Penny For Your Thoughts By Emily Austin

1

I dreamt that I was standing on a city bus as we passed through downtown. It was night and the bus only had two or three other people, aside from myself and the bus driver. I remember smelling a strong odor that reminded me of fresh vacuumed carpet and I thought of being a child at my house growing up. The memory was whisked away, like someone had placed their hand through a cloud of smoke, and replaced by the faint smell of Japanese Cherry Blossom, a perfume my wife frequented. It made me smile to think about her.

I wish that moment had lasted longer, but when I looked ahead to see where I was, a thin old man stood and stared back at me. Wrinkles dragged his face down like sacks of potatoes. I couldn't tell if it was just the darkness of the night or if this man actually had black eyes. I felt a chill come over me and it was like an itch I couldn't scratch. Then the nausea set in. I could feel myself about to get sick, when the man started speaking.

"Will you go?" He asked, in a voice much too young to be his own.

"What?"

"Will you go or stay, Marcus?" The voice was my own, but coming from his mouth. He didn't move, he just stared at me blankly. How did he know my name?

I looked outside, hoping to see where we were, and if the destination was familiar. When I looked, it was just an empty field. In all directions, it was just an empty cornfield, and it made my heart race.

"Where are we, what's going on?" I asked, and a hard lump formed in my throat, it felt like my heart had crawled its way from the pit of my chest up to my neck. I had never had a dream so vivid, but I wasn't in control of anything I was doing, only what I was saying.

Like opening the door to the oven, a sudden rush of heat came over me, and all I could think about was Penny.

"Penny." I whispered. "Where's Penny?"

The man looked at me and cocked his head. "I want Penny!" I said, almost pleading. "I need Penny,"

The man nodded, and the nausea I felt earlier grew. I started falling backwards. The last thing I saw was the old man looking over me, but instead of the wrinkled face I had seen before, there was simply a skull looking back at me.