Once there was a boy who slept and dreamed persistent dreams that, while he woke and wandered, kept their shapes and thoughts and themes. Each night he slept, he joined his friends resuming halted games, exploring all the turns and bends of rivers with no names, defeating monsters deep below, ballooning skies above. And as he grew, he came to know a girl, and fell in love. He said he’d take her to the world he left for while awake; for he’d no longer have her thirled to one; but how to take her when he woke? He didn’t know. He looked deep in the lore of both his worlds, but even so, he needed to know more. He asked the greatest scientists in this word to explain, but all said dreams only exist as phantoms of the brain. He queried sages in his dream of other worlds and planes, and what they knew of ways between but nothing could he gain. He tried to pray, to meditate, consulted stars and runes, found temples lost to ages past, and played binaural tunes. He held her hand and spoke her name as he began to drowse, ate drugs and bugs, and all the same frustration knit his brows. Whatever method he designed, she couldn’t leave his head. One night he chose to stay behind and she woke up instead.
© Sean Miner 2022
Be First to Comment