Dream # 1

     I am asleep yet awake, my eyes open.  I look up at the ceiling fan which seems higher than usual.  The sheets and my body are as nothing.  All around is silence, I might as well be on a desert island.
     Compelled to rise, I fumble by the bed for my slippers.  Through the open door I go and into the hallway.  There is certainly  no other person in this empty dark house.  As I slowly walk on, I listen for my footsteps and hear the slow thud of my heart.  I am frightened and yet detached.
     The feeling grows excessively when I see just a blank wall where there should be a front door.  I don't investigate this unusual happenstance but move on weightlessly into the drawing room.  The darkness is as usual but not the absence of the hum of the air pump that supplies the fish-tank.  By now I'm feeling the chill that seems to be coming from behind those drawn curtains.  I concede to the inevitable and draw them open.  The succeeding surprise is so great that my overwhelming fear is no more and I am held spellbound, unable to stir for what seems like ages.
     Behind the curtains is a huge window.  There was one there before but the panes swung out.  This is hermetically sealed  (and I instantly comprehend that it is so with all the windows of the house).  The glass is flawless as priceless crystal, very shiny, unusually thick and glowing with the absorbed light from the scene beyond.
     Gone is the daily driveway and wall of flaking, faded-cream distemper.  Before my eyes is a panorama of heroic proportions.  Where the glass ends, begins gently rolling country-side, lush green, rich dark loam, noble trees in the far distance - set under a gray sky - stretching as far as my eyes and imagination can see.
     It is slightly overcast, maybe a faint drizzle gives it that misty look.  It is the chill of the wind that has made my teeth chatter and even the smell is at my nostrils - sharp and clean with the scent of cool, damp earth, grass, rain and open spaces.
     I feel sure that if I walk into it, the window, so real before, will let me through.  I move and bounce off the glass, hands first.  There is no reaction, no sound and no pain.  I am mildly disturbed to note that I leave no palm prints.
     So I go back to watching it all.  The breeze stiffly ruffles the waves of grass, sways the trees and whips the wheeling, keening birds up and away.  I ache to step through and go walking away, over the hills to some unseen destination.  But I'm held here, forced to look upon what I desire most.  Hard as I try to look away, my eyes dwell on each play of light and shadow, the captivity unbearable, the pain indescribable.
     Subjective hours pass as I am chilled to the bone, uncaring, untiring.  Finally, I reluctantly turn from my dream, leaving the curtains open - I know it is out there and I hope to be part of it someday.  My captivity is all the more bitter because of what I have just seen.  I stumble back to bed and lie in the icy sheets, trembling with rage and loss.
     Suddenly, it is morning and I am awake.  Now the windows can be opened and the front door is where it should be and yet, the barriers of the dream are unchanged, real as ever, insurmountable.