Backrub Boy

Dearest Rachel –

I suppose it shouldn’t come as an great surprise to find out that I still have dreams about my old job from time to time. I’ve never bothered to actually try to calculate it, but I wonder if I didn’t spend more of my waking hours there, dealing with Mohinder, than I did with you throughout my life. Sure, you had a head start, in that we had a couple years in college together, but we weren’t a couple then, and we we thus weren’t inseparable like we eventually would be. And while we did have those eighteen months from when I retired until your accident (and half of those were in the close confinement of Covid quarantine), they might only just make up for the twenty-two between my hiring and when we actually set up housekeeping together in the first place. It’s hard to say.

Anyway, the point is, it’s not all that strange to have the occasional dream about the place, and worse yet, about the man. He was, after all, nearly as much a factor in my life as you were, albeit to the very opposite end of the positive/negative spectrum. I won’t go so far as to claim these dreams are nightmares – those tend to have, from my perspective, a certain life-threatening quality to them (and yes, I realize that’s giving the concept of ‘nightmare’ a very narrow interpretation) – but they’re not particularly pleasant, as a rule.

Interestingly, on occasion they’re also the closest I get to what I understand to be called ‘lucid’ dreams. I may find myself fretting about an order or deadline he’s imposed upon me, only to stop and realize, “wait, I don’t work here any more; I’m not subject to this, I don’t have to worry about this in the slightest,” and the whole dream falls apart. The only drawback to this realization is that it usually causes me to wake up, but better to be awake and free than still asleep amid that situation.

Last night’s dream, however, I wasn’t so lucky.

***

It did, however, have a certain basis in reality and actual events, so allow me to give you the context this comes wrapped in. Mohinder actually did have issues with back pain; in fact around the time I was officially hired (give or take a year or so), he had to go and have surgery on it, and actually attend classes (and yes, even he found that odd) to learn how to do things (like sitting and sleeping and the like) so that he wouldn’t aggravate it in the future. Even twenty years later, he was able to demonstrate what he had learned to anyone who might ask about it.

Say what you will about the man, but he was honest with his opinions. If he thought something worked, he would let you and the whole world know, so that you – and they – could join him in benefiting from his experiences. Likewise, something he disapproved of would be broadcast equally far and wide, so that all and sundry could avoid having to deal with that undesirable outcome.

Anyway, there was a point when I had back issues myself, particularly early in the morning, and he recommended some of the remedies he’d learned in that class so many years prior. I never put them into practice, not entirely out of defiance of him (after all, these were recommendations from a doctor; Mohinder was essentially a middleman messenger in this situation) as much as simply not remembering what they were at the point when I needed to put them into practice. That, and the fact that they were sometimes rather incompatible with my sleep style; until I could train myself to remain immobile, propping my feet above my head wasn’t a viable solution, for instance. Besides, I ultimately found relief by sleeping with my upper body at an incline instead.

***

So that’s a bit of real-life context added to this phantom situation, of having to administer a backrub to Mohinder. I don’t know how the situation came about; it was neither his style to outright order me to do something like this (“Rub my back!”), nor was it in character for him to use polite entreaty (“Could you please…?”). Dreams are just like that; they allow you to enter the scene in media res, as the action, such as it is, is already going on, without knowing exactly how it precipitated, even when you’re the main character, and should have experienced the whole scene from beginning to end if it were real life. So I don’t know how any of this came to be, nor, I suppose, did it really matter.

All that mattered, for the sake of this dream, is that I was rubbing Mohinder’s shoulders and back. You remember what that was like. I may be out of practice, now that you’re gone, but in this dream, I still had all my skill, and it showed. It wasn’t long before the man, who had been standing in front of me with his back to me (not out of disdain so much as to allow me to work on the area that needed it), sank into a chair, ultimately all but melting into a puddle on the floor. Not literally; although I understand dreams can be like that, this was just him lying there, enjoying whatever it was I was able to do for him.

Suddenly, he came to himself, stood up, and announced, “You know, people have been telling me this is inappropriate. You need to stop doing this,” as he walked away.

***

Look, I don’t need to have my old boss tell me that my backrubs (or any such massage, for that matter) are inappropriate for the workplace. After all, for nearly thirty years, they were an all-but-essential part of our own intimate encounters. You may not have been particularly vocal in most aspects of those, but I could count on you being audibly appreciative when I would give you a rubdown wherever you might have needed it. I still miss being able to catch you in the kitchen and kneading your shoulders as you continued to work on whatever you might have been at the time (oftentimes, it was the dishes – my efforts were thus meant as a thanks for the meal as well as an acknowledgement that doing the dishes wasn’t a task I enjoyed, and should be rewarded). I really hope that I can keep some of those skills for Megumi’s benefit someday.

But as he walked off after basically telling me I shouldn’t have done what I’m pretty sure he wanted me to do (because who would do that for their boss unless requested to some degree – and who would refuse such an order, on presumed pain of dismissal?), I was rather indignant. So much so, in fact, that that’s what woke me up. And so here I am, telling you about it.

I guess I really do miss giving you those backrubs, honey, to the point where I’m willing to picture myself giving one to Mohinder, of all people, in order to stay in practice. I really need to find Megumi. Either that, or set up some informal practice like I had back in college, for my benefit as well as those who would come in.

Either way, keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.