Intertwined Dreams

By Isaick Martinez

Come journey with Norman and Lotus, in Intertwined Dreams. Norman is a scitophrenic who has a connection to Lotus, a man from another realm. They are connected by the mind and Dreams they have together.
Lotus comes home after a day at the market and finds ruin in his path. Lotus acts up blaming Norman, Causing him to have an episode and be sent to the hospital. 
The journey is about the two connection and how Lotus tries to find his daughter and Norman having scitophrenia and trying to figure out how to handle it.
There are new creatures, elves and civil orcs in this book with a different kind of magic in lotus's realm. 
Also in lotus’s realm they have new God's for the orcs called Orcana and for the elves as well.
Come journey with the two as they fulfill their destiny in their realms and dreams with the gods.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BooxAi
• Release date: May 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9789655781793

Book preview

1

NORMAN’S 1ST DAY

The alarm rings around six-ten in the morning as Norman lies in bed. Norman is a man in his mid-thirties. Norman has curly hair and blue eyes. Norman wears a messy hairstyle most of the time, the kind that just looks normal, not crazy. Norman has a tattoo on his arm saying, I’m crazy and know it.

Norman’s room is a mess, with some soda cans and bags on the ground. Norman has two nightstands in the room full of chip bags and soda. On the end of his bed he has a television that is a decent sized one. His clothes that are dirty are lying next to a hamper.

Norman reaches up slowly, smacking the snooze button on the alarm. After a little while of lying there, his alarm goes off again. Then he gets up to start his day. His morning consists of hitting the snooze, taking a shower, and then leaving for work. Once in a while, he’ll get something to eat in the kitchen. Norman doesn’t normally eat in the morning. He eats after work.

After his shower, he puts on his little Convenience Store’s clothes. He must wear matching clothes while he works there. After going to the bathroom, he heads off to work. It normally takes him thirty minutes to get ready for work. He goes to his car and gets in. As he notices it’s a nice sunny day out, he hears a voice in his head saying, What a beautiful day outside. He agrees with the voice that it is a beautiful day. He is used to the voice in his head by now.

He was about seven when he started hearing the voices. At first, he was annoyed and scared. Now that it’s been twenty years. He is content with the voice. Norman has been prescribed all the pills and medicine to get rid of the voice, but nothing works. He’s been taking a pill lately for his diagnosis. The pill doesn’t help him, but he still takes it. He takes the pills to make the doctors happy. You can say he’s not consistent in taking his medication, but he tries. He has side effects but a part of his condition he thinks it’s the voice somehow.

As he’s driving, he hears mumbles from the voice. Sometimes Norman will try to talk with the voice. It works at times, other times he just hears mumbles to his questions. Norman rarely tries to talk to the voice because of how unsuccessful it’s been in the past. The voice will talk about what Norman sees and makes comments about things.

Before he makes it to work, he almost runs through a stop sign. He is distracted by the voice. The voice says something very mysterious to him. As he’s driving the voice says, I think I have a dream again. The fact that the voice says that Norman thought maybe I’m connecting to someone that is real. Normans always thought that he was watching through another person’s life when he dreamt. He considers dreams as his second life.

Then he noticed the stop sign and slammed on his brakes, like a smack back to reality. A car nearly hits him, the person in the car flips him off. He could tell that the person muttered a few curse words and sped off. Norman thought, Sorry. He also thought that people don’t understand him.

Norman reaches his job and parks his car in the lot. Norman walks into the store and the first person that sees him is a regular customer named John. John comes to the store around six-fifty to seven-twenty. John is a man in his late twenties. John always comes in with a classy look. This is the first time he comes in the day. John works in a building a few blocks down from the Convenience Store. John always stops by the store to get the building coffee and snacks to start the day. John doesn’t say anything to Norman because he’s still tired and hasn’t had his morning coffee. As Norman passes John, John smiles a tired exhausted smile. Norman smiles a friendly smile back and walks past him.

There are about twenty people in the store. This is one of the store's busiest times of the day. The time everyone gets up to go to work. Most of the people are getting coffee from one of the many coffee cups in the store. The store is about the size of two regular size Convenience stores. The Convenience Store has a lot of regular day items as well.

Norman walks over to the back as he passes people. Then he punches into his shift. He hears the voice saying, Time to get the work done. Norman works four days out of the week. They are ten-hour shifts. Sometimes Norman will get over time. Lately, he’s been working regular hours.

Norman has two other co-workers, Linda and Bonnie, which are working with him. Linda’s about thirty years old and she has red hair. Linda has her hair in a ponytail. She does this frequently. Linda has stunning blue eyes. Linda also has feelings for Norman but hasn’t told him yet. Linda is a regular height girl. That is very energetic. Linda is also very pretty, some would say.

Bonnie is in her forties. Bonnie doesn’t really talk much, but she sure is a hard worker. Bonnie is also a regular height. Bonnie has hazel eyes. She has blonde hair with a little gray in it. She has been working at the store for a while now, some would call her a veteran.

Linda is at the register, cashing someone out and Bonnie is making some food for the customers. Linda and Norman normally have shifts together. Linda greets Norman with a good morning playing with her hair. They have a good connection because they work with one another three days out of four of Norman’s regular days. Bonnie normally works with them two days a week. Then Bonnie works on the weekends.

Norman walks over to the other register that has a few people at it. He rings them out. John walks up with some coffee and some donuts. His hands are full, but when he puts down the items, he says, Hey, Norman. How’s your day going? Norman smiles and starts to ring up the items and says, Ah, not so well. Almost ran a red light today. Norman’s voice reminded him that it was a stop sign. Oh, I mean the stop sign, correcting what he said. Then Norman chuckles a little. John laughs with him and then says, We all have that day, don’t we? Then Norman finishes ringing up the items and tells him the price. John pulls out his wallet and pays. Norman puts it in the register and gives him his change. John gets his change then picks up the items and then as he walks away saying, You have a good one, Norman. Norman smiles and then says, You too. As John reaches the door, he reminds Norman that he’ll see him later that day.

It’s a regular day at the store for Norman. Norman cashes about three hundred people at the store. This is a normal thing for Norman. His day at the store consists of putting things on the shelf, making hot food, putting things on the cooler shelves and cashing people out. The day goes by slowly. While Norman’s working and busy, his voice isn’t as consistent. Normally, Norman has four breaks. The people working all take breaks at different times, so no one is waiting at the register. Norman also has paid lunch breaks. These are the times when he normally notices his voice.

While they’re behind the register waiting for customers, Norman talks with Linda about how he went to see a therapist. She asks him how that went. He tells her that he likes the therapist for once. His therapist is an older man in his fifties. He has a good amount of experience. He tells Linda he always asks his new therapist how long they’ve been working as a therapist. He tells her that his therapist started working in his early twenties. So, give or take, he has about thirty years under his belt. The fact he’s been working as a therapist for that long makes Norman happy. Norman has already explained his condition to Linda. He normally makes jokes about being crazy. Linda thinks it’s cute.

Linda explains to him how her sister might be getting a divorce from her husband, also how her sister might try to stay with her. Just ‘til her sister gets her own place. Norman tells her that she shouldn’t let her sister stay too long. She has a life too and she must have her own place to feel comfortable. Linda explains that she is going to be comfortable because she knows her little sister is safe and sound. Linda loves her sister very much. Linda normally talks about her family with Norman.

The day is remarkably busy, and John stops in to get things now and then. The second time John came into the store it was at eleven and then the last time he came in the store was around two-thirty. John and Norman get along very well. John has known Norman since Norman started working there.

Norman began to work at the store a little less than four years ago. John would come in and would talk but Norman would be kind but wasn’t very talkative. John, after a few weeks, started to build a customer and staff relationship. It’s easy for John to get to know people because he’s an outgoing person. Norman didn’t really talk much at first, but after a few weeks of getting to know John, he got used to him. Norman isn’t a very social person because of his diagnosis.

Norman is a regular worker; he doesn’t do much more than needed but gets the job done. He's been steady from his episodes from his diagnosis at work so far. Norman can normally control the outcome of how he acts at work. At one point in his life, he would talk out loud to the voice in front of people. Oh, how far he’s come since then. It would normally make people uncomfortable. Norman has learned how to cope better since he’s been working.

Norman works his job steadily most of the day when the voice doesn’t irritate him. No one really notices a thing because he’s good at controlling it.

2

NORMAN’S 1ST NIGHT

The time comes for Norman to get out of work. His voice in his head says, A good productive day. Norman feels good when he hears that, and he kind of agrees with the voice. Norman just believes it’s another day of work. The voice didn’t bother him that much when he was working. A lot of times, Norman isn’t doing something productive. Though, he’s striving to change this habit about himself.

Norman clocks out of work at five o’clock and continues back home. As he gets into his car, he has clarity when he concludes that he had a good time at work. As he comes to that conclusion, his voice says, You should strive to have more days like that. Norman thinks to himself that he doesn’t really have time to do much of the things he likes. But he shrugs it off his chest and continues home. Norman enjoys watching television series from time to time. He had dreams when he was younger to become an actor but has never persuaded it.

As he’s traveling home, he stops at the Taco Beef fast food restaurant to get a meal. His voice tells him that it smells so good. He eats his supreme beef taco and drinks his soda as he’s driving. He normally stops at a fast-food restaurant on his way home. At times he stops at a regular restaurant to reward himself for a great day. As he pulls into the parking lot where he lives, he finishes his drink and heads inside.

As he unlocks his door, his voice says, Secure, just like I like it. All of the time. Norman agrees that he likes a secure place. After the voice says that he gets inside his house, then he thinks about the times when the doctors say that the voices are