It was sometime in the afternoon when I decided to lie down for a bit. I was all ready to go out and do things and work a little and meet a friend, and yet, I decided to lie down. The day was young, but I was tired. Five minutes, that’s all I wanted. I lay on the couch.
I think I was about three minutes in when I realised that I was dozing off, and that was when I realised I was halfway between being asleep and awake. With no rhyme or reason, I started dreaming of you. I hadn’t thought of you in ages, so I’m not sure how that happened. I hadn’t missed you at all.
I knew I had to get off that couch. There was work to do. Yet, it was you, and for the life of me, I couldn’t get up. I hadn’t heard your voice in a long time. It’s funny how the brain remembers everything, even things you never said, even things that never happened. We’re funny creatures. Little monkeys with irrelevant lives, watching irrelevant movies in our little heads about things that didn’t happen.
For what it’s worth, we were older in the dream, and we were walking alongside a hilly road like we used to do. We talked like we used to, and it seemed like a typical day. Well, for us that were in the dream. For me, I’d barely call that typical. I’ve spent years with you around, and it’s been years without you about, and I still don’t know what typical is when it comes to us.
I wasn’t asleep yet. I wanted to get up. Then, you pulled me by my hand and asked me to look at a flower. I laughed and asked you to slow down. You always got so excited. We kept walking, and I kept trying to get off the couch, not wanting to stay on that road, to stay in that dream. I knew I was exhausted, so if I gave in now, I wouldn’t wake up for hours. There were things to do and people to see, and this was a waste of my time. The day waited to be seized.
Then, I said something, and you laughed. You had to laugh. What could I have done? I couldn’t help it anymore. So, I gave in. I hadn’t heard you laugh in a long time. I kept looking at you, smiling. That was the moment. I could stay there forever. Life could wait, work could wait, the entire universe could wait.
I would fight them all, I mumbled, dozing off.