“When our bodies start to sleep, our souls awake. Our dreams are just the journeys that our souls go on, traveling to too many places, seeing too many faces, and coming back just as we wake up, to slumber again until the next coming night. But sometimes, when we are shocked awake, our souls don’t make it back to our bodies in time. Our souls are still finding new places to go and new people to meet. When that happens, our bodies become empty shells of what we dream.” The girl looks out to the horizon in contemplation. Her companion sits beside her, brushing the dust and dirt from his black jeans and gazing longingly at the girl for a few short moments, drinking her features in like a fine wine. His lips then twist into a smirk and his eyes light up in amusement.
“When did you get so philosophical?”
“When you died.” The boys smirk fell into a grimace as he laughed mirthlessly.
“Yes well, death does make one think a lot about life doesn’t it?”
“My body woke up, but soul is still on a boat somewhere, watching as sharks break a dolphin into pieces, killing her, raping her, making her existence like your own, gone. My soul is watching, never doing, just like me. I didn’t do anything to stop the sharks from killing you, my dolphin. Now I’m stuck in this horrible dream world of me, of you, of us. People are starting to wonder about me, talking to myself out here, staring out at the ocean, thinking you’re still here.” The girl pulled her knees to her chest and hugged herself, creating a protective ball of human reality.
“When did you start caring what people thought about you?” The boy lifted his right hand, his slender fingers trailing over, never on, the girls hollowed cheek, down her jaw line, to the slope of neck, knowing that the pulse beating beneath that flawed skin was keeping him from touching the girl he so desired to comfort right now.
“When you died.” The girl answered simply, monotonously.
“One of these days, you’re going to have to get over that. See that ocean you can’t stop thinking about? It’s too big for your complete contemplation. It’s complex while we are simple and cannot even fathom to understand it. And it envies us for that. Call your soul back to you. Let it leave that sight of the dolphin and the sharks. Remember love, man is the dream of dolphins. You need to stop taunting that poor creature with the visage of your beautiful soul because no matter what you do, the sharks will always be there, killing the dolphins for dreaming of us. Lay your body to rest now and wake up to a world far from your dreams of the dark abyss of blood soaked water. When you awake I’ll be gone. And you will be real again."
“So you want me to leave my beautiful lie to live in the horrendous truth? I suppose I have been quite selfish, keeping you here in my wonderful world of pretend. I mean, staying here was the perfect denial. I was safe. But now, you’re right, I need to go home. All I have to do is go to sleep?” The girl implored, looking away from her fading company.
“All you have to do is sleep, love.” The boy replies, carefully willing the girl to lie upon the ground, facing away from the sea, the source of her terrors.
“Goodbye my dolphin, until we meet again.”
“And goodbye to you, my shark, my death, my love.” As the girl’s eyes fall closed, she sees the boy fade before her, knowing that they would be together again. She clutches a newspaper to her chest, a smile touching her lips as she sleeps, knowing it is meant to be again. She loses her last shred of consciousness and the newspaper falls from her limp arms, the headline reading:
“Local Scholar Dies Protecting His Wife In Armed Robbery”
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