The End, A Story About Dreams

You met at school. At a university. In a lecture hall on the grounds of a very expensive place to spend days doodling and gazing around classrooms at cute girls. Yes, you met at school, like so many others do. But you were certain, this was special. This was more special than those who claimed to be more special. Yes, it was here, in the back row of that lecture hall, seated on a worn, plastic-molded seat, that you were introduced to it. Introduced to the dream. 

The first time you saw the dream you were caught off guard, mostly because dreams rarely announce their arrival. Professor Beard and Patched Elbows flashed a picture of it on the screen for all to see. Immediately, something inside of you hatched. And you wondered, were others attracted to it too? Would you have a chance? Could you really chase that dream? It was, after all, an exquisite dream. Shiny and a bit exotic and had a scent you weren’t sure would be acceptable in the world you grew up in. But it got you excited in ways you never thought possible. It captivated. It consumed. You swore that day, you would be with that dream.

So you muddled your way through advanced day-care. At the end, they handed you a receipt, bound in a nice leather folder, suitable for framing. Your relatives threw parties for you, even though they thought it was a nice dream to hang out with for now, but perhaps someday you would be with a more suitable dream — one that was more appropriate. “Just watch,” you said. “This isn’t some silly infatuation. We’ll be together before you know it.” “That’s nice, dear,” they said, as they brushed cake crumbs off fine linen table clothes. 

You began then. And you quickly learned, being with the dream wasn’t going to be easy. You weren’t that special, you know, even if you thought you were. You had to really work and work for it. Then, and only then, maybe if you were lucky, someone might let you scrub the toilet at a place where the dream slept. But you weren’t going to be talking to the dream. Not yet. 

And so you took your lumps and you went about working and working. And one day, the dream noticed you. Yes, sitting on a bus bench one day, the dream peered over the tips of cat eye sunglasses and smiled at you. Naively, you asked if you could sit down next to the dream. But the dream giggled and turned away. “Not yet.”

And because you were either persistent or oblivious or maybe both, you walked by that bus bench every day and had the same conversation. Always “not yet.” Frustratingly, “not yet.” 

Until one day after much more working and working and asking, the answer was yes. And that yes led to more yeses, and finally one night, the dream went out to dinner with you and talked and talked into the night, and it told you it was into you too, and it teased you into following it into that trendy dessert place down the street, where you snatched a taste when you thought nobody was looking. You thought, I’ve caught it. I’ve finally caught it. But before you could go back for another bite, the dream had left, without paying the bill, of course, and was now rubbing up against someone else out on the sidewalk. Someone obviously more handsome and talented and deserving. That made you feel small, like you weren’t worthy. And maybe you weren’t, but that wasn’t going to stop you. Not now that you’d gotten a whiff of its perfume. And so you chased it, with reckless abandon. And you got back to the work. The work. And nothing else.

Then one day, you saw the dream and called out to it. It blew a kiss to you, then slinked into a fancy night club. You tried to follow, but the doorman wouldn’t let you in. “It’s $50 to get in.” “But I don’t have $50.” “Come back when you do have $50.” In a frenzy, you ran home, grabbed your watch, the very one your father had given you, and sold it. And you ran back to the club, as fast as your legs could carry you. You held the $50 in front of the doorman. “It’s $75 to get in now.” “But you said it was $50, and now I have $50.” “Come back when you have $75,” he said. So you dashed away again, and this time, you sold your baseball glove. “Here is $75. Let me in.” “It is now $90 to get in.” Your shoulders, subjected to a mightier gravity, slumped downward. But through the window, you could see that dream. Dancing and throwing back martinis and smiling joyously. It noticed you and winked. So, you scurried off again. You had not much left to sell. Just a bed. But if that what it takes, you said. But you did not sell the bed. Because at that moment, the bed was the only thing keeping you from hitting the floor. And you decided the bed was not for sale. 

You went back to working and working, with the dream constantly in the back of your mind, like a loose thread on your collar that keeps tickling your neck. And you worked and you worked and you worked. And finally, as the midnight darkness blanketed the world one particular evening, with snow crunching beneath your feet and cold stinging your weary brain, the dream was waiting by your car. 

“It’s finally our time,” the dream said, smiling and brushing you on the cheek with a finger. You embraced the dream and squeezed it tightly and thought, I’ll never let it go. The dream pulled away, just slightly, yet still close enough that you could feel the heat of its skin and smell the expensive vodka on its breath. “We can be together, but we have to leave this place. We have to go far away.” “Where will we go?” you asked. “To places where the lights are brighter and the music is louder and the clothes are less flannel-y.” 

“But why can’t we be together here?” you asked. 

“Because this isn’t where I live. Not anymore.” 

“But how can I go? I have so many heavy things.” And you started to loosen your grip on the dream. Just a tad. A fraction, really. Only the tiniest bit. But enough. It was gone. Forever. Because some dreams don’t invest in hesitation. They don’t do U-turns. They simply grab the hand of the next one in line.

Empty days then began. And the work and the work became the drudge and the pain. There’s a spectacular lack of joy when the dream refuses to notice you. 

And so, you found yourself sitting in coffee shops. Because while coffee doesn’t help fill voids, it does help fill time. And it also offers temporary doses of caring. So you frequented the caffeine castles, wondering a lot, untangling regret and reality. Somewhere between the sips of coffee that were warm and perfect, and the sips of coffee that were cold and half full of grounds, you’d look around, and notice others working and working, courting their dreams. Virgin determination, you tisked. The bastards. Those poor, stupid, ignorant bastards, you thought. What you really meant, though, was I’m the poor, stupid, ignorant bastard.

So you got up to leave. Toward the door you went, lingering at the trash can, when a stranger walked past, gently brushing your jacket sleeve. The look was familiar yet not at all. And you wondered if it was happening again. Because it was indeed a dream. Not the same dream, mind you — a different one. Not dazzling like the last, but with deeper eyes and jeans that were worn in more genuinely. Ordering a cup of black coffee, not some latte-macchiato-mocha-spresso-chino. 

You stood at the trash can, longer than most people stand at trash cans. There, it came crashing back, failure stabbing you in the stomach and the heart and the head. Was it all worth it? Was all the working and the working worth it? Where did it get you? In front of a trash can, that’s where it got you. 

As you dropped your stir stick into the trash can, you caught another glimpse of this new dream. It was brushing shoulder-length hair that had fallen in its face behind its ear. Delicately with just a single finger. Nothing more, but the sort of irresistible thing dreams tend to do. You wondered, could you do it again? Could you chase another dream? Did you have the energy? Would it end the same, with you standing in front of a coffee shop trash can? Perhaps. Most likely. Almost assuredly. So you dropped your cup in the trash. 

When you got to the car, someone was already waiting for you in the passenger seat. It didn’t startle you, but it was unpleasant all the same. Especially with its cloudy eyes and stained jacket. And how it only spoke in short, choppy sentences between smoking. And only about the past. To be polite, you listened for a few minutes, but then you asked it to leave, because you had somewhere to be. It said it wouldn’t leave, and it knew you didn’t have anywhere to be. So you turned up the radio, but it only sang along louder than the volume would go. And it switched the radio station whenever an upbeat song came on.

So you got out of the car and walked back into the coffee shop. With a fresh cup of coffee, you cautiously approached the dream. You decided not to say anything, for fear of saying something stupid. You simply sat across the table from it. You started working and working.

The dream looked up.  

THE BEGINNING

Photo Credit: Oleg Ivanov

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