Darling

I awoke to familiarity.  The feeling crept into my bones, making a dwelling place in my chilled veins.  I grasped my pillow, hugging it closer to my body for comfort.

          The image of the enchanting place still lingered in my head, waltzing its way through my thoughts.  I could still see it all—a cluster of glittering dust on my left and a mysterious boy in green on my right. 

          Of course, I’d seen it all before.  I must’ve dreamed of the same place a thousand times before, but it wasn’t the source of the frightening sense of déjà vu blanketing itself around me.  It was just a dream, right?  Somehow I felt so strongly that I’d been there before, and not just in some meaningless dream.   

          I entertained the thought for a short moment, confusion seizing my tired mind.  I shook my head in an attempt to snap out of my reverie, but to no avail.  I was being ridiculously silly.  That kind of thing didn’t exist, not in this real world that I existed in.

It was just a dream.

Just a dream.

A dream.

Dream.

          I repeated the phrase to myself over and over again, willing myself to grow up and stop living in the realm of fantasy.

          To be honest, though… I was never too big on the whole growing up thing.

~~~

          I pulled the thick quilt up to my chin in an attempt to spite the little voice in the back of my head telling me to get out of bed.  My body had physically been asleep for several hours, but mentally I didn’t feel as if I’d slept at all.  The dream was a vivid one, the kind that leaves an imprint on the mind and stays within the dreamer’s thoughts all day long.

          I had to shake my head a few times just to get the residue of the dream out of my vision.  I then became fully immersed in the reality in front of me, all traces of gold dust and twinkling lights out of sight.  Out of sight, out of mind. 

          My toes pressed into the cold wooden floor, immediately sending shivers up my legs.  I flung the robe hanging on the doorknob around my body and made a run downstairs, where the fireplace was busy providing warmth to my brother’s pajama clad body.

          “Morning, John,” I said, not sticking around to hear his cranky reply.  Throughout the years I’d come to realize that he didn’t fully wake up until noon, sometimes even later.

          I took a seat in front of an enormous Christmas mug full of coffee, despite the fact that the calendar above the refrigerator read October.  It was never to late to get in the Christmas spirit in my house.

          “Good morning, sweetie.”  My mom’s voice was upbeat, her eyes bright with energy.  John obviously hadn’t received that particular gene.

          “Pancakes?”

          She lifted the bowl full of batter and nodded, simultaneously singing along to the crooning voice on the morning radio.

          “They’re for us, right?”  I stared at the fluffy goodness with a hungry eye, already beginning to get the bottle of syrup from one of the cabinets.

          “Not all of them,” she said, “But we can each have one.”

          “Fair enough,” I said, placing one on my plate.  I looked at the giant bowl in her hands.  There was enough pancake batter in there to feed an army, way more than enough for our family of six. 

          “The rest are for Mr. and Mrs. Fiore, love.  They’re moving out today.”

          I nodded in understanding, my good mood slowly vanishing.  The elderly couple had lived in the old house down the road from us for years, longer than I could even remember.  Needless to say, our friendship with the Fiores had grown pretty strong—BFF material, actually. 

          “That house is falling apart at the seams,” I said, “It’s about time they get a better place anyways.”

          I tried to push the idea of the sad news out of my head, focusing my attention back to my breakfast. 

          “John’s not awake yet?”

          “Nope, he couldn’t sleep last night.  I felt him crawl in bed with your dad and I sometime in the middle of the night.”  She smiled slightly while I grasped my mug of coffee tightly, the memory of last night’s odd dream making a reappearance in my mind.  It had taken me at least an hour to fall back asleep, and even then it wasn’t a deep sleep.

          “I wonder what his dream was about,” I said softly, more to myself than to Mom.  She obviously got the memo, not saying a word in return. 

          I gazed out the window, focusing on the annual debut of the changing leaves.  The small forest behind the window reminded me of the dream in all its mysterious glory.  Dreams never left much of an impact on me, but this one just seemed a bit different somehow. 

          I shook my head quickly, as if doing so would shake the curiosity straight out of my mind and onto the floor beneath me. 

          “Something wrong?”  Mom’s voice is muffled by the sizzle of the pan, but I can definitely hear her concern.

          “Oh, no,” I said, “I was just thinking about a dream I had.  Kinda weird.”

          She smiled and smoothed down my knotted hair.  “You’ve always been a dreamer.”