the dream

i sat up in the bed and stared out the window. the moon was full and brightly lit. however, not a single star shone in the sky. i thought it was a little bit suspicious, but i ignored that feeling. gravity pulled me toward the window and so i stood up on top of my bed and fell face-first stomach-down towards it and onto the bed. my flat body was pulled towards the window and out, the glass which was now the texture of silicone but with a portal opening my body just went through. I stood up in the dewy, cold grass. the crisp blades cut my toes, but i couldn't stop walking. i was being pulled, like a magnet, towards an object or something that was invisible to  my eye. i couldn't see anything but what was illuminated by the moonlight, which was the shining grass and the maple forest to my left. i  continued across the lawn to what i was starting to think was an imaginary object when it revealed itself.

It revealed itself like a microsoft powerpoint transition. it peeled and rippled from the top to the bottom, appearing to be a hologram. but i could sense that it was neither a hologram nor a highschool presentation. it had a blue tint but the machine itself was silver. it was round but also somehow rectangular, it had a dome top and was covered in screws which held the plates of metal to the body and structure of it. it stood on tiny legs with tiny wheels, almost like an airplane. it wasnt hovering or glowing like youd see in the movies, only illuminated by the moonlight. the small oval window on the side released a white light which was coming from the inside. must be some time of lab or examination room. that was the only light on in the entire machine, so maybe it was an observatory.

"ashley," the machine, or something inside of it, spoke in a raspy, muffled, robotic tone. this led me to assume the machine was programmed with either computerized or autotuned microphones. This whole situation seemed to be straight out of a movie. i didnt think any thing like this would ever happen to me in real life. or a dream... where am i?

the realization that i had no depiction of whether this was reality or a dream was putting me in a daze. everything around me ran in circles and went blurry, then suddenly everything was black.

i opened my eyes and a bright white light blinded and glued my eyes back shut. i attempted to slowly blink them back open. a perfect girl with blonde hair in a smooth pony-tail appeared in the middle of the blank canvas.

her eyes were the color of the morning sky, with a ring of the ocean on the outer iris. they were deep and promising, but they looked man-made and fake, like plastic. you could tell no emotion and see no story from her eyes. her eye lashes were long and thick. dark and wispy. they fluttered up towards her perfectly shaped eyebrows, which you could tell had never been plucked or waxed or threaded even though there were no hairs out of place. not a single one. her nose didnt go too far down her face, it aligned perfectly with her detached earlobes. it had an elfish curve at the end, flicked toward the sky; flicked towards her home. her cupids bow had the perfect arch, her lips were the corresponding arrow. the perfect shade of warm-toned pink; the sunset in summer, roses on valentines day,  strawberries picked too early. her cheekbones cut the glass that was once my window, sharp and defined. a butchers knife.

"are you alright?" her soft, high-pitched, monotone voice spoke. i couldn't reply. i felt as though i was in a trance, my lips were locked and my vocal chords were tied. i laid in silence as she asked again. and again. many times until she realized i wasn't trying to ignore her.

"oh no..." she said, "its kicked in early..." she faded away into the white canvas.

i gasped awake. my sheets were soaked in sweat.  ive had this same dream for so many weeks id lost count and had to start keeping track on my calendar. i got up and added a star to October 12. i walked across my room to the bathroom. i reached about the sink and pressed on the mirror to open the cabinet behind it and pulled a cloth and a bottle of melatonin. i dumped the pills onto the counter and put a drinks worth of water into the pill bottle. i put 3 pills onto my tongue and poured the water down my throat. i swallowed the pills. i held the bottle under the edge of the counter and pushed the pills back into it. i took the cloth and ran it under cold water. i pressed the cold cloth to my face and freshened up. i went back to my sweat-stained sheets and laid in my pool of body fluids. i pulled the comforter up to my chin and shut my eyes.

"until next time..." i told the barbie girl who was my dream.