I was the only one who was up in the big room. My eyes took some time to adjust to the darkness. When they finally did, I saw that everybody was gone. No, no they weren’t. They were just hidden in their sleeping bags. It was a cold night, so everyone tried to shove themselves as deep into their bags as possible. Some of their heads stuck out awkwardly. It looked like they have been swallowed whole by giant worms.
Some of the guys were snoring softly. The girls were less noisy, letting out sighs and whimpers. I noticed their body rising within the sleeping bags, in a steady rhythm. My hair stood on its ends. With everyone asleep, I felt well and truly alone.
Who am I, in the first place, you might ask.
My name is of little relevance. It doesn’t matter at all. Like someone dying in a far-off land. But if you want, you can call me Dreamreader. Nobody calls me that, in real life, but that’s because nobody knows about what I can do. I’ve kept my talent a secret for the longest time. What talent? Like the name suggests, I can read dreams.
Okay, perhaps ‘read’ is the wrong word to use. To be more specific, I can view people’s dream. When someone is asleep, I will put my face close to theirs. I don’t do anything first. I just observe them, and try to ascertain that they are in a state of deep sleep, to make sure that they will not wake up. I put my mouth close to their ears, and softly, I whisper these words unto them: “I don’t mean to be rude. But allow me to intrude. Into your dreams. Be it bad or good.”
And then I ease into a trance. My mind will blank out, and I lose all sense of myself. Then their dreams would flash through my brain, as if I’m watching a movie. Voyeuristic tendencies are not natural to me. But what else am I to do when everyone is asleep?
I crawl towards the girl closest to me. She was the pretty one, in our group. She was beautiful and radiant, like a field of sunflowers. Everyone gravitated towards her, bees in search of pollen, or whatever it is bees usually look for. I looked around and saw that everyone indeed was asleep. Her hair was a mess, but it was nice, still. They fell across her face, a scattering of autumn leaves. I whisper the words into her ears.
“I don’t mean to be rude. But allow me to intrude. Into your dreams. Be it bad or good.”
She was alone in a coffee shop. She had a book in front of her, Jane Eyre. It was a good book, one that I had read before. She wasn’t focused on it though. She was waiting for someone. From time to time, she would read and then stop, and then go back to it again. When she went back to reading, she would lose track of where she left off, and she inevitably read the same passages again and again. In front of her was hot coffee. She had poured in too much sugar. The coffee went untouched, after no more than a few sips.
Whenever the door opened, she would look up expectantly, only to be disappointed. She would then check her phone, to check whether she had any messages. There was a mirror across from where she sat, and she used it to check on her reflection. She glanced at the clock. ‘He”, whoever ‘he’ was, was late.
Finally, I arrived, bringing nothing but an apologetic, cheeky smile. It was me she was waiting for, to my amusement. I pull out a chair, and sat on it as if it was a throne. I asked her whether she had been waiting long, and she said that the wait was nothing, nothing at all.
I ordered a cup of coffee, and sip it slowly, savouring every drop. I entertain her with anecdotes, and tell her stories of the world. All the while, she stares at me with saucer-eyes, her fingers twirling her hair, laughing a bit too often, even when the situation did not call for it. When I had gulped down the last of my coffee, I stood up, and held my hand out to her. She grasped it and I led her to the nearby park.
The park was empty for it was a weekday. The grass was a seemingly endless sea of green. Trees would break the expanse, like elevated islands of leaves. We didn’t say a word to each other. The chirping of the birds filled the silence. They talked on our behalf, it seemed. Chirp, tweet, and then a another chirp.
Finally, we sat down on a bench; the one on top of the hill, the one with the view that took your breath away. The sun was setting on a cloudy day, and the clouds looked like orange cotton candy. She put her head on my lap. Her hair fell across her face again, and I told her that I liked that. I bent down and then my eyes snapped open.
And then I woke up. And then I was back in the cold room again, all by myself.
I checked my watch and saw that it was just past 6. Everybody was bound to stir, soon. The sun would rise. Actually, not really. The earth would revolve, and make it appear as if the sun was rising. It’s light would invade the rooms, and penetrate our tightly shut eyelids. It would impose wakefulness upon us all.
I heard the roar of a zipper, footsteps, and then the distinct sound of someone fumbling for his or her things in the darkness. Soon, everybody would be doing the same. I quietly crawled my way back to my own sleeping bag. I turned my head towards her, for one last look. Maybe she was dreaming, still. I tried to recall anything at all that I knew about her, but I realized that I had never really spoken to her before. Somebody’s alarm went off. A wave of angry tsks swept through the room. Persons inside sleeping bags twisted around fitfully, as if by struggling, they could prolong waking up.
I close my eyes, and I retreat into the sleep which had eluded me all evening. In my sleep, I dream of nothing at all.
Mostly Fiction 