A bank of clouds purple like a newly formed bruise hovers on the horizon. I am slowed for a moment by their intense beauty. I’ve been running for almost and hour, so lost in thought that only now do I take in my surroundings.
Across the road is a bus shelter. It seems out of place on this deserted stretch of highway. It’s as if someone built it here to say, “Don’t be fooled, life does exist here,”—but still I doubt that it is actually ever used.
Then I notice someone is in fact sitting on its plywood bench. It takes me a minute to determine the sex of this person, as my eyes are first drawn to the dazzling bright white of their smile.
I know whom this smile belongs to before I even take in the rest of the face. It’s a sly smile—the lips pulled back ever so gently across the teeth, the left corner of the mouth turned up just a half-inch higher than the right. I know that if I move my gaze up to the eyes, all will be lost.
I find him in the most unusual places, always wearing this same smile, the one that says, Did you really think you could escape me?
I know how the rest will go before I even begin to move towards him. I wish I could stand right where I am, just staring back as he smiles at me, forever… but I know it’s not up to me.
When I am halfway across the road he rises. I take in all that I can before the inevitable end of this moment—his almond shaped eyes dark as obsidian and his smooth chestnut skin. His ears have always stuck out too far, and now they catch the sun and turn a translucent red as it penetrates through them.
The wave of shock and excitement over his unexplained presence is the first thing to come, followed always by the same question—“What are you doing here?”
I never get an answer.
Just that smile, like he knows something really great—something that will be years before I can even begin to understand. But this not knowing doesn’t scare me. When I’m here with him like this, his face so full of answers to questions I haven’t even thought of yet, the only thing I feel is safe.
He’s going to hug me now. Then everything will get dark. Right before I wake up, he’ll squeeze me really tight.
And now, here I am back in my bed. I glance at the clock. 2 a.m. I won’t be able to fall back asleep for several hours. When he comes to me like this, the rest of the day is a loss.
I walk around in a daze, replaying the dream in my head trying to recapture those feelings I’m filled with at that moment he takes me in his arms. When I am unable to, I start thinking about whether it would be the same if we were to simply run into each other in town.
Because that’s the thing… the man who comes to me in my dreams is not a man I’ve lost to illness or death. Not a man that was ever mine to lose, really. A man I can’t for sure say has ever even shared the feelings I once had for him.
He’s a man who is very much alive and very easy to find. He is a man who used to be my best friend, and, if I ever felt the need, could still call for anything.
And that is why these dreams I have every few months never fail to shake me and leave me with so many questions.
Questions that I never dare to ask, as it seems to be he’s the one with all the answers.
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