There are dreams that you remember, and dreams that you don't. But some dreams cling to the backs of your eyelids, making you wonder if they were ever really dreams at all. Maybe some dreams are lived.
Natalie contemplated the idea as she leaned back in her wooden desk chair, taking a break from the mass amounts of Calculus worksheets and textbooks spread before her. It certainly seemed like her life had been a dream. She could barely remember most of it, yet there she was. Sixteen years old and nothing to show for it except for a stack of perfect report cards and a keyboard itching to be played in the corner of her pristine room. Downstairs, her mother was downing yet another dose of pills to drive the crazy out of her brain. But crazy isn't exactly controllable. That's why they call it 'crazy'.
The young girl dropped her pencil on the desk and stood up, letting out a breath of air she didn't realize she'd been holding. She wandered over to the keyboard and sat down. As her fingers danced over the keys, everything else seemed to melt away. The grades, the age, the crazy. Perhaps this was the dream, elegant music that invaded your every molecule, sensational notes that strung together into a waltz or a sonata or a concerto.
"It's beautiful," Natalie snapped her head in the direction of the unexpected voice. A tall, lean man sat casually on the edge of her bed, leaning back on his hands and staring at her mischievously.
"Who are you?" she asked, inching back in her seat, away from him.
"Come now, you know who I am," he pushed himself off of the bed and strode towards her, his light brown hair slicked back ever so slightly, his blue eyes holding hers, unabashed.
"Don't come near me," Natalie threatened, getting up to back against the wall.
"Natalie, it's me. It's your brother," the man stopped at the keyboard.
"My brother? No, that's impossible…my brother's dead…dead for-"
"Eighteen years, I know," he interrupted. Natalie stared at him, incredulous. Who was this man? Could it really be…no. Of course not. That would be crazy, and if there was one thing Natalie wasn't, it was crazy. Not yet, anyway.
"Stop fucking around. Get out of my room or I'll call the cops,"
The boy laughed and looked up at the ceiling, as if Natalie's threat was completely absurd. The grin soon faded into a sad little smile, though. He lowered his gaze.
"Mom won't talk to me anymore. She can't," he said quietly.
"What?" Natalie didn't know what to do. She was completely trapped against the wall. There was no where for her to move to escape whatever the stranger's intentions were. Perhaps if she found something to throw…
"You knew she talked to me. You knew, I know you knew," his voice was tenuous.
"You can't really be…"
"But I am," the boy, who was suddenly all too real and yet all too deceased, looked up at his sister. "It's those stupid pills she's taking. They confuse her so she can't talk to me,"
Natalie lowered her arms and took a tiny step forward. How could this be? It was true, she had known that her mother hallucinated her dead son for as long as Natalie could remember, but she had always thought it had been just that-a hallucination. Not a ghost, not really. A shadow of what Mrs. Goodman wanted so badly but could never have.
"Why can I see you?" Natalie ventured around the keyboard so that she was standing face to face with her brother.
"It's all those pills you've been popping," he laughed. Natalie hadn't told anyone about her recent habit of borrowing from her mother's medicine cabinet, it felt strange hearing the truth out loud. She felt her cheeks flush red.
"What has that got to do with anything?" she spat. "I thought they were supposed to push you away,"
"They're supposed to make you happier," Gabriel searched Natalie's eyes for understanding.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that you need me," he replied, taking her hand in his and leading her to the bed, where they both sat down stiffly. Natalie was surprised at how human he felt, warm flesh, sweaty hands and all.
"I've gotten by just fine without you. I love you, Gabriel, but you're dead. You're not supposed to be here,"
Gabe looked away curtly before answering.
"Maybe you're not supposed to be here, either,"
"Wh-what?" Natalie leaned instinctively away from the boy, who was looking at her rather intensely now. There was a fire in his eyes that she had not seen before which accompanied the greedy thrust of his body as he leaned further towards his careful sister.
"Come with me," he whispered. "You hate it here, I know you do. All you have to do is swallow those pills and they'll make you happy. They'll make you happy like they're supposed to," he grabbed her hands. "Come with me,"
"I can't…" Natalie's heart was pounding in her chest, her face was flushing and it seemed as though the entire room was tilting on itself. What her brother was suggesting was crazy. And if there was one thing Natalie wasn't….
"You can. You can and you should! Don't you see? We'd be so much happier without the rest of them," Gabe sprang up and grabbed the bottle of pills from underneath her pillow. How had he known they were there?
"You can do this, Natalie," he wrapped her fingers around the bottle. Natalie weighed it in her hands. The capsules spun around in the little plastic container, sounding completely innocent and not at all capable of death. But that's what they were. They were death. First the death of Gabriel for her mother, then the sight of death for Natalie, and possibly the very thing itself, as well. She tipped the bottle back and forth, listening to their inharmonious song.
"You can do this," Gabriel smiled at her.
Natalie looked from her deceased brother back to the container, thinking that it was the first time that anyone had truly believed in her. Maybe she could. Maybe she could be brave.
Natalie unscrewed the bottle. Gabriel laughed. The pills were insects in her throat. And then they were just pills. Pills that had promised something more beautiful than her dream of a life. It was as they were dissolving into her, carrying her away from the hurt and the pain and the strange, that she realized that dreams were always meant to be ended. Sooner or later, you've got to wake up.