By Michael Gates

I miss him: poor old Wagstaff and his head full of silly dreams. Not all of them were silly, though--some of them were prophetic. But all of them were crazy or, sometimes, disturbing. Especially the one that finished him.

Peter Wagstaff and I worked together for three years, selling advertising space for Raring magazine--a rag with truly no reason to exist, in my opinion--and that gave us plenty of time to sit around and solve the world's problems.

And my problems, too. It was my first sales job, and like many beginners, I lacked confidence. For a while, I thought I'd never be successful at it. I was convinced I'd never make enough money to, for example, get married or start a family. But Wagstaff taught me not to take it all so seriously--and to recite the "I'm the greatest" mantra to myself.

"You have to believe you're the greatest," he'd say. "You may not know that you're the greatest, but you have to believe it, nevertheless."

"But what if the client says our magazine sucks?" I'd ask.

"What do they know?" he'd reply. "You're still the greatest."

"And what if they're just not interested?"

"So what? Their loss. You are the greatest."

"And what if they're pissed off when I call, and they hang up on me?"

"The greatest, the greatest, the greatest. Understand?"

It wasn't all pep talk, though; Wagstaff could be funny. I asked him once how he started out in sales, and he said, "selling brassieres, door to door." I didn't believe him for a second, but it cracked me up on a tense day.

Generally, I let him lead the conversation. After all, there he was, twenty-plus years my senior, a family man with a house and kids, and serving, more or less, as my mentor. And he never ran out of topics. Whenever the motivational or sports talk began to drag, he'd get a fuzzy look on his face and start to tell me about his latest dream.

"Last night I dreamt I was right up there on stage with Elvis," he said one day. "We were a duet, both of us with those wiggling hips and curling lips, singing 'Blue Suede Shoes.' And later, backstage after the show, he said he wanted to buy some ad space from us. A whole double-page spread to promote his next movie. I think it was called Luau in Las Vegas."

I snorted. "That's about the goofiest thing I ever heard," I said. "You on stage with Elvis." And it was goofy. Wagstaff was pudgy, balding and pushing 50. Elvis at his most decrepit was sexier. But that same afternoon, two new clients called in to buy space. One was a company that made shoes, including suede shoes. The other was a record company that sold Elvis CDs. As I said, he could be prophetic.

Another dream he had was about the two of us as 'medieval knights.' He was the old fat knight and I was the young skinny one. We rode around on white horses in the service of a king named Alfred the Great. There was a war, and a rival king, Antonius, took over, which was actually good for us, because he made us his dukes, with castles of our own. Wagstaff told me about this dream two weeks before the publisher of our magazine, whose name was Albert, was booted out by the CEO and replaced by a guy named Anthony. He increased our sales territory significantly, so that we landed some plumb clients.

One of Wagstaff's dreams was all about me, or so he said. I was a tropical bird with purple and blue feathers, and I was searching for my mate. When I found her, she was a tiny woman, like a fairy or Thumbelina, in a golden birdcage suspended from the branch of a tree. The cage door was open, but she was afraid to leave, because she'd lived her whole life in the cage. And I was afraid to go inside to rescue her, because I thought the door would shut when I did--and we'd both be trapped. But eventually I worked up the courage, Wagstaff said, and everything was all right. That was only a few days before I met my girlfriend, Pam.

I was a bit jealous of Wagstaff's mental adventures. I rarely remembered my own dreams, and when I did, they usually weren't as imaginative as his. Mine always seemed to involve some sort of humiliation, like not having enough money at the cash register or my car running out of gas while I was on my way to some important event. I didn't tell Wagstaff about these nightmares, though--his dreams were much more entertaining, and he dreamed enough for the both of us. And he wasn't shy about sharing them.

So I wasn't surprised one day, while we were flying back from visiting a client in San Francisco, when Wagstaff began to tell me about his latest dream. He was sitting next to me on the plane and sweating like the proverbial pig.

"What's the hell's the matter?" I said. "It's not that hot in here."

"I'm scared, Tim," he said. "It's all coming true."

"What's coming true?"

"My dream. Last night, I dreamt . . ."

"Oh, boy. Here we go again," I said.

". . . about being here."

I sighed. "Where?"

"On this plane."

"OK. So?"

"It wasn't like most of my dreams. It wasn't surreal or wacky. It was--just like this."

"In what way?"

"It's the same plane. Everything's the same: The seats, the passengers, the flight attendants. The crappy lunch. And you were sitting by me, just like you are now."

"All planes are pretty much alike," I said, trying to soothe him. "So what happened? What was I doing?"

"You were . . . you were scared."

"Scared? Of what?"

"The plane . . . ."

"Why would I be scared of a plane?"

"The plane was going to crash. And something else. I don't know what." He was whispering now. "People were crying," he said. "The pilot was trying to sound calm, but I could tell he was scared, too."

I looked up at the little reading light above my head. "Oh, please," I said. "That's what's bothering you? You're starting to take this dream stuff too seriously, Pete."

When I looked down again, he was staring intently at the little cellophane bag of peanuts on his tray table. And he seemed to be breathing heavily.

"Well, is that it?" I said. "That's the whole dream? You're slipping."

No answer. "You OK?" I said.

Just then, I heard that little "attention" sound, like a doorbell, over the plane's PA system. "Ladies and gentlemen," the pilot said in a Texas drawl, "we are scheduled to land at Newark International in a few minutes. However, we may be experiencing a technical problem."

Wagstaff gasped. "Hey, are you OK?" I said.

"Folks, we can't be one-hundred percent sure if all the landing gear is down," the pilot said. "It probably is. Indicator bulbs in the cockpit do burn out from time to time. But, as a precaution, we're going to make a low pass over the runway, and an observer on the ground will radio to tell us if all our wheels are down."

Some of the other passengers groaned. A guy who sounded drunk began to complain in a loud voice about missing his connecting flight. Not dying--just missing his flight. Then a kid, several rows back, began to cry.

"Don't be frightened by any fire trucks and flashing lights you may see on the ground," the pilot said. "It's just a precaution."

Wagstaff still had his head down. His lips seemed to be moving slightly, as if he were praying.

"Pete," I said. "Take it easy. Dreams are wild, you know. Let me tell you about a dream I had. I never tell you about my dreams, but maybe now is a good time to start." I couldn't think of anything else to say--nothing comforting, anyway--and I thought my dream might get his mind off his own.

"You know I've been arguing with Pam a lot lately, right? About how she wants to get married and I'm not ready? Well, the other night I dreamt that Pam was married to that jerk-face, Phil. You know the muscle-head from the gym who tried to pick her up? They lived in a little house up in the mountains, and they had kids who looked like Phil, and they had a sheepdog. As for me, I was an old man living in a room over a liquor store, and I was crying. I turned on the TV and saw Pam and Phil and their family on some kind of sitcom, and they were smiling and laughing. And there I was, just sitting there with a whiskey bottle and tears dripping off my cheeks. Isn't that freaky?"

Wagstaff looked up at me. I thought maybe he was about to give me another of his "you're the greatest" speeches--but no. "Pay attention to your dreams," he said. Then he closed his eyes and bowed his head.

The plane swooped low over the runway, then began to climb again.

Ding. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have been cleared for landing," the pilot said.

Every nerve in my body jangled when the plane's tires finally touched down. I was relieved for a second, but then there was a god-awful squeal, and I could see the left wing dig into the ground, throwing up a wave of grass and dirt, as the plane listed to the side. The engine broke off, and I closed my eyes.

An old lady across the aisle was sobbing and mumbling about being afraid to die. For some reason that struck me as funny, and I started to chuckle. "I'm afraid of never having lived," I said.

The plane seemed to rotate ninety degrees. Then, finally, it skidded to a halt. Everyone was silent for a moment, then all the passengers started to talk at once. I turned to Pete. "Well, we made it," I said. "You can open your eyes now. It didn't come true after all, huh?"

He didn't answer.

"Pete?" I said. No answer.

"Hey, Pete!" I put my hand on his shoulder, and he slumped over onto my lap. Wagstaff was dead.

The next hour or so is a blur, but I remember telling the flight attendant. I recall sliding down from the plane on one of those inflatable ramps and running toward a bus, and then being in the terminal. I was in shock, I think. We all were, but me especially.

I remember walking through the airport like a zombie, until I found Pam. She was crying, and I hugged her. "Oh, my God, are you OK?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said.

We stood there clutching each other for a while, and I thought about Wagstaff's dreams. And then those four fatal words spilled out of my mouth, far easier than I ever thought they would.

"Will you marry me?"

Michael Gates, a freelance business writer and editor, also writes short fiction, poetry and personal essays. His work has appeared in Eclectica, Eyeshot, The 13th Story, Twilight Times, 3 AM Magazine, Cenotaph, Poems Niederngasse, Melic Review, Poetry Magazine, Think: A Newspaper of Literary and Visual Art and Red River Review. Gates grew up in the wilds of upstate New York, then lived in New York City for several years. He currently resides in Jersey City, NJ, with his wife and son.