Prince Dreams (Follow up short for Paisley)

Chapter 1: Woke up at First Avenue

I was walking around the streets of Minneapolis when I came across the famous first ave. Purple Rain was shot there and I was very excited to go inside. It's during normal business hours and I run up to the door thinking that it would be crawling with tourists. As I step inside I notice something very wrong. It's dark. It's empty! This isn't right! I felt like maybe I walked into the wrong building. Suddenly there was a flash of light. I didn't catch where it came from at first so I just stood in the dark confused. Then the lift flashed again. Right it my eyes! I was blinded for a moment and couldn't see anything I. Front of me. Then the flash was just a spotlight. In one place. Motionless. I ran to the light but it moved. It kept doing it every time I would go after it. Then all of a sudden it went out. The next thing I know a huge purple brightness appears. It was so pretty! I was in awe of it. As I began to stare deeper into the royal aura, smoke appeared. Inside the smoke was the figure of a man. He was thin and very handsome.
  "Hey there." He said.
The man became more visible as the smoke began to clear. He had a guitar strapped to him. He was finally close enough for me to see his face.
  "Hey Prince!" I said excited to see him.
  "What are you doing here?" He asked me with a smile.
  "I don't know how I even got here. I thought I was asleep!" I said.
  "Well then that explains how you got here but the why is even more important." He explained.
I was really puzzled at this point. Prince reached his hand out to me.
  "Come this way." He said as I took his hand.
The touch of him was different from what I could remember. It almost didn't feel human. He pulled up on stage and began to give me a hug when I pulled back.
  "Wait a second!" I said as he jumped from my startling reaction.
  "This doesn't make any sense!" I said.
  "Don't worry everything is fine!" He said. He played a chord on his cloud guitar and away we went. Just like that we were in the basement of the kid's from from the house purple rain was filmed in.
  "What's going on P?" I asked him confused.
  "You tell me! This is your dream. You were calling out to me and I came." He said to me.
His face was ageless. The last time I saw him was his concert back in my hometown of Atlanta. The piano and a microphone tour was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. He let me sit backstage and watch the entire show. I was never so excited to see my friend perform in an intimate setting before. We sat backstage and talked. We joked around like we always did. It was just like our early days when I first had that accidental run in. My longtime friend decided to go completely natural and get a psychedelic on me over the last 3 years. I thought that it was pretty cool. Apparently so did he. Prince was known to have a different look with every change in his career. I couldn't help but look at him and feel very confused by what was going on.
  "What do you mean I called for you Prince?" I asked.
  "You may not have known it but you have been reaching out to me through your dreams. So now, here I am!"
  "But why!?!?"
  "That's what I'm here to help you with."
  "So you're saying that this really is a dream?"
  "What part of any of this are you not understanding?" He said with a laugh.
My face was still confused.
  "And you said to me that I'm the puzzle. Who's trying to put who together Erinalia?"
I gave him the look of concern suddenly as  it began to hit me.
  "Prince?"
  "What's up mama?"
  "Why did you have to leave me?"
His smile suddenly disappear from his face. His eyes got sad.
  "It wasn't easy Erin." He said with a deep sigh.
  "I never wanted to leave you. I never wanted to leave anybody. I guess God had other plans for me. I did what I was supposed to do for the world and had to come home. This was the big guy's idea. Not mine."
He tried to get me to smile but it was only making my heart hurt even more. I fought really hard to hold back my tears. It made my throat hurt something awful but somehow I managed to make it without bawling.
  "So why are we in the basement of the purple rain house anyway?" I asked him.
  "No reason! I just thought this would be cool to bring you here." He said excitedly.
All of a sudden there was a loud intermittent buzzing. It sounded like an alarm clock. My alarm clock. Then I heard a voice calling my name.
  "Erin." The female voice called.
Prince looked at me with a playful shocked look on his face.
  "So you have someone new in your life? You couldn't just let me down easy could you. Erinalia you heartbreaker!" He said with a big smile on his face.
  "I can't with you sometimes P!" I said as he finally worked another smile from me.
The voice called to me again.
  "Erin! Wake up! You slept through your alarm again. You're going tone late for you meeting!"
I wasn't ready to leave yet. I'm finally getting to see Prince again for the first time in a month and now I have to go back. Prince took my hand and held t close to his chest.
  "Go Erinalia. I can promise you we'll see each other again."
Prince began to fade away into a bright light.
  "Wait! Prince! Don't go!" I shouted to him.
It was too late. He was already gone. I was being shaken violently out of my sleep and being shouted at.
  "Erin wake up! Wake up!"
I was finally coming out of my comatose state.
  "Damn girl you sleep hard! I've been trying to wake you up for almost 15 minutes!"
  "Oh wow! Sorry Casey. I must have been really tired." I said to her as I touched my face.
Derrin's wife Casey was a special type of person. She liked rock band the video game and had a serious crush on Morgan Freeman. Special right? I moved in with Casey because I couldn't deal with losing Prince by myself. She helped me put my house up for sale and was more than happy with letting me move in with her. She may have been weird but we had something in common. We both had to deal with losing a man that we loved eternally. Casey would be the first to tell you that she was a quirky white country bumpkin from Decatur who loves her a black man. Sometimes I wondered if she was indeed black. Kinda like the reverse of Rachel Dolezal but more real about it. She was proud to be Italian, German, and Greek but even prouder to be married to my cousin. They were truly happy with one another. Somehow Prince made a surprise visit to the wedding and sang adore as the couples first dance. It was a tear jerker. It was even more of a tear jerker that the marriage was tragically cut short. Most days it was easy but I bet for casey's situation she wished Derrin never took that trip to Alabama in the first place. Job or no job. Casey came from my bathroom with a warm wash cloth and handed it to me.
  "You were crying in your sleep again last night. Who were you dreaming about?" She asked as she sat down on the side of my bed.
You could see in her face that she was worried about me. Her crystal blue eyes were bright but you could see the pain that she carried for the loss of her husband.
  "Prince." I said sadly as I wiped my face.
I felt my eyes tearing up again. They were already biting from the bright sunlight shining through my bedroom window. Casey took the wash cloth from me and gave me a hug.
  "I know how much he meant to you." She said.
  "He was my friend. I really loved him a lot." I told her.
  "And he felt the same for you darlin'"
  "I bet you miss Derrin as much as I miss Prince. Maybe even more." I said to her.
  "I miss Derrin very much. I feel so lost without him. But at least I have you here. You remind me so much of him that it's almost like he never left me at all. I know you miss him too." She said.
I flashed her a quick smile.
  "Yeah I do. I miss our card game night we had together. Our random phone calls. The trips to Paisley Park." I said.
Casey took my hand and held it in hers.
  "You know they're always watching even if it doesn't seem that way. I know Derrin is still floating around here somewhere." She said with a big smile.
I looked down at my comforter and let out a sigh.
  "Yeah I know." I said.
Casey then stood up and pulled my blankets off of me. She took both my hands and got me up.
  "Well now let's not start these waterworks again you got breakfast to eat and meetings to meet!" She said in her country accent. Before I knew she was hauling me to my bathroom.
  "Go on now get ready! I'll have a plate piping hot for you in 5!" She said.
Casey walked out of my bedroom and closed the door behind her. I stood in my bathroom looking at myself in the mirror. As I began to think about that crazy dream I had I saw a sudden flash of Prince! I turned around to see him behind me but all that was there was my shower curtain.
  "What is wrong with me?" I said as I covered my face with my hands. That dream wasn't real. Was it?