11. CATCHING DREAMS

I like magic! Early next morning I was dreaming. That is I believed I was dreaming. As on the previous days, some early morning birds were chirping so I am not sure. When I turned around in bed, the small box was there once again. Nothing rattled inside. I opened the box. There were some sheets of paper. I wanted to read chapter 11.

11. CATCHING DREAMS 

Between awakening and sleeping there is a thin gossamer that you are not allowed to cross and cannot touch. In this state of unreality you can do whatever you want. The laws of physics do not apply.

It is summer. Warm. A few featherlike clouds are drifting in the horizon. You know they are there, but you cannot open your eyes because the magic spell will evaporate. Still you can see without seeing. You breathe air full of fragrance from plants and flowers that is in a hurry to fulfil what they have to do before autumn closes in.

You hold the hand of a girlfriend from times long time lost. Both of you are young and a bit shy when changing to swimming suits. The small lake has been there for thousands of years, but that fact is not in your minds. Close to the water’s edge there are water lilies. White and yellow flowers floating on the thin dreamlike gossamer between water and air.

The water is not cold. Neither is it warm, but who cares? The water is made of the stuff that dreams are made of, and so are you and your girlfriend.  

You know that this occurred long time ago, and that, for some reason, the two of you chose different paths. In this moment you have the power to change everything, but remember only at this level which is not and will never happen in real life.

A blue damselfly moves in the air as if it has no purpose in life. Not very different from the two swimming in water that does not feel like water. All things meet in this moment as happened to Goethe’s Faust when he expressed Augenblick, verweile doch du bist so schön.

You give your girlfriend one of the white water lilies even if you know that it will not live very long out of water, but who thinks about this? You don’t. 

After this moment of pure bliss both of you leave the lake, and nothing is ever the same. Never. Still this is part of your treasure trove, you collection of things that made you very happy. As did the fragrance of honeysuckle in early summer, the taste of the first wild strawberries.

This is the moment to catch dreams, and that is exactly what you do, riding a dromedary seeing the pyramids of Egypt as a mirage far, far away. The arms around your waist are those of your girlfriend from the future. You know you had met her before. The air is hot and dry under a relentless scorching sun.

Then you wake up, or you think you wake up. You think you want to have a shower, but stops in front of the mirror. Is this you? You touch the glass and see your hand going right through to the other side. How is it possible? Without thinking you follow the move of your hand. Ahead of you is a meadow of lush, green grass.

End of chapter 11. To be continued in chapter 12.