Noah wasn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep, or when he’d moved out of the chair next to his mother’s bed. Which was probably why he felt disoriented as the sunlight shined on the back of his eyelids and he felt a humid breeze on his face. He wasn’t surprised to find that he wasn’t in his bed though, he was on a bench. In his early morning fatigue and confusion he thought at first that he had been sleepwalking and somehow got out of the hospital to a bench out front. Sleepwalking was something he and his mother had in common. But this wasn’t sleepwalking, that felt wrong. Noah rubbed his eyes until black and white spirals danced behind his lids. When he blinked again, sunlight flooded his vision. He looked at his hands—his own, not a woman's. This wasn’t a memory. The warm humidity which was off for October. Noah looked around the street he was on, which while familiar was definitely not near home.  “I’m dreaming,” Noah thought aloud, standing and testing the dream logic by jumping—nothing. Lucid dreaming was something he’d inherited from his mother. Normally, once he realized he was dreaming, he could control it. But not this time. He couldn’t even make himself fly. He also noted that he was able to read the signs on the stores along the street, something he usually couldn’t do in his dreams. He saw his reflection in a store window, he looked like his clothes had never been washed and he hadn’t been acquainted with a shower in some time. He still looked like himself, recognizable, but with something different, apart from the layer of dirt and reddish stubble, that he couldn’t quite place. A flicker of color on his peripheral vision caught his eye and he turned to see a woman walking down the street on the other side. 

There was something familiar to her, and he rushed across the street after her. She was looking through the windows of stores, clearly looking for something, or someone, he thought. Suddenly it hit him as he read the white words above the store she’d gone into, A. SCHWAB. This was Memphis. He was on Beale Street. They’d come here after Enid Lake, a few years ago. He and Charlotte had dubbed the trip “Dad’s Great Circle Road Trip.” They’d traveled from home in Apex to Atlanta to New Orleans to Enid Lake to Memphis to Nashville and finally back home over the course of a week or so one summer. The whole thing took forever and he remembered feeling so restless in the van and squabbling with Charlotte just for something to do when watching videos on his tablet hadn’t cut it. Had it been six or seven years ago? It might as well have been a lifetime to Noah. He’d been a kid, not even able to grow a single facial hair. Catching his reflection in the mirror again he wondered why he didn’t look like himself if this was a dream. He’d never dreamt of himself as some sort of vagrant or whatever this was. 

“Woah,” he said to himself when he entered the store. It was so surreal, it felt extremely vivid, and he watched himself as a kid showing his dad joke toy after joke toy. He wondered if he’d conjured them, thinking about the trip, but his attention was called to the woman he’d followed in. She was going up the steps however, and he felt compelled not to lose sight of her for too long. 

By the time he got up the steps, he noticed first his sister, looking at some candles, but across the room the woman he’d followed had cornered - “Mom.”

Every instinct screamed at Noah to run to her, to throw his arms around his mother. But something held him back. Fear gnawed at him—what if she saw him? What if acknowledging him broke whatever spell he was in? His pulse quickened, heart pounding in his chest. He wasn’t supposed to be here. This version of him wasn’t supposed to exist at this moment. Afterall, he was already downstairs, the boy that this woman would know. Noah suddenly felt afraid of being seen by her and he grabbed a big top hat off of a rack nearby. He tried it on and kept his back mostly to the women as he tried to get near enough to hear what was happening. 

“I have a family now,” his mother was saying to the woman. She seemed familiar enough with her to not be bothered talking to her too much, though her eyes were sharply darting back to Charlotte every few seconds. “I can’t just disappear. What happens if I get stuck? What if I can’t come back?” Noah’s mother’s voice wavered. “I won’t risk leaving them like this. They need me here.”

The other woman’s expression hardened. “You’re wasting time. Every second counts—if you don’t act now, it might be too late. Just slip away, say you need a break. You’ll be back before they even notice.”
“I’m sorry but no,” his mother said firmly, “you need to leave now. I haven’t talked to her about it.”

“Well you need to talk to them,” she muttered bitterly as Noah tried to sneak a glimpse at her. “It’ll all fall on them once we’re gone if we can’t change things.”

There was something about her that just felt off. She looked familiar and had a strange sound to her voice that was almost the hint of an accent he couldn’t quite trace. Noah wondered if their conversation had something to do with the memories or possibly with his cousin’s drowning and whatever “the tax” was. Mom, are you showing me this dream? He wondered, giving himself another reason for being here. 

“Why will none of you do something?” The woman spat in disgust.  He’d gotten distracted and missed part of the conversation but the woman was clearly upset now. She actually stamped her foot as she said it. 

“Because that’s not our place.” His mother replied back calmly if somewhat cool in her body language. There was a tone of sadness, or maybe sympathy to her voice too. “I’ll find you when I can get away,” she said, “I don’t know when. Please don’t try to convince me again. I’ve got to go.”

He knocked over a display as he tried to hurriedly move out of the field of vision of either woman. By the time he’d picked things up, he noticed a young employee at the store frowning at him. “If you aren’t going to buy anything,” taking the hat from his head, speaking tersely, she ordered, “you need to leave.”

Noah trailed his family, barely able to tear his eyes from his mother, who was so alive, so vibrant. He was so lost in watching her that he barely questioned the strangeness of knowing on some level that he knew this was not a dream. He had to wait outside as the family visited the Blues Hall of Fame, unable to come up with any sort of cash to pay the entrance fee. He pulled out a somewhat crumpled piece of paper that had been folded. He felt a sharp sting on his finger as he unfolded it. “Shit,” he muttered, almost wiping the bead of blood from his finger onto his grimy jeans. I really need to find somewhere to wash my hands. Noah thought idly as he finally read the paper. It was a permit to busk in the city of Memphis. Was this the dream's way of giving him a reason to be here for his family's vacation?

Noah pulled a harmonica from his pocket, feeling its weight in his hand. He’d never played one before, not seriously. But as soon as he pressed it to his lips, the notes flowed like second nature. Somehow, he just... knew. His fingers moved with confidence, playing tunes he couldn’t name. This wasn’t just sleepwalking. Something was wrong. The papercut stung, the harmonica felt too real, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was more than a dream.

His family headed into a diner called Arcade Restaurant, where he followed them. He was starving and felt grateful to the dream or his mother or whatever power was controlling this experience for the busking money to buy a sandwich and coffee. Though he felt as if he was mostly in control, similar to as if he’d been brought somewhere by a friend or his family, but once there he could do whatever he wanted. All he wanted though, was to watch the family, his family, particularly his mother and enjoy the reminder of a particularly good day.

Nothing particularly eventful happened as he watched the family. He simply enjoyed seeing them and avoided their glances when he felt their eyes on him. He pretended to need to tie his shoe as they got up to leave, but quickly rose to follow after them. Noah dropped all of his busking money on the table and rushed out the front door.

Instead of finding himself looking at Main street and Patterson though, he was again looking at the artificial fluorescent lighting of a hospital room. His mother was no longer looking youthful and full of life. She’d been robbed of that once more. Noah blinked at his father who was looking at him with a strange expression in his face. 

"Jesus, Noah,” his father said, voice low, heavy with exhaustion. “Where were you? You promised to sit with her. If I’d known...” His voice cracked, and he sighed, shaking his head. “I would’ve stayed."

"I was... sleepwalking,” Noah said, the lie slipping out before he could think of anything better. But it didn’t sit right. None of it did. “I’m sorry, Dad. Really.”

His father eyed him for a moment, the disbelief clear, but he looked too tired to argue. “School called... said you weren’t there. The nurses haven’t seen you since last night either.” He looked away, rubbing his eyes. “I need a coffee. Just... stay here, okay?”

Noah nodded, mumbling another apology, as his father passed him in on his way out the door but his mind was elsewhere. The vividness of the harmonica still lingered on his fingers, the sensation of playing as real as the air he was breathing now. He checked his pockets—a wallet, his phone, the usual. No harmonica. His stomach twisted. 

He pumped the hand sanitizer station on the wall, as if it would cleanse his guilt for abandoning his mother. Then, he felt a stinging sensation in his finger. He glanced down—there, on his index finger, was a thin papercut, just where it had been a few hours ago. He hadn’t noticed it before.

Noah stared at it, his heart pounding in his chest. Was it a dream? Noah rubbed his fingers together, the sting pulling him back to reality. But was this reality? He glanced at his mother’s still form. How much more was she hiding from him? He sat down next to the bed and whispered desperately under his breath, “Mom... What are you trying to show me? Did that happen?” 

But the only response was the rhythmic beeping of the machines, steady and unrelenting. And yet... Noah couldn't shake the feeling again, that time was slipping through his fingers.