I open my eyes in the darkness,
and with so few details yet visible
in my pre-dawn bedroom,
it feels no more real
than the still-fading dream.
It’s difficult,
tricky
to drag myself away from the imaginary loneliness
with its physical, grinding heartache
when the only real place I have to stand
is also all
alone.

I close my eyes again
and hope to find myself
fallen into a rerun
of yesterday’s dream,
escaping European cities and intermingled jungles
with the princess.
That would be something,
at least.
Actually,
it would be nothing,
but still better than nothing,
and I would be happy with that,
though not actually happy,
but better than nothing.

Instead,
there’s Katie,
a sweet girlfriend from three eons ago,
now a nurse,
at least in the dream,
and I realize what’s going on
when she begins telling me a story
I know I’ve heard before from someone else.
“What would you do
if you knew
you were only a dream?” I ask her.
Her face and head
entirely vanish,
leaving only
a light-blue Oxford
to wrap its arms around me
for 2.5 seconds
before the dream can no longer
hold itself together
and I find myself again alone
in the dark,
but with the grinding heartache
somewhat soothed.

So that’s something.
It’s better than nothing.

The post Nothing, Something appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.