Field of Dreams in Sorrowful Fires

IN 90'S YEARBOOK SERIES 1

Why do our dreams so often feel like distant stars, as if just beyond reach? Why must we wrestle so fiercely, bleeding through wounds of doubt and stumbling beneath shadows, just to claim the right to call them our own? Must relentless struggle be the price we pay for fulfillment, as if the path to our dreams is carved only through pain and sacrifice?

In the words of Yves Magdalene Aquino, even the deepest hardships cannot be measured against the pursuit of her dreams. No measure of suffering, no storm of sweat, blood, or tears has ever sufficed to compensate for the relentless efforts she invests simply to support her own needs and to ease the burdens carried by her parents. For her, no amount of effort ever feels enough. Yet, despite tireless effort, Yves feels the poignant ache of insufficiency. No amount of sacrifice seems to grant peace to her mother's weary heart or to lay rest upon her father's tired shoulders. In her heart, she wrestles with a haunting question: Is she truly deserving of these dreams, or are they forever just out of reach?

Even to him, she once believed she could firmly hold on. . . the one who made reality blur with dreams, who pulled doubt away like a gentle tide withdrawing from shore. To him, she surrendered all doubt, forgetting for a moment that she was dreaming at all, because in his presence, the weight of the world seemed to dissolve into the palm of her hand.

Yet, some dreams are not meant to last forever. Lorenzo Coriolanius Escaleaez, the name that once echoed with warmth and endless possibility, became the dream she outgrew.

And she wished she'd never wake up. That she;d'd never face the reality. . . that the freedom to dream anew, beyond all she had imagined. . . beyond the fragile longing for what once was.

Published: June 8, 2025