Dreams

The boy awoke.  He sat up and glanced around.  He would have sworn he’d been sleeping for hours, but the fire was still crackling, casting a wavering orange glow over the forest clearing.  His father stared at him from across the pit, frozen mid stroke on his wooden carving.  I had a dream the boy said.  Good or bad?  The boy thought about this for a second.  Dreams are dreams he responded casually.  He didn’t feel casual though.  His father could see something had struck the boy about this one in particular.  Why don’t you tell me about it the father said to the boy.  The boy stared intently into the fire for a moment, his mind far away.  His father thought that maybe the boy hadn’t heard him, or had decided to ignore him.  But then the boy spoke.  Ok he said to his father.  It was about a girl.  A girl? the father asked, the shadow of a smirk on his face.  The boy replied without noticing.  Yes, a girl.  The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen

* * *

The boy stood outside the massive warehouse.  He didn’t know exactly where he was, just that he was supposed to be waiting for the others to let him in.  And then they could steal The Item.  A girl in a white sweater hunched close behind, trying not to show how nervous she was.  Suddenly a door swung open from the inside and a man let the boy and the girl in the white sweater inside.

However big the structure had looked from the outside, it never could have truly shown just how enormous it was on the inside.  Each room they passed through was cubic, roughly twenty meters on each side.  Most of the rooms only had catwalks at about the middle height of the room hanging down from the ceiling.  And the lights.  Purple, red, orange, green.  Each room had its own color light.  Strange lights that emanated from nowhere and seemed to only light up the space you were looking at, leaving shadowy darkness eternally hanging just at the edges of your peripheral.  The girl in the white sweater was very anxious now and hung close to the back of the boy, holding his hands behind his back like she was going to Take Him Down to the Station.  The boy would possibly have been annoyed at this was he not busy marveling at his surroundings.

After passing through several colored rooms of catwalks and stairways and platforms the man the boy and the girl arrived at an even larger room.  This room had one single catwalk that ran into an enormous door halfway across the space.  There was no way to crawl around over or under it.  The boy knew this.  He didn’t know why, but he knew this as sure as he knew the girl in the white sweater was behind him.

And there were the rest of them.  All of the others were crowded around the door, waiting for The Man in the Middle to open it.  After the door came open everybody passed through and seemed to know exactly what they were supposed to do.  The Man in the Middle disappeared down a corridor almost immediately and a few others took off down a staircase.  The boy and the girl in the white sweater followed two others up a separate staircase.

After passing through more colored rooms the four came to a split: corridor or staircase.  A man took the staircase, leaving the three left to go into the corridor.  The boy knew that he was supposed to go into the corridor.  It was his part.  Just as it was the girl in the white sweater’s part to follow him.  The third person was already halfway down the corridor, walking slowly but with a purpose.  Almost like the walk of someone resigned to do something rather dull but quite necessary.  It was now that the boy took notice of this third person.  

She was a short girl.  Her body was thin but shapely.  She was wearing a simple black dress that ended at her knees and left her shoulders exposed.  Her feet were bare.  Her brunette hair was pulled up into a bun at the back of her head with a few stray hairs floating down the back of her neck.  And she was gorgeous.

The boy knew this.  He knew this as sure as he knew the girl in the white sweater was behind him.  This was the most beautiful girl the boy has ever seen.

The girl in the white sweater, now jealous of the boy’s obvious infatuation, unbuttoned her sweater and slid off the left strap of her tank top.  See my shoulders are just as beautiful she said.  See?  They're just as beautiful.  The boy was annoyed by this distraction and led the girl in the white sweater to a room along the corridor.  The room where he was supposed to go.  To do his part so they could steal The Item.

But he did not go in.  He locked the girl in the white sweater in.  The boy then went down the corridor to the next room where the girl in the black dress had entered.  When the boy came in he found her sitting cross legged in the center of the room.  His face was still away from him and before he had a chance to walk around to look at her properly, the girl in the white sweater started to force her way in.  The boy looked around and saw that a door connected this room with the next one and ran to keep the girl in the white sweater out.

Suddenly two men ran into the room from the corridor, looking frantic.  The boy thought they didn’t look like Brad Pitt and George Clooney, but that they were trying to look like Brad Pitt and George Clooney.  (Brad Pitt) knelt beside the girl in the black dress and (George Clooney) stood above him.  What happened! (George Clooney) asked.  What happened! (Brad Pitt) asked.

What happened! The Man in the Middle asked from the radio.  The girl in the black dress spoke.  I cut off my mouth and eyes she said.  And tied back my ears she said.

Suddenly (Brad Pitt) and (George Clooney) began speaking and blinking in perfect unison.  Yep, cut them off, cut them right off they said.  Cut them right off!  The whole time the stared at the boy, speaking and blinking in perfect unison.  The boy stood dead still in the back of the room, staring at the girl in the black dress sitting in the middle of the room, her shoulders exposed and hair floating down the back of her neck.

* * *

The boy looked into the fire after he finished his story, his thoughts wandering.  His father allowed the boy to have his moment of reflection and continued whittling his wooden statue.  After a few moments the boy laid back down on the ground, looking at his father across the flames.  You better get some rest his father said.  We’ll have to move on early in the morning.  The boy continued to stare for a moment longer.  Yea, I guess I better.  

and then 

I never saw her face.  

His father thought about this for a moment.  Dreams are dreams his father said.  Yea, I guess you’re right the boy replied.  Goodnight pa.  Goodnight son.  The boy turned over and closed his eyes.  His father whittled a few more strokes then stopped to examine his work.  His smiled to himself.  The figure in his hand was perfectly done except for the face.  He always left the face for last.  The space where the face should be was merely a smooth oval of nothingness.  In spite of himself a deep chill ran down his spine.  His smiled faltered as he looked up from the figure.  Deciding he'd had enough whittling for one night, he set the figure aside and laid down in the grass.  Dreams are dreams he said to himself.  Then he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.  

Both the boy and his father slept without dreams the rest of the night.