Chapter 8 -Back in Boston

The guilt I was carrying for failing to find and rescue the elves became too much for me to bare. I had to tell someone and that someone was, of course, Laura. She listened but I knew she didn’t believe a thing I was saying. I could keep the diary a secret no longer. I showed it to her. She then understood my fascination with Union soldiers but she dismissed the elves as the hallucinations of a dying man. I was alone for the first time in my life.

The dreams came back but they were different this time. Pip was sad and kept asking me why I didn’t come to save them. My health started to suffer because I was unable to get the sleep I needed. I began to cry for what seemed like no accountable reason. I found myself seeking a mental health professional. She assured me that in time I would overcome these dreams and she would be there to help me.

Things are getting better. I began to notice an improvement about two weeks ago. The dreams are subsiding in intensity and are becoming less frequent.

Last night, I got the first decent sleep in months. I slept without interruption for six hours. During that time, I had a dream that my friends, the elves, had managed to dig a tunnel through the side of their cave and were no longer trapped.

Needless to say when I woke up, I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait to tell Laura when I saw her.

She smiled at me when I told her the good news. I said I wanted to go back and see them. She said something to me but I had trouble hearing her. The noise in the next room was getting worse every day. I could hear Mike next door hollering at his dead cat again and Lenny was bouncing off the padded walls as usual as he sang “I’m a Flying Yogi”.

“I wish the two of them would be quiet and that this damn jacket I’m wearing wasn’t so tightly strapped.”

The End