Time Flies

My husband was perfect, dreamy.

Which reminds me, I have very vivid dreams. People say, "oh, so do I" but they are wrong. Dead wrong.

My dreams will contain the textures of a scratchy wool sweater, spine tingling chills of fright, the smell of pine boughs at Christmas, the marshmallow-burnt taste of fire toasted bread. My dreams are nearly real, almost too real.

I met my sweet husband as I was finishing college, and went to escape to a cafe to have a cup of coffee to make it through finals. Out of seemingly nowhere, a handsome man appeared next to me and said, "excuse me, do you have the time?" I was taken aback, not sure if he meant literally or figuratively, so I pulled out a chair and said, "Yes, 1:30." We began to chat about the art of Da Vinci, the ideas of Aristotle, real "nerd stuff" my mother blamed for me never having dated. "Get your nose out of a book, or you'll never land a mate" she said, tsk tsking me. A year later, this magical man, too good to be true, married me.

It was then that I began to dream that I could fly, except it was not flying in the normal sense, more like leaping, hovering, travelling all at once. I would be walking in my neighborhood at a fast pace and suddenly my long stride would pick me up off the ground, like I was levitating, and carry me dozens of feet. I never felt so free, and wandered about like a toddler learning to walk, but staying close to home, close to the familiar. I never went past the stoplight down the road, staying away from the desolate outskirts of town by the woods.

One night, tired of flying near home, I went past the stoplight, "running a red" and leaping over the field of flaxen grass. I could smell the hay scent in my hair, and feel the grass tickle my toes as I landed. It was then that I realized there were no sounds, no rustling breeze, no chirping of crickets, nothing. I grew scared and flew home as fast as I could, except, it wasn't home. The giant oak out front was gone, the kitchen was now at the back of the home, the curtains were no longer white. I walked to my bedroom, weary, and found my dear husband gone. I called his name gently, but then more frantically, throwing up the now mahogany closet doors, flipping on the wrong light switches, and he was nowhere to be found. Exhausted, I collapsed into my bed, sobbing into not-my-pillow.

I awoke from my dream but the house was still not my own. I ran towards the field to try and make things right again, and felt compelled to keep running and flying into the far woods, to envelop me in the beckoning darkness. I landed hard from flying, my foot tangled in a root, and THWACK! I fell to the ground, my breath knocked from my lungs, my vision blurry. My eyes fluttered shut and darkness overcame me.

I woke up in my real bed, in my real house, relieved to have ended this terrible nightmare. I rolled towards my husband and pain shot through me, my leg was bloddied and swollen. Then, I saw it A note scrawled in my husband's messy printing filling up a torn piece of paper. It read,

I clipped my wings and flew home. Do you have the time?