Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold and see not what they see?

(Sonnet 137, Shakespeare)

[The story is based on SB 1988-1989 storyline. The time of action is before the wedding of Mason and Julia (that wasn’t destined to happen then). The problem is Mason is suffering from a split personality, and his other personality, Sonny by name, does not want to marry Julia at all. Mason is trying to break through. In one of the episodes Mason tries to warn his beloved against trusting ‘him’, but Sonny would not let him do that. So, the first four lines are a direct quote from the soap, and what follows is my own story.]

“Be careful, Julia… I’m going to break your heart.”
Julia moved slightly in her slumber. “What?”
“What? – Ah – Sorry, I must have been dreaming.”
He got up and went to catch a shower. Julia went on sleeping cozily by the fireplace, in the afterglow of their lovemaking. But the words registered somewhere at the back of her mind. “Beware, Julia, beware of me…”
A truly unique thing to hear from one’s fiancé on the eve of one’s wedding!
So it was hardly surprising it gave rise to a most peculiar dream.

Julia turned round, her eyes wide open.
The man sitting on her couch – who was he? A stranger; an utter stranger. She could see it clearly now that her self-preservation instinct had got the upper hand, and her vision was not blurred by the sweet illusions any more. Julia had been told a million times Mason had changed; she had stood by her man, stubbornly refusing to believe anything she heard; she trusted – whom did she trust, for God’s sake?
Yes, he did have the face and body of Mason’s, but it’d be wrong to say he had his features. A foolishly opened mouth, a blank stare, a hoarse voice, a strange accent, erratic behaviour. Most important, she did not feel any warmth and love coming her way from him. And she had not, for a long time. She shuddered.
“Who are you?” she asked, suddenly terrified. “What are you doing here?”
The stranger showed his teeth. “Anything you make me do, hon.”
“Mason… Where is Mason?”
“He is not anywhere out here,” followed a mysterious reply.
“He is not anywhere out here?” she echoed. “What have you done to him? Is he dead?”
“No, darling, he is not dead. If he is to be found anywhere at all, it will be here. What is it you want from him?”
“I…”
‘I want to spend my life with him. I want to marry him. I want him’. The thoughts were racing through her mind.
“I… I want to talk to him,” she said timidly.
“Go ahead, talk.”
“To you?!”
The man changed his position: now he sat sprawling taking up half of the couch.
“Why, you have been screwing with me, darrrling, more than once; why can’t you suddenly talk to me?”
Julia blushed. She knew she had never in her life been unfaithful to Mason, but, according to the absurd logic dreams sometimes have, she also knew the stranger was right.
“But… but you’re an alien!” she pointed out.
“An alien, ha! Now that you’ve mentioned it, I see you really do resemble Sigourney Weaver, in a way,” he smirked.
Julia stamped her foot. “I mean how can I talk to you and pretend you are Mason if you are not?”
“That’s what you have been doing all along, babe, why not tonight?”
Julia sighed and looked at the stranger again. There was a threat about him, though she could not exactly place it. It sent shivers down her spine.
‘But it’s only a dream, after all,’ she thought. So she tried.
“Mason,” she called. “How can you be putting me through this? We were so happy together, all the three of us – with our baby. A real family. It’s not just given to everyone in their lives, you know. And if it is, there is only one chance. Our love was so special…”
The stranger did not interrupt. But while she was talking he turned up his hand and briefly looked at his palm – the gesture was undoubtedly Mason’s. “How dare you steal even this from Mason?” Julia snapped out. Or she thought she did. Maybe she was too much afraid to raise her voice against the man. So she went on pouring her heart out.
“Why isn’t my love good enough for you? What are you lacking? I love you. I have always supported you. You know you can count on me in anything, don’t you? Is Gina, or liquor, or that freedom of yours, whatever it is – does it really give you as much happiness as our love can? I know it did make you happy, I know you were happy with me, I believed you when you said you were, damn you!”
She must have flown at him, for suddenly Julia saw the man’s dark eyes pretty close. She saw a gleam of fire in them; two silhouettes intertwined by the fire and in flame themselves. The mirage sent a pang of acute pain through Julia, for somehow she knew it was not Mason and her together. Maybe Mason with another woman, or was it she with another man? The next thing she saw in his eyes, when the fire had faded, was a bottomless pit, with someone falling – sinking into it, endlessly, inescapably, ever so slowly and hopelessly… Julia felt she was being drawn into the downward movement, and that was so scary she screamed out loud and started back – waking up immediately with a jerk. The scream did escape her lips, but in reality it sounded like a faint groan rather than a scream.
“What is it?” asked her fiancé, re-entering the room.
“Nothing – just a bad dream--”
Julia frowned. She could not remember anything from her dream though it seemed terribly important. She rubbed her forehead. Yes, just one thing she’d realized at the moment of her awakening. The person destined to be endlessly sinking into oblivion was – her Mason.

/Olga Lissenkova/

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