what school did you go to?”
    “No, Ben, I’m not a lawyer.” The wine sparkled in Iain’s eyes. “I handle many of Mr. Kalispell’s interests, but I’ve never practiced law.”
    “Oh. I assumed … I mean, I thought … what are—”
    “What am I? I’m Mr. Kalispell’s eyes and ears. I make sure his interests are safe and secure and his wishes met. I’m a little bit of everything.”
    A waiter approached wearing a white button-up shirt, a black vest with bow tie, and a long apron down to his ankles. His face was set in a sour and aloof demeanor, as if nothing anyone could say, do, or order for dinner would surprise or interest him in the least.
    “ Bonjour Monsieur, ” Iain began, then whispered to Ben, “I’m ordering escargot .”
    ***
    By the time they left the restaurant, Ben’s head was throbbing. The pressure headache he’d developed earlier that week from staring at the various paintings wouldn’t let up no matter how many aspirin he took. The first glass of wine numbed his mind, made him feel good. The last made his head pulse, and pain soon followed.
    Within minutes of returning to his room, Ben was asleep. The boomerang like device sat on the bedside table, silently working.
    Ben fell into deep sleep, but he woke from time to time with a dry and scalding headache. The fragments of his dreams he remembered were strange, involving wine at nearly every turn. The color red permeated his memory of the dreams, soaked in his brain like a sponge. He saw himself drinking glass after glass, chugging the stuff like water—practically swimming in it.
    The scene cut, and Ben saw his grandmother looming before him like a ten-foot statue. She stood in the center of the kitchen in her old house, her boxed wine nearby on the counter. The spout was wide open, and the red fluid was splashing to the ground like water from a hose. She was shaking her head in disdain, “That ain’t a real job. You need to get yourself a real job.”
    “Grandma, the wine!”
    “I done all I can do to see you get by.”
    Ben could only stare at the wine, flowing, pouring out, almost an inch on the ground already. The drab-grey nightgown his grandmother always wore was getting wet around her ankles. The air filled with the pungent, ripe smell of fermented grapes.
    “Working in some hospital, doing crazy tests. Me, I worked in restaurants all my days. It would do you good getting your hands dirty, doing real work.”
    “Grandma, the wine is spilling! Grandpa! Do something!”
    “Grandpa? He’s dead. So am I … so are you !”
    Ben woke up with a start.
    His raw eyes blinked at the ceiling. The thought of wine made him sick. It had been so long since he’d had a dream about his family that when he tried to picture his mother and father’s faces, it was difficult. His grandmother, though—he could picture her without a problem.
    Such a strange dream , he thought. Did I say