Train your eyes. Learn to stare at an image, a symbol long enough and in the end, you’ll land in a reality so distorted it’s difficult to tell from which side you began…from which person you began.
My dreams are no longer, at least not often wild and obscure adventures. They’ve spun to obligations, duties to a world that in spurts…I seem to ignore.
In my dreams I fall in love, waking broken for ten minutes at a time. In my dreams, I am good and considerate. I am selfless, tucking friends under impenetrable wings. In my dreams, it takes me less than ten days to return phone calls. In my dreams, I don’t go missing. I’m a good person.
…
He walked through the city as a darkness covered the faces of buildings. It was a moment to introduce hands and dip heads, begging. A moment he could only hope to will away from eternity. If only…if only…if only.
The sun vanished weeks ago. And hope…a word with the power to mean and be so much or so little…long before that.
He was surrounded by a city of dead. With the swing of life long gone, his breath had grown empty. His smile and laugh and tears, invisible…silent...dry.
Victory was theirs. Defeat, ours.
He looked to the sky and asked forgiveness for all the injustice his heart had endured. He couldn’t speak, only feel. It was huge and overwhelming…nailing his feet to the ground to keep him from floating away.
It was in that moment, the sun burned a hole through its shroud.
The rains fell.
He looked to the Heavens and their tears covered his face. Within his next breath, he knew the pleas of his heart were met by those in the clouds…and beyond.
There was no promise, nor assurance. He asked for neither…
That was enough.
