Dreams that Mask the Shadows

6 - Sleepwalking through dreams

(listen to: "Technicolour Beat" by Oh Wonder)

Chapter Six

Sleepwalking through dreams.

-Kylie-

"Hello? Dad! You home?" The garage door creaked shut behind me. I didn't bother waiting for a response as I dumped my things onto the couch. The house remained silent. Of course it was.

I kicked my shoes off and slid-walked along the wooden floorboards to the kitchen. It was only five and I was already exhausted. Looking into the nearly empty fridge, not only was I thankful for the few frozen T.V. dinners that were left, but also for the fact that tomorrow was Saturday—which meant no classes. I could finally do some grocery shopping and maybe even have time to get a run in after. Far too tired to even care, I went to the pantry and grabbed the box of cookies I had saved. I'd work it off tomorrow.

It was funny how exhaustion can erase that tiny voice in the back of my head that says I should do something responsible like practice violin, do my laundry, or start on my homework. However, right now, it was time for some epic binge-watching. Which I had Rhiannon to blame for, seeing as she was the one to get me hooked on at least three different shows. I flopped down onto the couch with a blanket wrapped up to my shoulders even though it was still almost eighty degrees outside—California seasons, we don't have any—and let myself be serenaded by the dramatic conflicts of others. The first episode was barely halfway through when my eyes began to droop and I let the noise of the T.V. lull me to sleep.

***

A cool breeze rustled through my hair as my eyes opened.

I was no longer on my couch at home. Glancing down, I found that I was wearing the same clothes I had worn to school so it had to be the same day. My shoes were no where to be found and I was standing in a peaceful meadow filled with tall, swaying grass. It was hard for me to tell if this was a dream or not because it all felt so real.

Not this again. This was the exact kind of thing that normal people did not have.

The world should not be messing with me. This was so not cool.

I took a few careful steps, turning in a slow semicircle. The ground was cool to touch and I could barely even feel the paved pebbles in the path. I had walked around barefoot once before when I was little. I remember clearly that I hadn't liked it. We had been on a family vacation in Arizona. The pool was nice and cool, but when I went inside through the house and out the front door, I quickly found that my feet could not handle crackling hot dirt and rocks.

Tall grass swayed in the light breeze and there were trees everywhere I looked. A meadow was placed a little way in front of me and to my right I could see more of the cobblestone pathway. Swinging wooden chairs hung from some of the sturdier looking trees. A slow, lazy fog seeped over everything and it looked as though I was standing on a cloud.

Please don't disappear, please don't disappear.

I jogged to the path, running down the little paved road, surprised that I wasn't waking up or transitioning to another dream that I would forget upon waking up. Most of my dreams, I forgot all of them, but this—this part of all my dreams I remembered distinctly. At the end of the road, I was greeted by a sparkling clear lake. Fish swam, jumping over one another. There were large boulders along the edges that looked great for climbing and a small thrill ran through me. I stuck my toe in the water and released a shocked yell from having felt the cold.

My dream the other night hadn't been this real. It had felt real, but I hadn't been able to actually feel things. I had to write this down when I woke up. Before I forgot. Please let me remember, please let me remember. Repeating phrases or words in my head always helped me have some sort of anchor to something. Hopefully it would work in a dream.