Dreams

Can you imagine living the life you've always wanted to live? Having the friends you always wanted, living up to the standards you've always expected and living happily? Well you can do that … in your dreams. When you close your eyes and go to sleep, your imagination wakes up and a dream has started. A dream is a series of endless thoughts that can have multiple possibilities. In most dreams you can't control them so they can turn out to either be a classic dream or a nightmare. Dreams last as long as you sleep so most of them are hard to remember, once you wake up it's kind of like none of it ever happened unless you had a lucid dream. A lucid dream is a type of dream where you acknowledge that you were in a dream while dreaming, isn't that crazy? Anyways, the fun part about dreaming is that you can live in any scenario your brain chooses for you, you get to live in another world for a while and experience different situations. Having dreams could be awesome, until you wake up in the middle of one... 

By Jessica Onwuka

Infrared Dreams

By Caitlin Mifsud

Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes 

By Ruby Hentoff

“So. There’s someone I need to talk to you about.” I fold the napkin by my plate and slip the utensils inside. I’m afraid to consult others, but I have no choice.

“Does he have icicle blue eyes?” the woman at the head of the table taunts.

I blanch. “H-how did you know that?” I say suspiciously.

“And he’s tall,” she adds. Blood rushes to my face. She must have read my expression, because she laughs. “It’s okay. We all know.”

She’s right. I sigh, glancing out at the cold, dark ocean by the mysterious coast. I was there just a few minutes ago, when the sun was still setting. Now, I never want to go back. 

I met him in person six years ago. I saw him for a flash moment three years later. I never saw him again after that. Not once had he entered my dreams… until tonight.

I’ve been in this park before. I mean, I’m dreaming, so there are very few alternate universe destinations I remember clearly. This is one of them. As I’m walking in my dreams, I have the gut feeling I will see him tonight. No. I will find him tonight. I don’t know why. Like I said, it had never happened before.

But when I turn, there he is, wearing a grey jacket and leaning against the wall. When I call his name, he instantly takes notice of me. He smiles, and it happens again; I feel my skin flushing the colour of his rosy cheeks. His face is in the same shape, chestnut brown hair swept to each side to perfection. I hug him and he accepts.

“How are you doing?” I exclaim when I pull back. “Where have you been? What are you doing now?” So many questions flood my mind, they’re difficult to articulate. I falter when I look into his normally brown eyes that suddenly aren’t. Both are a frosty blue; the left iris resembles shattered ice and the right one is lined with twisted teardrops, like the type of pattern you’ll see on one of those curtains in a hospital room.

I wouldn’t remember this until later.

We converse for a few minutes, and soon we’re sitting on a deck by an ocean drenched in orange. The sun douses the entire body of water with a soft tangerine glow. For a minute, I’m so glad to see him again, relieved that the two of us are finally alone; no company and no more familiar faces hanging around.

It doesn’t last for long. Enters a short girl with tangled black hair and small filaments threaded through her earlobes. And just like that, my feeling of bliss dissolves into oblivion. I want to scream. I want him to be mine, only mine; not work to snag his attention or keep his focus on me. Like I did six years ago. I want to forget what happened at that time and relish these scarce moments, ones I seldom got in reality. But he’s not talking to me anymore, and the sun is plummeting into the ocean. Before I can blink, it’s gone; the water turns a navy-midnight hue. It resembles stacks of obsidian that could easily break any minute.

Then I’m back in a strange dining room with white curtains, surrounded by complete outsiders who I’ve never seen before. I’m longing to see his face again. The woman talking to me is some sort of mind-reader, or maybe everyone at the table knows, because I couldn’t have made it more clear, even if I tried. I wish that none of them ever knew. 

But it isn’t like any of them remember me now.

When I’m woken, all I can think of is his name. It repeats itself over and over until I’m mouthing it under my breath. I grimace and lower myself back down, astonished that I saw him in my dreams. 

I then realize that I didn’t, because he doesn’t have patterned blue eyes. He has warm, brown eyes. Because when I looked into them for the first time six years ago, I knew I would never forget him.

Sunrise desires 

By Amelia Will

Hazy mist surrounded her hands, pulling her towards the horizon. The dew collected in the air. Hovering like jewels draped across the sky, stars were fading into the receding dark, the thick feel of it still in the air. A sheet of black night with slits of yellow light along the edge was all she could see as she slid down her steps, walking with the energy of half a cup of coffee, and a half cup of whatever sugar packets were left in the drawers. She left her door unlocked, but in such a town this was not unusual. The porches were touched with the empty air of the brightening dawn, and she stood alone gazing at the identical homes, each crisp with white paint and crooked with half grown, half cut grass. Lights cast a flickering yellow upon empty rooms, and even as she looked into the homes she passed, no living thing possessed the neighbourhood. 

The rocks along the street scraped against her bare feet. She walked further, as the houses grew larger, towards the upper part of the town. Magnificent windows were glazed against each wall, with sweeping arches above doors, and mirrors along each hall. Even with the clear surfaces displaying the interior, she saw no one in a bed, or sneaking out to go gallivanting with lovers in back alleys. 

Shutters lined the top floors, with pale imitations of the sunrise, which was still barely inching toward her. Even the plants seemed void of life, no winds in the air to so much as move the leaves, none of the morning glories hung up on garden fences even deigning to look upon her with opening buds. Still, she continued, walking past the thorns in the sidewalk, not even sensing the bite of them on her heels. 

Seconds, or minutes, or an hour later, she had reached the edge of town, with houses too tall for her to see the tops of, and fences of bricks with names, dwarfing any possible onlookers. It all but told them their name, the one qualifying a human life, was insignificant to that of one honoring stone and wood. Glass that had slid out from windows of the homes was scattered along the driveways, and far away scattered branches and uprooted colorful bushes ruined the otherwise impeccable landscaping. 

However as she approached Gallaway Drive she could see movement in a backyard, not so imposing as it seemed. Blood followed in her wake as she ran over the glass, into this hidden cove, surrounded by willow trees. The willow trees, from afar, presented a heavenly curtain, enticing her with possible secrets; but closer she could see the scabs and white blight on the edges, and the sickly bare branches with only one or two leaves clinging desperately to brown strands. Dirt and moss ran amok over the path, applying a cold compress to her aching feet. A chill grew around her, with the still air pulling goosebumps from her skin. She could hear voices… and screams. 

While they were close, she could just feel it; the screams were muffled, muted, the ones responsible for them breathing them out, with little care of whether they were heard. 

She could see them now, not branches, but people rather. Colorful sweaters, pajama pants and the odd couple of nightgowns all lay in the darkness. A small lump was there in its jersey top with an obscure name on the back, and a number. Its small toes were exposed much like the woman, and she could see the smooth skin. It twisted and she stepped closer. The child seemed to be alive. But who would miss one bush?

She saw its black hair, soft with those cells of a child. Untouched by light, his skin was pale and unfreckled. No one would miss him. No one was alive to. She could do whatever she wanted with that life. It could be hers, this bush didn’t need it anyways. After all, this was a dream, wasn’t it? 

No one around to give her morals. No world to care about the consequences. Just a flimsy universe of mind she would forget when the sun came up. 

And so when the boy was gone, with his life squeezed into the hands of this woman, it did. 

The sun rose, and the stones on the street were just dust. The glass was just water on the pathways. The lights in homes were still on, and people were truly in their beds or off with lovers in the darkness.

The light came and the people were just bushes. The willow trees were strong, with string hanging white dream catchers from them. The path was pure. 

And little Tommy lay sleeping next to Grace. She got up and walked back to her home, ready to wake up. She was done with desire for today. Life could continue at its average, identical pace. 

But Tommy lay sleeping for a second. For a minute. For an hour. 

He lay sleeping for a day. 

For a day till the cops came, till Tommy’s parents came. 

And he stayed sleeping when he followed the rest of the bushes into the ground. 

By Paulina Yushuvayev