A Day in the Life of a Moon-Dreamer

She lied hovering above her magenta-colored meadow, swaying gently in the midnight breeze. The stars drifted downwards around her and danced to the slow-but-steady sounds of her heavenly heartbeat. She caught one in the small of her palm and watched it blink on and off like a gossipy little firefly. It crawled up the side of her slender index finger, perched on the tip, then raised its wings in preparation for take-off. She puckered her lips and blew a soft air-stream up from underneath it. It rejoined the circling flanks of its brothers and sisters and she sighed in appreciation.1

She began kicking her legs and fanning her arms as if she were doing the backstroke and began picking up speed. The long-stemmed grass whistled and rippled as she passed over. The subtle breeze picked up and swept through her hair like wind to a sail. Her body realigned perpendicularly as the wind flung her upwards; gaining more and more speed as she rose. She spun as she ascended; higher and higher until her meadow loomed indeterminately from the cascading glow beneath her. 2

She then leered upwards towards her destination. The moon shone omnipotently into her wide-eyed glare. The closer she got the harder it was to keep her eyes open because of how inescapably blinding its light was. She winced a little and desperately reached her hands upwards with only a short distance left to travel. Her eyes wobbled from the torture and at long last, only a few feet from the moon, slammed irreversibly shut. 3

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Jillian awoke on her back in a swirl of magenta colored comforters with both of her arms outstretched above her. She threw her legs over the side of her bed and rubbed the sandy grains from the corners of her icy blue eyes. A full-on yawn stretched the muscles in her neck so that a perfect “S” shadow of her silhouette was painted on the wall across from the window of white morning sunshine. 6

Three loud bumps shook the floor and a sharp voice screamed out from the kitchen below, “Hurry up! You’ll be late! Don’t make me come roll you down here myself!” The nagging had done its job. A quick shower and a swift change of clothes later and Jillian stumbled zombie-like down the familiar creek of steps into the smoke-filled kitchen where her mother was attempting to cook bacon. She dropped herself in her usual seat with her back to the wall and her foot resting on the seat of the chair on the other side of the table. 7

“Is it Monday already?” Jillian mumbled rhetorically. “Would it be such a tragedy if I were to one day forget to go to school?” 8

“Don’t be silly,” her mother responded, “You know how important your attendance is, and don’t get me started on your grades. Mrs. Lieter’s last report card remarks about you weren’t exactly flattering either. I think we should set you up in a few extracurricular clubs so’s to keep your mind focused on what it ought to be focused on. And don’t forget about that big quiz you have in history, I think you should make plans to stay after school for that study group they have. Just make sure you take one of those plastic pencil sharpeners because I don’t think you’ll want to run all around trying to find—“ 9

“Mom, I write in pen.” Jillian interrupted trying to cut her off before she got too carried away. 10

“What? Oh, that’s nice dear. But really you should remember that it’s always best to ask questions before it’s too late because the only stupid question is the one you were too afraid to ask. Oh and did I tell you that the principal is starting this new system in the PTA where the parents have more up-to-date progress checks because of popular demand? Well, it’s all taken care of and starts next week. Hmmm, maybe we should consider buying you a bigger back-pack so your purple lunch bag fits in with your books so that there are fewer things for you to keep track of. Remember when you lost your retainer and the lunch ladies found it a month later and it didn’t fit in your mouth anymore? Well you know what I mean. Anyway, it’d probably be a good idea if you…” Her voice trailed off into the background of Jillian’s mind. A few seconds later and Jillian found herself back in her meadow, smiling at last. 11

Silky lime green grass covered the ground for as far as the eye could see. Morning dew glistened from the grass-tips each time the wind touched the ground. She spread her arms out sideways and slowly sunk downwards until she landed on the soft, spring carpet of green. Twittering and chirping melodies trumpeted over the horizon and approached from the distance in the form of a large flock of human-sized blue jays. They set themselves down in a circle around her and waited for her signal. 12

She linked her fingers together and stretched them by pushing her palms outwards from her chest. Then, with a quick flick of her hair and a sly wink of an eye, the birds all reacted by commencing their routine dig. Talons thrashed like clockwork. Beaks randomly pecked away left and right. Tiny specks of glittering brown dirt filled the air like confetti. The ground around the small patch of grass she was standing on began to disappear as the birds pecked away at it. One by one they all flew off with a worm dangling from their beaks. The doughnut hole around her silently awaited her descent. 13

Once again she spread her arms out sideways and slowly set herself down to the bottom of the abandoned, de-wormed hole. She knelt daintily and listened as she scoped the layer of dirt beneath her feet for any sign of her long-awaited reward. Once satisfied with the spot she had chosen, she too, started to dig. A small spot of white appeared with the first swipe of dirt, and it grew each time she swiped the dirt away. More and more of the moon was unveiled as she labored in the heat of the sun as it approached its peak in the sky. Almost half unburied, all she had to do was loosen the earth’s grip on it and it was all hers. Three tugs, four, five, six... futility washed over her forehead and dripped salty beads of liquid down the side of her face. Seven, eight, nine, ten tugs… and finally, she passed out from the relentless heat. 14

The school hallways lingered in four different directions, each path an exact copy of the last. Jillian dragged her feet as she ran her fingers along the slightly bumpy pattern of the cement walls. The doorway to her classroom invited her in with a pseudo glow of neon light. Jillian reluctantly obeyed. 15

A few minutes early but with no ambition of caring either way, Jillian took her seat in the center of the room and pulled out a notebook. She ripped a page out of the back and snapped open her purple pen. Other children filed into their seats exactly as they had done every day for the past forty-six weeks. Jillian’s hand instinctively took to the page and scribbled away at will. 16

Jillian’s attention however, found itself admiring the shape of the face of a boy laughing in the doorway to his friends standing further off. His name was Jonathan (the boy who lived across the street). They had never spoken and only once exchanged glances in the lunch line back in September. Jillian’s eyes pleaded to get a closer look but Jillian turned them down. Mrs. Lieter, the math teacher, strode over to the front of the room and screeched “today’s lesson” onto the top of the chalkboard. 17

The final stragglers, including Jonathan, all finally slouched into the remaining seats. “Ok everybody, out with last night’s assignment.” Mrs. Lieter commanded with authority, “If you didn’t get it finished please come up to the board and write your names off to the left.” A few of the usual slackers and a dirty kid that everybody just called “Stench” went and did as told. They had all been well-trained about how long their detentions would last if they didn’t follow her instructions precisely. 18

Mrs. Lieter collected the homework slabs and began her recitation of the next page in the math book that they had left off at the day before. The words shot out of her mouth like darts from a crossbow and shot the students down one by one, sitting duck after sitting duck. Jillian inspected the dart sticking out of her heart and tried her best to ignore it so that she could pay as much attention to what the teacher was saying as possible, but it was utterly useless. She just couldn’t care less whether pin-pointing prime numbers made it easier to calculate for a rational number or not. And on that note, Jillian flew away to her meadow once again. 19

The afternoon spilled out golden rays of sunlight that soaked everything in a rare golden glow. All the way on the southern edge of her meadow splashed the coast of a golden sea that swallowed up the horizon in a rippled slate of reflected sunshine. She waded out into fringe of cool shallow water and tapped her finger ever so slightly on the surface. Two slippery dolphin heads popped up a few feet off and dipped back in to swim over beside her. A third head peaked over from where the other two first appeared. She rolled up her sleeves and dove out into the water to meet it. 20

She felt its smooth body lift her weight as she grabbed hold of its fin and locked her legs tightly to its side. Just below her knees she felt the flapping of its golden wingspan of feathery plumage. It started swimming out to sea with its compadres close behind. The quicker they went the higher off the surface she could have sworn they were getting until finally they launched fully out of the water. They soared gracefully above their reflection in the water with the two other winged dolphins jumping in and out of the water on either side as they hurried along. 21

The moon bounced happily in the waves, floating like a buoy on lemon gelatin. “Faster!” she shouted to her porpoise luck dragon as they drew in closer. One final swoop brought her directly above the moon and just as she swept her outstretched hand down to grab it, the moon ducked away and disappeared beneath the surface. “After it!” she screamed pointing downwards, and the chase ensued. Frantically holding her breath and desperately hoping to catch up with the moon before it was too late, she crossed her fingers tightly and silently prayed for a miracle. The light from the moon glimmered below. They closed in on it in a swirl of golden bubbles. But with only a tiny bit farther to go, her lungs gave out and her grip on reality washed back over her face. 22

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Dark clouds swarmed overhead as Jillian climbed the three black steps up into the bus. She slinked back to her seat and melted into a relaxed position with her head leaning against the window. The driver pulled the door handle and the bus let out a loud gasp of air just before peeling off through the parking lot and down the street. The kid in the seat behind her seemed to have acquired a fetish for kicking the back of her seat in unpredictable spasms. The sounds of incoherent babble filled the tiny space inside the bus like the water in a water balloon. 24

Jillian propped her back-pack up between her body and the side of the bus. She let her focus slowly drift down onto the racing white road line below. Scattered chunks of road kill and various bits of litter decorated what Jillian once thought of as her only hope for escape. It wasn’t until three years ago when her father got a new job and moved their happy little family to a new town and a new life that Jillian realized how civilization had already infected every last destination imaginable with the poison of conformity. 25

Rain had started to sprinkle outside the bus and droplets on the window distorted Jillian’s view. She breathed a deep breath of warm air onto the center of the window that made a small circle of visible condensation. She pressed the front of her hand on and stamped an imprint in the center of it. She closed her eyes as the condensation slowly evaporated back to normal. If you hadn’t been watching her all along it would have been as if it never even happened at all. The pain of being inescapably unimportant ripped a small tear in Jillian’s heart but her mind rescued her just in time. And the meadow in her mind welcomed her with arms wide open. 26

The setting sun dripped like scarlet molasses over the distant mountaintops. The crickets and owls played a warm-up melody that soothed the soul from the inside out. She swung lazily from a hammock that was tied between two stout mulberry trees. Fluffy pink sheep hopped as they danced to the rhythm of the evening music that slowly lulled her to sleep. 27

Relaxation commenced superbly, except for a stray lamb that nudged its way over to her hammock and took a firm mouthful of the silky linen in its teeth. It yanked her consciousness out of a sweet slumber and twisted her bed into a crumpled mess. She struggled herself free and toppled over onto the ground. As she glanced upward her expression changed. 28

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Jonathan had been tugging at her spring jacket in hopes to wake her from her bus-ride-nap. “It’s our stop,” he whispered softly. Jillian looked around and blushed from intense embarrassment. 30

The two of them and a few others wobbled down the narrow bus isle, leaped down to the side of the road and continued on their separate ways. Jillian paused at the head of her sidewalk and dropped her face into her cupped hands. She wanted to kick herself for coming off as such a dweeb in front of Jonathan. She lingered in her pose like an icicle in a cave. She clung tightly to the only solace she had left… her meadow. 31

In its departure, the sun had stolen away the sky’s scarlet tint. Instead, a violet maroon color infiltrated the meadow and stung everything in it with the sour taste of fresh star fruit and grapes. She set herself down in a flower bed of lotuses and tulips and waited on her back staring upwards. She inspected the sky carefully for any sign of the night’s first star. 32

Much to her surprise, her old friend the rambunctious lamb came crawling over to interrupt her peace once again. He trotted playfully over the flowers and up onto her stomach in an attempt to get her to pay attention to him. He cuddled his face into her shoulder as she wrapped her arms lovingly around his fragile little body. He pressed harder and harder until she finally jerked her eyes up out of her cupped, tear-soaked hands. 33

Jillian spun around to find a nervous looking Jonathan that had been tapping her on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he stammered, “I didn’t mean to upset you, but I think you left this drawing in math class earlier today.” Jonathan handed a piece of notebook paper over to Jillian and she accepted it with a redeeming smile. 34

“It’s the moon,” Jillian explained, “I forgot all about it.” 35

“I know about the moon!” Jonathan exclaimed, “Do you need any help capturing it?” 36

“How do you know about the moon?” Jillian asked with suspicion. 37

“The moon is everybody’s source for dreams. All anybody really needs is a partner to help fulfill them all with.” Jonathan responded as he offered his hand out to her. 38

Jillian said nothing but reached out and took his hand into hers. Together they lifted off of the grey stone sidewalk and floated away to a particular magenta, midnight meadow where a mischievous moon had just risen for the night. And somewhere amidst the gleam of a pair of icy blue eyes, there appeared a reflection of an incredibly bright sphere grasped tightly by twenty interlocking fingers, four glistening hands and two enamored hearts. 39

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