I Dream of You

I Dream of You 1

I was afraid to see you again. I was afraid of how you would appear. Would you look like death? Or would you be that same beautiful creature of flesh and blood from long ago before disease ravaged you. At night, when a slumber sets upon us, you whisper in my ear. Your soft susserations stir me in my sleep and make me dream of heaven. I was afraid to dream of you, but one night I did, to my dismay.2

My darling love, the first time I glimpsed you after your succumbing to death's hand was like nothing that I could ever imagine. I will never forget it. I stood in the sand on a jagged-edged cliff under a blue sky. The surf-tormented shore beat angrily against the exhausted sand below. The sun glared down on me, unrelenting. Sifting through the sand with my hands, I studied every tiny particle. How easily they fell between my fingers like the finest silks! They descended to the depths of the sea from where I stood while I wept piteously for you, my love.3

O God, I cry out. Can I not grasp but a few? Must they slip so effortlessy from my clasp like you my dear? O God! I shout again. Is there one that can be saved from the shifting blue below? Must I let everything that's dear to me succumb to their demise? At this, I think to you, Meriel. To me, you are like the sand that slips between my fingers. I let you go so easily. My tears stings my face as the wind picks up. I am only nothing without you!4

But it is human instinct that I suddenly turn to the east, to behold your beauty as you appear like a mirage as the sun beams down on you. Gone is the skin clinging to the bones. Gone is the the sunken concave of your cheeks and the sallow countenance. There you stand, so lovely and so true. My heart thuds achingly against my chest as I recognize that familiar smile. The corners of your soft lips turning upwards towards the blue of the infinite sky! 5

In this agonizing, beautiful moment, my unsure legs carry me to you. Your eyes light up. They are the colour of autumn leaves. I wrap my arms around you, so long I have wanted to touch you again. This feels better than heaven, I suppose. I am delighted when you recieve my kiss upon your brow, and then a more fervent one against the lips. Ah, such soft lips. I remember these lips. I know this is a dream, but is it truly? O sweet Divine Lord in heaven, don't lie to me.6

When I pull back for the lack of respiration, there is a look in your eyes. The fear creeps over me for it is the same look that I glimpsed on your death bed. I open my mouth to speak, but you silence me with your finger and you speak instead. "I've missed you so much. All I thought of was you as I layed in my cold grave." 7

"Stop it!" I shout. "Don't speak of graves. You are here with me now and you consist of flesh and blood." I squeeze her arm to prove my point. Tears well up in her eyes, her thick lashes trapping the droplets. 8

"It's not true, Bronwyn. This is only a dream--a very detailed, beautiful dream. I sleep in the ground."9

I shake my head menacingly, biting down on my lip to suppress the sob rising up my throat. "No, you are here with me. We are together again. It's as it should be."10

My Meriel's sweet eyes looks sorrowful as she places her hand against my cheek. "This is what you've conjured up. This is not me!" She pulled at the warm flesh of her arm. "I am only bones resting in the soil!"11

"I won't listen to you my sweet Meriel!" I shout as tears blur my vision.12

"My love," she whispers calmly, "this is nothing but a dream--a dream of how we once were."13

"Yes! But I can hope?! Can't I?" I ask, broken down.14

"Hope for what, darling? That I will one day be restored. That I will knock upon your door and you will open it to find me like this!?" She points to herself again. "Is it that you hoped to find me as my old self? Free of any sign of disease and waste? It is foolish to hope. Your days have been nothing but a dream!" 15

I nod my head in agreement as tears slide against my skin. "You are not wrong to deem that my days have been nothing but a dream; yet if hope has flown away in a night, or in a day, perhaps in a vision, or in none at all, does it mean that hope is non-existent?"16

Meriel regards me slowly, seeming to ponder this question. "I don't know if hope ever existed," she finally admits, "it only misleads you."17

"So that is your answer?" I softly whisper.18

She doesn't answer my question, only stares out at the sea. Then slowly she walks through the sand towards the cliff. 19

"Where are you going?!" I shout, perplexed. Meriel doesn't reply, but continues her way towards the cliff.20

"Where are you going, Meriel?" I shout again.21

She is fixated on the sea as if the sea is her lover now. "Meriel, answer my question!" She is on the cliff now, at the edge it seems. There is quite a distance between us now. "Meriel," I cry out, panic-stricken, "what do you intend to do?!" Her small frame shivers and slowly she turns to me. "This isn't reality, only a dream for the bereaved," she shouts out to me.22

"But you've teased me, darling. You came into my dream!"23

"No," she shook her head, "you wanted this, that's the only reason I appear now. It's what you've created. Remember, Bronwyn, it's only but a dream." Then, faster than heavy rains from summer storms pelting against a windowpane she jumps off the cliff into the ethereal blue.24

A savage sob escapes from me as I fall to my knees. I kick the sand with my feet, bash my hand against my head angrily, spit into the sand. I know that the Divine Lord can hear my savage cries. So easily we meet, so easily we part. I let her slip from my grasp just like the sand. It is true that I've always known that she was dead. All along it has always been clear to me that I was dreaming, but one has the right to be in denial. I keep holding on to hope, but I was the one by her side as her body wasted away in the hospital bed. I've known all along.25


***26

My hand clutched at the sweat-drenched sheets as I buried my sobs into the pillow. My breathing was rugged and harsh. Sitting up against the headboard, I was met with pitch-black. It was not yet dawn. My sweat-drenched shirt clung against my body, snug and secure. I thought back to the dream, to seeing my darling Meriel in the flesh, to tasting her sweet lips.
I wanted to dream of her again. I needed some way to make her come back. Laying my head against the dampened pillow I closed my eyes waiting for sleep to come. But it was futile. Sleep wouldn't come for me. Repositioning myself up against the headboard, I asked myself a simple question: Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream? Many a widower has dreamt of his deceased love and asked the same thing.27

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I got inspiration for this from Egar Allen Poe's poem "A Dream Within A Dream" 30

Cited passages that I used from Edgar Allen Poe's poem "A dream Within A Dream": 31

*Take this kiss upon the brow.32

*You are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream; yet if hope has flown away in a night, or in a day, in a vision, or in none, is it therefore the less gone?33

* Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?34

*I stand amid the roar of a surf-tormented shore, and hold within my hand grains of the golden sand. How few! Yet how they creep through my fingers to the deep while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp? O God! Can I not save one from the pitiless wave?