Title: Dreamscape
Author: Angel LeeAnn
Rating: PG
Summary: Dan contemplates a dream he doesn't remember.
Disclaimer: Yeah, I wish I were in control. As it is, these characters do not belong to me. There. Happy?
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AUTHOR'S NOTES: I actually wrote this a couple months back when Kameka first proposed it to me. I don't know why I've waited so long to post it.
Opening Line Challenge: "I had the dream again last night…" posed to me by our dear Kameka.
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I had the dream again last night. You know, the one everyone has, but no one can remember. It pricks at the back of your conscious, battling to be preserved, but the harder you fight to grasp onto it, the further it slips away into the dark sea of forgotten memories.
I recognize it has something important, though. That is why I know it's the same dream I've had repetitively the last few weeks. Or maybe I've had this dream countless of times before: since I was a child, perhaps. How would I know? I can't remember. Maybe there is only one dream you're allowed to forget over and over; and it's the single most vital dream you'll ever have. So every time you've awoken with that strange sense of forgetting a dream you know you should have memorized: it is that one dream you've experienced since the dawn of time.
I have to laugh at myself at this point. Who am I to turn philosophical? I'm not Sigmund Freud or Alfred Binet. I'm only a simple fraud investigator in Chicago, Illinois. A fraud investigator whose partner is looking rather confused and concerned.
Not used to your partner spacing out while contemplating the great theological realms of dreams, are you, I think.
She seems to realize that I've returned from la-la land because she only flashes a tight, perplexed smile before tearing her eyes away and placing her attention back to the laptop that is perched on her kitchen table. Her rusty-golden hair is clipped back, a few strayed wisps of varying blonde, red, orange, and brown locks cascade over her eyes and she brushes them away with her fingertips.
Those hands: so slender, soft, and perfectly manicured with – today – a pale pink coating of polish. I wonder if those are real nails. I lean back into the oak chair, scrutinizing her elegantly shaped claws. She could probably gauge my eyes out in one swipe.
I chuckle softly to myself, wondering where that insane thought fluttered in from. Of course, this causes her to glance my way, eyeing me somewhat suspiciously, but with a hint of her own amusement. "Do I want to know," she asks with a quirked eyebrow.
"Nah, probably not," I say flamboyantly, my usual boyish grin plastering across my face.
She nods, apparently accepting this as an answer and once again turns to her computer.
Maybe I'm totally off in my assumption. Maybe last night's dream was nothing more than a random subconscious flash of thought while sleeping. I guess I'll never know…unless I dream it again. Yet, who is to say it would be the same one? What if one day I remember it? How would I know it was the identical dream of before? I would have nothing to compare it to.
Why do I care?
I care because if nothing else, I know I've dreamt this dream at least the last few weeks – if not longer. So it must be something important. There must be something my subconscious is trying to show me.
I snort. Now I sound like Zoe.
Speaking of which, she's giving me that odd, worried look again. I guess I should stop making noises or she'll eventually want to call a shrink.
Mmm…not a bad idea. Maybe the shrink could help me decipher this whole dream business.
Nah. If Zoe ever got wind that I was seeing a shrink…do I really need to finish that thought?
Guess I'll just let the whole thing go. If I'm meant to remember then, I will.
END