A Simple Dream

Her dream was this: a sky of flat, dusty pink met the pale blue ocean with a hard clear horizon. The pebbles and rocks resembled the stone beaches of Brighton, but were cemented down like the cobbled streets of Oxford. The land and water met at a perfect 120 degree angle, with one round table sitting atop it. Out from the table grew one large orange beach umbrella. Her childhood bakery was the only building for miles and it rested right at the edge of the world, where she stood in a yellow one-piece. The weather was warm and felt as if she was wrapped in a cotton sheet. There was no breeze. There were no shadows. No sun and no moon. Just her and her memories forced together into one perfect vision, with no bad thoughts in between. Nothing cruel popped out, she wasn’t running from something, she wasn’t late, or kidnapped, her teeth didn’t fall out. She sat criss-cross applesauce and ate her Italian butter cookie with rainbow nonpareils, collecting crumbs in the waxy parchment paper. When she woke up, she searched the dream for some dark subconscious turmoil but found none. She smiled.

He sat at the edge of the bed, floaters carrying themselves into the streams of sunlight dripping in through the cracks in the blinds. His back was hard and his shoulders slumped, pushed down by a weight he never could seem to shake. She leaned over and traced patterns into his spine, playing connect the dots with his freckles. He grabbed her hand and pressed it against his lips, feeling the blood pulse through her fingers. I love you, he said. She wanted to tell him her dream, the first in a long time, to have him see the colors and feel the air, to taste the dissolving memories that hung loosely from her lips—but she knew no matter how she said it she would never get the words right. She remained silent, letting his affections twist and flick through the still air like filaments in a fading lightbulb. Even still they would both call this love, and they’d both be right.