She read somewhere that most people dream in black and white, but no one she knows has ever agreed with this. She dreams in colour too, just like they all say they do, but now, after that night, she wonders if she really does. Maybe she is the one who applies colour to the screen in her head without her mind really having anything to do with it. Maybe something everyone now does simply because of television. Sometimes she wishes she could slip into the body of someone from a hundred years ago just for the night to find out.
When she was seven years old, she read some silly book; long since disintegrated in some garbage dump she assumes, about dreams. She remembers the cover was blue, but not much else beyond the vague lessons, so she cannot really help anyone else out when they ask her how to do some of the things that she can do, but that they cannot. "I guess mostly you have to believe you can," she shrugs.
Most everyone she speaks with says they see themselves though, just like watching a movie. She is used to seeing the dreamworld through her own eyes, but that night it was different, maybe what woke her up enough to take notice, to find herself sitting on a bed in a white room. Just so much of it, the white. The paint on the walls, the tiled flooring, the bed covers, the blinds, the closet and faintly disturbing, both her and him in white tee-shirts. Bare legs. Certainly, she is not ready for this. Certainly, she had not even thought of this.
Well, not exactly. Once or twice, a moment's start at the wonderment of lips, but something stopping her. Permission. Even if it is just in the mind. That is mostly what she wonders about. His mind. She thinks about pressing her forehead to his. She cannot recall ever wanting to do that to someone else. She doesn't want to suck out all of his thoughts or anything like that. Not exactly. She doesn't actually need anything from him. It's just that it is always sunshine in her head, when her mind drifts to him, so she focuses less on the whys of all of this and just enjoys the pop-ups, like this dream, instead.
The afternoon is too bright in this room. It hurts her eyes and she finds it off-putting, but then she is suddenly sucked into her body, no longer a spectator, and she doesn't feel that way at all. She watches herself draw out her leg, pushing with her toes her laptop down to the end of the bed beside his device. The computer teeters slightly over the edge of the mattress and she thinks to herself, I'll chance it, as she turns towards him and smiles into his smile. She doesn't think there is a person on the planet that wouldn't love his smile. And if there is, she thinks they're stupid. He leans his head forward slightly, pausing in the way men ask and then they are kissing. They haven't done this a lot, something tells her this is the third time and briefly through her conscious mind, she wonders what the first two were like. This kiss is awkward. They are all bones and arms and noses. She thinks, This was easier standing up. It is not at all an unpleasant kiss though, despite this ungainliness. She likes kissing him. She feels just like she did in the first dream, the word she can only describe as nice and knows it is not sufficient. She is sucked back out of herself and she watches them smile again at each other, watches as she turns herself over and lies down, while he does the same, covering them up, arm sliding around her waist.
Seriously? They are taking a fucking nap?
She laughs inside of herself and then because she can, she hits replay once more, imprints it into her memory (because nothing can stop her from thinking about a dream), before she lets the blackness reclaim them all.
So who cares if she is happier then for the next two weeks? If there is a skip to her step and she smiles at more strangers than usual and they all smile back? Surely the happiness found intrinsically is far superiour to the snippets gleamed from others, those other solitary seconds when someone makes your face laugh or your heart burst. You can give this sort of stuff to yourself endlessly. Who actually needs another person's true involvement? What he doesn't know cannot hurt him. Every day she can check in, just a glance at her sidebar confirms he is alive. And every time she does look, she hopes that all of the wonderful things in life are always within his grasp; but she never includes herself.
Don't you think you should? someone asks her when she finally says some of it out loud. It's a shame you're not. It is a lovely story.
No, not every moment of it is, regardless it is not something you can go on about without sounding at the very least,a tad bit creepy or worse, completely off of your fucking rocker. Which they may be. These people she is speaking with. They believe the earth is flat. She concedes they are wonderful people in every other way and she loves them dearly, but what they think about the shape of the Earth is crazy. Yet still she leaves out so much of it for fear they might think she is the crazy one. She knows she is not. That's what makes all of it so much crazier. How can you explain things like fucking Unicorn Cards without sounding like a shyster? It has been a long time since she gave over to the childlike quality of believing in magic, and she is not stupid enough to think anything she has built in her head or on paper are things she can expect to be true, but she will not deny her insides flaring with happiness, as her mind envisions these worlds of (for?) him.
You see, she says. It is over nothing. I have created this myself.
It's sort of selfish, they say.
She agrees. But what is the harm in being selfish with something that isn't harming anyone?
No, they say. To not give him credit too.
Maybe, she agrees, he is a wizard too.
And they all laugh together at her joke, but this conversation hasn't really helped her, beyond making her wonder more over what is real and true again. And that is inconceivable train of thought. A redundant and wasteful way to spend time. Not that she doesn't waste time in other ways.
Sometimes, egotistically and because she thinks it is funny, she wonders, Did I will this person into existence?
Sometimes, perhaps even more egotistically, and because it is equally as funny, she thinks, Did this motherfucker abduct me? What fucking for?
But she doesn't believe in things like this, parallel universes and such.
Does she...?
She supposes out of anything it could be plausible that all of her dreams were merely the memories of ancestors imprinted into her DNA. Maybe that. At least that sounds rational, even with some scientific backing. Not so fucking insane.
But then next time when she dreams of him, where she sits outside of herself and watches again, she notices right away that they are wearing outfits that no one has ever worn before, except for maybe on days like Hallowe'en. Since she cannot hear their conversation, just low murmurings, she watches them move around this room, comfortable, at ease with each other. She focuses in on the insignia on their outfits. A sword with a snake wrapped around it. She does not rush to grab her dream dictionary the next morning to discover its meaning, she doesn't own one. She wants to conclude that her dreams just like to be funny too.
Like her.
Or like youtube. Another land of colourful fun. Youtube liked being funny too.
Certainly, it couldn't be time-travelling, could it?
When she was seven years old, she read some silly book; long since disintegrated in some garbage dump she assumes, about dreams. She remembers the cover was blue, but not much else beyond the vague lessons, so she cannot really help anyone else out when they ask her how to do some of the things that she can do, but that they cannot. "I guess mostly you have to believe you can," she shrugs.
Most everyone she speaks with says they see themselves though, just like watching a movie. She is used to seeing the dreamworld through her own eyes, but that night it was different, maybe what woke her up enough to take notice, to find herself sitting on a bed in a white room. Just so much of it, the white. The paint on the walls, the tiled flooring, the bed covers, the blinds, the closet and faintly disturbing, both her and him in white tee-shirts. Bare legs. Certainly, she is not ready for this. Certainly, she had not even thought of this.
Well, not exactly. Once or twice, a moment's start at the wonderment of lips, but something stopping her. Permission. Even if it is just in the mind. That is mostly what she wonders about. His mind. She thinks about pressing her forehead to his. She cannot recall ever wanting to do that to someone else. She doesn't want to suck out all of his thoughts or anything like that. Not exactly. She doesn't actually need anything from him. It's just that it is always sunshine in her head, when her mind drifts to him, so she focuses less on the whys of all of this and just enjoys the pop-ups, like this dream, instead.
The afternoon is too bright in this room. It hurts her eyes and she finds it off-putting, but then she is suddenly sucked into her body, no longer a spectator, and she doesn't feel that way at all. She watches herself draw out her leg, pushing with her toes her laptop down to the end of the bed beside his device. The computer teeters slightly over the edge of the mattress and she thinks to herself, I'll chance it, as she turns towards him and smiles into his smile. She doesn't think there is a person on the planet that wouldn't love his smile. And if there is, she thinks they're stupid. He leans his head forward slightly, pausing in the way men ask and then they are kissing. They haven't done this a lot, something tells her this is the third time and briefly through her conscious mind, she wonders what the first two were like. This kiss is awkward. They are all bones and arms and noses. She thinks, This was easier standing up. It is not at all an unpleasant kiss though, despite this ungainliness. She likes kissing him. She feels just like she did in the first dream, the word she can only describe as nice and knows it is not sufficient. She is sucked back out of herself and she watches them smile again at each other, watches as she turns herself over and lies down, while he does the same, covering them up, arm sliding around her waist.
Seriously? They are taking a fucking nap?
She laughs inside of herself and then because she can, she hits replay once more, imprints it into her memory (because nothing can stop her from thinking about a dream), before she lets the blackness reclaim them all.
So who cares if she is happier then for the next two weeks? If there is a skip to her step and she smiles at more strangers than usual and they all smile back? Surely the happiness found intrinsically is far superiour to the snippets gleamed from others, those other solitary seconds when someone makes your face laugh or your heart burst. You can give this sort of stuff to yourself endlessly. Who actually needs another person's true involvement? What he doesn't know cannot hurt him. Every day she can check in, just a glance at her sidebar confirms he is alive. And every time she does look, she hopes that all of the wonderful things in life are always within his grasp; but she never includes herself.
Don't you think you should? someone asks her when she finally says some of it out loud. It's a shame you're not. It is a lovely story.
No, not every moment of it is, regardless it is not something you can go on about without sounding at the very least,a tad bit creepy or worse, completely off of your fucking rocker. Which they may be. These people she is speaking with. They believe the earth is flat. She concedes they are wonderful people in every other way and she loves them dearly, but what they think about the shape of the Earth is crazy. Yet still she leaves out so much of it for fear they might think she is the crazy one. She knows she is not. That's what makes all of it so much crazier. How can you explain things like fucking Unicorn Cards without sounding like a shyster? It has been a long time since she gave over to the childlike quality of believing in magic, and she is not stupid enough to think anything she has built in her head or on paper are things she can expect to be true, but she will not deny her insides flaring with happiness, as her mind envisions these worlds of (for?) him.
You see, she says. It is over nothing. I have created this myself.
It's sort of selfish, they say.
She agrees. But what is the harm in being selfish with something that isn't harming anyone?
No, they say. To not give him credit too.
Maybe, she agrees, he is a wizard too.
And they all laugh together at her joke, but this conversation hasn't really helped her, beyond making her wonder more over what is real and true again. And that is inconceivable train of thought. A redundant and wasteful way to spend time. Not that she doesn't waste time in other ways.
Sometimes, egotistically and because she thinks it is funny, she wonders, Did I will this person into existence?
Sometimes, perhaps even more egotistically, and because it is equally as funny, she thinks, Did this motherfucker abduct me? What fucking for?
But she doesn't believe in things like this, parallel universes and such.
Does she...?
She supposes out of anything it could be plausible that all of her dreams were merely the memories of ancestors imprinted into her DNA. Maybe that. At least that sounds rational, even with some scientific backing. Not so fucking insane.
But then next time when she dreams of him, where she sits outside of herself and watches again, she notices right away that they are wearing outfits that no one has ever worn before, except for maybe on days like Hallowe'en. Since she cannot hear their conversation, just low murmurings, she watches them move around this room, comfortable, at ease with each other. She focuses in on the insignia on their outfits. A sword with a snake wrapped around it. She does not rush to grab her dream dictionary the next morning to discover its meaning, she doesn't own one. She wants to conclude that her dreams just like to be funny too.
Like her.
Or like youtube. Another land of colourful fun. Youtube liked being funny too.
Certainly, it couldn't be time-travelling, could it?
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