Hank’s Dream.

Hank’s Dream

On the way home from Rochester, right about the time the Radiation’s organist died in his coma in the hospital, Hank saw that man again in his dreams. Hank was sleeping with his face pressed into the warm glass of the window by his seat. He was satisfied and smiling. His fielding hadn’t been as rusty as he feared, and his hitting had been outstanding. He had to keep reminding himself he was playing against players who weren’t even good enough for Single-A ball.

He was able to drift into sleep when the few remaining rowdy HooseCows, pleased about winning their first series, started to settle down. He only had about forty minutes of napping before they would be home, but Hank wanted every moment of that time. He was exhausted.

In his dream, he was standing in the stands of the Radiation’s stadium, watching the organist play away at his maddeningly repetitive music. It seemed so much louder this time. There was no one in the stadium, and when Hank turned to look behind him, he could not even see the field. All there was to see were rows of bleachers, getting smaller and smaller and disappearingly into a whole, seemingly endless in the night sky of his dream.

“Can’t get this one out of my head,” the organist said, without looking up from his playing. His hands were clenched into claws and covered in dried blood, as if he had been playing for so long he had once started bleeding, and then kept playing even when all the blood went away. “I knew I never should’ve started playing this song,” the organist continued. “I knew it. Once you start playing it, you just can’t stop. Bet you wish you didn’t have it stuck in your head, too,” the organist stated. Unlike the last time they had spoken, the organist didn’t seem angry; he just seemed resigned to playing this song over and over again. If you could even call it a song.

“Just stop, then,” Hank said, but the organist just shook his head. He turned his head to Hank and Hank saw two things at once. The first thing was the sheer terror in the man’s eyes, and the tears that dripped down from them. The second was the angelic smile on the man’s face.

“But it’s just too damned beautiful,” the man said, and then turned back to his frantic playing.

Hank heard a quick slithering of noises from beneath his shoes, as if a large group of people rose to their feet from a seated position at once. He could not see well enough, beneath the bleacher seats, to know what was down there. He thought he heard something like a boy laughing, and he remembered the child he had seen behind home plate, right before he hit his home run. From the sounds of things, there were so many of those children down there. Were they listening to the music, or were they waiting for him?

At that point in the dream, the bus braked and stopped. Hank woke up, cool from the sweat he had worked up dreaming. None of his teammates was looking at him, and he had a few moments to force the look of terror from his face.

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