The proletariat and the dreamer

The first night of November was when I dreamed. I didn’t normally dream. My life was always busy, always quick to change, and I didn’t have time to think about it. Otherwise I would have had a list of sleeping memories all tucked away in a journal somewhere, but…probably not.

I wasn’t the dreamer type. I was just begging my junior year and I was focused on studies, on friends, on academic clubs, all that sort of stuff. You couldn’t find a personal sentence that hadn’t been edited with chronological constricted order. I was set in my place. I didn’t think anything of it.

But that night, I saw him. I had gone into restful sleep, same as any other night, and then it had happened.

I stood in an empty field. I was underneath a huge oversized tree and it was winter, but the snow hadn’t arrived yet. Yet the tree was already dead and every leaf had fallen. It was a crimpled shriveled structure that rose aside me.

The field stretched out before me and yet there was no grass. It was all flat. It was night and yet I could see my way. I began to get confused at where I was. I walked a few steps, and stopped when I saw him.

His eyes were piercing. They were a dark bottomless blue with a sharp overcast. He stood about ten feet away from me. He stared into me. His eyes had just about stopped me from moving. His eyes had forced me to be nothing. To be a nothing for him. Because he wanted me to be.

I could hear my breathing, and it was so uneven. It was shaky and I saw the little breath trail from my mouth out into the open air.

I looked down at the breath and straight back up at him. His eyes shunned me.

“Tatum.” He said. His voice rose up like the dead tree and spread throughout my knowing. His lips moved softly and carefully, and I watched, wanting to know everything he did. Struck by every little thing he did.

Everything I had been, washed over completely. Everything I knew because that was the way it was, it wasn’t. I was this girl before him, the one he wanted me to be. Innocent, small, bare, inaudible.

“You’re in a dream.” He said.

That made sense by the smallest amount. Maybe it was a breakaway from my structured self being. Maybe I was just having a moment, and this would never have to happen again. I had the hope, but I had nothing else.

“You look so afraid of me.” He said.

“I am.” I managed to say.

“Well don’t be.”

He moved closer. I stepped back.

“Don’t.” He ordered.

I froze.

“No” He sighed.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. You’re fine.” He stared out over me, and I looked back to see the dead tree.

“What do you want?” I asked.

His eyes changed a tiny bit. He looked at me then.

“I want you to know.” He said. “You deserve the truth.”

“And what is the truth?” I asked, feeling as though I could only ask questions and not speak of myself.

“Something you’ll find out.” He said. “Tomorrow, you will see me. It could be at any point in time during the day. When you see me, you’ll know because of my eyes, and I’ll want to speak with you.”

I was so afraid. I could feel myself shaking without even wanting to be. I was apart from this person I was in. This person was quivering before him.