You dream when you sleep and your mind goes into the state of rapid-eye movement. During this time, your body is paralyzed, and your eyes roll rapidly in their sockets like marbles in a game of jacks. Dreaming is a beautiful thing- a blissful escape to another dimension; a time capsule that you drop in your mind, never to be reopened. Some claim that they do not dream. These are the people, perhaps, who exist but never truly live.
A young man living in the west side of the city can close his eyes late at night and dream. Maybe he hasn’t eaten in twelve days, and his skinny fingers wrap tightly around his last dollars while he walks by high-end boutiques and warm houses. Shoes that are far too small for his feet nip at his ankles as he walks, and his father’s old trousers hang too low on bony hips. Perhaps he lives in a cardboard box that sits near a muddy stream, and every afternoon he strips off his too-small shoes and too-large trousers and washes his scrawny body until his skin is numb and raw. He doesn’t complain though, because every evening he can come back to his cardboard box, nestle into the tattered blanket-scraps, and dream. He dreams of his father, a stout, polite gentleman who held the door open for people he didn’t know. He dreams of his mother, a beautiful woman with permanent rings around her eyes like a raccoon’s mask, and lines that weren’t from laughing. Most importantly, he dreams of his life before ‘The Accident’- a life where the fire burned in the hearth, instead of all around him.
An old woman who lives alone on the outskirts of a small village can close her eyes late at night and dream. Maybe she sits on the porch in the dark before the sun rises, watches the sparks fly on the horizon, and thinks about when she was younger. When she looks out at the awakening sky, she sees a young man in large pants and shoes that are falling apart at the seams (just like she is), and she watches him become engulfed in the fire of the sunrise. She sits, lonely and sad, rocking back and forth on the creaky porch, and cries about everything she has lost. She falls asleep often on that porch, and dreams about her son- his bright-eyed smiles and his fresh-faced laughter. Her wrinkles smooth over, and when the stars wake her up, she prays for another sunrise.
An ancient man living near the ocean can close his eyes late at night, but he no longer dreams. He tries, but when he wakes the next morning, he remembers nothing. In the afternoons, he strolls across the white-washed sands and feels the shards of sea-glass pierce his calloused toes. Perhaps he goes fishing, carrying worms as bait. He casts his line, and waits until he can reel in a catch- but one look into the lifeless eyes of a sea bass and he throws it back. The memories come and go like crashing waves, making him feel lost and safe all at the same time. Sometimes, the man remembers a time when he dreamed; when he dreamed of easing the lines on his bride’s worried face, or taking his son by the hand and never letting go. He escapes for a moment, runs away from feeling as lifeless as the fish he catches. But the cool sea air doesn’t suppress the searing heat he still feels when he closes his eyes.
