Something was wrong. It was the light; the light was different, strange. It wasn’t quite right, there was an odd quality to it, as though it was really excited about something, but had forgotten what it was, long ago.
Our hero, however, like the vast majority of us, didn’t pay the light nearly enough attention and, as following with His well-practised routine, had breakfast, got dressed, brushed His teeth and drove to work.
He was excited to go to work. It was She, He wanted to visit She. She worked in the cubical next to He, and through a crack in the wall, their conversations flowed.
She loved to hear about His dreams. After all, there aren’t many people who can dream nowadays. And, of those rare few who could, none could dream like He. He dreamt of the most amazing things, dreams of the impossible and dreams of things long since passed.
He dreamt of everything, and told everything to Her. They were lovers of sorts, though they had never met outside of work, their whispered dialogue was enough.
As He exited Highway 61, he thought about how to tell Her about his latest dream. And as though He already knew, the scene flowed from the depths of His mind.
Before his eyes, He saw how it would happen. As he sat down in His cubicle he would hear a whispered greeting, and in replying, the conversation would begin. He would ask how She was, what She had been doing, and how well Her mother was recovering after her injury. And in turn, She would answer, then She would ask questions of Her own.
He knew the question; She had run out of different ways of phrasing it, so now she just asked, “Have you had any dreams?” And He would answer. He would tell Her about the dream He had last week, and awed, unable to find an answer, She would be silent. But that was the only response He needed.
Driving into the car park He noticed the light, it seemed different somehow, still, he thought, it was probably just a trick His mind was playing on him.
As the doors of the lift pinged open, He walked in, and with a rush nausea, arrived at His level. Walking in He greeted His friends and found His manager, got His day’s work, then made His way towards His desk.
But he already knew what would happen, even before the whispered greeting reached His ears.
Then He told Her about the dream. But even as He told it, the dream changed. It was as though things, fixed in His mind as facts were suddenly, clearly, wrong. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, to be telling something, and then, mid-sentence, to realise you were wrong.
But, as He realised this fact something very strange happened. He remembered. And, finally, the true face of the dream was revealed to him. And, finally, the truth was clear. He knew why His dreams was in flux. Why it was changing. The dream, was his dream, but he, was dreaming. The dream was, this dream. And with this truth discovered, the dream faded to black, and the world, to darkness.