Nightshifts
A Fantasy Series
The Dream Journey
By John D Bertucci
The Dream Journey Begins
I fell into a slumber from an exhausted day, and in the haze of my mind as I drifted away, I found myself in a strange place. A place I didn't recognize, though it had the city name that I was from, yet nothing seemed the same. It was like overnight, everything changed.
I was driving my car to take some pictures that I was assigned by my boss. I was to meet them later at a theater where a video production was being taped. Along the road, I was amazed at what I was seeing - things I'd never seen before, as if I was transported to another city on another planet.
Roads wound and on either side was water, with buildings stretching like a metropolis. I could see the water and understood that it led to a massive ocean beyond. I didn't know where I was going, having no destination set. I was to take pictures of interesting things in this strange land and bring them back to my boss.
I pulled alongside the road and took a deep breath. What I saw was an innovation of the Eiffel Tower - or was it? I couldn't quite understand what I was looking at or why it was there. I assumed it was an antenna tower that completely resembled the Eiffel Tower. I was amazed, so I got out of my car, parked alongside the road, and walked towards it to take pictures from various angles. It was so tall that I had to step back just to get it within the camera's view.
The Car Disappearance
As I returned to my car, I noticed it was gone, vanished into thin air. I continued walking and saw a precinct, then walked inside. A police officer greeted me and said they were towing the cars alongside the road for a parade that was coming later that day.
"I didn't know anything about a parade," I protested, my voice trembling with frustration.
The officer leaned back in his chair, his expression unchanging. "How do I get my car back?" I demanded.
He looked up, his eyes cold and bureaucratic. "Standard procedure," he said flatly. "We usually hold cars for two weeks."
"Two weeks?" I exclaimed. "That's outrageous!"
He shrugged, barely looking up from his paperwork. "Not my problem. Two weeks storage, standard procedure." The officer shrugged, stamping a document without further explanation. "Rules are rules," he muttered, dismissing me with a wave of his hand.
I stood there, feeling helpless and confused. The sterile police station seemed to close in around me, another strange location in this increasingly bizarre dream. The fluorescent lights flickered, casting harsh shadows that made the room feel even more surreal.
"This can't be happening," I whispered to myself, wondering how I would explain this to my boss, to anyone. The car was gone, the explanation was nonsensical, and I was trapped in yet another inexplicable moment of this recurring nightmare.
Lost in Uncertainty
I walked outside, not knowing what to do. I was in a strange place. I didn't know an address and felt lost. I began to walk and saw people sitting on benches. Some benches had long, high-backed chairs as if the people were waiting for something. I kept walking and saw dozens of people - men, women, and children - waiting in chairs.
I was afraid to take a seat because I didn't trust the people around me. I was carrying a satchel that was becoming heavy. Inside were documents apparently from my work. I searched to see if I could find a phone number for my insurance company that might provide a rental car. The idea of calling a taxi or Uber never entered my mind, as if such services didn't exist in this strange place.
The way the people were sitting made me think they were waiting for some type of transportation. I took my chances and found a seat. I kept searching for phone numbers, but I couldn't find one, and I was worried that I would be late for the production at the theater later that night.
As I sat there and looked at faces, no one made conversation. I could see the bayou and thought perhaps I was in South Louisiana. Maybe I got teleported when I was driving. What about this metropolis? Why were there so many buildings? The sky was blue, clouds were normal, and the sun was beginning to lower over the horizon.
I was confused and almost started crying because I felt completely lost. For some reason, I didn't have a phone, but I had a push-button device that could make a call if only I knew the number.
Eventually, the people got up, and I followed them into a vehicle, pretending that I belonged with them. I sat in a chair towards the back that faced the rear of the vehicle.
A teenage girl approached, her designer shoes clicking on the floor. "Excuse me," she said coldly, "that's my seat." I told her I wasn't moving. There were no numbers on the seats, no assigned tickets. I was afraid she would tell the driver and expose that I didn't belong in this vehicle.
From what I could tell, they were about 25 people on this minivan or mini bus and at one point a driver got up as the vehicle drove itself. He was a strange old man with long eyebrows his beard was shaved in the bottom of his chin in the hair was on either side of his cheek Like nothing I’ve ever seen it wasn’t gray. It was black, but he had a lot of wrinkles and I could tell this man was over 75 years old. Why was he still driving a public vehicle? Then I realized it wasn’t a public vehicle. It was a private vehicle. He knew everybody on board and so I hid my face in the back because he called out people by name and told them hello.
The cityscape was a fever dream of architectural innovation. Buildings rose like crystalline sculptures, defying gravity and conventional design. Glass towers twisted and spiraled, their surfaces reflecting the blue sky in fragmented, kaleidoscopic patterns. Some structures seemed to float on tiny peninsulas, anchored impossibly above the water, creating the illusion that the entire city was a massive, interconnected machine.
The roadways were liquid ribbons of concrete and advanced materials, winding between these architectural marvels. Water stretched on either side, a deep azure that merged seamlessly with the horizon, hinting at a massive ocean beyond. The Eiffel Tower-like antenna stood as a bizarre landmark - part communication tower, part architectural statement, its intricate metalwork reaching impossibly high into the sky.
The tunnel system we traversed was a marvel of engineering - not circular, but a complex maze of geometric shapes. Half-moon passages, razor-thin corridors, and wide chambers cut through what seemed like limestone or some unknown rock formation. The walls were smooth yet organic, as if carved by an intelligent, non-human hand.
A well-dressed man leaned over to his companion, whispering, "Did you see the new architectural design on the Meridian Tower?"
His companion adjusted her designer glasses. "Absolutely stunning. The quantum-adaptive facade is revolutionary."
Another passenger chimed in, "It's nothing compared to the Nexus Complex downtown. Now that's true innovation."
As I scanned the faces around me, each passenger seemed to tell a story. The wealthy travelers were impeccably dressed - men in tailored charcoal suits with silk pocket squares, women in designer blazers and high-end accessories that whispered of old money and exclusive social circles. Their clothing was crisp, unwrinkled, as if they'd just stepped out of a high-end boutique.
The teenage sisters caught my eye - the redhead with a constellation of freckles across her pale skin, her hair a wild copper cascade. Her sister, similarly featured but with a more reserved demeanor, sat quietly, her eyes darting between the strange landscape outside and the other passengers. Their designer clothes and pristine appearance suggested they were from a privileged background, yet there was a hint of vulnerability in their youth.
The obese men who remained later in the journey wore matching dark gray sweatshirts and pants - a uniform of sorts. Their bodies spoke of comfort and excess, each weighing close to 400 pounds, moving with a slow, deliberate grace that suggested they were accustomed to luxury and minimal physical exertion.
An elderly woman turned to the person next to her. "How long have we been in these tunnels?"
"Three hours, maybe four," the man replied, not looking up from his holographic tablet. "Time moves differently down here."
A young man nearby muttered, "Feels like we're traveling through the veins of some massive machine."
The vehicle was unlike anything I'd ever seen - a sophisticated hovercraft that seemed to defy the laws of physics. It levitated several hundred feet above the ground, gliding effortlessly through intricate tunnel systems and across vast landscapes.
We zigzagged through a maze of concrete and limestone rock formations. We were moving so fast that I could barely comprehend our surroundings. I was certain we would crash, but the driver navigated the complex passages with remarkable precision.
Then it got dark.
I don’t know how he was able to see. Maybe there was an automatic computer that guided this strange flying mini bus through the tunnels, but I couldn’t see anything and I thought for sure were all gonna die yet no one seemed afraid. No one said a word everyone look normal someone reading books and magazines But I could barely see them through the small light there in the vehicle, lighting us up but outside complete darkness only the vans lights that shined above beyond could I see that the driver drove on unfazed not even slowing down. Finally I saw a light at the end of the tunnel and I was relieved that I was going to survive.
A pervasive sense of alienation gripped me. I was an outsider among these elite passengers, my presence a stark contrast to their carefully curated world. Their subtle glances and measured movements made it clear: I did not belong.
"Look at those structures," one passenger said to another. "Each one is worth more than entire countries used to be."
"Wealth concentration," his companion replied dryly. "The ultimate architectural statement."
A third voice added, "You can't even buy your way into this city anymore. You have to be born here."
"Margaret," the driver called out suddenly, "remind me to update the navigation protocols when we return."
Margaret nodded. "Already done, Mr. Thompson. The quantum mapping is complete."
"Excellent," he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.
The entire time we were in the tunnel the wheels never touched the ground. I'm not even sure of the wheels or the fan - perhaps we were just hovering without wheels at all. We came out of the tunnel and into the light. I looked down and could see we were several thousand feet above the Earth. And in the windshield beyond I could see a beautiful metropolis. It's hard to explain what I saw, but it was buildings unlike anything I've ever seen. This was obviously some type of future city designed and built for the most rich - the kings, the barons, and the billionaires lived here. They talked about each of the people they lived next to, and I knew I'd be exposed. What then?
The pillars were overlapping each other, with their names built on them in huge engraved letters, giving the family names recognition so you knew who lived there. These were not houses nor apartment buildings nor office buildings. They were structures unlike I had ever seen, but somehow they were all connected, stacked on top of each other in different formations as if a child assembled his own Lego pieces in some kind of strange formation. The doors of each place were different shapes and sizes, but I saw no people - only the buildings. Oddly enough, I saw no cars or streets. They must travel by hovercraft to places they wanted to go.
There were no office buildings. There was no work being done here I knew right away. The people in the vehicle with me only traveled out to see the cities that they never visited maybe to buy things or just to get out of the house. I felt like an underclassmen, as if I was among the elite, and I would be exposed for being just an ordinary guy, a technician photographer from a place they never heard of. I knew that if I was exposed, they wouldn’t like it like if I was some type of contamination in my offensive odor would disgust them.
The Vanishing Vehicle
Finally, the vehicle lowered itself, and nearly all of the van emptied oddly enough. The people that remained were obese. They all stood up and I couldn't see out the windows, only just out the windshield straight ahead and now there were only six left besides me.
Through the front I can see they were going all different directions, minding their own business, walking along sidewalks to each of their strange buildings with the giant names engraved in the front of them and a weird shaped doors. Oddly, I don't remember seeing a window of any kind just a stone buildings Some were made of concrete, others were made of different asphalt, but they all look solid like they would survive an earthquake or hurricane with no problem at all. Some might've looked like stucco, but it wasn't stucco. It was thick concrete or thick stone beyond the stucco façade.
The vehicle levitated again and we're off to the next destination, and I realize I was getting further and further from my home and I became afraid once more what was going on here was beyond my own comprehension. I had devices that no longer worked, and it was just me in the driver now. I was at his mercy and soon he would discover who I was because I would be the last left on the van going nowhere.
The people remaied were men and some teen boys, but they were all the same rotund shape, obese and round, maybe three or 400 pounds each, wearing gray sweatshirts, and dark gray pants if they all work together somewhere, but I knew they didn't work at all. I then realized these must be brothers or cousins. I was left in a vehicle would've one family obviously they knew each other, but no one looked at me. No one paid any attention. It's almost as if I was invisible.
The Vehicle's Journey
The vehicle drove through a building. I could tell it wasn't just a normal stop. I assumed it was like a train going through a subway and it slowly began to open its doors upfront like a typical bus in the city. Then the obese guys walked out, and that's when I knew the driver would make eye contact with me, and he did.
He asked me, "Who are you? What are you doing on my bus? Where do you live?"
I told him I lived in Kenner by the mall. He knew where it was, but he looked disinterested. His face didn't show any signs of mercy or care.
When he asked me who I was, I explained my situation. "I'm lost," I said. "My car was towed, and I don't know where I am." I hoped my sad story might evoke some sympathy. The driver listened impassively, his face revealing nothing. Another man entered the vehicle, adding to my growing sense of unease. He wore a dark uniform with gold threads and buttons with a brass nameplate.
"Come with me," he said as if he was a policeman. I looked at the bus driver and said, "Why did you do that? Why did you turn me in? I'm just a stowaway. I didn't cause any harm," I pleaded.
“I’m sorry, young man, I’m just doing my job. This vehicle is tracked. I can’t just drive it anywhere I want because someone asked me to,” the driver said matter of fact without a hint of concern.
The man in the uniform grabbed my arm. "Come with me," he commanded.
"Why?" I protested. "I haven't done anything wrong!"
The uniformed man leaned closer to me. "You don't belong here," he whispered.
"What do you mean?" I stammered.
He smiled coldly. "Some journeys aren't meant for everyone."
Another passenger nearby overheard and muttered, "Protocol is protocol."
"Protocol," he said flatly. "Unauthorized passengers aren't permitted."
I pleaded, "I'm just lost. I don't understand what's happening."
The driver chimed in and repeated the words, "I'm sorry, but the system tracks everything. I can't just ignore the rules."
For the third time, I felt like crying, but I wouldn’t do it. I was more angry now because I offered myself up humbly thinking that there must be a Christian among us that would feel sorry for me, but none of these people were Christians. They were all involved in their own rich lives, and I knew right away that none of them knew God because they felt they didn’t need him. And now I really wanted to go home.
I exited the bus and walked around and I was in a strange place. I didn't know where I was being led. I didn't know what was going to happen next. I didn't know if I'd ever get home. Who this man was, I didn't know either. I wasn't sure if he was a policeman, but he looked like he had some authority because he wore a uniform.
What happened next? I don't know because I woke up...
The Recurring Dream
When I woke up, I realized this was another one of the recurring dreams that I'd been having over the last several years - at least three times a week. Every occasion the dream surrounds the loss of my vehicle, no matter what I'm driving or where I park. Every time I return, it's vanished, gone, and I don't know where it is.
"Sometimes I think it's stolen," I muttered to myself, "other times I believe the police have hijacked it for some stupid reason - maybe I parked illegally." It felt like I was being watched from above, as if this was some strange punishment. Every time my vehicle disappeared, it was for some crazy reason.
What made these dreams most frustrating was how they always ended without conclusion. I knew, deep down, that this time it would be different, when I put my head on the pillow and fell asleep again, the dream would simply continue where it had left off.
The Next Night
The dream picked up exactly where it had ended. I found myself following a strange man in a dark conductor's uniform. Suddenly, hope sparked within me. "You're taking me to a train that will bring me home!" I exclaimed, excitement and happiness washing over me.
The man walked ahead, not looking back, not speaking. He moved with deliberate purpose towards some unknown destination. We walked through a bizarre hallway that zigzagged endlessly, devoid of people or signs. Everything felt odd, and I couldn't help but wonder: Where was the terminal? Where was I going?
The Mysterious Terminal
The hallway seemed to stretch endlessly, its walls a pale, antiseptic white that hurt my eyes. The conductor remained several paces ahead, his dark uniform a stark contrast against the bleached corridor. I quickened my pace, desperate to keep up.
"Excuse me," I called out, my voice echoing strangely. "Where are we going?"
He didn't respond. Not a word, not even a glance back.
Suddenly, the hallway opened into a massive circular room. Dozens of doors lined the walls - each a different color, each a different size. Some were tiny, no larger than a kitchen cabinet. Others were massive, towering structures that seemed to touch an invisible ceiling.
"Welcome," a disembodied voice announced, "to the Transit Hub."
I spun around, trying to locate the source of the voice. The conductor had vanished. In his place stood a holographic figure - translucent, shifting, impossible to focus on.
"Your ticket, please," the hologram requested.
"I... I don't have a ticket," I stammered.
The figure flickered. "Everyone has a ticket. You just haven't found it yet."
A door to my left - a deep emerald green - began to pulse with a soft light. Something about it drew me closer. Written in silver script across its surface were the words: "HOME."
But something told me that "home" might not mean what I thought it meant.
The Emerald Door
I approached the emerald door, my footsteps echoing in the vast, empty room. Each step felt heavier, as if the floor was trying to prevent my movement. The silver script spelling "HOME" seemed to shimmer and change slightly with each glance.
"Are you sure you want to open that?" the holographic figure asked, its voice neither encouraging nor warning.
My hand reached out, trembling. As my fingers touched the door's surface, it felt warm - almost alive. A series of intricate mechanical clicks began to sound from within the door's frame, like a complex lock preparing to open.
Suddenly, a voice from behind me. "Not that one," an old man said.
I turned. It was the driver from the previous dream - Mr. Thompson, with his peculiar beard and strange uniform. He stood there, completely out of place in this white, sterile environment.
"Some doors," he continued, "are better left unopened."
The holographic figure flickered, then disappeared. The emerald door's soft pulsing light began to dim.
"Which door should I take?" I asked, desperation creeping into my voice.
Mr. Thompson smiled - a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "The one you least expect," he said, and then he too began to fade, like mist dissolving in sunlight.
The Unexpected Door
As Mr. Thompson faded away, I noticed a door I hadn't seen before. Unlike the other doors, this one was unremarkable - a plain, weathered wooden door that looked like it belonged in an old farmhouse. No color, no inscription, just simple, worn wood with a tarnished brass doorknob.
"Interesting," the holographic voice whispered, seemingly to itself.
I approached the door, my curiosity overwhelming my fear. When my hand touched the doorknob, it felt familiar - like something from a forgotten memory. The brass was cool, almost cold, and seemed to pulse with a faint, barely perceptible rhythm.
"Are you coming or going?" a voice asked.
I turned. Mr. Thompson stood there again, fully formed, his peculiar beard catching the strange white light of the room.
"I don't know," I admitted.
He chuckled, a sound both warm and unsettling. "Nobody ever does," he said. "That's the point of the journey."
The wooden door began to creak open, revealing not a room, but an endless landscape. It looked like my hometown - but not quite. The streets were familiar, yet slightly off. Buildings stood where they shouldn't. The sky was the wrong shade of blue.
"Home," Mr. Thompson said, "is never exactly what you remember."
I took a step towards the door, my foot hovering between the white room and the landscape beyond. Something told me that this step would change everything.
The Threshold
My foot hovered between worlds - the sterile white room behind me and the familiar-yet-strange landscape ahead. Mr. Thompson watched, his eyes holding a mixture of anticipation and something else - warning, perhaps?
"One step," he said softly, "changes everything."
I looked down. My shoe was half in the white room, half in the landscape. The ground beneath seemed to shimmer, as if not fully solid. Memories flickered like old film reels - my childhood home, the street where I grew up, the car I'd lost.
"I don't understand," I whispered.
"Understanding is overrated," Mr. Thompson chuckled. "Acceptance is what matters."
The landscape began to pulse - buildings shifting slightly, trees moving without wind. In the distance, I could see my old neighborhood, but the colors were wrong. The sky had a greenish tinge, and the clouds seemed to be made of something other than water vapor.
"Where does this door really lead?" I asked.
Mr. Thompson's smile grew wider. "Home," he repeated. "But not the home you remember."
The Quantum Threshold
As my foot finally touched the ground beyond the wooden door, reality seemed to fracture and reassemble. The landscape wasn't static but liquid - streets rippling like water, buildings breathing and shifting their foundations. Each step I took created tiny electromagnetic disturbances, like invisible ripples expanding from my shoes.
Mr. Thompson remained behind me, his presence both a comfort and a threat. "Remember," he called out, his voice seeming to come from multiple directions simultaneously, "home is a state of consciousness, not a physical location."
The neighborhood looked like my childhood street, but everything was subtly wrong. Houses were positioned at impossible angles. Trees grew sideways, their branches defying gravity. The sky above wasn't blue or green anymore, but a shimmering silver-gray that seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat.
In the distance, I could see a figure walking toward me. At first, I thought it was myself - a mirror image. But as the figure approached, I realized it was something else entirely: a version of me from another timeline, another possible reality. This other self walked with a confidence I didn't recognize, wearing clothes that seemed both familiar and alien.
"You're lost," the other me said, not as a question but as a statement.
"I'm trying to get home," I responded.
He - I - laughed. A sound that was both my laugh and something entirely foreign. "Home is what you're running from, not what you're running toward."
The Compass of Identity
The compass in my parallel self's hand wasn't adorned with quantum equations, but something far more intriguing. Instead of N, S, E, W, it displayed the letters H, I, W, T, H, I - a cryptic arrangement that suddenly made sense in a moment of revelation.
"Home is where the heart is!" I screamed, the realization hitting me like a thunderbolt of understanding. My voice echoed with the excitement of someone who'd just solved an impossible riddle.
But my doppelgänger's response was immediate and piercing. "But is your heart really home?" he challenged.
In that moment, an epiphany struck me with brutal clarity. My family - I wasn't the right husband. I wasn't the right father. I was not a true Christian. The weight of my spiritual inadequacies crashed down upon me like a wave of overwhelming conviction.
Then, remarkably, my parallel self revealed his true angelic identity. His form shifted, becoming radiant and luminous, no longer just a mirror image but a divine messenger. With gentle but firm guidance, he led me through a sinner's prayer - a moment of spiritual recalibration that felt both terrifying and profoundly redemptive.
The Divine Prayer
With a trembling voice, I began to speak the words that would change everything:
"Lord God of heaven and earth, forgive me of my sins, wash over me with a baptism of divine grace and teach me your ways, oh Lord. I accept your living sacrifice of Jesus Christ as my savior, now purge me of my sins, make me new again and add my name to the Lamb's Book of Life. Amen."
As the final word left my lips, something extraordinary happened. The angelic version of myself began to dissolve, not in a frightening way, but in a cascade of light that seemed to flow into me. The landscape around us - the rippling streets, the sideways trees, the silver-gray sky - began to stabilize, as if my prayer had somehow recalibrated the very fabric of reality.
"You are forgiven," the angelic being whispered, his voice now a gentle echo within my own consciousness. "Your journey home begins now."
The Recalibration
When I opened my eyes, the world was different. Not externally - the room looked the same as always - but internally, something fundamental had shifted. The prayer hadn't just been words; it was a quantum recalibration of my entire being.
Mr. Thompson's enigmatic warning echoed in my mind: "Home is a state of consciousness, not a physical location." Now, I understood. Home wasn't a place on a map, but a spiritual alignment, a reconnection with something greater than myself.
The room around me seemed to breathe with a new awareness. Familiar objects - the nightstand, the worn photograph of my family, the cross hanging on the wall - now pulsed with an almost imperceptible light. Not a literal illumination, but a spiritual radiance that spoke of divine presence.
My devices - the push-button phone, the camera from my dream journey - lay silent. But I no longer felt their absence as a loss. Instead, I sensed a profound connection to a communication network far more complex than cellular signals or internet protocols. A divine bandwidth that transcended human technology.
The Spiritual Compass
The compass from my dream materialized on the nightstand - those cryptic letters H, I, W, T, H, I now making perfect sense. "Home Is Where The Heart Is" - but not just a sentimental platitude. A profound spiritual truth.
My heart, once fragmented and lost in the labyrinthine dream cities, was now recalibrated. Aligned. Connected to a divine navigation system that didn't require GPS or quantum mapping, but pure faith.
Outside my window, the familiar Louisiana landscape looked both the same and transformed. The bayou's waters reflected not just sunlight, but something deeper - a spiritual luminescence that spoke of redemption, of journeys completed and new paths beginning.
I realized my recurring dreams weren't random - they were a spiritual odyssey. Each lost vehicle, each strange city, each moment of disorientation was a metaphorical test. A divine challenge to find my true home, not in geographical coordinates, but in spiritual alignment.
The Messenger's Final Transmission
A soft whisper, neither inside my ear nor outside, but everywhere simultaneously, delivered a final message:
"The journey home is never about the destination. It's about the transformation."
And in that moment, I understood. I was home.
End