It was a hill- wasn’t it? Something slanted and most definitely green. After a moment of running, the image becomes clearer, a grayish smudge becoming a deeper green. Near the top of the hill I both saw it and felt it. I was running towards pines, disregarding the needles digging into my bare feet in favor of realizing that there were people flashing by me, stationary blurs. I slowed down but it continued to hurt, but now I become conscious that the pain is in my chest. The people must be blurred because I’m crying-soon I start to recognize some of them. Friendly acquaintances mostly, but they don’t matter when I just lost one of the few people I permit myself to care about. "Dad?" passes through my mind, but it doesn’t stick. I can’t quite tell and I won’t stop for anyone to tell me, even if they cared to.
I hit the top of the hill and the clearest person I can see is the one I immediately rush to. I hit his chest a second later and wrap my arms around him in a hug, pouring out my soul into him with the tears that drench his shirt. He’s taller than he was when I last saw him, only a week ago, but somehow not very different. It’s hit me by now and I start to wail, managing to get out a few words in a stuttering gasp.
“O-oh C-Christ!”
I don’t usually touch people, but when he hugs me back, I feel safe. As quickly as it came, the pain fades away. After a moment, the tears cease. I sniffle onto his shoulder, wiping the vestiges of my outburst away with the back of my hand. We rock side to side and after a moment I’ve calmed, whatever I was upset about dissolving into forgetfulness. Face dry, I look up curiously, the strangeness of the situation striking me now that I can’t recall my reason for grieving.
He doesn’t say anything, just smiles. His brown (or are they blue?) eyes smile too and I suddenly feel the urge to give a little laugh. Before the elation can escape, he lifts my chin and our lips meet in a long, comforting kiss. The air I inhale is him and everything I feel is him, no longer noticing that there is indeed earth below my feet. No or some amount of time passes before we can break apart, refusing to let go of eachother as if we had melted into one inseparable yet comfortable being. I let the little laugh out and rest my head on his shoulder, taking in this revelation.
“So, does this mean….?”
The dark, blurred people still stand around us, indifferent to our existence as they watch the skyline. We are alone in a sphere of quiet, our barely discernable heartbeats the only things making noise. I don’t have to look up to see him because now I can see both of us, standing like oaks resting their enormous weights upon eachother. Like the others, he is looking towards the horizon where the sun is coming up, the rising reflecting peach into his eyes. He closes them and rests his chin on my head, telling me with his whole body that he isn’t going anywhere.
“Yeah, I guess it does.”
The soft blue and green light went out and I was lost in a muddle between consciousness and unconsciousness, finally breaking through to the side where light reigned. Birds were clamoring outside my window, house sparrows and purple finches singing out their jubilation to be alive and in the sun. I sit up and recognize where I am without trouble. My bedroom is stuffy and warm after having the window closed all night. It feels suffocating, unlike the airy freeness of my dream.
"And it wasn’t real..."
Half of me was still absorbed in the dream, reliving that feeling of satisfied affection- And the other half of me was in the real world where I was supposed to be, running the fingers of one hand through my hair and looking out the window to those abominable birds.
"F***."