Dreams…
What are dreams?
Are they seemingly conspicuous looking whirlpools filled with eventuality, contingency and uncertainty?
He never understood what dreams really were for he had never experienced the tickling sensation of falling from the edge of a mountain or the joyous pleasures of fulfilling his most yearned yet impossible wishes. His sleep was as deep and silent as an ocean bed could be during a moonless night: mysterious and murky. However there were times when he thought that he could tell he was in a dream but when he woke up, he had nothing etched in his memory. Was there an automatic data erasing software working inside his brain or was his subconscious so fragile that it could not handle the strain of remembering everything that went through in his dreams? Or were the experiences so callous that billions of neurons running through his mind could not take their toll?
“Hey! How are you? You look pale. What happened to you?” A distant voice echoed around him.
Life is like a dream. Or may be dreams are just like life.
“Hello!!! You don’t seem to be paying attention to me. What’s going on? What are you thinking brother?” His sister had just cut his never-ending obsession with dreams short.
“Do you have dreams? If you do, do you remember them?” He asked her abruptly. The fact that he was meeting her after seven years gap never even struck his imagination. He was too engrossed in what he was thinking at that moment.
“What?” She did not expect this cold behavior from her own brother- the brother she had taken so much pains to raise after their parents’ death- the brother who had become obsessed with her so much so that he couldn’t bear her marriage- the brother who had parted ways from her seven years earlier after her marriage vowing to never see her again.
“I said do you have dreams? If you do, do you remember them?” His eyes were lost in the shallow dark circles around them, making it impossible for her to make any eye contact with him.
“I meet you after seven years and that’s all you ask me. Dreams- Since when have you started thinking about dreams? As far as I can remember you never had any dreams. What has changed now?” She seemed incensed and enraged.
Neither could he blame her for being incensed nor could he stop himself from asking her the same question again.
“I asked you a simple question. Do you have any dreams?” He persisted.
“Why is it that” He could see her taking steps backwards. “you always think about yourself first?” She was getting away from him. He wanted to stop her- wanted to scream- wanted to let her know that she was too close to the edge of the mountain. “Why? You want me to answer the question right? Then so be it. Yes, I do have dreams- and yes, I do…”
A scream followed.
He was lying in his bed, soaked in sweat, trying to remember what had happened. He just couldn’t.
May be dream is life itself- you can never remember what happened once it’s over.
Author’s Note:
His sister had passed six years ago in a plane crash; one year after he had left her house.
