“Waking Life,” by Andrew Bertaina, issue 20

11/9/21: Into the Archives: staff member Angel Espinosa on Andrew Bertaina’s “Waking Life,” issue #20

“Waking Dreams,” by Andrew Bertaina, is a somber, reflective and melancholic story about tragedy, life, and finding meaning in that life. While it has a slower pace, the writing is incredibly descriptive and engaging throughout, along with having strong ending impact.

“Waking Dreams is a story about a woman reflecting on her life and the lives of others as she partakes in a reunion party, specifically in how it contrasts the life of a widower. The first-person perspective is used to its full extent, as much of what makes up the content in the story is in the personal anecdotes and thoughts of our perspective character. Bertaina creates a great understanding of our principal character, in their motives, their fears, their past, even their regrets, and it is because of this that the story feels much livelier.

The main interaction between our principal character and the widower is what makes this story. The conversation is comparatively brief to the setup and even the ending, but it makes for a meaningful impact on the protagonist character and their life philosophy. This is a piece focused on the idea of a story or a narrative, and how that can be related to the experience of living. The two central characters have different perspectives on these ideas:

Widower

“He said, I don’t believe in narrative anymore. A death will do that to you. It will send you back to page thirty-two. I don’t want to go back to page thirty-two. I was on page seventy-five.”

Perspective character

“His possessed the clear narrative structure he thought it didn’t. He had a dead wife. This gave everything he did meaning, even something as simple as going for a drive in a car they’d once shared.”

While the widower’s loss made the man feel like his life lacks control or closure, our protagonist seems to almost envy what that loss gave to the meaning in the man’s life, in comparison to the empty, mundane, and unsatisfying life she has. She makes it clear throughout the piece that while she lives in relative comfort with a job, a stable household, and a relationship, she is unhappy with it all, and is not content with the mindless or thoughtless attitude she sees the people around her have:

“I felt no one in the world knew or understood me, and I didn’t know myself either, which made the whole endeavor of putting on a skirt and jacket, of leaving the house and smiling over glasses of wine and eating crackers and several varieties of cheese, pointless.”

This complexity that the story brings out is its greatest achievement and is something that will stick with me as the days go on. I recommend this piece and am eager to see the future works of Andrew Bertaina.