Dreaming

Dreaming

I wrap the warm covers around me, and snuggle into my bed.  I curl my legs into my stomach, bend me arms and crunch them into my chest.  I picture how I look from above, a little ball enveloped in a fluffy blanket, silent and motionless, like a turtle in its shell.  I close my eyes and feel myself doze…

Before I know it I’m there.  The powder blue sky sits above me, and I’m surrounded by bubbles.  The sun shines on them, the reflection revealing their blue and pink tint.  I spin around, my arms raised in the air, surrounded by bubbles and the perfect blue sky.  I feel pure elation, inner peace, a sense of happiness that I never thought possible.

Then I see it from the corner of my eyes.  The gray and black ball comes rolling toward me; not fast, as if someone kicked it, yet not slow, as if the wind were pushing it along.  It stops in front of me.  It slowly splits itself in half.  It is hollow inside, and I approach it.  Before I know it, I am sucked into the black ball, shrunk to fit inside it, and taken away.

I try to breathe, yet I’m covered in mud.  I feel my lungs begin to collapse, an intense pain forming inside of them, as I struggle to take a breath.  Finally, an air hole opens under one of my nostrils.  I still cannot open my eyes, and the sensation of the sticky mud and the unawareness of where I am pushes an intense sense of fear up my throat.  The fear lingers, lodged in my mouth, which I cannot open to release it. 

I somehow manage to move my head, and I am back in paradise, with the flawless blue sky and bubbles all over.  I feel the strong sun on the top of my blond hair; I am somehow clean of all the mud.  The sun takes me in, and my feet are being pulled off the ground.  I am rising up higher and higher into the sky.  I see my parents below me, my mother wearing a light green dress with buttons down the front, my father in a gray suit.  They run toward me as I rise up, smiles on their faces and twinkles in their eyes.  I am higher and higher in the sky, I am weightless, complete bliss taking the space of where my body used to be.  Suddenly, I feel a jolt.  I find myself falling fast, faster, faster, faster, my heart racing and despair taking over me. 

My body shakes unexpectedly and I am awake in my bed.  I open my eyes, and wipe my forehead, which is warm and damp.  I turn toward the window and see the sun is rising.  I look at my watch, which says 6:30am.  I climb out of bed, ready to start the day.