I dreamt of books last night. I did not know which books they were, but I remember a hand clutching them, and then they were handed to me while I was on a walk. I did not see who it was; for the rest of the dream, this did not matter. There were countless notes in the books, scribbled along the margins in blue ink; some notes were in pencil; some were even squeezed between the lines. The covers were tattered, and the pages were yellow. Something told me not all notes were made in one sitting or reading. At some point, I realised I was only reading the notes; the books did not matter anymore.
These could not have been my books. That much, I was sure of. There was no metaphysical meaning to the dream, for I don’t scribble in my books out of principle. If it is something important, I will remember it. If it makes me feel something, I will remember the feeling. The rest, I will forget anyway. The notes did not matter. When I woke up, I remembered the feeling of going through the notes, but I did not remember the words except one sentence: some were earlier than others. It was written in blue ink on the top-right corner of page 47. It wasn’t written as a single, long sentence; the words were written as a group, huddled together as if to save space.
I woke up late this morning; it was still four hours ago. The blue note has been on my mind since—while laying in the bed, while brewing my coffee, while moving to music, while sitting idly and remembering an old day from a different life as one often does on a reflective morning. Some were earlier than others. Their joy was early; their grief was early. This was not out of their own volition. They were born with a sort of urgency in them, a sense that time was running out. They were early so they waited. I know how you feel, they often said when someone finally wandered where they had lived by themselves for years.
They arrived before the others. They did not know where to go.