Dreamscape #1

The airport was in chaos. I managed to get on a bus—not a shuttle but a long tour bus filled with passengers bedecked with festive clothing, straw hats, and flowers. We left the terminal and almost immediately the countryside turned barren, desolate. Finally, in the distance, a small settlement appeared. As I exited the bus, the long-faced driver said: “There's no way of returning now.” I headed for the cluster of tents in the center of town. Booths were set up, each vendor hawking mysterious goods. I then knew why I had come.

SHE was here, the focus of my attention for so many months, I could feel her presence as I searched from booth to booth. Up a course of coarse wooden stairs was an elevated level, with only a handful of stalls. There, at the other end of the long wooden deck, was the woman of whom I had dreamt, she who had plagued my waking hours and kept my sleep fitful and intermittent. I approached, she was with a customer, she was smiling. I could not speak; I turned away.

It was not to be… no; not even in a dream.