Stubborn and the Mutt

twenty six | Micah

I hear it before I see it. Perhaps because all I see is pitch black for a good while, so all I can do is rely on my hearing. It sounds like an engine, roaring. It's quite loud in my ears, as if it's the only thing I'm amble to hear.

Then my body jerks, but not naturally, but my means of me being jerked by something bigger. Feeling sinks into my skin, so I soon realise I'm seated and my back is resting against the back rest of the seat. My feet feel cold, and my toes wiggle about freely so I know I'm not wearing shoes. Matter of fact, I can feel a slight breeze of cold itching against the bare skin of my legs, arms, feet and hands. There's some sort of wind coming through from somewhere.

My tongue rubs against my pallet, the roof of my mouth, and a rather sweet taste is left tingling my taste buds. I'm not sure if it's coke or something laced with coke. Or maybe it's chocolate and I'm confusing it with coke, which is odd. I have to gulp when my mouth salivates.

Finally, my eyes open. It's almost dark, very much as thought I didn't open my eyes to begin with, but slowly I can make out things. I make out that I'm in the back of a car, right in between, so before me are the two seats and then the window. I make out that it's night time, and the car is being driven by a driver. It's hazy, but I see that I'm wearing shorts, my pink crop top. My shoes are on the side by my feet, along with my coke bottle, empty but little drops inside prove that I drank it, hence the taste.

My eyes lift back up, and I lean to the side to glance at the rear view mirror to see the driver. She has such a huge smile, laughing as she speaks to the person in the passenger seat. Her honey brown eyes narrow and crease at the sides when she laughs, even though her laughter almost sounds distance despite her being right there. The beauty spot on her nose stands out. The thick short curls on her head is styled to perfection.

Like always.

I feel my heart sweep up in familiarity, but to confirm it, I look at the passenger seat, seeing her as well. A younger version of her. She is laughing too, watching the woman on the driver's seat. She utters words not audible to pick up on, and waves her hand as she does so. Her braids are let loose, resting carelessly but beautifully on her shoulders.

Then, she looks at me. She laughs, turns her head a bit to look at me. She then says; "What do you think?" That much is audible. Familiar. The grin on her face, her voice, her gaze, it's all too familiar.

It all ends quicker than it starts; suddenly everything goes white—

My eyes burst open and the first thing my gaze lands on is the white ceiling above me. It's not clear, considering the light salty water already building within the confinement of my eyes, but with just one blink, I partially see clearly at the cost of the tears streaming down the sides of my face, right before the edges of my bonnet absorb the water.

I realise that I'm gripping onto the blanket covering my body, and that despite my heart beating a bit too loud in the silence of my room, I'm not panting loudly or breathing audibly. Everything is dead still. The only sort of light shining through is the moonlight from the revealed windows.

I must have fallen asleep, I'm sure my windows are still open.

The silence breaks when I sniff. Then, I slowly turn my head towards the window, staring at the moon and it's fullness. It's really bright and the stars seem to be almost invisible. I wonder then, if the moon ever gets lonely sometimes, even despite being accompanied by thousands of not billions of stars. If it has lonely nights like I do.

A dream that feels to real is a dangerous dream. I've become used to having such surreal dreams of that night. Enough to know that I'm dreaming, but perhaps not enough for me to wish they'd stop. Seeing them in my dreams works well for me sometimes, because then I feel somewhat connected to the memory of them, even despite it being four years since I last saw them.