The Death Of A Dream

THE DEATH OF A DREAM

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         Lada’s delicate fingers grasped to a strand of long black hair that trailed over her shoulder, as she thought of what to say to him. The man she always met in a scene as her eyes came to a close. He was always there waiting her return. If she were only to whisper his name, no matter how out of reach, he would come. She wanted to cry for him. She wanted to cry so he would never leave her side. Lada knew that once she fell asleep they could never be separated. There was no one else in her dream to taint this love, so it wouldn't matter if the world outside were reduced to nothing.

         A pale blush rushed over her cheek at the thought of her own hopelessness. “Lada you know that this is just another repeating daydream. Don’t you?” she thought to herself as a slight sigh escaped with her breath.

“Nothing I see is real” escaped her lips in a whisper, breaking the silence in the air.

“…and you never do listen to reason when you’ve got reason of your own” she sighed, but it didn’t feel as though it were her own voice.

         Lada looked around in what seemed to be what a recovering alcoholic would call a moment of clarity. Her eyes wandered up and down the wall before stopping in a mirror. She stared at her distorted reflection, clouded in dust, relieved that she couldn’t actually see herself.

         Ladas eyes lingered a while longer and suddenly she snapped out of the dream. She began to wonder how she came to be this way, as she looked down at her arms and took note to herself that they were real.

         The air became chilled as her bare feet shifted on the hard ground. The wind entered her lungs and awakened her spirit. She draw another deep breath and was instantly uplifted. She was alive.

         The scenery changed without her realizing it as she walked. She found herself outside, and the light from a single car traveling down the road reflected on a tree as it passed. The rush surged her forward, across the road, and to the edge of the woods.  Lada was nervous because, she realized, she nearly forgot how it felt to be alive.

         Lada began to run. As soon as all civilization disappeared she ran as fast as she could. Her breath came in short bursts that sent tiny clouds toward the starlit sky. She closed her eyes and held out her arms letting the wind whip around them. She laughed manically, feeling the closeness of the trees she ran past blindly. Lada was elated.

“So, this is what freedom is? This is what it is like to fly.”

         She slowed when her feet hit a softer ground, and opened her eyes to find that she was in a field. She spun in a circle until everything in the world blurred once again, then dropped backwards onto the grass and stared into the sky.

         The sky is the same everywhere, and knowing that, I will never be lost she started to think.

         Lada brushed a hand across her white night dress and stopped to gaze at the gold thread lining the bottom. It lay atop her knees waving in a slight breeze as though to dance with the night.

"It seems even the stars are dancing. I only wish that we could reach them together." She lowered her gaze to the ground and her eyes grew saddened.

"We cannot exist together here” she began to think towards the man she was daydreaming about earlier, “but... I don't feel that this dream is useless."          Wearing a blank stare, directed at nothing in particular, she sat, shifting her weight to a different knee. A gentle smile formed on her lips, and she showed an expression so fragile it soon faded away as though you would have only imagined seeing it. She watched the moon a while and her eyes grew heavy. The night grew darker and darker, when at last, Lada drew a deep content breath and fell asleep.

         In her dream she looked around. There was the familiar scenery in this place that she would run to for comfort. The place that she could find sanity when her life was too daunting. Slowly gaining clarity she saw it. The warm hazel eyes and soft pale skin that she had longed for as the daytime progressed. His dark hair moved slightly atop a warm breeze and fell back down gently to frame his face.

         Lada stared at his face and felt an overwhelming calm rush through her entire body. He touched her cheek and smiled softly as he typically would. Though, for the first time Lada saw a weakness in his smile. A crack in his expression, and suddenly an uneasiness sheathed her very soul. She clung to his stare with her own eyes searching for life but his attention lay beyond her, gazing innocently into his own thoughts, as though he had no recollection of having eyes that seen outward. Before she knew it her dreams turned to despair! With a weakened body, Lada stood paralyzed.

         As she watched him, longing to see him more clearly, he began to fade further from sight. He reached out slowly and grabbed her hand, looking down at it the whole while to avoid her eyes. He didn't need to say a word. Lada knew his every thought. She could feel the warmth of his hand and couldn't bear to let it go. It slipped further down her fingers causing a lump to get caught in Lada's throat that began to burn incessantly.

         The further his hand moved away the harder her very heart was pulled from her chest. Through blurred eyes, as the salty tears began to form, she could only see a pale orange glow about him. His hand reached her fingertips and he squeezed them gently as though to say goodbye, and the sensation overwhelmed her. Everything was grotesquely beautiful but she couldn't understand why this should happen. She loved him.

         His hand finally left hers and she collapsed to the ground, unable to look at him any longer. She knew then that he was carried away, leaving as gracefully and unexpectedly as he had come. Lada knew, at this moment, that she would never see him again.

         She began, at one point, to forget that this sort of sorrowful feeling had ever existed. She began to forget that this man only existed in her dreams. "...I only want one more dream, you couldn't understand my loneliness" she whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek.

         As she reached to him one last time the entire world began to quiver and fade, blurring into darkness. She awoke to find herself still sitting on the grass in the field she had run to.          She had never cried this way in her life but still no one could have heard her. They are all too busy living. These people in the world are the people who remind her daily that it is time to let go of fantasies. It is time to grow up.

         Lada rose to her feet slowly and tried to regain control of herself. She gently wiped a tear from her swollen eyes and it lingered on her fingertip before eventually falling to her feet. The entire sky was dark now. It must have been almost 3:00am but, the vividness of her surroundings was dizzying. Lada moved with slow and careful steps. She walked as though she were guided by an invisible force.

         In an instant, her thoughts became empty and her mind numb. She was only able to watch herself, as though her movements were those of someone else. Her body was no longer her own as it drifted out of the field, and back through the woods.

         She stumbled, instinctively grasping at branches for balance. The window of a nearby house showed a living room that was illuminated by the flickering blue light of a television. “Someone must have fallen asleep, and now lay comfortable in bed” Lada thought, since there was no one in the room.

         Suddenly the channels began to change from one screen of snow to the next, the harsh hissing echoed through the distance, but she hardly noticed at all. For a moment she was fixated on the flashing screen because to her, this was a painting of her thoughts as her mind stood in this moment. Searching for something to grasp and finding that nothing is there.

         Lada felt her body pulling her away, and into the street. She no longer existed, she had no choices and must have been dreaming up these involuntary actions she had been taking. To walk down this street seemed normal, but it couldn't be her that is doing it, she can't even feel the cold asphalt under her feet.

         It was raining outside and the soft droplets that hit her face and trailed down her nose were devastating. She cried until her eyes held no more tears, and now the sky was crying for her.

          The rain that swirled down glistened off the pavement under her feet, and she stared down at it as she walked. As a drop would fall from her chin, or drip down from a strand of hair, she would watch until it hit the ground and bounced back up, trying to go back to the familiar sky that has abandoned It.

         The stars had vanished in the beginning glow of sunrise. A soft grey overtook the harsh black that seemed to be there only moments before. A light pink filtered through and outlined the clouds silhouette. When Lada finally looked up she found herself alone on a beach, the sand beneath her feet cold and lifeless.          The ocean was calmer than any other in the world. Even a wave would break and quickly, but momentarily, the surface would return to a glass like smoothness reflecting the clouds in its waters.

         Lada walked over to the great ocean still unaware that she was actually awake and looked at the sky. It was watching her, guiding her, and her heart began to beat in her ears. She looked down into the water and saw the clouds begin to drift. The wind changed shapes as though to taunt her sanity.

         Lada looked into the water where the clouds have moved away and felt a rush of excitement. It must have been her mind playing tricks on her, she saw something looking back at her. It was a man, and without a doubt in her mind she knew it was him.  He looked at her with warm hazel eyes and a soft smile. The man from her dreams, he came back.

         Her heart raced and she wanted to run to him, but instead her body walked slowly out. The water was freezing cold, but she didn't notice, as it lapped at her knees gently soaking the bottom of the night dress, turning what was white to a dull grey.          The only color she could see were the hues of the sky that peeked from around the mass of clouds. Everything else was grey and lifeless.

         She stepped further, getting closer and closer to the illusion until before long she reached it. He looked into her eyes, floating just in front of her, and held out his hand. She reached for him hurriedly fearing he may vanish if she couldn't hold him quick enough. Her hand only hit water in a chilling splash and the man disappeared.

         Suddenly she was unable to move, something was pulling her ankles and her head went under unable to even gasp for air.

         A twisting sense of panic pulled her stomach and made her nauseous. Immediately she became aware that she was dying, helpless to get herself out from under the water. The salt burned her eyes. The sun hadn't yet come up enough to make anything visible from down there. Her body wouldn't allow her to breathe, and she didn't know how to struggle. She sank further and further until darkness closed around her.

         She was before long unconscious, but could feel everything happening. It suddenly became tranquil. Her body had short spasms but she was no longer afraid. Her heart became heavy knowing that she had just thrown her life away for something that never was real.

         In a moment of clarity in her dark world she could think only that she was wrong in life.

"What happens to me now? I couldn't even ask god forgiveness after all of the things I have done."

         A light slowly crept around her. It looked like the light that was watching her from behind the clouds a moment before. She once again was able to open her eyes, thought it felt she were opening them for the first time in her life. No more water, no more cold. Her eyes no longer were burning and stinging from the salt water that kissed them a moment ago. She felt weightless and began to look around seeing only a soft pinkish orange haze.

         She looked back and seen herself. Her own body floating amongst a mess of seaweed that had wrapped itself around her . Her mouth was open and her eyes were staring intensely when there was nothing at all to look at. The sight was unsettling and she quickly turned away.

"I am such a fool." 

         She closed her eyes and let her body float away. The girl the world below knew no longer exists, for she is not human any longer. She is alive in a new world. With trailing black hair, wearing the pale innocent face of a young girl, she brushed a hand past her own shoulder and realized that she had no body.