Daring Dreams

Daring Dreams

Danny woke up, in that place where your mind is awake, but your body seems to still be asleep, he lay listening to the sounds around him. They seemed wrong. There was too much noise in his room. Not alarmed, he tried to identify them. Maybe TV? Had he fallen asleep on the sofa again? He’d been dreaming an intense dream.

His mind wandered back to the dream. He had been standing up high somewhere. He could see for miles it seemed, the town, the hills, the wide strip of interstate winding up and down with shiny cars going in both directions. He could even see the metal top of the town water tower through the trees. He felt as if he was on top of the world.

As he’d looked down he gasped at how high he was, slamming his eyes shut till his head stopped swirling. He looked back at the water. The sun overhead caused the water to sparkle, but instead of beautiful, each spark felt like a knife stabbing his eyes. His stomach dropped and he struggled not to hurl. ‘Just do it,’ he’d finally said to himself, ‘just get it over with.' And he’d closed his eyes and stepped off the high board plunging into the pool below. He could hear cheers and howls coming from the gathered group. He had been terrified, but he did it anyway. Smiling, he opened his eyes.

He was in a hospital; his parents were next to his bed. His mother had been crying, and as he opened his eyes they both rushed to him, smiling. As his mother kept kissing him, tears flowing down her face. His father looked sternly into his eyes and said. “You could’ve drowned; you have got to stop taking these stupid dares!”

Oops…