Back to the future
It is a recurring dream. I am always back to the place I grew up at, Ethiopia, African.
Makida holds my hands. She is the same girl I loved when I was a teenager. She is the only woman who casually dazzles into my dreams and crushes everything. Even after more than 25 years later, she’s still lingering in the depth of my consciousness.
Every time I see that same dream, nothing changes. It starts at the same exact time and location.
It’s early morning. Seven of my friends and I are walking to high school, which resides outside the city limit, about 10 miles (ca. 16 km) away from our neighborhood.
We’re ninth-graders. We’re very close friends. Best friends. We wake up early and meet at the closed railroad station. Once we cross the rusty metal factory that appears to crumble, the school sits on a 100 acres green pasture field.
Until we get inside, all you see is an open field full of green plants for many miles far ahead.
Students come from all over. There’s a road where we all converge a few yards from the main gate. As soon as we all rush inside, my heart stops. Makida, the beautiful goddess with the sparkling smile and long curly hair emerges from the crowd. When we stand in line for The Pledge of Allegiance, nobody seems to care about singing. All eyes are on her. But in my lucid dream, she’s not interested in anybody other than me.
She and I have a Biology class together, and she sits behind me, always giggling as if she’s talking about me to her friends behind my back.
Sometimes, she taps on my shoulders and passes me a note about what we’re going to do or where we’ll be meeting after school is over.
When the bell rings, and we head to the next classroom, we hold hands, and walk side by side, smiling like lovebirds. But before we get into room 7, which is Chemistry class, she snatches her hands away from me and stops at the door. She acts like she doesn’t know or never even met me.
I panic and let go of her hands. Then, she looks away as if she sees a ghost, and disappears into the morning fog.
As I start to unravel what just happened between us, I don’t see anybody around. Yet, I’m standing alone by room 7, confused about Makida’s madness.
The bell rings again, and then I’m back to the future, 25 years later.
I yawn and try gasping for air at 3 a.m. in the morning. I rub my eyes, making sure that I was just dreaming the same old dream again. Insane. So, I look, and then find myself sleeping on my big, king bed, comfortably here in North America, in the summer of year 2020.
Thanks to Makida, now I have to deal with insomnia.
I still wonder why I see this dream all the time.
Maybe it’s not healthy, dreaming about the same girl I met 30 years ago. Makida, the girl that slipped away between my fingers, she keeps chopping off my quiet sleeping time shorter, a few minutes and hours at a time.
Perhaps, I should finally have the courage of admitting to seeing a therapist.
Midnightink 6-13-2020