Dreamscape

five

ANJA

It's beautiful.

Once I got over my initial worries about this place, I began to fully appreciate how lively and colorful everything was. The people and their chatter soothed me. Their dresses, with puffy sleeves and frills, laces, the gentlemen and their suits, hats and canes, all of it was a visual treat to me. I couldn't explain what it was about all this happening around me, but it made me feel...elated.

Gabriel finally got to know my name. He repeated it, and it sounded good when he did, because when he let it roll off his tongue, he looked focused, taking special care of each of the two syllables as though he was afraid one might be jealous of the other.

"Anja."

"That's right, yes. Spelled with a 'j'," I said.

"Got it," he replied, nodding once, a small smile teasing at the corners of his mouth. Silence followed. 

It was a comfortable silence. I didn't mind watching all the people milling about, minding their own business. It was like a dream, but it was a reality. I knew it was. And I am experiencing it with Gabriel. 

The scene before me was utterly surreal, and I felt overwhelmed by the colors, but ultimately, I was grateful. I felt so grateful, I believed I might cry. It was like a dream that wasn't grey, finally a dream that wasn't me dying. Right now we are watching the beautiful sunset, all the colors of the retreating sun illuminating the scene with a romantic glow. When the sun started to hide along the lake horizon, that was when I felt my tears begin. My eyes stung, and I could sense Gabriel staring at me, watching the solitary tear that fell just then. 

"I'm happy, that's all," I told him, before he could say anything. 

Gabriel closed his mouth, nodding his head once. "I suppose if my tear ducts worked properly, I might have cried with you," he chuckled softly. I watched his eyes glaze over at the scene before him, and followed his stare - he was watching the people around us. 

I believe we both have questions floating around our heads, but the sunset and the chatter silenced these questions and told them all to go to bed. When we both wake up from this shared dream, so shall these questions. 

"This place looks beautiful. This day is beautiful," I murmured, hugging my shins close to my body, and resting my chin on my knees as I smiled. 

He nodded in silent agreement, his gaze transfixed upon a couple sitting quite far from the rest, near the lake. The couple held each other's faces, tenderly and lovingly. It was so intimate that I didn't look any further, feeling as if I was invading a private moment, somehow. Even though they could not see me at all. 

But just as that thought occurred to me, the woman, with her blonde hair and sparkling green eyes, looked away from her lover and over his shoulder, her stare directed straight at me. In that instant that our eyes met, my chest tightened. And soon everything was swirling around me again, and it felt like I was jerked awake from a dream where I was falling down the stairs. I felt fear, and a chill ran down my spine. My back hit the cold backrest of the bench as I leaned against it, closing my eyes. 

Did she see me? Or did she just happen to look our way?

I didn't know what to think. Everything was overwhelming. I was finding it difficult to breathe, and there was drumming in my ears again. But soon it ebbed away, and I found my lungs mimicking Gabriel's steady deep breaths.