How She Dreams

How She Dreams - Part 1

   Chloe woke with a start, feeling disoriented and lost. The dream she had woken from had been so vivid that it took longer than usual to recognize her surroundings. The first thing her mind registered was the alarm clock flashing 2 AM at her in unkindly bright light. She groaned and wished to fall back asleep but knew her mind would not let her rest. Instead she sat up in bed pulling the covers close to keep out the cold winter air. She then reached under the mattress to retrieve her note book and pen, brushing hair from her eyes she began to write by the thin beam of moon light streaming through the window.

Monday December 20, 2011

I don't know what to say anymore. This is the third night in a row this has happened. These new dreams are different, it's as if I have less control over my thoughts than normally. They are fantastic though, I feel like my mind has learned a new way to think, a new way to see the world with extra senses that do not exist in reality. They are extraordinary and yet they scare me. They are too compelling, too perfect and they give me the sense that I'm missing something that is extraordinarily important.

   What that is I do not know. Chloe glanced at the clock, seeing that it was now approaching 3 AM, she figured her mind had been cleared enough to allow for sleep to come. She placed the notebook and pen beside her bed, laying down she closed her eyes and immediately fell into a sleep uninterrupted by dreams.

   Being on winter break had put Chloe in a state of constant drowsiness. She woke at noon every day and stayed up until late into the nights. She spent her days reading books and watching movies while trying to distract her mind from the dreams that continued to plague her nights. The dreams were continuously on her mind, and were the only thing she could think of, nothing could distract her thoughts.

   "Chloe, we're all waiting for you, what are you doing?" her mothers impatient voice startled Chloe from her daydream. She had been staring blankly into her closet for fifteen minutes trying to pick something to wear. It was the day of her family's Christmas dinner and it was the first day since the start of the break that she was leaving the house. Chloe quickly grabbed her gray dress off the floor, deciding that it was clean enough to wear she pulled it over the navy blue leggings she had blindly put on in her previous dream state. When she arrived down stairs she found that her family had already left the house and were outside getting in the car. She slipped on her soft winter boots and gathered her coat in her arms. Locking the front door behind her she carefully walked to the car avoiding the treacherous patches of ice that had formed during the night. Chloe sat in her usual spot in the car, in the back seat behind her father and beside her eleven year old brother Jackson.

   Jackson looked older than eleven, he was much taller than all his classmates, he had strawberry blond hair that Chloe had always been jealous of and dark freckles dotted across his fair skin gave him an innocent look to contrast his above average build. Although Jackson looked mature for his age he was still very young. He spent his days in front of the television absorbed in childish cartoons or running around the backyard with a stick in hand, defending the house from what ever new mystical creature he had recently discovered. Jackson was an avid reader of anything fantasy, it had been Chloe that introduced him to the genre the previous year. His sister had given him a pile of fantasy novels that she no longer had room to keep on her book shelf. He had grudgingly taken the books and promised to read them. Ever since then Chloe would find books missing off her shelf only to find them in the hands of her brother while he sat on his bed engulfed in a alternate universe.

   Mrs. Acker pulled out of the driveway, headed for Chloe and Jackson's grandmother's house. Jackson started his usual rambling about dragons, goblins and elves while Chloe slipped off into her mind.

 .... Once there was a hideous prince, he was ashamed of his looks and so he built himself a castle where he could live alone, away from the humiliation others placed on him. For three years the prince lived in solitude, during these years he maintained the castle with no help while simultaneously training small dragons to be house pets. The prince enjoyed the task of working with the dragons as it was the only job his parents could find for him that did not require him to leave his castle. The King and Queen had arranged the delivery of these dragons to come every few months. Four or five baby dragons would be left by the front gate of the castle where the Prince would pick them up when he was sure there was no one around to see him. One day after checking that the coast was clear he went down to the gate, unlocked it and just as he was about to haul the cages inside a voice startled him.

"Prince, please do not run from me"

"Who's there?" the Prince was frightened and began to back towards the safety of the castle walls.

"I only want to talk to you."

"Don't talk to me I'm hideous! No one should ever see such a horrible face." The Prince was on the verge of tears. The soft female voice sighed.

"That's what I'm here to talk to you about. You are not hideous, I have been watching you these past three years, the way you care for these young dragons is wonderful and it makes you beautiful."

"Miss, please do not lie to me, I can't bear your false attempt at cheering me. I know I am disgusting to all, everyone has told me already."

"Prince you are handsome to me, for I can see past your outer appearance, only when you believe you are alone do you show your inner beauty. If you showed the rest of the kingdom what I have seen they would have a change of heart, I am sure of it." The prince considered this.

"Thank you" was the only way the Prince knew how to respond. There was a rustling of grass and a young lady slipped out from behind a tree. The Prince recoiled in fear for he had not seen another human being in many years. As the Prince watched the women walk confidently towards him he began to smile and glow with the fact that she was not running from the sight of him. For many months the young lady and the Prince met by the gate, she was the only communication he had with the outside world. As they talked the Prince began to fall in love with her...

   Chloe's daydream was cut short by the car pulling into the driveway of her grandmother's house, upset that she had missed the best part of the story, where the Prince and the woman were going to be married, she climbed out of the car and let herself in the side door that led to the kitchen. The moment she stepped through the door, she was met with the smell of roasting turkey and Christmas baking, Jackson followed close behind her struggling to carry the extended family's Christmas presents.

"Chloe help your brother we don't need him tripping over his own feet with all those bags he's carrying." Chloe's Aunt Leah hugged her quickly then sent her to help Jackson.

   The house was chaos the whole family had shown up, all the cousins, aunts and uncles. For dinner they had an extraordinary amount of food, there was turkey with stuffing, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, mashed potatoes, corn, squash, cranberries and so many more dishes that Chloe could not remember everything she had eaten. After dinner the family sat around talking and drinking tea. Chloe quickly got bored of the grown up chatter, she quietly left the dinning room and sat at the bottom of the stairs that lead to the bedrooms. While she sat quietly thinking about life she watched the twinkling lights that were wrapped around the stair banister and looked for the tiny reflections of lights in the crystal chandelier above her. A single piece of mistletoe hung from the center of the chandelier. I wonder what it's like to be kissed Chloe thought about her total lack of knowledge about dating and about boys. She had never had a boyfriend, she had never been kissed, she had never slow danced with a boy and had never had a boy tell her he had feelings for her. She wished that at that moment a boy would appear who would kiss her under the mistletoe and tell her she was beautiful. Chloe knew she was being ridicules and wishing for something that took time to happen but she was having fun daydreaming about the impossible so she continued to imagine kissing a boy under the mistletoe.

   It was not until the car ride home that Chloe started to think about the dreams, it surprised her that she had been able to for get about them for so long, but now they were back on her mind and would not leave her alone.