Our Dreams

Our Dreams

I miss all the people I meet in the realm of dreams, but there is one person I miss more than all the others. Whether it's a random encounter on the bus or an erotic interlude in the back seat of a car, I wonder where he goes when he is gone. Every morning I feel him slipping away from me, returning to the world on the other side of sleep.

What is it like over there? Do they drift through an eternal darkness, waiting for another dream to live in, or do they have an existence beyond dreams? Of all the ephemeral people that live in my dreams, there is one that I remember above all the others. Do I draw him to me, with a subconscious siren's call, or is it just the opposite?

I don't believe that he exists only in my head, because he is the realest thing I have ever known. When I touch him, he touches me back; I know that he wants me, needs me. Sometimes his passion is overwhelming and he brims with desire; other times he scarcely notices me and, rarely, ignores me outright. Sometimes we have a romantic picnic in the park, sometimes we are swimming or running near a beach or dancing at a party or watching a movie or engaging in dozens of other random activities. Sometimes we are best friends, sometimes we are strangers. Sometimes I am a school teacher. Sometimes I'm the student sitting next to him or an ex-lovers or a childhood. Oftentimes I am his wife.

We are not always intimate, though we are lovers more often than not. Sometimes he is vague - indistinct and shadowy. Sometimes this frightens me, but I know it is him. Sometimes I am shadowy and vague, and this frightens me more. Sometimes he has tried to tell me things, great secrets and important revelations certainly, but his voice is always unclear and the memory of these messages is difficult or impossible to retain. The same is true when I try and speak with him. This inability to share our thoughts, to tell each other our secrets, is a constant grief to me.

Sometimes we share the same dream on different nights, and sometimes one dream will begin where another left off. These are my favorite dreams; they give our nocturnal encounters a permanency and continuity that is often absent in the chaos of dreams.

Sometimes, he hits me or he yells, and I realize that in this dream we are angry with one another. Sometimes he is jealous and accusing, as if I could ever be unfaithful to him. Even though these are sad dreams, I miss him when he is gone. I know he doesn't mean to hurt me; I remember the other dreams even if he does not. I live for our encounters. In fact, our nighttime adventures are the only times I feel truly alive. Am I crazy?

How is it possible to know so much about someone and yet know so little? What am I to him? What conclusions should I draw about our relationship, based on the myriad forms it has taken over the course of a lifetime?

Sometimes he thinks about me during the day. I will be lost in a reverie and then he will be there, admiring my legs or trying to catch a glimpse up my skirt. Inevitably, these encounters evaporate quickly, and he slips away from me again. Still, I know that he is there; that he exists just out of reach, in that indistinct land on the other side of dreams, beyond my ability to summon him.

He, however, can call upon me at will. Perhaps this should bother me, but I am powerless against him. I sense that he is constantly occupied with other things. I know that he can't think of me all the time, but just knowing that I am a part of him, that I exist, is enough. It has to be. Besides, I know that he is never far away. I wonder if he is aware of me, as I am aware of him. To me, his presence is constant and unavoidable.

Where does he go when he is not sleeping? I have only an indistinct awareness of that mysterious world. Sometimes I recognize a reflection of myself in that other world. Sometimes I glimpse locations that our dreams have made familiar to me and I remember a detail of a dream we shared that I had forgotten. Sometimes he shares in this realization, and a memory of our dream rushes onto us suddenly. Sometimes he tries to share his memory of me with others, but often he has forgotten the details and I am powerless to remind him of what was so clear only a short time ago.

By far the most terrible time for me is morning. As he awakes from his slumber I can feel him slipping further and further away from me. I begin fading into darkness as the stars fade into daylight. Sometimes he is ripped from me abruptly, by the flick of a light switch or the wail of an alarm clock. How it happens is irrelevant, because it always happens. He awakes, and I am forced to wait wherever it is that dreams wait, until he returns to me again.

This story is a submission for: http://www.writing.com/main/forums/item_id/1411865