Part 16- Nocturne

"There's always free cheddar
in the mousetrap, baby.
It's a deal. It's a deal."

-Tom Waits
from God's Away On Business
Blood Money (2002)



Corinne's hips strained under the weight of her own legs, bearing her body forward one exhausted step at a time. Above her, a long, open-roofed pagoda lay supine and waiting. She did not know where she was but that was nothing new. It was enough to get away.



As she climbed the staircase, her feet did not land on the tile so much as drift across it. She was a shadow, a whisper, as immaterial as heaven. Inside the pagoda, she heard the gentle rush of water like the fluttering of wings. This, Corinne thought as she passed through the arch, was some strange oblivion.



Corinne glanced fretfully over her shoulder as she entered, hoping not to be caught off guard by someone or something. In front of her, an ornate and rather inviting bed stood majestically against the wall. Behind her, a waterfall cascaded down into a stone basin. The entire pagoda had but one room erected for but one purpose- It was a veritable shrine to sleep. Candles burned around her, painting the floor with gold. She was alone and thankful for it.



Wringing her hands, Corinne stood too afraid to move. She thought that if perhaps she breathed too heavily or moved too suddenly, he would appear. But when the moment passed and no sign of life was forthcoming, Corinne made up her mind to sit down.



The chair slid soundlessly as she lifted it towards her. Halved citrus fruits glistened at the center of the table. Her stomach clenched painfully. When was the last time she had eaten? When was the last time she had even considered eating? Corinne glanced upwards at that bruised sky. Night was falling faster than gravity could pull. Somewhere, a coyote bayed at the setting sun.



Collapsing into the chair, Corinne released a sigh. She could stay here forever out of sight, out of danger, out of all knowledge. She'd come to terms with the fact that she would never return to reality. There was no trail of bread crumbs for her to follow. No second star to the right and no morning. She would never awaken from this dream.



Corinne picked up an orange and placed it to her lips but did not bite down. It looked like an orange. It smelled like an orange. It carried the ripe weight of an orange. But it was not an orange, not truly. Carefully, she replaced it at the center of the table. She had been kidnapped, threatened, manipulated, lied to, drugged and disoriented... The list went on. She'd lost all sense of time. Her entire existence was counterfeit. All that she knew for certain- The one thing that she could be sure of- Was that she hated Morpheus. She hated him so much so that her entire body shook when she thought on it. It was her only compass in the dark.



Misery shot violently up from her stomach, building pressure at her temples. This was not what she had spent the better part of her life wishing for. And more than anything, she wanted her insignificant little life back.



Trees rustled outside despite the lack of wind. Corinne didn't know how she knew but her mind screamed with certitude. He was here. Wiping her eyes, Corinne tried to suppress her sobs. She would not give him any indication that he had won even if and most especially because he had.



The staccato rhythm of his heels against the floor was an echo of the last, labored beats of her heart. Corinne covered her eyes, thinking in her near hysteria that if she could not see him, then he wasn't there. But still his footsteps grew louder.

"Not you. I don't want you." Her voice broke. Morpheus leaned in towards her. She could hear him breathing now and smell the spices he wore on his skin.



"There is nowhere that you can run from me, Cori," he said placidly. Corinne shook her head.

"That won't stop me from trying."



Corinne pressed her fingertips into her eye sockets, trying to will herself awake. If this was a dream, she should be able to awaken. If this was a dream... If this was a dream, it should have been over by now.

"May I have a seat?" He did not wait for her to respond but pulled the opposite chair for himself. Corinne dropped her hands from her eyes.



"Why can't you leave me in peace," she whispered, drawing invisible circles on the table with her finger. Morpheus turned his palms to the sky in a gesture of harmlessness.

"I am peace," he said.

"You're anything but." Morpheus folded his hands upon the table.



"I know what you must be feeling. None of this has been easy-"

"Fuck you," Corinne snapped. She glared at him from across the table. Morpheus paused, momentarily taken aback. "You're a liar and a murderer and I won't be your plaything anymore." Morpheus inclined his body away from hers, breathing heavily through his nose.

"You don't understand."

"I don't want to understand! I want to go home," she shouted, almost climbing to her feet. She could kill him. She could throttle him to death.

"It's a metaphor," he choked, thrown off-balance by the force of her rage.

Corinne turned his words over in her head a few times before asking, "What?"



"The key, the box, the letter- They're all metaphors. You should have figured this out by now. But I digress, you've had to swallow a lot of information in a very short period of time. Frankly, I'm surprised that you've held up as well as you have. So allow me to spell it out for you- You, my dear, are the box. You contain a number of rare and valuable thoughts, fantasies, insights, dreams and what concerns me most at this current juncture- The letter. One of the men that you have met or will meet on your journey is the proverbial 'key'. I didn't really think that I would need to get any more explicit than I have. The box possesses a lock, they all have keys-"

"That's disgusting," Corinne spat. Morpheus laughed airily.

"It was more polite than what I could have asked you to choose."

"And the man caught in the dream world?" Morpheus's smile faded with Corinne's inquiry.



"It is as I said. Choose your key, give me the letter and I can set him free."

"But who is he?" Morpheus shrugged and looked away.

"He came in with you."

Corinne watched him carefully. He was faltering. He was calculating. Something was at stake for him here. This was a game that he had the potential to lose. Her eyes wandered over his brass-buttoned uniform.

"What are you supposed to be, anyway? Sergeant Pepper," she asked. Morpheus's eyes gleamed.

"If you like," he said mysteriously. Corinne wrapped her arms around her chest, suddenly overcome by chills.



"And there is only one key," she asked.

"Only one. Yes."

"And how will I know him?"

"Corinne, this man would be your perfect paradigm of a man. His world would be your idea of paradise-"

"And none of it would be real." Corinne and Morpheus sat uncomfortably staring the other down. Morpheus furrowed his brow.

"I have given you everything that you have ever wanted and will continue to do so until you want for nothing. If you wished it, I would lay the stars at your feet and turn deserts into glaciers. What has reality ever done for you that I have not done infinitely better?"



Corinne stood and to her surprise, Morpheus stood with her. She looked out over the waterfall as it crashed against the rocks.

"This is all your doing," she asked.

"You wanted a place to rest," he mumbled. Corinne bit her bottom lip. There really was no place that she could run from him.

"Tell me about this letter."

"The letter is a message to me from you in the form of a song- A lullaby. Only you can know it. I've tried to give you hints- Casting you as a musician here and there in your dreams."

"And the lullaby frees the man?"

"Absolutely."

"But what would it take to free me?"



Corinne was met with silence. She turned to him briefly over her shoulder.

"Well," she asked pointedly.

"You could refuse the search for the key," he whispered.

"So freeing the man would not free me?"

"No." Corinne hesitated. It couldn't be this easy, could it? She parted her lips, on the verge of sacrificing someone else's freedom for her own when Morpheus grabbed her by the waist.



"Do not do something that we shall regret," he pleaded.

"I've had enough."

"Don't say that."

"My life wasn't perfect but at least it was real."

"No! Corinne, we need one another. Think of what I'm offering you- You could live your dreams."

"This isn't living." Morpheus clung to her, increasingly desperate.



"What do you want? Someone dangerous? Clever? Handsome? You could have anything. You could be anyone. Nothing is impossible. Cori, sleep is nothing without a dreamer. I couldn't lose you in the nightclub and I won't lose you now."

"The nightclub," Corinne repeated distantly. "The man trapped in the dream world followed me in from the nightclub. Why would he do that?"

"Cori please," Morpheus begged. The floor was spinning. Corinne was transitioning again. "Choose your sweetest dream and sing yourself to sleep."

Tagging Gayl? I think?