“The improbable, desiring, erotic, and violent world of romance reminds us that we are not awake when we have abolished the dream world: we are awake only when we have absorbed it again.” -Northrop Frye
The sky was turning darker as the day grew full. Clouds massed on top of each other so thick that the girl began to wonder whether the sun had strewn from its normal, arcing path over the sky and had decided instead to rest on the horizon for the day. There was no way to tell.
She stood up from the couch, too-quickly, and took advantage of the light-headedness to stretch her arms high above her head until she felt as if she would lift off of the ground. She knew she wouldn’t. She probably wouldn’t even ever lift out of this city. The girl had been taught since grade school that humans can’t fly. There existed things simply unattainable. However, last night she had...
Dream 1: Improbability. I’m walking up a wintery slope, the sun shining bright in my eyes, reflecting off of the crisp snow. I am in a line of voyagers- I don’t know where we are going or where we have come from. Frosted pine trees and dead weeds push through the edges of the path. I turn, and to my back is a man in furs. I reach out to grab his hand, and all of a sudden lucidly rise from the path, the hill, the pilgrims, and begin to fly over the Northern landscape.
The wind pushes my hair back from my face and bites my ears, cheeks, neck. From the heights I gaze down at a silver lake that lies ahead. I ache for it, and slowly descend upon the frozen banks.
When both feet have touched the hard earth, I look up and am face-to-face with a centaur. He awaits me, and the air of desire only strengthens. He steps forwards, I reach out, and open my eyes.
Back in the small space of her life, the girl begins to brew her afternoon tea. At least she thinks it is afternoon. Just as the kettle begins to whistle, there is a soft knock on the door.
She freezes. The only muscle that noticeably moves in her body is her heart that visibly pounds through her shirt. As if in response, the knock turns to pounding. “Please open the door,” her mother calls from the stoop. “Please.” She doesn’t open the door. She doesn’t move until she hears the steps of retreat and the start of a car outside, then releases the breath she was holding.
She had never gotten along with her mother. For as long as she could remember, their relationship had been an up and down train wreck of screaming matches and sullen silences. It seemed as if every time she began to let her guard down, to love her, one of them would rip it painfully away, like a band-aid leaving repeated swollen welts that never quite healed. To the girl, the days went by much easier without her.
By the time she crawled into bed later that night, she pretended to have forgotten all about the knock on the door.
Dream 2: Desire. I sit, swinging my legs off of the end of a dock with my mother. I’m not aware of how it happens, but suddenly two of her valuables are spilled into the water- a silver key and necklace. I confidently pull off my clothes and dive into the blue-green water, summoned by the items, reaching slightly into weeds as I grasp the glinting key. I need to breathe, and come up without the shining chain of the necklace.
We have to leave right then, so although I long to have it within my grasp, I reason that I will find the necklace upon my return. The cool water quickly dries off of my skin underneath the late-summer sun, and we move on.
We take the train across the land to a ruined colosseum. It is both eerie and beautiful traipsing through the archeological soil. I feel comforted in this ancient place although the sky threatens with looming clouds. Before I am ready, we must return to the home on the water.
I run out to the dock to resume my diving search as soon as we arrive, but the lake has been filled with dirt. Tractors roam in the the new basin, preparing irrigation systems as if the space will be used for agriculture. I desire the necklace more than I can ever remember wanting something, and am still mourning its loss as I open my eyes.
Lounging in the neighborhood park with a book, the girl involuntarily reaches for the hollow of her throat. She is vaguely reminded of a something, a necklace, but brushes the memory off as unimportant. She again turns her gaze down to the worn pages, but the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
Ever so carefully, the girl brings her gaze upwards. Sitting in a patch of evening sunlight across a bluff in the grass is a man. It’s not the sharp angles of his face, nor the attractive way he leans back on his hard arms, nor the light playing off of his many rings that holds her attention; it is the way he is staring at her. Not the kind of people-watching-in-a-park staring that can be excused as acceptable- he is holding her gaze as if hungry. He wants to devour her. Her mouth falls open, and she feels her body responding to the heat of his presence. Then, as if awakening from a spell, the girl blinks, drops their visual connection, gathers her belongings, and retreats from the park.
As soon as she is out of sight, she begins to run. She runs and runs until her lungs feel about to burst, until her legs catch on fire, until she tumbles through the front door of her house and collapses in a shaking heap.
She only rises to carry herself to bed, long after the sun has set.
Dream 3: Eroticism. I am lounging in an old lake cabin with my lover, at his bon voyage party, knowing that I will soon have to say goodbye to him. Throughout the day, we use a log to float far out on the water. I’m introduced to many of his friends. We lounge underneath the shade of the back deck. We dance in an unfamiliar living room late into the evening. We intertwine, his angular body and my soft one, sleeping and awakening again and again in an old blue bedroom.
I awake in the morning to arrive at the breakfast table, reintroducing myself to his friends before I’m reminded, to my shame, that I had met them the day before. My skin flushes. I am naked from the waist up. My lover then joins us downstairs, lovingly brushing my light hair as I hug him around the waist as if it is normal to do so in front of a group of guests.
I simultaneously squeeze him and my shut eyes tighter, then let them open.
The girl bolts up in her bed to her alarm shouting, covered in a film of sweat, panting. Angry at her reaction, she grabs hold of reality by dousing herself in the cold water of the shower. It’s Monday, and for once she is thankful for the dreaded day’s predictable nature and lack of excitement.
Sitting in her first class, she immediately notices the figure slouching in the corner. She doesn’t need to look longer than a moment to know who it is. She fidgets impatiently through the hour, rising from her seat and out the door as soon as the class is dismissed.
But the day continues in this way. She notices him leaning against a tree across the road, watching her walk between class; she sees him ducking under an eave on her way home as the rain begins to come down; and finally, mulling through the shelves at the local grocery store, she turns a corner and finds him standing at the other end of the aisle.
He is impossibly tall. His gaze is just as intense as the day in the park, but this time holds an air of aggression, although she senses it is because he is uncomfortable and not towards her. She could yell. She could tell the creep off. She could run. Instead, she finds her feet stepping towards him, as he mirrors her, their bodies drawn closer and closer as if pulled together on a wire. They stop when they are a foot apart.
Just like yesterday, the girl blinks and suddenly realizes the strange reality of the situation. She turns to leave, but he reaches out and grabs her by the arm. As soon as he touches her, she is filled with a sense of empowerment and energy, a wickedness that she hasn’t felt since childhood. Whipping her head around to look im in the eyes, she yanks her arm away, reeling with the high, and turns her back on him. She buys her groceries and walks out without looking back.
The feeling keeps her up long into the night.
Dream 4: Violence. It is any ordinary night as I drive with my friend under the streetlights. We talk about guys. We laugh as we pass a restaurant with a ridiculous name. We reach a pier, and it is revealed to me that the point of our journey is to pick up two friends waiting on the end of the pier. She backs up onto the pier because she won’t be able to turn around on the narrow stretch once she reaches them. It all makes sense, it’s all realistic, even the way she confidently drives backwards with speed down the pier. It never once crossed my mind to worry, that is until I look ahead at how far we’ve driven from the land.
“Hey, I think we’ve driven far enough-” I’m cut off by her slamming on the breaks, but it’s too late.
We sail backwards off the pier into the churning, pitch-black water. My friend starts to scream. I immediately try the automatic windows, but they refuse to roll down. The pressure against the door is too great to open. My seat belt has locked up. I am able to remain the calmer of the two while the car sinks because my subconscious tells me I’m dreaming. Then the hiss of the water seeping through the cracks in our doors and windows becomes so loud that I know that’s it not.
I hear her scream again, and gasping for breath, I open my eyes.
The girl wakes up to a knocking on the door. She gets up to look out her second-story bedroom window, but doesn’t see her mother’s car. The knock sounds again.
She hurries down the stairs. Peeking out the living room window that grants her a view to the front porch, she sees his figure. Although she hesitates, freezes in an attempt to hide from him like she so well hides from everything else that might hurt her, she already knows what she will do.
For the first time in months, the girl answers her door. She tilts her face up to meet his, searching his for answers only to find that same sense of primitive vibrance awaiting her. He steps over her threshold, and she begins to live.
Dream 5: Reality. I am lying in my bed, unable to wake, as our class surrounds me. My roommate has invited the session into my room for today. Joe asks, “Are you sure this is alright, Dr. Sexson?” He replies, “Why yes, because Katie is a part of this class.” I open my eyes.
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