Issue #4: "This Time" by Alex M. Stein

April 2025, DREAMS

Introduction by Cynthia Allen

When I read the first line of this piece, I knew it was a love story gone wrong and wanted to know why. That the dream recurred “from time to time” and followed the same pattern of recrimination and guilt intrigued me. I’ve always been fascinated by dreams and during COVID, I stumbled upon a dream class on Zoom with Dr. Art Funkhouser, a Jungian analyst in Berne, Switzerland. One of the things he shared was a quote from dream expert Jeremy Taylor: “Every dream comes in the service of health and wholeness.” Even nightmares. I wondered how this applied to Alex’s dream.

During the shut-down, I participated in a weekly women’s dream group hosted by the C G Jung Institute of Chicago where we each presented our dreams for discussion and analysis. When the class ended, I continued working on my dreams with a Jungian analyst closer to home.

Dreamwork is an amazing portal into the subconscious. Keep a pen and pad next to your bed. What you discover may change your life.

In the Q & A, I ask Alex if anything has changed in his waking life since writing this story. Read on for his answer.

And now, our chosen piece for “DREAMS.”

“This Time” by Alex M. Stein

You visit my dreams from time to time.

“There’s plenty to do on this side of the veil,” you say, tucking your long blonde hair behind an ear and staring as if noticing me for the first time. “And time works differently here.” I nod when you say this, pretending to understand.

Things seem natural when you appear in dreams. Like you’re still around. Like it hasn’t been decades. Like we didn’t argue the last time we spoke. “This is how dreams work,” you remind me.

Back then, I accepted everything you said, assuming you were more advanced, more enlightened. I thought that was required for you to stay. I tolerated everything because I was in love with you. And I thought you loved me, too.

But that was long ago.

I’d hoped I’d be different now. I’d hoped I wouldn’t let you mistreat me. But standing up to you, like the impulse to move my legs when I dream I’m running, is still suppressed.

We fall into familiar patterns. Like no time has passed. Like nothing has changed. Like I can love you and forget everything else. That’s comforting when I’m asleep and terrifying when I wake up.

During every visit, there’s a point where you remind me it’s just a dream. “I’m long gone,” you say. “I’m in a different world now.” I know this, but reach for you anyway. You turn away. You never come right out and say it, but you imply it was all my fault. You treat me as if I’m unworthy of your love. But then you smile at me and I forget everything else.

I’ve felt guilty for decades, but not in my dreams. Yet eventually it arrives there, too. “It’s all your fault,” you say. “The accident and the hospital and the cops and insurance adjusters.”

This makes me angry. I say you were the one driving. The fight is the same every time until I yell in frustration and wake up without you.

I’ve revisited the scene for years in therapy. After we argued, you stormed off like a hundred times before, screaming “Fuck you” as you slammed doors and sped into the night without headlights.

But I wasn’t even in the car so you need to stop saying it’s all on me.

Your visits always put a black cloud over my waking life that lasts for hours. Sometimes days.

But this time, I ignore your blame and accusations. This time, I say, “It’s nice to see you. I’ve missed you.”

This makes you uncomfortable. You fiddle with your hair, which now has streaks of grey mixed with the blonde. You look confused, as if seeing the real me for the first time. “I have to go,” you say.

“Because there are things you need to do beyond the veil,” I say with a sad smile. You turn away, flustered. And then you’re gone.

This time, you leave the dream first.

This time, I get the last word.

Eskifjörður, Iceland, photo by Bianca Fazacas on Unsplash

Author Spotlight

Cindy: I love the notion of recurring dreams and how their persistence may be sending us a message to change something in our waking life. Now that you’ve confronted your past and written about your dreams, what’s next? Any changes you’d like to share?

Alex: I’ve always been fascinated by dreams and how they act as gateways to our subconscious and ways of “mashing up” elements from our lives to reveal meanings we overlook. One thing that fascinates me about dreams is how individuals in dreams often represent multiple people in our lives. This dream combines facets of different people I’ve lost in various ways over the years. Ultimately, this dream reminded me of the importance of not putting up with mistreatment or gaslighting.

Cindy: Why did you choose Flash as a vehicle for telling this story? Have you tried telling it in other ways? If so, what did you discover in the process?

Alex: Although I sometimes mock people who claim the universe sends them messages, I had this specific dream just before seeing the call for entries on Substack so it definitely felt like the universe was sending me a message.

In general, I think dream structure and imagery work well in Flash. Ironically, the constraints of Flash give us enormous freedom to tell stories that are a bit outside the box. Dreams can have a poetic sheen that corresponds to the complex ways language functions in Flash. While it’s not a strict requirement that Flash pieces be written quickly, I always try to write fast first drafts of Flash; that method helps me capture the essence of why I’m writing the piece (and lays the foundation for slower and more deliberative revisions to bring key ideas into sharper focus).

Cindy: You’ve written a collection of modern myths inspired by the Eastfjords of Iceland. Can you tell us about this?

Alex: In February 2023 my wife Amy Engelhardt did a month-long artist residency at the Fish Factory Creative Centre in the Eastfjords of Iceland (where she revised IMPACT, a play she took to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that summer). I visited during the last few days of her residency and fell in love with the place. Amy encouraged me to apply for my own residency and I came up with “Echoes of Iceland,” an attempt to capture the strong feelings the natural beauty and history of that area inspires in so many people. When you are enmeshed in the awe-inspiring natural beauty of Iceland, it is easy to understand why people who looked at those landscapes believed in myths and the ancient gods.

I did my own residency in November 2023. The Fish Factory is in the small village of Stöðvarfjörður, which has a year-round population of just over 100. There are no stores and no post office there, so once a week we’d pile in a big van and go shopping two fjords over. Each morning I’d have a cup of tea and look out at the fjord as the first rays of light made their way over from Europe. Then I’d go for a long hike before hunkering down to write for 4 to 8 hours. The pieces I wrote (which covered the origin of the Northern Lights and the Stars, jealousies between different gods, the nature of death and the afterlife, and other “large topics”) are different from anything I’ve written before but clearly reflect the magic of the area. I eventually created a series of 42 stories and original, modern myths that came out in book form a few months ago. It’s weird and unusual, but I’m extremely proud of it… and I know it’s something only I could have written.

Alex M. Stein

What Our Co-Editors Had To Say

Casey: There’s a bittersweet quality to this flash that grabbed me from the start. Those of us who have lost those we love in complex ways know the complicated feelings that seep into our dreams, the ones we can’t necessarily articulate until that world beyond the world drops them into our psyche in a way we can’t ignore. The propulsive quality in this piece for me stems from the evolution of the dream—I was compelled to keep reading, waiting for the “turn,” and then there it was, the author gently taking back his power without discounting the love he still feels for the woman he lost.

Nina: The tug of war that resists the finality of death (and haunts us in our dreams) makes me so sad, so sad, and it is brilliantly evoked in “This Time.” A stark reminder that the separation of death from the living does not mean an end to our relational struggles. Alex hits a universal nerve in showing us how we tend to not just obsess over past hurts and guilt in our awake states, but how our subconscious enjoys nothing more than to haunt us with it into the night hours, as we are suspended between this world and that. I was left with an urgent reminder: find compassion, forgive, let go.

Kate: “This Time” shows how the ghosts from our past can haunt us well into our futures. I was captivated by the emotion in this piece, the ways that conversations with our loved ones can linger long after their lives, and the way we still - and forever - work to make meaning from both how we live and how those we love die.

Leanne: For the length of this piece, the reader readily accepts an in-between world where people who are gone can still converse, move, love, and argue. I adore the idea that complexity in a relationship survives a physical death, and that in the in-between world, a dream-self can hold contradicting emotions that help him navigate toward healing.

Author Bio

Alex M. Stein is an award-winning writer, director, and lover of the Northern Lights. He is a multiple Moth story-slam winner and the author of the collection ESSAYS OF ICELAND (a collection of brand-new, original modern myths written in and inspired by the Eastfjords of Iceland).

Links:

Echoes of Iceland book link: https://www.amazon.com/Echoes-Iceland-Alex-M-Stein/dp/B0DJ79C811

Websites: alexmstein.com, echoesoficeland.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexmstein

BlueSky: @alexmstein.bsky.social

Substack:

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What’s Going On With Us

Editor Casey Mulligan Walsh’s memoir, The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared, was published by Motina Books on February 18, 2025. It was beautifully reviewed in Hippocampus Magazine. Casey was also interviewed by Christina Consolino and appeared on the following podcasts: Jessica Fein’s I Don’t Know How You Do It, Ronit Plank’s Let’s Talk Memoir, and Lisa Cooper Ellison’s Writing Your Resilience.

Editor Kate Lewis is teaching a session on writing flash for the Barrelhouse Conference in Washington, D.C. on April 12. With your registration you’ll get: the full-day conference, including three sessions of panel discussions and craft workshops; your choice of 1 of our 4 featured books; more literary stuff from Barrelhouse’s partner presses; 1 ticket to speed dating with editors (which includes Kate on behalf of In a Flash); and a 1-on-1 meeting with a literary magazine or small press editor.

Editor Nina B. Lichtenstein's memoir, Body: My Life in Parts, is coming out from Vine Leaves Press on May 27th. Each chapter is named for a body part, which Nina uses as a portal toward memory and story. Abigail Thomas says, "This is a brilliant new way to write a memoir....I feel enriched, and grateful to discover a different way to go through my days. I loved every word." If you're a memoir and personal essay fan, and you have a body (!!) you might consider pre-ordering a copy HERE directly from the Press, or from Bookshop.org, or from their preferred book seller. Even just adding Body: My Life in Parts to your Goodreads "I Want to Read" list, helps in creating a pre-launch buzz.

Here’s a preview of Nina’s gorgeous book cover!