Aaren Ruggles
Creative Writing
The White World
Stanley hadn’t always had the dreams. There was a time, he recalled, when his nights were
serene. In their absence, he slept listlessly on bliss. The setting of the sun was anticipated, the bed
welcomed. Now the dreams came in waves. Each one was different, yet somehow they were the same.
Now his nights were all cold, silent, in the world of white walls. He remembered the past, envious of the
pretentious, ignorant child who drifted off peacefully at night.
The dreams were vivid. Each one seemed more real than the last. Some were short, just a brief
moment. In these, Stanley saw glimpses into the white world: a steel door, a distant face, spotless tennis
shoes. Some dreams, however, were as endless as the tide. These were the worst. He would find himself
alone, trapped behind the white walls. He would thrash himself around, scream for help. None would
come.
When he awoke, Stanley always shivered. He felt that phenomena, where you can’t tell whether
what you just saw in your head actually happened or not. Some days the terror slashed his sleep. He
would awake in a panic, and had to ensure the quilt around him was as real as the prickling sensation at
the end of his fingertips. Once he was sure, he would force himself up and wash his face in the ice cold
faucet.
Stanley hadn’t told Carol about the dreams. In fact, he hadn’t told anyone. His mother was an
overworked, underpaid auditor, who spent her weekdays in a cubicle pounding out numbers for
unappreciative customers. When she was home, she wanted to spend the evening asleep in the green
frayed arm chair. His father, practical as he was, would never see the sense of letting some night fantasy
get under your skin. Stanley had no siblings and only a select number of friends, none of which he would
ever consider confiding in.
As he rose, he felt the blood rush to his head. A cold surge of water pushed him back into reality.
He dragged himself into the kitchen. There his mother perched, a piece of burnt toast dangling from her
mouth. In her hands she held two envelopes. She peered up as he entered, resting her breakfast on a paper
towel.
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Creative Writing
“So Harvard Medical has the most prestigious md program,” she said. “Of course, Yale has a
decent reputation as well. For obvious reasons I’m leading toward Harvard, but the decision is ultimately
up to you.”
Stanley went to the fridge and pulled out the frosted milk jug. At the convenient moment when
she eyed him for an answer, he took a gulp.
“Well? What do you think?”
Examining the analog box clock, which rested beside an aged family portrait, he shrugged.
“Come on, Stanley, this is your future.” His mother’s voice squawked as she became more irate.
“We’ve been over this a thousand times. You need to start planning ahead. “
He remained silent. Some thoughts, he knew, are better left unsaid.
“You aren’t still hung up on racing, are you?” she questioned. “You know that’s never going to
happen. First of all, the chances of you being capable to compete against the other death junkies are
second to none. Second, how are you going to support yourself when you’re crippled? In a coma? Or
worse?”
Finally, seven thirty arrived. After finishing his milk, Stanley flopped his backpack around his
shoulders and made a break for the door. His mother halted him before he could escape.
“Please, Stanley,” she begged. “Harvard. Think about it.”
The wheel seduced him. Its smooth edges ensnared him. The purrs of the engine whispered gently
in his ear. One push and he was off. The world faded away into a crisp fog of exhaust fumes. No thoughts
remained; only serenity and joy. Then he screeched to a stop.
Lane Community College didn’t offer much. As he drugged through the knee-high ragweed,
Stanley was reminded of its inferiority to gods like Harvard and Yale. The faded brick walls were
cracked. Ivy climbed up the edges, reaching for the crystal skies above. The buildings were spacious,
aged, and oddly aligned. Nowhere could you find a banner boasting of excellence, a display adorned with
trophies or a collection of esteemed alumni who accredit their total success to their college education.
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Creative Writing
Despite the musky stench, the creaking boards and moaning desks, Stanley felt at home there.
There he could see the countryside from his seat, nestled in the back corner by the overstuffed bookshelf.
There he could feel at ease, with no threat of failure or expectations of brilliance. There he could find
Carol.
She always sat beside him. They met in high school but he felt that somehow he had known her
forever. He couldn’t remember what his life was like without her. Carol wasn’t exceptionally smart or
beautiful. She had a gently flushed heart-shaped face, freckles and a blunt disposition. Faded pink, blue
and green streaks peeked out of her dark brown hair, which was never perfectly together like the other
girls. Even still, her striking hazel eyes enchanted, and she had a way of talking that made her words run
away with you.
Taking his usual seat, Stanley considered his weight. He examined his friend. She sat with her
head bent sideways as she continued her quest of mastering how to write backward.
“What did she say today?” Carol questioned without looking up.
“How do you know she said anything?” he asked. Wondering whether the struggles drowning
him were that obvious, he turned away from the old window.
“I know stuff,” was her cryptic and detailed response.
After determining that he would get no more out of her, he replied, “She wants me to go to
Harvard or Yale.”
“I’m guessing she doesn’t plan for you to major in race car driving there?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know how you can stand it,” she sighed, out of neither envy nor contempt. “If she was
my mom, I’d just run off and give her the middle finger.”
“And go where?” he said.
“Anywhere.”
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Creative Writing
“But what if she’s right?” He ignored Carol’s taken-aback stare. “I mean, unless I’m Jimmy
Johnson there’s no guarantee I could make it. What if I don’t have what it takes to be a racer? It is pretty
impossible.”
Flipping her kaleidoscope hair, Carol faced him. “Stanley, you could do anything you want to!
You’re like a modern day Einstein. You even have the crazy hair. Plus, there is no such thing as
impossible. That’s just a thing people say when they don’t want to try.”
A crisp silence fell across the stuffy classroom. Soon some of the more extroverted students in the
front row began conversing again. Stanley’s mind wandered- not racing, but in a steady strolling pace.
He could still see it- the strange white world. He broke his trance. “Have you ever had the same dream,
over and over?”
Carol considered this question heavily. She frowned, deep in thought. Suddenly, her face lit up.
“Oh! The opera elephants!”
“What?”
Rolling her head back in a laugh, she said, “I’ve had this reoccurring dream that an opera studio
came to town and I went to see it. I sat in the theatre, expecting to see those chubby Viking people.
Instead, I saw elephants. They were wearing Viking hats and had long braided hair. Well, they started
singing and stood on their two… What are elephants’ feet called? Anyways, you know what I’m talking
about. I dreamt it several times though.”
“What do you think it means?” he asked.
“The singing elephants?”
“No,” he smiled, “the dreams in general?”
Carol thought for a moment. “They say dreams are supposed to be messages from your
subconscious. Like your brain is telling you what you want or what you feel inside. Maybe you feel
trapped. Maybe you need to change. Or…”
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Creative Writing
Her advice was cut short with the entrance of Doctor Green, the quirky philosophy of language
professor. It was a happy coincidence that Stanley and Carol shared the exact same philosophy class.
Eugene, Oregon, though not a large city, contained enough individuals to crowd a college stadium
shoulder-to-shoulder. Most students attended the community college. In a general education class one
could often find a friend, but they were both entering the eve of their sophomore year, when seminars
became more like career workshops. Stanley didn’t complain about his luck.
When class ended, he returned home. He felt the fatigue. Despite Doctor Green’s assertion that
classes would “pick up,” and “soon you won’t have any problems waking up in the morning,” it seemed
as if he awoke in the dawn of the morning. As he had. There was something unnatural to him about being
up and about before the Hutton’s vireo hops out of its nest and sings its lullaby.
The pamphlets were waiting for him. Calling to him. Harvard, education for the best and the
brightest. Yale, home to the most prestigious alumni and professors in the nation. They might as well
have said “Far Away College, where you’ll be entombed for 7 years away in an educational prison.” It
made no difference. What if he did go? Would it really be so bad? Perhaps he could charm Carol into
coming. Her father was loaded.
The stress began to swarm the room and bite at his flesh. Stanley needed an escape. Under the
symphony of the finicky chickaree squirrels gossiping with the ballooned pigeons, he skipped back
through the door, returning to the wheel. He pumped the gas, soaking in the melody it produced. The rush
returned.
The world at his heels, he swerved off. It’s difficult to determine what about driving made him
think more clearly. Perhaps it was the pressure of the drive. Perhaps it involved physically distancing
himself from everything. Regardless, he loved the dizzy sensation of leaving the world behind. Once it
faded away, he was free. Free from everything.
When he returned, much of the weight had seized its grip over him. Driving does that, you knowmakes one brand new. It had already begun its magic on Stanley.
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Aaren Ruggles
Creative Writing
As he lay in his loft bed, gazing at the popcorn ceiling, he felt himself slip away. The exhaustion
came like the fog: out of nowhere, tiptoeing on little cat feet, taking over everything. White flooded his
eyelids. Brightness engulfed him. His eyes fluttered feebly in an attempt to drown out the light. He could
make out a figure kneeling nearby. Bits and pieces came into sight.
A man with a thin, spidery appearance peered down at him through golden horn-rimmed glasses.
His wiry limbs were covered with a large white coat. He had a familiarity about him that Stanley couldn’t
make out. “Good morning, Stanley.”
Stanley pulled his head back. “How do you know my name?”
“I know everything about you,” the man replied in a melodic, soothing voice. “Do you know who
you are?”
“Of course I know who I am,” he scoffed. “What I want to know is who the hell you are?”
The man smiled, a promising sign, and replied, “You don’t remember me, Stanley?” He looked
for signs of recognition in his counterpart. None were found. “I’m Doctor Green.”
“Doctor Green?” Stanley quickly nodded his head. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to check up on you,” said Doctor Green. “There’s someone here to see you.” He
straightened his knobby knees and pulled open the steel door. A woman with feathery brown hair and a
pointy nose entered the room, holding something under her arms. When she saw Stanley, she rushed to
him as if his presence caught her off-guard.
“Stanley, you’re here!” His mother choked. Her appearance astonished him. Unlike her usual
lively self, she seemed frail, sickly and very pale. Dark circles sunk under her green pupils.
He stared at her for quite some time, unsure of what to say. She looked so real: every flip of her
hair, every long fluttering lash, every pore on her face he saw in great detail. He thought about Harvard,
about Yale, about the Corvette in the garage. Finally, a response slid down his throat.
“I want to be a racer,” he said. It was all he could force out.
“I know,” she answered, her eyes shinny. “You are.”
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Creative Writing
He stared at her thin face, astonished.
Gazing back at him, she pulled out the folded object in her lap. A jacket. A red, patched racing
jacket. With his name on it. She handed it to him. “When Doctor Green said you were waking up, I
brought this to jar your memory.”
“I don’t understand.” He felt the jacket under his pale scrawny fingers, tracing the stitching
slowly.
“You started young,” his mother recalled, her voice frail and quaky. “You must have been three
or four when you first got in a go-cart. Watching your face light up, the joy in your eyes, your father and I
knew what you were destined to be.
‘When you turned sixteen, we contacted some racing schools across the nation. We set up
appointments, got you some experience. It wasn’t cheap, we had to pay for you to race, but we knew what
a difference it would make. By the time you graduated, you had a contract.”
Stanley kept moving his eyes from the jacket to his pale mother, back and forth, back and forth.
He saw some images flash before him, of the tract, of the races, of his family standing behind him in
support. A smile of genuine ecstasy spread over his face. “I’m a racer.”
His reaction sparked something in his mother, who sat up abruptly, turning to Doctor Green. They
seemed to speak to each other without emitting a tone. She held Stanley’s hand. Oppressed tears began to
fall. “Come with me, Stanley. Come home.”
He got to his feet with her at his side. Together they approached the white door. Before her thin
hand had grasped the knob, a face flooded his senses. He jerked to a stop.
“What is it, Stanley?” Doctor Green asked.
“Carol,” he responded. “I can’t wait to tell Carol.”
The color drained from his mother’s face. She turned from him, quivering madly, as if some
unseen figure had stabbed her in the side.
Panic seized Stanley. “What? What is it? What’s wrong with Carol?”
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Aaren Ruggles
Creative Writing
Doctor Green and his mother engaged in another telepathic conversation, and she wiped her eyes
forcefully. “It’s nothing. Let’s go home. You can tell her then.” She tried to take his arm, but he yanked it
back.
“I don’t believe you. Tell me. What’s wrong with Carol?” His voice flooded the room. It felt
colder than ever.
Taking a deep breath, Doctor Green said, “You know where Carol is, Stanley.”
“No I don’t!” he cried out. “Where is she?” The emotionless response of the doctor made his
stomach drop. “You’re wrong. You’re all wrong.” From a crevice in the back of his mind, he heard a
voice calling out to him. Seeking him. Stanley. Stanley.
“Stanley, please,” his mother begged. “Come home. Don’t worry about Carol. Just come home.”
“Come home? Come home?” Pacing, he laughed hysterically. “You aren’t my real mother. If you
were, you’d know. There is no home without Carol.”
His mother released an odd choking sound, her bird-like eyes bulging. The voice in his head grew
louder. Stanley. Stanley.
“Would you listen to yourself, son?” Doctor Green shuttered. “Your mother is right in front of
you. Your dream is right in front of you. Your world is right in front of you.”
“No,” he answered, “it’s not. My world is where it has and always will be, at Carol’s side.” With
that, he closed his eyes, embracing his calling. The white world faded away. Comforting darkness
returned. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying down. Patches of orange sunlight
engulfed the room. A figure was stretched over him.
Under the glistening sunlight, Carol looked like an angel. Bright and sunny, she sat beside him,
her arms on his chest, gazing into his eyes. “Good,” she stated cheerily. “For a second there, I thought you
were dead.”
“What are you doing here?” Stanley asked, weakly sitting up.
“We always have lunch on Thursdays,” she replied.
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Creative Writing
He smiled to himself. She had a heart of innocence, a pure white heart. No matter what would
stand in his way, this image of her- glowing in the mid-morning haze- would be what drove him in life.
He took her warm hand in his and led her out the door. His new world awaited him, and who knows what
it has in store. After all, Harvard had a nice ring to it.
After that moment, his dreams were no longer haunted by the white world. All remnants of the
place faded away. All pieces were carried by the ocean breeze. He spent all the evenings for the rest of his
life in peaceful slumber.
***
The woman stood there, frozen to the spot. She felt limp yet tight, full yet empty, solid yet broken
apart. Doctor Green took out his pen light and examined Stanley’s glossy eyes, shaking his head.
“He’s gone back in,” he said quietly. Holding his hand over his forehead, he mumbled softly to
himself. It had been a medical miracle, him waking up, four years after the accident. He didn’t want to
give up hope. “Maybe he’ll come back.”
“Not this time,” she stated. Her voice was hoarse. She couldn’t move her legs. “He couldn’t live
with it.”
Doctor Green took her hand; his face flushed with empathy, he helped her from the spot. “You
should go home, Mrs. Dawson.”
She nodded weakly as he opened the door. Inhaling deeply, she looked back at Stanley. He sat
there, in the padded white room. Despite his aloof expression, despite his sickly appearance, despite the
fact that she knew that he wasn’t really there, Mrs. Dawson couldn’t shake the feeling that her son was
smiling.
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Creative Writing
“He couldn’t live with it,” she repeated. “He couldn’t live with killing Carol.” She fumbled
weakly out the door, following the psychiatrist, leaving the white world behind her.
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