C.W. This chapter contains sensitive content for some readers related to: Mental health conditions. Discretion Advised.

In the middle of nowhere, in an endless sea, there was an old wooden canoe, in which Lester Haydar tried to survive. He had no idea how he got there, he was tired, thirsty and confused, with sores and a wound below the knee on his left leg that was infected. He believed that several weeks had passed since his shipwreck, due to his deplorable state.

Lester felt that there was another person next to him, whom he hugged as if it would keep him safe. It was the body of a man, with wounds similar to his own. He couldn't make out his face very well, even so, he noticed that he had some freckles on his chest, arms and legs, and also a big scar on his abdomen and tried to remember who he was.

“Victor Dautt?  My childhood friend?  I don't know, maybe it's just my imagination,” Lester questioned as he tried to brush the hair from the man's face so he could get a better look at him. “All that should matter to me is that we stay alive.”

There was no ship in sight, no island, nothing around, Lester felt the man gasp as if he was about to exhale his last breath, so he decided to use his body as a shield to protect his fellow traveler from the rays of the sun  He tried to take his pulse and talk to him repeatedly to keep him awake, but he realized it was too late.  The man died in front of him and Lester was completely terrified.

He tried to yell for help, but he didn't have the strength to do it.  He was alone and he was aware that for him it was also a matter of time.  So Lester closed his eyes, rested his head against the man's chest, and when he opened them again, he realized that he was inside his bedroom.  He felt confused and angry, he looked at the alarm clock and it was 4 in the morning.

“It was a dream,” Lester told himself, scratching his head.  Then he got up and pretended that he did not save that person to assimilate that it was just part of a bad night.

Lester Haydar pretended he could give everything he felt to keep a man alive in a nightmare, or maybe to keep Victor Dautt alive.

Victor was once someone that Lester loved very much, he was his best or rather, he was one of his two genuine friends. They shared many crucial moments of their childhood and adolescence, in addition, both created a bond that seemed indestructible and that became something much closer and special. But for some reason that Lester couldn't understand, Victor told him one day that he hated him and just walked away from him. The last time he saw him was 13 or 14 years ago and that annoying dream was not going to solve his economic problems, much less give him answers as to why Victor said something like that to him for no apparent reason.

Minutes later, he showered and looked at his supposedly injured leg, thinking rationally about what he would have done in such a situation and mocking himself for not knowing how to swim. The reason why Lester ridiculously insisted on the same thing was because he, for the tenth time, had similar nightmares over the course of 6 months.  In those rare dreams, that person, whose face he could never see clearly and who sometimes appeared to him in the body of a child or an adult, died in his arms, no matter how much he tried to avoid it.  It was a feeling of enormous helplessness that became a great challenge in Lester's confused thoughts.

So he decided to put his nonsense aside and went to his father's bedroom, next to his, to wake him up.  It was James, a 74-year-old man with dementia, who was living with him after he accidentally fell down the stairs at his house.  Lester insisted several times that they live together, and the old man finally agreed.  The young man tried to understand him, his father had once been a hard-working man, but that never stopped him from spending time with his son, and now due to his illness, he barely recognized him.  James was sometimes aggressive and could react violently when he was confused with his surroundings, Lester took care of him all the time and even while he was working, he loved him no matter what, because after all, he was his only family.

Lester was an only child and both his father and mother were always there for him, but it wasn't the same for Victor Dautt.  Maybe Lester's parents were a little overprotective of him, but his childhood was very good.  They were happy despite not having a luxurious life.  That was very sweet in his thoughts and, as Lester found out in his youth, he was one of the lucky ones to have parents like them.

After that, Lester and his father went to the kitchen.  The young man sat James at a table by the window from where he could see a small park a few meters away.  Lester made him his father's favorite breakfast as he celebrated the day he would begin teaching at the St. Louis University School of Engineering.  While hanging out with James, Lester flipped through the list of his students, whose profile pictures hinted that they might be much older than him.

“Dad, your goddaughter… Diana will live with us for a while to take care of you while I work,” said Lester.

“Where's Lester?!” asked James a little annoyed

“It's me, dad,” Lester replied very calmly.

“But… my son is 15 years old and… where is Mira?”

Mira was the name of Lester's mother, she passed away from cancer when he was 19 years old.

“She… she died a long time ago,” Lester said, as touching the old man's shoulder.

His father didn't say anything else after that, it looked like he was about to cry, so his son put his hand on his and tried to calm him down.

“It's 2006, dad. I'm 30 now. I'm a professor and database programmer. You have lived with me for a while. Diana will stay here, she is very kind in deciding to take care of you while I hire a nurse.”

“So, how's Lester? I know that he is a shy boy, but he is very responsible and studious. Mira and I are very proud of him,” expressed his father. “Thanks for teaching him. Please! Take care of him, teacher.”

 “Yes, I will,” Lester answered.

***

An hour later, Diana left her belongings in Lester's bedroom, so he decided that from now on he would sleep on the sofa.  The young man left his apartment located on the seventh floor and went down the stairs, as usual instead of the elevator.  He walked a few minutes to a bus stop to go to the university.  His heart was beating wildly, it was his first job as a professor, he previously taught programming in a high school, but considering that the academic environment would not be the same, Lester thought of having a much more infallible attitude with the students.

“I have to teach sixth and seventh semester students. Let's see..., let's see…” Lester said as he read the schedule of activities that he had established in his green notebook.

He wanted to prove to himself that his age was not an impediment for teaching people older than him and he thought the same of the other professors - since most of them were between 55 and 80 years old.

Suddenly, a man got on the bus quite agitated as if he had done the longest run of his life, his hair was somewhat messy, with freckles on his face and a small beard.  He wore a green and white checkered jacket, a faded black shirt, jeans, and old shoes.

He tried to get some coins from his back pocket to pay for the bus fare, but he was so tired from running who knows how many kilometers that he looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

“Shit, shit,” he said quietly as he tried to gather as many coins as he could into his huge hands.

But since it was unavoidable...

They fell to the ground and he swore again so many times that, in his thoughts, Lester lost count of the number of curse words the man said in less than two minutes.

In solidarity, the professor made the decision to pay him, he inserted some coins into slot on the fare box, for which the grumpy man thanked him in an unfriendly way.

“Thanks, man,” he exclaimed as if he was forced to say it.

“You're welcome,” answered Lester.

The guy stood next to Lester, the truth is that inside the bus the passengers could barely move, and the traffic didn't help much either.  Being a little taller, with a very intimidating look, his green eyes captivated the professor for a brief moment.  But the smell of cigarettes that permeated his clothes was much stronger than Lester could bear.

“He must be having a bad day,” the young man thought.  

Minutes later, the man turned to him thanking him for his help and started talking to Lester as a way of apologizing for his bad attitude.

“I'm just a little anxious... Today is my first day at work in months, I don't want to mess it up. I really need this. I could barely sleep last night, you know,” said the nervous man. “It's crazy.”

“I see. I wish you good luck," Lester said with a shy smile.

“Here,” the guy replied as he handed Lester a $5 bill as a thank you.

“You don't have to do that, it's too much. It's not a big deal,” declared the professor.

“C'mon! Accept it! I can't return the favor. Besides, the damn coins fell everywhere… ” he stated and as he insisted on paying Lester, the bus came to an abrupt stop trying to avoid a car.

One of the passengers accidentally hit the man and he, in turn, fell on Lester's chest.

“Watch where you're going, idiot!" the bus driver yelled.

The guy in faded clothes, with freckles on his face and possibly the same age as Lester, was unable to grab hold of one of the bus handrails or a seat in time, he hugged Lester's waist with all his might to keep from falling. When the professor was about to lose his balance, the portly passenger lifted him off the floor.  Lester felt as if something out of this world made him levitate.  This quite surprised him, but far from upsetting him, he found it impressive and even amusing.

“Are you okay?” asked Lester.

“Sorry! I never meant to touch you like that. I didn't do it with bad intentions. You were going to fall because of me, Lester,” said the man who had slight pain in his left leg.

“Lester? How… ?”

The professor took a closer look at him and for some reason he couldn't understand, his words reminded him of the dream he had had: the shipwreck with that person whose face he couldn't make out previously.  Suddenly, the question that was raised in his nightmare came out from his lips…

“Victor Dautt?” 

Right after, Lester scratched his head.

“What the hell? Are you... ?” he exclaimed as if he had seen a ghost.

And for a brief moment, Lester felt like he had traveled back in time, to when he was 7 and he met Victor, 8.