Dream Lover

Please enjoy this very (very) short story for Halloween

He comes to her in the moments between sleep and waking. She thinks he is a dream but he knows that he is not. He doesn’t know what he is exactly.

She finds herself going to bed earlier, waking later—seeking him out in those hidden, sleep-infused places. 

She lies with him on soft sand, his hands wrapped in her hair. She walks with him down city streets at dusk, lights flicking on one by one in windows, her hand in his. He kisses her on a mountaintop, the wind whipping through her hair.

He begins to talk about their future. As if they had a future. She tells him she has a life—a real life—somewhere else. She tells him about desk drawers and parking spots and dishwashers needing to be emptied. About moving through the world in time. But he doesn’t understand.

She thinks of him in her waking moments. She loses herself on drives to work, and suddenly he is there—sitting in the passenger seat beside her. The moment she realizes it, he’s gone. She sees him in the steam misting up from a pot of boiling water, in the droplets of rain sliding down a window pane. He sees her too, but dimly.

In a park, under a purple sky, he walks with her down glistening silver paths. He takes her hand, weaving their fingers together so that she’s not sure anymore where hers end and his begin. They stand under a willow tree and gaze across a crystal lake. “Stay with me,” he says.

And she does.