Lucid Waking

        Lily didn’t react as well to his plan as she had expected to and definitely not as well as Noah had hoped.
        “What!” she screeched. Noah winced. But she heard him out and agreed to go with his plan. She didn’t feel she had a choice, but part of her didn’t want to let him down. He was charismatic and she did feel a sort of devotion to him after all he had done for her. He did save her dignity the previous night and paid for her place to stay.
        She had assumed her age played a role in the job she was help him with, but in actuality, it didn’t make any difference. Lily knew she wasn’t the best actress, but she was stoic faced and quiet. She blended into the scenery and was convincing enough that he left with a rather large check and shares of stock.
        “Thanks,” he said once they got into the car and started driving. “I lost my previous partner to a car crash yesterday.” He paused and examined her out of the corner of his eye. “Sorry to put you through that.”
        “No, it’s fine,” she said. “Just please take me home.”
        He sped off down the interstate towards Chicago. In the light of day the ride wasn’t too menacing. The bright orange and green signs were comforting as was the steady whirr of the wheels on the road. He reached to turn on the radio and let it quietly run as they went, trying to break the silent tension between them. She leaned back in her seat and watched the cars go by, remaining silent.

        “You never told me what you were doing hitchhiking that night,” Noah said as they sped down the highway much later. Once he was confidant they had lost the cops, his speed slowed to join with the rest of the cars. Lily sighed.
        “Trying to get to Union station so I could take the train back to school. My car had broken down several miles back and for some reason I tried to walk back to Chicago to take the train. Obviously it didn’t work.”
        “You went to school?”
        “Well, I was failing,” she said. “I don’t have patience for school work.”

        “I can’t believe I helped you with a con job,” Lily said, a tad disgusted with herself.
        “I’ve got to make a living somehow,” he said. She expected more, but he was silent.
        “Why do you do it?”
        He chuckled. “Which reason do you want to hear: I’m addicted to lying, I’m a mercenary, or I work as part of a huge corporation that wishes to take over the world?”
        “I want the truth.”
        He sighed. “It’s difficult to explain. See…well, it all starts on a small farm in Missouri where a farmer was having a lot of trouble making ends meet. A large farming corporation threatened to buy this farmer’s land—leaving him and his family homeless—in order to build up their business. As the business waits for the bank to take the land and resell it, the farmer’s son decides to take the money matter into his own hands. He runs away from home and starts studying the economic section of the newspaper and eventually learns how businesses work. So, he swindles large companies that can afford to spare a few hundred thousand dollars and then sends that money to his parents in Missouri. I mean, that’s how it started, but it’s much more complicated than that.”
        “Doesn’t seem so complicated.”
        “Ever wonder why you had to be 21?”
        “Now that you mention it…”
        “I met a girl who already worked as a con artist and she taught me basically everything she knew. She was killed in a car crash yesterday and you sort of reminded me of her. Your ages even matched.”
        “You loved her?”
        “No,” he said, “but she was like a sister to me.”
        He stopped and focused on the road. Having listened to his story, she almost trusted him. She wasn’t sure about having her age as a measure of trust, but he didn’t leave her on the side of the road or take advantage of her. And he was taking her back to Chicago. Why? The school’s tuition was much to high to be paying when she was barely passing her classes. It didn’t seem worth it to go back. She needed a job and without a college degree, her options were severely limited. She had a defeated feeling doors closing off to her every time she saw an “F” on her papers and tests, but she finally saw an opening for her to escape her demise. Why did she want to go back when she would certainly be crushed by reality? She could finally see a sunny future, so why did she insist on staying in the rain?
        “I could help you, you know. I…I really need a job and I’m willing to go along with these…missions of yours if you want.”
        “I wouldn’t call them missions.”
        “That’s not the point.”
        He glanced at her and then back at the road. “Yeah, sure,” he said to hide his delight.
        The radio changed songs to a more jazzy number. He turned up the volume.
        "Well, it’s you and me against the world, then.”
        “That’s a song you know.”
        “Is it?” he smiled, “Then it’s our song.”
        “All right.”
        Lily leaned back in the seat and gazed out the window. She felt safe and warm, although she didn’t know why yet. The world was gray and icy from the rain, but she felt the same way that she did on a sunny day. She had decided it wasn’t love, not at that point anyway, but it was something more distant. She didn’t know what it was and didn’t really care. She had a job, she was safe, and however criminal Noah intended to be, he was and continued to be her family.

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        “Noah, it’s our song,” Lily said turning the volume of the radio so high the car practically shook. She hoped the other drivers would hear it outside the car as they passed. “Me and you against the world!” the song exclaimed through the speakers. She smiled and leaned back in her seat.
        “Not so loud, Lily,” Noah said quickly glancing in the rearview mirror. “Turn that down, please. I’ve got to concentrate.”
        She reluctantly complied, but kept it loud enough to cover the roar of the car and pavement. She reminisced in her seat about the rainstorm. She seldom thought about the rainstorm, she much preferred the morning after, but it was such a crucial turning point in her life that she often thought about it when her adrenaline had worn down.
        It was a night where everyone could hear the rain. It flooded the streets, overfilled the sewers, swept cars up in a single wave. Hundreds of cars on the highway split the water like Moses, drenching her huddled body on the shoulder of the road in a mass of heavy cold. She stuck out her now blue thumb one more time trying to get anyone to stop. But the rain was a blanket of wet and she couldn’t see into the light of the cars and she knew the windshields were too smeared with water to see her. Finally, a car stopped a few feet away from her in the shoulder and blinked its lights. She walked over to the driver’s side as the window went down.
        “Need a lift?” a man asked her. He squinted up into the rain through the small slit of open window he let her talk through.
        “Yes,” she said. “I need to go to Union Station.”
        “Sure, sure,” he said. “Get in back.” The window shut before she could thank him and she opened the back door of the car quickly and slipped inside.
        She hadn’t noticed how nice the car was until she was out of the rain. It had a heavy smell of leather and aftershave with a black coffee interior. The man reached over and turned on the heat for her and a blast of warm air hit her in the face from a vent she couldn’t see. She thanked him, but he didn’t reply and only asked her again where she wanted to go.
        “Union station,” she repeated.
        He made an affirmative grunt from the front seat. She glanced out the blurry windows as they past, but all of the signs looked like waves of color and the lights were will-o-the-wisps. She leaned back in the car inhaling the leather while he drove in silence into the city.
        She woke up a little while later. The car was stopped but she couldn’t see her destination for all of the water. The man was gone along with the keys. The world outside was dark and the rain still pounded on the roof of the car. She reached out for the handle of the door, but when she pushed to open it, it didn’t budge.
        “Looks like someone’s awake,” another male said. The door was shut and then flung open and someone reached in and pulled her out into a soaking wet parking lot of a highway oasis. About six men came to her side of the car and something hit her in the stomach like an anvil. She kicked one and two grabbed her legs; the group of men becoming something of a hydra. She reached out to punch another and both her arms were stuck. She closed her eyes and tried to tighten up, willing the tears out of her eyes so she could see a weakness in their armor. She felt a hand reach for the wallet in her pocket…
        Then the headlights of a car hit the back of the mob and scattered them like vampires to the sun. She fell onto the ground with a thud and barely got her head far enough away before the kidnapping vehicle sped away towards the highway. She pushed herself up and tried to see the new car. The rain settled up enough for her to see a figure get out of the driving seat and walk towards her. She made out the letters and numbers on his license plate: ME N U 218. She willed herself not to black out, but she felt faint. She nodded her head and grabbed the hand that reached out to help her. No more, she thought and then fainted.
        She woke up in the bed of a motel room cursing herself violently. But she was dressed and lying neatly on top of the covers. She got up and looked around the small room. Besides having one bed, everything else was unused and she had a sinking feeling she was all alone. She didn’t know why since the events of the previous night were enough for her to wish to be alone for centuries. There was a knock at her door and she walked cautiously over to open it.
        “Morning,” the boy at her door said. He smiled. “I understand if you don’t want to let me in, but I promise I’m not going to touch you.”
        He was wearing a black tee shirt and jeans with red and black converse shoes and he had a dark gray newsboy cap in one hand. His eyes were light bluish gray like winter and his hair cherry wood brown. In the morning sun it looked much more red than she found out it actually was. He stepped back to lean against the railing of the balcony across from her door. Although she could see a ghost of his breath, he wasn’t wearing a jacket; she was shivering.
        Lily opened the door a little wider. “What do you want?”
        “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself last night, you seemed pretty distraught, so I thought I’d let you sleep.” He extended his hand. “I’m Noah.”
        “Lily,” she said. “And thanks for helping me…and giving me this room to myself.”
        “It’s only fair,” he said.
        “What do you mean?”
        “Oh, sorry. I took the liberty of seeing who you were. Don’t worry, you’re wallet is still in your jacket pocket. But I was wondering if you were interested in doing me a favor. You are twenty-one after all.”
        “I don’t think so.”
        “Well, sorry to bother you, then,” he said. He snapped his cap on his head and gave her a little nod before stuffing his hands in his jean pockets and heading down the stairs towards his car. She shivered in the cold and headed back inside. Turning on the television, she slumped on the bed.
        “Good morning, Green Bay. The temperature today is—”
        She shut it off suddenly grasped by a terror she couldn’t explain. Her groggy mind was coming to like an old machine finally warming up to the tasks at hand. She ran to the door and down the stairs running after the boy and hoping—praying—he would be in the vicinity. Green Bay was a long way from Chicago.
        As she ran around the front of the building a blue car stopped and Noah got out of the driver’s side. She didn’t care that he was illegally parked or the fact that he seemed to know she would be running after him in a short enough time.
        “Please,” she said. The whine in her voice surprised her. “Take me back home.”
        “And where would that be?” he said patiently.
        “I need to get to Union Station,” she started and then stopped. “Well, just take me to Chicago.”
        “I hate to seem rude,” he said leaning against his car like James Dean, “but I don’t want to keep doing favors for a stranger who doesn’t do something in return. I don’t have time to drive all the way back to Chicago for you. I do have a job.”
        “But I have no other way of getting there,” Lily said. “You already know I don’t have money for a bus or train.”
        “All I’m asking is that you help me with something along the way.”
        “Fine,” Lily said. “Just don’t get me arrested or hurt.”
        Noah smiled. “Absolutely not. I just need an extra set of hands for something. I’ll tell you more about it in the car.”
        And the rest was history, Lily thought, smiling to herself. The song faded off the radio and Lily reached over to turn the volume down.
        “I think we finally lost them,” Noah said.
        “Good.”

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        “I hate bugs,” Rebecca said after scaring another one away from her leg as she rested in the sun. “I am obviously not a flower; so what’s their excuse for landing on me all the time?”
        “I can’t tell you,” her mother said. “Maybe you just smell so sweet?”
        Rebecca gave her an exasperated look. “No, Mom. I’m not that sweet.”
        “Of course you are,” her mother said before closing her eyes and lying down on the beach towel that was set up in the middle of their backyard.
        Rebecca sighed and looked around for any more bugs trying to crawl up her legs. Sweet or no, she wondered angrily why the bumblebees and butterflies avoided her while the other creepy crawlies were so abundant. She swatted a fly off her arm.
        The flowers were bright in the sun and wilting just a bit. Her mother’s ice tea was lying in a bottle on the side of the towel, now very warm from sitting in the sun so long. The book she was reading was lying underneath it, nestled in the grass. The cover was nondescript with a boring block of blue and a large title: War and Peace.
        “Mom?” Rebecca asked. Her mother sat up and squinted at her. “Why are you reading a book on war and peace when you could just get that on the news?”
        Her mother smiled. “This is more artfully told than the news.”
        “But still,” Rebecca persisted.
        “Why do you read all those books about insects when you won’t even let once land on your leg?”
        “Mom!”
        “Well? Perhaps, you like reading about insects much better than real ones. I like reading about war and peace much better than real situations.”
        “I suppose that’s fair,” Rebecca said.
        “I hope so,” her mother said lying back on the towel and smiling, “because that’s the way it is.”

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        It was Sunday. That meant that the post wouldn’t be coming, Church would be in session, and none of the stores would be open for her to shop. Sunday was dismal. She had nothing against Church or the stores or the post, but it was the combination of those things; nothing exciting could possibly happen because there were no people or objects coming or going.
        Living in a small town had its positive side: everyone knew one another so if she was out of town there was a plethora of people she trusted. It also made her feel welcome that people would smile when she walked into a restaurant or store or just a regular walk on the street. Even so, she didn’t like everyone. Not even all of the people who smiled at her when they passed or talked in the street. Fortunately, all of those people went to Church on Sunday, but unfortunately, so did all the people who interested her.
        She knew some of the sour people would talk about her in Church. Many of the townspeople would be on her side; she had worked hard for a positive reputation. But she knew it wouldn’t matter. No matter how many times anyone insisted she wouldn’t be going to Hell, there was always going to be a crotchety old lady who would swear otherwise. She’d feel like a monster or a criminal whenever they’d say, “I know your kind,” even though there were plenty of people to cheer her up. “Don’t listen to them,” they’d say, but she’d hear them even if she didn’t listen.
        She was scarce Saturdays, but Sundays were gruesome. She went for a walk around the town, but nothing was open, no one was out. She could smell the cows from the pastures behind the churchyard. She thought it was ironic that the pastor was the most sympathetic towards her. She turned down the road past the corn and bean fields. The road was like Moses splitting the Red Sea. She walked a little farther until she reached the Patterson’s house. She knew they weren’t home, although their youngest son might have gotten away with not going to Church. He was usually pretty spry about that sort of thing. But she decided not to go in. She didn’t feel like chatting with a ten-year-old boy.
        She went back up the street but made a circle back around to the shops so she was walking on the primary street. She looked into the darkened windows and studied the wares. She walked past the grocer, the butcher, the backer, the bookbinder, the doll maker, all wishing they would be open so she could go in. She heard the bells of the Church and hurried back home. She wanted to be scarce when Church got out. She knew Old Widow Wipper would be the first in the street, shaking the pastor’s hand, and returning to her house above the general store. Luckily, she had friends who would go to the general store for her if she needed it.
        Soon, she got a knock on the door and the Saltpeter family was there with Church pies.
        “We though you’d like some,” Mrs. Saltpeter said, “even if you don’t go to Church. They’re home made.”
        She thanked them and took a pie. She asked when the stores would be open next. They said Monday, but they’d open for her if she needed food. She thanked them, but said she’d make it to Monday. She knew that was a lie; she barely had enough food for a suitable dinner, but she didn’t want them to go out of their way for her any more. She invited them in, but they politely declined and wished her well. She shut the door and put the pie on her table. She stared at it.
        The blueberry filling oozed out of the latticed dough on the top and glistened in the light. She could smell the tangy filling through the sweet crust. It has been neatly brushed with honey so the top was a perfect golden brown. Before she could grab a knife to cut it, there was knock on her door. The Pattersons were inviting her to dinner; Mr. Patterson said when she opened it. She thanked them and said she’d be there. She hoped there wouldn’t be ham, but she didn’t mention it out loud. Mr. Patterson tipped his hat and said he’d see her there. She shut the door and returned to the glistening pie. Her stomach growled and she cut into it watching the filling ooze out and turn her knife purple.
        Sundays were lonely, but people were always nicer to her then.

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        It’s just like practice. Jason will crack a joke…
        “The one thing I’m scared about it what they’re saying about me on those overly dramatic videos they play before they pan to a close up shot of your face. Forget the Chinese; I’m afraid of what people would do if they knew what toothpaste I use. ”
        …and Adrian would laugh the loudest. Coach would tell Jason to focus and he would protest that he was focusing.
        “If you laugh, you’re relaxed,” he’d say. “And if you’re relaxed, you’ll do better. I just hope that tip is lost in translation with all these different languages here, ‘cuz that’s brilliance.”
        But then I see myself running, flipping, and sticking the landing. And pretty soon, the stands are flying by, my back flips like a pancake, my hands contact the vault, and then my feet meet the mat with no steps or falls. But this time, there’s a roar of noise and the adrenaline is gushing through my veins. I step down to my team for high fives and smiles. The score doesn’t matter; if my team is happy, I’m happy. As long as we win gold, I don’t care.

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        He was a handsome lad of about nineteen. He was muscular, his hair had a perfect healthy shine, his blue eyes glowed expectantly, his smile was magnetic, his skin was like porcelain, and he spoke with a fairly light Irish accent. He was also completely egotistical and arrogant. Alaina knew this and she hated seeing her friends fall into his siren like trap of being able to play guitar. She knew so many of those people, being a guitarist herself, who picked up the instrument just for attention. He was no rock star, she fumed, he was a “wannabe.”
        What equally annoyed her was his ability to pass a class with seemingly no effort. She didn’t know how he did it and wondered how many people he had paid to get his work done. At the rate he was going, he would be valedictorian of his class by the time he graduated while she would end up at the bottom of the heap.
        She hated him for his easygoing nature and seeming laziness. She worked hard and she hated that he got everything he wanted without a quarter of the work. She wished she had what he did and she would have been less jealous and liked him a little bit more if he was humble. But while he was blessed with many things, he was not blessed with integrity and it made her skin crawl to think about him.
        Which was why her mind was utterly blank at the moment and she felt the color drain from her pale face. Her mouth was dry and she fought against flapping it open and closed as if the words would come out all the while looking like a deranged baby bird. Her hands were sweating and she realized she looked like a bad horror movie extra as she stared at him wide-eyed, her mouth metaphorically nailed shut and leaning forward in disbelief.
         He laughed nervously. “Is that a yes?”
        She stared at him, something bubbling in her stomach. He had asked her on a date. She hated him, so why was the first thing coming to her mind a “yes”? She leaned back against the wall trying to get the painful feel of dry saliva out of her mouth. She swallowed.
        “Sure,” she said. She felt herself mentally kicking herself and the bubbling in her stomach turn into a large rock. Now, why did you do that? she asked herself. Are you out of your bloody mind? What in the nine hells has gotten into you?
        I don’t know, she thought, but you’d better shut up. He smiled his magnetic smile and her stomach tightened. She felt herself smiling back.
        “Great! I’ll see you Friday night right here. Have a good day,” he waved as he walked away.
        “See ya!” You sly Cassanova; once and only once. I will never go on a date with you again.
        Damn, she thought shaking her light head and walking towards the lecture hall. What has gotten into you? Oh well, at least you’ve got a date with Micheal Brady!

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        “I just want to be appreciated,” she said her eyes growing dewy. “Is it so hard to ask for an artist to be appreciated?”
        “Maybe we should make tee-shirts: ‘Have you hugged an artist today’?”
        “I’m serious, Tom. And you should start appreciating me too.”
        “I do appreciate you.”
        “More than just my cooking.”
        “Hey, I like your company too.”
        “Honestly?”
        “Absolutely.”
        “Then tell me why I never see you at any performance. You’re not at the ballet, I can’t get you to go to the symphony or an art museum; you hardly read any good literature. I love you; but you are most certainly not an artist. I’d help you learn these things if you want to but all we ever do is go to the pool or see a Hollywood film downtown. If you appreciated me, you’d appreciate my work, too.”
        “You’re a fantastic photographer and dancer and cook and pianist. Why do I have to tell you this over and over again?”
        “Don’t tell me. Words are not truth. Actions speak more than words. Come to a show. I have one Tuesday night. Stay afterwards until everyone is gone and wait for me. You don’t have to say anything; you don’t have to bring flowers. Just please be on time and stay to watch.”
        “That’s all you want?”
        “That’s everything. I said I loved you and I don’t want to let you go, but I’m not going to continue this if I don’t get support from you. Art is all I have and I need one of the people I respect the most to appreciate me and my art.”
        He pulled her in closer to him and brushed her hair gently with his hand. “I promise I’ll be there. Just for you.”

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        I remember that he never spoke with words. Only music. It was clearer than any language could convey. It was raw. It was sensuous. It was painful and soft. It was embarrassing. It was wrenching. It was flawed. It was.
        I remember that last time he spoke was on the gondola in Italy—Venice, to be exact—and it was enshrouded in mist. It was just the two of us and I remember being doubtful about why he brought me along. I didn’t have my instrument, but he always kept his with him. It didn’t matter what it was; he could play anything. Absolutely anything.
        The boat was gently navigating the buildings and besides the fog, the night was clear. The stars looked as crisp as cinnamon in an apple pie or white flecks of paint as they peel off to fall far below into dark water. He was sitting in his royal best, having been employed by the king and owning only the best silk. I was not so lucky and worked for my coin at various pubs and auditoriums. I had my best dress on, though. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was willing for anything and far into the evening nothing happened. He sat on the gondola with a small flute, playing an ode to the night.
        I mentioned he spoke with music, but he wasn’t speaking to me. It was more of a soliloquy and I thought I shouldn’t be listening. But it was hard not to listen, just as it is hard not to eavesdrop to someone who thinks they are alone. One wants to know what he or she is saying and I wanted to know what he had called me to listen to. Part of me suspected he wanted me to eavesdrop, even though his tone was more to anyone listening rather than to a specific person. He had definitely asked me there for a reason.
        At first it was small talk; little ditties of melodies I had heard him play so often. Then it was more of a painful thing. There was something bothering him. I got the feeling he was doing something that he had always wanted to do. He was exactly where he wanted to be in the same circumstances. But we both knew it wasn’t going to last the night. He was being honestly raw about his feelings and he blushed as he spoke, or played. Then, he lost something. He was sad and his melody lost the usual edge that he spoke with. His notes were slurring together and I realized he was crying. I reached out a hand to touch him and tell him it was all right when the melody stopped with a shrill whistle and he dropped the flute. I reached to pick it up, watching him sob, his shoulder like a buoy marking the edge of the ocean.
        I didn’t know what to say and I tried to comfort him gently easing the notes out of the flute as best I could. But the flute was not my language and it was hard for me to speak with it. I was a string player, but I had to do the best with what I had. The gondola pulled up outside the opera where we had gotten on. He leaned forward and gave me a stiff hug before helping himself out of the boat. The boatman helped me onto the shore, but by then he was long gone.
The newspapers said he had just disappeared and then reported later—much later—that he was living in the countryside of France. I had returned to England long ago with his flute, which is now sitting in a golden box under my bed. I can’t look at it without a flood of memories but at the same time I can’t just let it be. Every year, on the anniversary of his last day, I’ll pull it out and let it glint in the moonlight. For some reason, that day is always a full moon. I try and put to words what he was trying to say, to formulate an answer, I suppose, but I can’t think of anything strong enough. I wish I had answered him the way he had wanted me to: just three simple words. But it took me a long time to figure that out. He wasn’t serenading me and it wasn’t flirtatious, so it took me many years of studying other people to know what he was trying to say. I’ve tried to write him, but I think that moment is lost with the night. I just wish I could hear him speak one more time.

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        “So what’s new with you?” he asked as he sat down next to her at the subway station.
        “Nothing much,” she said. Then she pointed at the plethora of suitcases he set down next to the bench. “What about you?”
        “I’ve decided to make a documentary.”
        “Oh?”
        “About the trains and the people on it. I’m going to go as far as it does today and then take a different colored line each day.”
        “You probably won’t get very far.”
        “The green line goes to the AmTrack station; I’ll get very far.”
        “What’s the point?”
        “To document the failing train traditions. It’s not the same as it used to be.”
        The train pulled up to the station quickly with a heavy huff of hot air. The brakes squeaked against the rails as it slowed to a stop with petrol smelling air. The doors slid open with a small, quick rebound against the sides of the train. People stepped off the train towards the exits ignoring the others trying to get on and the colored advertisements decorating the brown speckled station. They got on the train and sat by the window. The doors clacked shut and the train sped off, the wind slapping the windows and walls of the subway.

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        “I had the strangest dream last night,” Cecilia said to her sister, Phoebe, while they were walking through the park one afternoon. Cecilia had insisted they take their talk from the restaurant outside since it was, as she had pointed out, a very lovely day. Phoebe wasn’t one for the outdoors as much. She loved the flowers and the butterflies in the park, but she wasn’t fond of the people or the honking of cars just beyond the line of trees. Cecilia always had a knack for ignoring things she didn’t like, but Phoebe had a hard time ignoring such details.
        “Oh really,” Phoebe answered distractedly. She was gazing up at a gold finch, still brown although the trees had thick bunches of green leaves.
        “I was dressed up as a clown and trying to juggle when I felt afraid of something and dropped one. Suddenly the audience was gone and in its place was a door. So I went up and opened the door and behind it is a brick wall. For some reason I know that the wall isn’t real, but I’m scared all the same. I walk forward into the wall and it dissolves into a swirl of colors to the capital building. When I walk up the steps, though, it disappears into a wash of blue. I woke up at this point because the coffee was ready, but don’t you think that’s strange?”
        “I suppose so.”
        They had walked full circle around the park and Cecilia motioned for her sister to sit down on a bench facing a lake on the west edge of the lot. Phoebe sat down and remained quiet. Cecilia smiled at her sister and put her hand gently on her bulging stomach.
        “Have you had any dreams, lately?”
        “Only one that I can remember.”
        “What was it?”
        Phoebe gathered her thoughts. She watched a bumblebee rest on a flower and then crawl gently into the center. Two squirrels scampered up a tree across the field where a group of teenagers were finishing a game of soccer.
        “It’s night time usually and I find myself completely naked at the beach alone. Something inside of me keeps walking until I finally can’t and I sit down on the shore. Once I’m sitting down, I spot a pair of dark brown eyes peering out of the darkness by a cliff. I walk towards the space then a pair of hands grabs me. Then there are many of them and I feel warm and lost in the darkness. It goes on in that manner,” Phoebe added, blushing. “But I think you get the point.”
        Her sister smiled. “You’re still young; you’ll find someone.”
        “You think this is about finding a husband?”
        “Well, it’s certainly an erotic dream.”
        Phoebe couldn’t deny that fact. She glanced at her sister’s bulging belly and stood up.
        “I’m going to go to the lake. I’ll come back in a few moments.”
        Cecilia started to get up, but then remained where she was when Phoebe didn’t turn to acknowledge her following. Phoebe took a straight path like a ghost to the water. It thrashed against the shore in large foamy waves. She slowly sat down on the sand and stared at the lake. She felt numb and she didn’t know why. She blamed it on the outing since she had never particularly liked going out with her sister. They were always so different and as Cecilia was quite blunt in her analysis of dreams, Phoebe thought there was so much more hiding beneath the surface where she couldn’t see it.
        A soccer ball rolled into the sand and slowed to a stop a little ways in front of her. She glanced at it lying motionless on the ground as the water reached forward to wash it like a cat washes its kitten. She stood up and started back for her sister, but not before noticing the boy who ran past her to get the ball. He glanced at her as he ran back. He smiled and kicked the ball in a rather show-offish way through the boughs of the trees and back onto the field. He ran up to Phoebe, and though she wanted nothing to do with him, she slowed down her pace.
        “I hope that didn’t bother you,” he said.
        She shook her head. “It was nowhere near me.”
        “Name’s Keith,” he said. The boys from the field were yelling at him to quickly join back in while the other team darted between their opponents trying to take advantage of their missing player. She glanced at him but tried to seem uninterested. He was dripping with sweat, but he wasn’t breathing hard and he smiled at her as if he knew her for the longest time.
        Phoebe remained silent. Somewhere she knew she had seen Keith before, but she couldn’t place it. His eyes were dark, his skin was tan, and he looked like every other young adult who would play soccer in the park. She switched her focus to the game.
        “Perhaps you’d like to watch the game?” he offered.
        “No thank you,” she said. She smiled back at him and then returned to where Cecilia was sitting watching their exchange from the bench. Cecilia smiled in a very motherly way, but by the time Phoebe had reunited with her sister, Keith was taken up with the game.
        “Are you feeling all right?” Cecilia asked.
        “Yes, thank you.”
        “Who was that?”
        Phoebe knew she had watched his excited expression and hoped for the best.
        “No one,” she answered. Her sister’s expression fell.
        “Oh well. It’s getting late, we’d better go home.”
        Phoebe nodded and glanced back at the field. A pair of hands reached for the ball and then tossed it back onto the game. Perhaps, she mused, her dream was just a large game of soccer and she was the ball. She stopped as everything clicked into place. She smiled to herself and took Cecilia’s hand. Her sister was such a hopeless romantic at times.

Filed under: Realistic Fiction by Bri
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