I know you,
I walked with you once upon a dream.
I know you,
The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam
And I know it's true,
That visions are seldom all they seem.
But if I know you,
I know what you'll do
You'll love me at once
The way you did
Once upon a dream.
-Once Upon A Dream (from the Sleeping Beauty movie)
They say that we only use a fraction of our brains during our lives – that we have the potential to do wonderful things, tremendous things, if only we could unlock the power. I have found that in my dreams, I can do anything, except transfer my creations into reality. The power that this dream state has over me is omnipotent, it is all-consuming, and it is entirely welcome. When I dream I feel like liberty is within reach, in fact, that I am free. It is glorious.
We were sitting together on a bench in the middle of a meadow, with lavenders and orchids growing together in harmony, cocooning us with their smell and their beauty. The sunshine was beating down on our faces with its golden heat, reddening our faces until we looked like boiled lobsters. All we did was talk and laugh, taking advantage of the carefree atmosphere caused by the faux fabulous weather. We enjoyed discussing philosophy, debating over topics surrounding world peace, the environment and the skewed values of mankind. He always questioned my obsession with the environment, but it mattered not to me. He had his opinions and I had mine, and we were both too stubborn to change them. We were similar like that.
Usually our dream state was filled with the ferocity and vulgarity that was not present in the real world. We enjoyed making ourselves look grotesque, as beauty can become dull after a while. A hobby of ours was having contests about who could make the most outrageous animal or mythical creature, or the most dangerous looking environment, or the situation which could just, frankly speaking, make us the horniest. We shared many similar interests.
Today though we did none of this – we just appreciated each other's company. His name was Edward and mine was Bella, and we were soul mates, I was convinced of it. If only he was real…
"Hey Bella," he asked. "What's your favourite flower?" He picked up a blooming orchid from the ones surrounding us, twirling in it his fingers and looking up at me questioningly through his eyelashes. He did have the most adorable eyelashes, they were as long as a girls and I often made fun of him for wearing mascara in our dreams. He always denied it vehemently, of course, but you never know.
"Tiger lily," I murmured offhandedly, my eyes half-lidded from the glare of the sun. It really could be a pain in the ass. I shifted the sun over a few degrees so it wasn't staring at me in the face and I could relax properly.
"Why?" he mirrored my tone, moving the sun over again so it was back to annoying me. I shifted the sun again, simultaneously growing a vine from the earth until it wound around him, encasing him in thorns. He grew the thorns into vibrant orange tiger lilies and arranged them around him so they looked like a dress, provoking a laugh out of me.
'Because they look striking when worn as women's couture," I replied, still giggling a little. Oh, the games have we played in this dreamland, the memories delight me completely. Occasionally I feel disappointed when I wake up – what does life have to offer when your subconscious has the propensity to provide a beautiful man with a place you can manipulate into whatever you wished to? The possibilities were infinite. In fact, I had the word infinite tattooed between my collarbone and left shoulder two months ago. I do not regret it at all.
"I bet they're comfortable too," I pondered, transforming myself into a cat of various shades of blue and black. I crawled into his lap and lay down lazily – feeling lethargic, lazy and satisfied. I can almost see his smirk as he creates a bowl of milk out of thin air, the name on the bowl being, 'fluffy'. It floated down until it rested right in front of me, and I started lapping it up out of spite. He laughed and I knocked over the bowl – spilling it all over his new pretty dress. My turn to smirk, motherfucker.
Edward turned himself into a big, brown, goofy looking Rottweiler and pretended to hump me. I rolled my feline eyes and ran away into the forest of flowers – it was always fun being small amongst huge, pretty things. They made me feel beautiful and alluring as they brushed up against my complex-colored fur.
I felt thick clumps of spit clumping up my fur and I looked up to see the stupid dog-Edward. His large face was smiling at me, his tongue lolling out and almost reaching my nose. My cat-self recoils because of it and I decide to enlarge myself into a puma, but waking up instead of being the dominating creature of the night. My alarm was blaring, the sound giving me a headache and an ache in my heart at the loss of what was unfolding.
Rolling out of bed was a hardship – going from freedom to limitations was a hard feat, and it was something I had to go through most nights. Some nights I left my friend sleep alone, like when I was up late reading or sketching. Sometimes I only dreamt of blackness, or I didn't dream at all. Sometimes I dream that I have died, and those are the most frightening of all, as I for some reason death to me always comes in the form of drowning, and then I turn into a ghost, destined to haunt the earth for ever. The most depressing thing I could imagine would be being forced to be a translucent spirit who had to sneak up on people and make scary-sounding noises. So rigid and monotonous, as how can you spice up life as a ghost? By scaring couples in the middle of intercourse? I think that even that can get old, as ridiculous as it sounds.
Throughout my days, I think of Edward. I think of his eyelashes, his stupidly messy hair, and his stupendous personality, which never fails to enchant me. I find myself constantly congratulating myself on having such a smart subconscious, who knows just what I want in a man. In fact, I'll do it now. Good job, subby.
I live in Seattle, in a small but highly personalised apartment. Yes, I am one of those people who go for the cheap-and-tacky-but-interesting look in my apartment - I think my knick knacks add character to the place. I dislike glass, metal and cold homes.
I don't feel particularly enthusiastic when I stroll down my block to where I work – the headquarters of a business where one Michael Newton works. I am his personal assistant. Unfortunately for me, Newton does not understand that personal doesn't mean personal, and no matter how many times I threaten to litigate him for sexual harassment he doesn't comprehend the seriousness. But it has not escalated from ordinary innuendoes and not-so-subtle hints at this point, so the problem doesn't consume my thoughts.
The fact that I don't feel excited for my work day doesn't surprise me – I feel less and less excited over life in general as time passes. Reality is overrated, in my opinion, and a place in which you can make dragons fly into existence trumps all others. I am eternally longing for the unreal in the dreariness that is my reality. I am for ever hoping that Edward will breeze into my real life like a gusty tornado, and I will be his fiery volcano, and together we will make such chemistry that the earth will stand still for a charged second before falling to pieces. I even dream this sometimes when I am already dreaming, which seems quite weird to me. Edwards asks me for the reason why I stare off emptily into the distance at times, but I do not answer him. It seems to me like he will vanish if I acknowledge the falsity that he is, and that is the antithesis of my desire.
The usual happened during my day – Mike peppered his speech with double entendres, I spilt hot coffee all over my dressy blouse, the clacking of my heels over my linoleum floor gave me the shits. I truly detest that sound – it reminds me of the breathy whispering of my mother during her sexual encounters, a sound which has scarred me. She was a tramp, but she's dead now, and the memory of that sound was the only thing that she left to me. Needless to say, my memories of her are not exactly fond.
I was impatient to get to sleep and back to the dream-world, where I could flirt with Edward have unicorn races with him. The vibrant whites and silvers of the creatures took our breaths away, though they did not like us a whole lot since unicorns are only particularly attracted to virgins. That fact was so ingrained into both of us that we couldn't change the preferences of the creatures, no matter how hard we tried to think otherwise.
It was cold in my apartment and this prevented me from sleeping, my shivering became violent quickly. I also shiver when I feel lonely – an eccentricity I've had since I was a child and deprived of a proper mother. My body refused to believe me when I told it that Edward was on the horizon, if only it would stop shaking so hard. I had to sing myself to sleep, as I usually had to do, to calm myself down. It was quite pathetic, but necessary for me.
Eventually though I did calm, and I slipped into slumber where he was waiting. The meadow was still our setting, but there was a soft wind caressing my cheeks.
"You are a supernova," he told me when I appeared, twirling a strand of lavender between his long fingers once again, reclining on the bench from the previous dream.
"Why do you think so?" I ask him softly, wondering what had brought this on in my subconscious. Am I feeling insecure and am blissfully unaware of it? Is it normal for people to compliment themselves at random moments within dreams?
"You just are." He replies simply, taking a hold of my hand and rubbing my fingers with the pad of his thumb.
This is a one-shot, for now, but I may expand it in the future.