Floating in a Sea of Stories (a dream)

I am looking at a face as it floats just above the surface of black-blue water...

The blue fills in the surrounding space, creating the shape of a perfect oval. The skin is white and smooth like porcelain. The eyes are lightly closed.

There are vague hints of life in this quiet scene: the subtle widening of her nostrils as she softly inhales. A flicker of tension releasing from her brow. The line of water inside her ears which rises and
falls with each breath.

As she falls... deeper and deeper into a quiet sleep, shreds of coloured paper begin to accumulate in a delicate border around her face. These pieces feel organic, coloured with green, white and pink. At first they fall gently, landing beautifully like petals of a broken flower, guided by a soft summer wind.

But after a while, the rate at which the pieces fall begins to intensify. They begin slapping down around her like a torrential downpour of otherworldly colours. Each one landing more precisely and more beautifully than the last. Sadly, never with enough time to truly SEE any of it.

Layers upon layers of captured moments pile up around her. There is a slight tension that I feel, but I choose to remain captivated, struck by the collective beauty of it all. As each shred of imagery falls exactly into place, I feel closer to the feeling of what it is to be 'whole'.


But, emotions shift when the pieces begin to land upon the skin of her face. As a witness, I am bodiless in this place yet I feel a sense of anxiety ripple through the core of my being. A gripping tightness where my lungs would be. I begin to feel like I can't breathe. Then it hits me...


Have I been looking at the face of my sleeping self all along?

This beautiful accident became a terrifying nightmare. How did that happen?


While I scramble within myself, grasping, handless for something I can't touch, her eyes never flinch. The smoothness of her skin never creases. She remains soft and peaceful in her quiet slumber.


And I just watch her, helplessly choking on the fear of her becoming lost beneath the surface. Knowing that if this continues, she will drown in a shattered heap of other people's stories.

Before I see her become completely covered, I am awakened by the sensation of something being pulled across my face...A pillow. I see the light through my eyelids, I feel the cool air on my cheeks and I take a deep breath in...


I find myself laying in bed, laughing with my eyes closed, listening to the tones of a friend's voice as she uncovers me from my quiet sleep. A child-like laughter erupts from my belly, emphasizing the remarkably perfect poetry of a friend choosing in that exact moment to pull away just one of the many layers.

(Thank you)