Couch. Dream. Bloom.
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Moonlight bled in through the window, through a small slit in the curtains and parted the room into two seas of primordial dark. Across the lounge lay a dreamer, their thoughts blooming in their sleep, bisected by that gentle silver light.
Deep asleep, down in a world twisted by imagination into something sweet. The Dreamer wrestles with a beautiful sight.
Surrounding her is a liquid sea, made of stars, that gently laps at the side of her boat. She rests against the cool metal of her ship, leaning against the side with her hand trailing through the quicksilver caressing her boat.
Each drop that touches her skin is a star, a tiny glistening light that twinkles as if it were still lightyears away. The sea is warm, like a bath – gold sparkles in an endless stream of silver moonlight.
A sharp ringing breaks the gentle embrace, the real world blossoms into sight and she snaps awake in her lounge-room. With a sigh she hoists herself up from her lounge, the slightest hint of daylight sneaks in through the curtains. Her legs shuffle her to the bathroom where she showers amongst the mold and bleach white tiles. Then she dresses in red and black, before heading into the kitchen to eat. Fluorescent light stains radiation into her skin, hard white furniture keeps her off the dusty floor.
She heads to work, a dull buzz and static of ghosts follows her along the subway into the city where she’ll tap at a keyboard all day.
She heads for home, stopping on the way in a dimly lit little grocery store. She buys a can of soup and a bread-roll, a bottle of water and the daily newspaper. She eats the bread on the walk home, and takes a sip of her water before walking up three flights of stairs to her apartment.
She heats the soup up in the microwave, washes a bowl with her bottle of water, and dries it on her shirt.
After dinner she sits back down and stares at her television’s screen. Imagining what must be on right now. Eventually that gets too boring for her, so she goes through the paper, looking for work. Circling things with the pen she stole from her day job, then does the crossword.
Finally she falls asleep on her couch. Moonlight bleeds in through the window, bisecting the room and casting the Dreamer into a deep sleep. She dances her fingers across a moonlight pool filled with stars. A planet rising over head, ringed by magnetic rocks clinging together in a thick red and blue display.
Deep in sleep she drifts across a silver and gold expanse. The blossoming unexplored space before her ringing in her blood. Her first deep breath felt more real than anything in the world above. One day she wouldn’t wake up.
But not today. The shrill discordant tones of her alarm dragged her back into the world above. She rubbed her aching head and stared down at her coffee table. A ring of red filled her eyes, agonizing her. A headline.
“NASA seeking colonists for Mars.”
L. Beaumont 