The High Blocks

A chunky, palm-sized paper block hardened with glue, cardboard, and tape sat on hard cardboard, held by stained hands. Its upturned bottom edges gave it a royal look.

"Here, it reminds me of a cinnamon roll from its color. Your turn—what's in the bag?" Maisepe probed.

Terei searched her bag and pulled out a cuboid candle that couldn't be lit. She measured it with squinted eyes and placed it beside Maisepe's.

"Mine's a candle. Look at the color—baby purple!" Terei purred.

"You made a similar one last time," Maisepe observed.

"They are different colors! The other was chocolate brown."

"Coloring a sky blue or yellow doesn't make it any less of a sky," Maisepe shrugged.

They were making the "High Blocks."

On Maisepe's base, she added flower petals that only looked fragile. Terei added a sun with four string-ladders. Maisepe added a rainbow, a wormy apple, and a kitty. Terei's tower was topped with a lady whose spirit entered the sun.

The structure grew as they pulled forth whatever they imagined, securing each piece with hot glue. It climbed upward, piece balancing on piece. Their bags held more pieces, but glue sticks were running out.

"Terei, come down, we're going home," Terei's mother called.

"Oh, okay," Terei said with a click of her tongue. Before leaving, Terei collected the paper ring and necklace Maisepe gifted her.

Turning to Maisepe, she said, "I'll be going now. Bye."

Maisepe grabbed a cupcake her mother baked. "Take it with you. Bye."

With the cupcake and a silly smile, Terei left.

Maisepe smiled as sunrays streamed into the treehouse. The High Blocks sat tranquil on the wood, and she dozed off.

"—Mai-se-e-e-pe—Mai-se-pe—"

Assuming it was a dream, Maisepe kept dreaming. Her movements felt weightless. Finally, she opened her eyes. A faceless blue ray curled near her while a shimmery creature watched her sleep. The roof became a canopy of flower-scented stars; the treehouse felt woven from clouds.

Sensations flooded her mind. The space behind her felt filled with grains of rice, and a bird sang a lullaby. A lucid dream, she thought.

Stepping outside sleepily, night had fallen. Floating barefoot down the stairs, she lost her footing and fell.

The jolt snapped her eyes open. When the dream didn't fade, she opened her mouth to scream, but the blue ghost hushed her.

"Shh! I apologize for scaring you, Maisepe. We have nowhere else to go! We are just dreams!"

Stunned, Maisepe asked shakily, "You're... what? Why are you levitating around me?"

"People have closed their hearts," the ghost explained softly. "I am the dream of a boy downtown. We are stray dreams, and you were the only one warm enough to enter. We are your dreams now."

"No..." Maisepe whispered.

Driven by pure instinct, she ran inside. "Do you see these dreams around me? My head feels light, but like a galaxy! Mom, do you hear me?"

Her mother turned slowly. Her arms hung limply, her feet fidgeted, and her expression was blank—like a doll's. Maisepe screamed, but it came out as a pixie-like chime. The dreams caught her as she collapsed.

When she woke, she was in the garage.

"Why is this happening?..." she groaned, tears slipping down her cheeks.

"She lost her dreams," a shimmery figure added. "Without dreams, people turn into living corpses with black hearts. They lose imagination and themselves."

A swarm of stray dreams found Maisepe, immersing directly into her spirit. She drowned in their weight and her loss.

She bolted to her neighbor's house, doors rattling as she banged. "Terei, please open up! Everyone's heart is turning black! Yours is still warm, right? Please!"

No answer came. Terei's heart had turned black too.

Maisepe sank to her knees, realizing both were gone. Later, she wandered through town searching for a single dreamer, but found no one.

Defeated, her voice glitching with overlapping dreams, she mumbled, "No wonder it's dark... it really is night."

Looking at the moon, she wept.

"Don't weep… They are in you for your heart is warm. We'll take you to a better place," a dream murmured. "You don't need to live among corpses."

"I'm not so cruel as to leave everything behind..." she sobbed.

"You're the only warm heart left, Maisepe. You'll leave nobody behind," the dream uttered.

Maisepe couldn't fully comprehend, her chest aching. Yet around her, every dream caught in moonlight turned into crystal-clear pieces of wonder. A lawyer's son's dream became a ladder to the moon. An old lady's turned to shimmering snow under which she lost her lover. Fairies sang sonnets of bittersweet days.

She froze and looked around. The light of the moonlight laid upon the skin of wonders kept in the dark. She flinched as all her burden turned into dust that flew away.

Her heart glowed beneath her skin as she turned to see the magic operate. She let her fear vaporize.

Climbing back into the treehouse, she pulled a red paper heart from a corner—crafted years ago. Dusting it off, she fixed it to the top of the High Blocks tower, standing barely an inch from Terei's.

Maisepe's heart swelled. Picking up a tiny flower, she tucked it onto the heart so its petals gently touched Terei's wonder. She touched the two towers as if touching something truly sacred.

Maisepe wrote on the crumbled tag of a doll her mother gave her: “To everyone that I have loved, I'll always love you.”

At last, she climbed down into the garden among blooming flowers. Tonight, she was another because from where she saw her, it was pulled by blue ghosts and singing stars into a safer place. She was safe and there was nothing to fear.

Looking up at the night sky, she closed her eyes and allowed the dreams within her to collide like soft thunder. Light blazed beneath her, as if air and water were being born anew.

Slowly, Maisepe turned into stardust.

And high above, a new star took its place.